Spoiler Alert

by Olivia Dade

But some people were shuffling out of the room, chattering noisily, while others were still documenting every second of this private moment occurring in a much-too-public place.

  They both deserved better than this.

  He drew back, removing his left hand from—well, it had evidently moved at some point, settling just microns above the tempting swell of her ass in those tight, tight jeans. Then he let go of the rail too and offered her his right hand, which wasn’t entirely steady.

  She took it. “The planetarium next?”

  He nodded, too overwhelmed for words. Fingers interlaced once more, they left the exhibit and walked toward the planetarium.

  Would kissing her there work better than in the earthquake simulator? They’d have dim lighting, and maybe an isolated cluster of seats, and stars wheeling overhead, and if he slid his hand under her tunic, maybe—

  Okay, the thought of what they could do in a dark theater wasn’t helping his current situation.

  “Tell me more about the Loma Prieta quake on the way there.” His voice had turned raspy, and he cleared his throat before continuing. “If that’s okay. I lived through it, and I should understand how and why it happened.”

  “Really?” She raised a skeptical brow. “Because you don’t need to humor me. I’m not offended if you don’t want to hear more about geology right now.”

  “Really.” Casting aside his public persona, at least for the moment, he dug deep and let the right words—the true words—emerge. “I, uh—I’m interested in lots of things, actually. I listen to nonfiction audiobooks all the time, especially when I travel.”

  Stupidly, his cheeks had gone hot.

  He had never, never known what to say. Who to be. How to act.

  How not to disappoint.

  But he had to give her something, something real and true, since appearances alone didn’t interest her. Even their undeniable sexual chemistry wouldn’t be enough to keep her, not if she didn’t see anything in him worth keeping. And maybe their years of online friendship weren’t enough to entrust her with a career-destroying secret, but they were enough to entrust her with this little hidden corner of his heart.

  So he forced himself to continue. “One of my favorite things about what I do”—his tongue was so damnably thick all of a sudden—“about—about acting, is how it pushes you to learn new skills. Like, this one terrible pilot taught me the basics of sailing.”

  In his peripheral vision, he could see her face turned toward him. Her absolute attention focused on him and him alone.

  “The series was supposed to be called Crime Wave. Because I was a crime-solving dude on a boat? It wasn’t the world’s best concept.” No network had wanted to touch that pilot. It had rightfully sunk beneath the surface of television history without a trace—except when it came to his sailing skills. “A complete flop of a rom-com helped me learn how to handle a chef’s knife and chop like someone who knew his way around a professional kitchen.”

  “I saw that!” she exclaimed. “Julienned by Love, right? And your love interest was actually named—”

  “Yes. Julienne. Julie. My plucky sous chef, who thought she was dying but wasn’t, and who eventually became famous for her jambalaya-cheesecake fusion dish.” He winced. “I apologize. I’m more than happy to refund your money personally.”

  Her laugh echoed in the expansive space. “Oh, I didn’t pay for it. I streamed it during a free trial, just out of morbid curiosity.”

  That sounded about right.

  “For Gates, I studied ancient shipbuilding and military tactics. Swordplay too, like you said the other night.” He fixed his eyes on the signage ahead, awkwardly scratching the nonexistent stubble on his jaw with his free hand. “If you, um, ever wanted to hear about that. Maybe it could help with some of your fanfiction?”

  When he fell silent, she slowed until he turned back toward her.

  Then she eyed him up and down in frank assessment and appreciation, her teeth sinking into her lower lip, and Jesus. Flicking his hair and flexing hadn’t bought him that kind of interest, that heat in her gaze. Not once.

  “I do want to hear about your swordplay. Trust me.” Her fingers tightened on his. “In the meantime, though, if you want to know more about the Loma Prieta earthquake, ask and ye shall receive.”

  So she told him as they walked, and she was so fucking smart, and made things so damn clear and interesting, without an ounce of condescension.

  Shit, it was sexy. Which wasn’t actually what he’d wanted from a discussion about a deadly earthquake, but there it was. There he was, tugging down the hem of his henley to ensure it disguised his reaction to her.

