Acting Up (Center Stage Book 1)

by Adele Buck

  Cath. Cool silk. Warm lips.

  Cath had finally started to let her mind drift a bit when a soft tap on the door jerked her to full alertness. Rubbing her eyes, she snapped on the light at the side of her bed, squinting against the brightness as she looked for her robe. Finding it on the couch, she shrugged into it and tied the belt around her waist as she walked the few steps to the door and looked through the peephole.

  Paul.

  Cath closed her eyes and bit her lower lip. She was in no state to deal with Paul now. She was tired and vulnerable. The glossy cool that she had been able to wrap around her before she left the theater had evaporated into the hot night air.

  “Cath?” Paul’s voice was pitched low to not wake the other tenants. She couldn’t pretend she hadn’t heard his knock. He must have heard her moving around, seen the light under the door. No escape now.

  Taking a deep breath, Cath took off the security chain and twisted the deadbolt. Opening the door, she noticed that the hair around Paul’s face was damp as if he had just washed his face. His chin was bristly with stubble. He was wearing old gym shorts and a worn tee shirt with a logo from a play they had produced five years ago. He looked exhausted.

  He looked adorable.

  Resisting the urge to stroke her fingertips over his face and into his hair, to sample the contrast between rough beard and soft strands, Cath leaned on the doorframe. “What is it? Is something the matter?”

  His eyes roamed over her face and darted over her shoulder, scanning the small room. “I couldn’t sleep. I heard you tossing and turning. I figured I’d come up and make sure you were okay.”

  Cath grimaced, embarrassed. “Sorry. Didn’t realize I was making noise.”

  “You weren’t. Much. I was just…awake. It’s not like noise bothers me. You know me, usually I can fall asleep anywhere.”

  It was true. Paul was legendary for his ability to cat-nap in the midst of chaos: a rowdy cast showing off their knowledge of the filthiest drinking songs they could sing on a tour bus, the corner of a theater during load-in as a crew of carpenters made last-minute adjustments to a set, banging and sawing. If Paul couldn’t sleep, he was seriously perturbed.

  Cath glanced back at her tiny apartment, one foot hooking behind her other leg, scratching her calf with her toes. “Um. I’d ask you in, but there’s hardly room for one person in here when the bed’s pulled down, let alone two.” Looking back at Paul, his eyes were unusually dark, his pupils large, just a tiny ring of light blue iris around them.

  “Want to come downstairs to mine? I have some wine in the fridge.”

  Paul hadn’t meant to invite her down. Hell, he hadn’t known what his intentions really were in going upstairs, just that her tossing and turning worried him. Cath looked almost fragile leaning against the doorway, her hair a little tousled, the deep blue robe that barely reached her knees exposing her long, slender legs. He just knew he didn’t want to stop looking at her.

  Peering at him with evident curiosity, she nodded, stepping forward and closing her door softly behind her. Paul led the way down the stairs and opened the door to his own apartment. Cath stood, twisting the tie of her robe in her fingers while he fetched the bottle and two glasses from the tiny kitchen.

  “Have a seat,” Paul nodded his chin at the couch and Cath sat, pulling her robe close around her and tucking her legs to one side. Paul poured the wine and her fingers brushed against his as she took the glass from him, sending a shiver of awareness through him. She took a small sip, her tongue darting out to lick her lips as she lowered the glass, cradling it in her hands.

  Quick. Think un-sexy thoughts. Bad auditions…The smell of the subway in the summer heat…Pigeons…

  His throat felt dry and tight. He drank some wine, put the glass down. “About this afternoon—”

  Cath just looked at him, took another sip of wine. She wasn’t going to help him out here, that was clear.

  Taking a deep breath, he started again. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen. I’m sorry we’re in such a mess with this situation now.”

  Cath pursed her lips, thinking for a few long, weighty moments. “It’s not just the professional situation, Paul.”

  “What is it then?”

  Looking around the room, Cath seemed to struggle to find the right words. “Susan made college something of a living hell for me.”