  “So it was an oblique-slip rupture,” she explained, reclaiming her hand so she could gesture gracefully with her arms in illustration, and he both grasped—at long last—what that actually meant and wanted to grasp one of those blunt fingers and slip it into his mouth. Sink his teeth into the pad of her thumb and watch those alert brown eyes turn hazy.

  When her tongue wrapped around a technical term, he wanted that tongue wrapped around him too. Anywhere. Everywhere.

  His desire to have his mouth on her, hers on him, wasn’t oblique. It was direct. And yes, he was certain that didn’t make a lick of sense in seismological terms, but he didn’t care, because he wanted to lick her.

  In the end, the planetarium was packed for their particular showing, so he behaved himself, despite the way she rested her hand proprietarily on his thigh. His upper thigh.

  In person, everything he’d come to adore about Ulsie online seemed impossibly more intense. Her plainspoken pragmatism and calm, her kindness, her intelligence, her easy humor, her self-confidence—they all radiated from each gesture, each word, and the glow was as blinding as the lights in the planetarium when they came back up after the show.

  The only time she seemed hesitant, unsure of herself, was after lunch, when they exited the museum and lingered outside the entrance in the spring breeze.

  “Was this . . . okay?” A strand of her coppery hair had worked free of her ponytail, and it fluttered against her cheek. “I know it wasn’t exactly a water park, but . . .”

  Carefully, he took hold of that silky lock, moving it away from her face.

  “I told my parents I hated museums,” he told her. “I refused to go, after a while.”

  Her head bowed. “I’m sorry. I should have—”

  “It wasn’t true.” He played with the end of that loose tendril. Stroked it between his thumb and forefinger, watching the way it shone in the sun. “Saying that was easier than saying I couldn’t read the tiny text on all those signs as quickly as they wanted.”

  Easier than saying, Your impatience makes me feel as small as those letters.

  “Marcus . . .” Her brow was pinched. “I’m sorry.”

  As he followed that red-gold strand of hair down to its end, he brushed his thumb along her jaw and down her neck. Lingered in the dip of pale skin between neck and shoulder, her flesh giving and soft and getting warmer by the moment.

  He stroked that shadowy arc. Traced her freckles, connecting one to another to another. “Don’t be sorry. I’m trying to say thank you, for showing me I could love museums.”

  She was gripping his hips now, head tilted to ease his thumb’s path, lips parted, eyes half-closed behind her glasses. With every breath, she edged closer. Closer, until—

  He couldn’t stand it. He had to know.

  Leaning forward, he pressed his mouth to the vulnerable curve of flesh beside his thumb, so his every word became a caress of his lips against the fragrant skin of her neck. “Thank you for a perfect afternoon. Thank you for being so patient. So smart. So gorgeous. Thank you for . . .”

  Her fingers sifted through his hair, her capable hand cradled his skull and urged his mouth harder against her, and he shut up and obeyed the unspoken order.

  Against his tongue, she tasted like roses and sweetness, salt and sweat. He cupped her nape to steady them both as she shuddered, th
en fitted his mouth more tightly to her. When he drew on her flesh and grazed her neck with his teeth, she gasped and arched against him.

  That would leave a mark. Good.

  And then, just as her thighs parted to let one of his in between, and he groaned in heedless want—

  He heard them.

  “Marcus, look this way!” one of them called out. “Is that the girl from Twitter?”

  When Marcus raised his head, another man was moving closer to April, his camera lens enormous and expensive and trained entirely on her. “What’s your name, sweetheart? How long have you two known one another?”

  She stiffened, and Marcus didn’t blame her for shifting away from him under the onslaught, but she had to know: this was just the beginning.

  The paparazzi had found them at last.

  JULIENNED BY LOVE

  INT. RESTAURANT KITCHEN – MIDNIGHT

  MIKE and JULIE are kissing passionately, Julie pressed up against the metal countertop. Unexpectedly, she sways, ill and near crumpling, and the kiss breaks. She lays her hand against her forehead and looks at him, tears swimming in her eyes. When he reaches for her, she dodges.