  “I remember. I was there.”

  She looked at him directly, her gaze piercing and serious in a way that had nothing to do with their usual manner. “I’m not sure you really do. I don’t think you were paying attention.”

  That stung. He had never been closer to anyone in his life than he was to Cath. After meeting at Freshman orientation, they had become inseparable, their tastes complementary, their senses of humor attuned. They had also been two of the few non-actors in a sea of all-singing, all-dancing, perpetual drama. Neither of them were at all liable to burst into song at one moment or tears the next. They sat together, walked together, studied together, went to the movies together, talked together late into long nights. How could it be possible that she would say he wasn’t paying attention?

  She seemed to register the hurt on his face, but her own was stony. “Paul, if you had seen half the petty comments, the gaslighting, the sudden friendliness that only served to lower my guard for another stab in the back—” she paused, biting her lip.

  “What?” Paul asked, resisting the urge to place his hand on her bare knee or her cheek, to stroke her skin and convince her of his sincerity.

  Cath took a deep breath as if she was about to dive into icy water and said in a rush, “If you had seen how much she hurt me, you would never have slept with her.”

  Paul’s face was frozen, stunned.

  What? Isn’t it about time we talked about this? Cath thought.

  He reached over for his wine glass and took a long gulp. Setting the glass down carefully, he turned to her, his blue eyes intent.

  “Cath, I didn’t sleep with her.”

  Her face twisting in disbelief, Cath snorted. “Okay, fine. You didn’t spend the night. There was no sleeping.”

  “No, I mean it.”

  “Don’t insult my intelligence, Paul. I saw you leave her room at that party. You saw me see you.”

  His face went stony. “I didn’t have sex with her.”

  A swift flare of anger bloomed in Cath’s chest. “Are we really going to have the Bill Clinton conversation? You were buttoning your shirt. It wasn’t like you were sitting in her room calmly discussing the monologues of David Mamet.”

  Paul closed his eyes, his expression pained. “Yeah, I was buttoning my shirt. It had gotten unbuttoned.”

  Rage flared in Cath. “It had…gotten unbuttoned. How convenient. And the buttons…they just fell out of the buttonholes?”

  Paul’s jaw clenched and his lips pinched together, his eyes fixed on a point somewhere to the side of Cath’s face. “No they didn’t. If you really need to know, Susan tried to get my shirt off. I was half-drunk and, as such, it seemed like a halfway okay idea. But…when she kissed me, I was just…it was just…nothing.”

  Cath gaped at him for a moment. “And that was it? She tried to jump you, you weren’t into it? Why did you never tell me?”

  Paul waved a hand, his face reddening. “It was embarrassing.”

  “What’s so embarrassing about avoiding a train wreck?”

  Paul’s eyes finally met her own. “At the time my thinking went less like, ‘avoiding train wreck’ and more like ‘pretty girl jumps you and you can’t get it up.’ That’s what was embarrassing.”

  Cath took a deep breath. “So you stayed long enough to try.”

  “No. I could just tell. She…no.”

  “And…that comment on the first day of rehearsal? About you running out on her?”

  Paul groaned and reached for his wine glass. “She tried to get me to talk to her about her character when I was already late for a production meeting. She ambushed me in fron
t of the theater and I told her I didn’t have time for her then. That’s all she meant by me ‘running out on’ her. I gave her hell for implying that we had slept together and she insisted there was no innuendo intended and that I was seeing things that weren’t there. Obviously, the innuendo wasn’t only in my head.”

  Cath leaned back and reached out for her wineglass again. The splinter of pain that had dug into her that night had just been yanked out and she wasn’t sure what to think. In fact, the splinter had never existed. For years, she had been feeling a phantom pain brought on by her interpretation of what she had seen.

  But her interpretation had been fairly logical, given what she had seen. It wasn’t like she was making anything up out of paranoid fantasy.

  Right?

  Paul watched Cath’s shifting expression, feeling something sliding into place. He had hurt her that long-ago night in college. Guilt washed through him in a sickening rush. If anyone else hurt Cath, he would want to hurt them in return.