  JULIE

  I can’t be your sous chef anymore.

  MIKE

  But . . . why? Why, Julie?

  JULIE

  What we have can never be. Trust me. It’s as impossible as perfecting my jambalaya-cheesecake fusion dish.

  She backs away from him, step by step, supporting herself with one hand on the counters, the walls, the doorway to the dark dining area.

  MIKE

  Julie! Julie, don’t leave me!

  She is almost to the restaurant exit, crying.

  MIKE (O.S.)

  Don’t leave me. Without you, I’ll be in the weeds . . . forever.

  As he stands alone in the echoing kitchen, Mike clutches her discarded hairnet to his chest.

  MIKE

  Goodbye, my sweet, spicy sous chef. Goodbye.

  11

  SINCE ACCEPTING MARCUS’S DINNER INVITATION, APRIL had wondered how she might react to the appearance of actual, real-life paparazzi. Would she freeze? Cringe? Try to hide? Ignore them entirely and get on with things, as she’d visualized doing over the past couple of days?

  In the end, none of the above.

  Instead, she was entirely occupied watching Marcus put on one hell of a show. Somehow, he’d managed to draw their attention away from her in mere seconds, through sheer charisma and unabashed flirting and—

  Yes. Yes, he appeared to be stripping.

  Moving another step away from her, he grinned at their audience. “It’s damn hot in the sun today.”

  Reaching down, he crossed his arms and tugged his henley upward, the friction of fabric on fabric pulling the tee underneath higher at the same time and exposing bare flesh.

  It was a cool spring day. No way he couldn’t feel the chill against his skin.

  He knew what he was doing. Oh, he knew.

  His abdomen appeared first, flat and firm and bisected by a line of silky-looking golden-brown hair, lovingly bracketed by those lickable diagonal furrows. His jeans rested lower on his hips than she’d imagined, low enough that she had to swallow hard.

  Then, as he kept dragging his henley higher—slowly, so slowly—his chest came into view, muscled and lightly furred, and . . .

  Nipples. Jesus, nipples. They all got a flash of those too, hard in the chill, before the henley was over his head and gravity dragged his tee back down a few inches.

  The paparazzi were capturing everything, their cameras clicking away.

  One of them finally managed to recall the reason for their presence, however. “Are you here on a date, Marcus? What’s your lady friend’s name?”

  “Well, we all know I have no interest in museums.” At his wink, one of the paparazzi actually blushed behind her camera. “But anything to impress a pretty woman, right? I suffered for the sake of beauty, as I so often do.”

  Yes, it was definitely an impressive show.

  At least, April assumed he was putting on a show. Hoped.

  Because otherwise, he’d only been acting today. Pretending to enjoy the museum, enjoy her company, in hopes of riding their obvious—if surprising—sexual compatibility into the orgasmic sunset.

  Would she even know? Hadn’t she been thinking only days ago that he should have won an award for his dramatic abilities? How could she assume the man she’d seen today, the man she’d briefly glimpsed at the end of dinner, was the real Marcus, and not merely another role?

  He gifted their onlookers with one last gleaming smile before taking her hand again and tugging her toward a taxi just arriving at the museum’s entrance. The paparazzi trailed after them, shouting more questions, taking more pictures, but he merely waved and grinned.

  They were sliding into the back seat of that taxi before the elderly woman inside even managed to finish paying the driver.

  To give the woman enough room, Marcus drew April down onto his lap, and she wished she could relax into the contact, melt against the heat emanating from his honed, strong body, but she couldn’t. Not right now. Instead, she remained stiff against him, her back ruler-straight.

  Was he thinking how heavy she was, compared to other women he’d dated?

  Or—and this was somehow, illogically worse—was he thinking, Finally, we can stop talking about fucking rocks and just get down to actual fucking?