  But he was the one who had done the injury.

  “Cath, I’m sorry. If I knew that had caused you pain, I would have cleared the air years ago.”

  Stiffening, she shook her head and took a drink of wine. “It’s no big deal.”

  “It’s obviously a big deal by the look on your face.”

  Cath schooled her features into a neutral expression so quickly it would have been comical if he wasn’t so guilt-racked. She was no actress. And he loved her for it.

  “Well, since nothing apparently happened, there’s nothing to make a big deal over.” Her tone was light, but she wasn’t meeting his eyes.

  “You made a logical inference. I should have thought through what it would look like to you. What it might mean to you.” Hope flared through the guilt. She feels something. For me.

  “Anyway.” Cath took another sip of her wine, keeping her eyes low. “It’s done now. I should probably go back to bed. I need sleep. Tomorrow is going to be hell.” She set her glass on the table and rose, smoothing her robe over her thighs. Paul stood with her, walking her to the door.

  Turning to him before she opened the door, one corner of Cath’s mouth hitched up, her eyes downcast. “Thanks for the drink and the talk.”

  “Do you feel better now that you know nothing happened?” Paul’s hand almost rose to cup her cheek, but he kept it rigidly at his side.

  Cath’s lowered eyes rose up and met his. Paul thought he could see a slight sheen of moisture in them. “Yeah.” Her voice was low and husky.

  “Hey.” Without thinking, he wound his arms around her and hugged her. A friendly hug, like thousands they had shared before. And then it wasn’t. Cath’s warm, slim body was tucked up against him just as he had imagined less than an hour before. Her silky hair was soft against his cheek. Her hands were pressing against his back.

  And then she pulled back slightly and looked up at him. Without thinking, Paul dipped his head and kissed her.

  Cath stiffened when Paul’s lips met hers. For a moment, she was too stunned to react. Then the warmth of his mouth seemed to flood her whole body and she sank into the kiss, tilting her head to one side as he tilted his head to the other. As if they had kissed a hundred times instead of this being the first. His hand wound in her hair and he tugged, tilting her head back and trailing kisses down her neck, his stubble rasping deliciously across her skin, contrasting with the soft warmth of his lips and tongue.

  Running her hand up the back of his neck, Cath sifted her fingers through his hair, reveling in the softness of the fine strands. Paul had discovered the sensitive patch of skin just under her ear and was gently nipping at it with lips and teeth. He squeezed her tighter as she shuddered with pleasure.

  The knowledge that this was an absolutely terrible idea hovered in the back of Cath’s mind. Even as her eyelids fluttered closed she could see the inevitable aftermath of a temporary indulgence, a momentary fit of irresponsibility. Her brain, as it always did, filed through consequences. Awkwardness, mutual discomfort, even possible estrangement couldn’t help but follow.

  Even worse, her heart might crack open entirely, and with it, the rest of her.

  But she found the repercussions all too easy to ignore when Paul’s lips returned to hers and she felt pleasure rush through her. Her toes curled against the wood floor and she gasped as his hands slid down to cup her bottom and press her to him, his arousal hard against her belly.

  Oh, yes, this is a terrible idea.

  Paul trailed kisses down her neck again, one hand still pressing her to him, the other pushing the neckline of her robe to the side so he could continue across one shoulder.

  But such a deliciously terrible idea.

  The neck of her robe was now completely open, and Paul’s finger tugged at the edge of her camisole, his breath heating the top of her breast.

  No, seriously terrible idea.

  “Paul,” she said, her voice sounding strangled and strained. “Paul,” she repeated, pressing her hand to his cheek to get him to lift his head. He complied, straightening up only to crush his mouth to hers again, shuddering with need.

  Cath was going to say something sensible if he let her. He didn’t want sensible, so the only logical thing to do was to keep her from saying anything. She is definitely enjoying the kissing, he rationalized.

  “Paul,” she said again, pulling away. “This is a terrible idea.”

  “It’s a brilliant idea,” he said, his voice rasping in his throat. His eyes ranged over her face. Those gorgeous green eyes were lit with her arousal. Her lips were reddened and swollen. They were also moving. She was saying something. He forced himself to listen.

  “Paul, are you going to throw away over ten years of friendship? Our entire working partnership?”

  “I’m not throwing away anything, Cath. I think I’m doing the opposite.” He bent to nip at her lips with his own, and despite her protestations, she closed her eyes and kissed him back.

  “But what if this doesn’t work? What even is this?”

  “Why wouldn’t it work? We’re already so close. We know each other so well.” Cath’s expression softened, wanting to be persuaded, then hardened again.

  “No. It’s not a good idea.”

  “Peace. I will stop your mouth,” he murmured, bending to kiss her again, but stopped when she placed one hand on his chest, leaning away from him slightly.

  “Much Ado About Nothing, Act V, Scene 4. And quoting Shakespeare doesn’t help.”

  “Why not?” Cath’s rationality was starting to sink in. This was news to his cock, which still ached with wanting her. “What’s a little kinky Beatrice and Benedick role-playing between friends?”

  One of Cath’s eyebrows arched. “I will have thee, but, by this light, I take thee for pity?”

  “That’s an idea.”

  Her face closed down entirely. “I think a pity fuck is even less of a brilliant idea.”

  “Who’s pitying whom?” He tried to infuse the words with humor, but the joke didn’t land. Cath just looked at him, her eyes roaming over his face.

  “I don’t know. You tell me.”

  “You and I both know it wouldn’t be a pity fuck.” Paul frowned, willing her to see things the way he saw them.

  “Right.” Her eyes were skeptical and he was about to argue again when she went on. “But us…we’re best friends. We’re professional collaborators. We can’t just jump into this. You said it yourself. This play is too important to both of us. The emotional drama we already have going on in rehearsals could spin out into disaster if we give in to…this.”

  With an effort, Paul released Cath and stepped back, scrubbing his hand over his eyes. “My brain knows you might be right about that one,” he admitted.

  “But?”

  “But the rest of my body thinks my brain is an idiot.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, my body isn’t too happy with my brain just now either.” Cath adjusted her robe, rewrapping it tightly around her and then fol
ding her arms around herself for good measure. “I should probably go back upstairs before I change my mind.”

  Paul stepped toward her again, one finger tracing her lips. “So, changing your mind is a possibility?”

  Cath closed her eyes. “Always a possibility. Still a really terrible idea, no matter how nice it would feel.”

  “Fine.” Paul took a deep breath and stepped back. “Get some sleep, Cath.” Bending, he kissed her cheek, carefully keeping the caress fleeting and friendly.

  With a rueful smile, Cath reached behind her to turn the doorknob and slipped out of the apartment, silently closing the door behind her.

  Groaning with frustration, Paul leaned into the wall next to the door, his head meeting the painted surface with a soft thunk.

  Letting herself back into her apartment, Cath’s throat felt thick and her eyes were hot with unshed tears. She had almost let herself go there.

  Almost let herself be used.

  Paul probably didn’t think of it that way, but his heart wasn’t on the line the way hers was. He cared about her, sure. Just not the way she did about him. And when the fun was over, his life would go on and she would be a wreck.

  The stress of the production was definitely getting to him, she decided. Hell, it was getting to her. If she could get a little sexual release that would probably go a long way towards easing her tension. But Cath wasn’t a casual sex kind of person. She knew herself too well. She had learned through harsh experience that she connected too much to sex to just have it off with anyone.

  And if the anyone was Paul? Even worse. She wouldn’t be able to work with him if her heart was broken by him.

  And wasn’t that just a hell of a note?

  If she was, she could have let herself go and enjoyed the moment. Paul’s kisses were, well. They were amazing.

  Her body was thrumming with arousal, unsatisfied and restless. She could still feel his lips and tongue on her neck, the sensation echoing between her legs, throbbing with frustration and heat.