  Marcus smiled apologetically at the wide-eyed taxi patron perched on the other side of the back seat. “Sorry to intrude. We’d be happy to pay the tip for your ride, if you’ll allow it.”

  At that, a smile crinkled her papery cheeks, and she rapped his knee lightly with her cane. “I already put the tip on my card. Besides, I saw your performance as we drove up. That was more than sufficient compensation, young man.”

  He laughed, his mirth rattling through April on his lap, and he accepted the free hand the woman held out. They chatted for another minute, hands clasped the entire time, before she began to exit the taxi.

  Awkwardly, attempting not to elbow him, April nudged Marcus toward the center of the back seat and maneuvered out of his lap. Sliding across, he supported the elderly woman’s elbow as she slowly climbed out.

  “That Lavinia girl seems nice.” One more rap of her cane against his shin. “Don’t screw things up.” Her eyes flicked to April. “That goes for this one too.”

  Then she was safely on the sidewalk, and Marcus shut the door behind her, blocking out the clamor of questions and the blinding strobe of camera flashes in an instant.

  His gaze immediately returned to April, now huddled against the far door. A line appeared between his brows as his smile faded to nothing.

  “Where to?” the driver asked.

  “I’m sorry, but we need a moment to figure that out. Feel free to start the meter.” Marcus didn’t look away from April. “Um . . . this taxi ride was my idea, not yours. Please let me pay for it. I’ll take you back to your hotel, or wherever you want to go. We could hang out at—”

  Whatever he was going to suggest, she didn’t want to do it. Not until she’d had the chance to think. And their surreal duo of dates had already taken up entirely too much of her time and her thoughts, given her current circumstances.

  “I need to get back to my apartment and prep a little more before my furniture starts arriving Wednesday. Sorry.” She leaned forward to speak to the driver. “Please drop me off at the Civic Center station.”

  “Let me take you directly to your apartment instead. If that’s okay with you.” Marcus sounded tentative. “I’d like to save you some hassle.”

  It was a kind offer, and she was too tired to turn it down. “Thanks.”

  After she gave the driver her new address, the cab began moving, Lizzo’s voice now the only noise in the vehicle.

  Maybe she’d have a few minutes that night to write and get out all her tangled feelings about BAWN, about Marcus, about being on camera in ways sure to tric
kle into her private life. She should have plenty of time. After all, she wouldn’t be spending an hour or two corresponding with her best online friend anymore.

  The view outside the window blurred, for just a moment.

  “Hey.” Lightly, Marcus touched her elbow with a fingertip. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” she said, and let him interlace their fingers on his firm thigh.

  That wasn’t a passive-aggressive dodge, either. She was fine. She would be. No matter what happened with BAWN, and no matter what happened with Marcus.

  And maybe—maybe—the paparazzi’s intrusion had disoriented her more than she’d acknowledged. She’d already known about Marcus’s media persona, after all. Its reappearance shouldn’t have either surprised or bothered her.

  In his inimitable fashion, he’d also protected her, drawing the paparazzi’s attention away from pressing her about her name, her work, or other identifying information. Even if she knew public knowledge of her real identity was—like so much else—only a matter of time.

  More importantly: Even if she couldn’t trust him, not yet, she needed to trust herself and her own instincts. Those instincts were telling her the man beside her, with his grave eyes and gentle hold, was the true Marcus. Not the man who’d dismissed their day together as the necessary price he’d had to pay in exchange for physical closeness and intimacy.

  Turning away from the window, she swung her knees to the side until they brushed his. “You distracted those people very capably.” With one finger, she marked a line down the center of his chest. “Very nakedly too. You’ll probably need a hot shower when you get back to the hotel.”

  His lean body shifted under her fingertip, his belly rising and falling with each quick, deep inhalation. “Not if you keep touching me like that.”

  Those formfitting jeans didn’t quite conceal his reaction to the contact.

  “Well, I don’t want you to get frostbite.” Through the soft fabric of his tee, she traced the top of his jeans, the band of fabric riding low against those firm, flexing abdominals. “Not when you sacrificed your body for my sake.”