Stevie is clearly having a harder time harnessing her acting prowess. She stares up at me with half-lidded eyes, questioning my authenticity.
I make a face, urging her to go with it, and she shakes away the haze.
“You’re not so bad yourself,” she murmurs, flattening a palm to the planes of my bare chest, the muscles twitching beneath her touch.
I yank her forward, flush against me, while my hands drift downward and graze over the curve of her ass. When both of her palms press into my chest and her exhale falls out in a stuttering gasp, I bend down so only she can hear me. “Is this okay?”
A quick nod.
I apply a featherlight kiss to her temple, balancing the overt physical affection with a touch of intimacy.
Beside us at one of the patio tables, a male grip I sort of recognize mutters loud enough for us to hear, “Damn, Hall’s new chick is stacked.”
Stevie doesn’t seem to react to the comment, her eyes hardly open, her index finger tracing my ridged sternum, but a heady shot of protectiveness surges within me.
I inch back and take her by the hand, leading her away from the rubberneckers. “Come sit,” I say, guiding her along the pool’s edge. Then my voice pitches. “We can watch Rudy play chicken because it’s the only way he can get a woman to straddle him.”
“Heard that!” Rudy flips me off as a slim blond topples off his shoulders and plummets into the water.
Nestled on a quiet, tree-lined street in the heart of Beverly Hills, Rudy’s bachelor pad boasts a classic white stucco facade with sleek, modern lines, large windows, and a giant in-ground swimming pool. With only two small bedrooms and thirteen hundred square feet, it still cost him a cool two mil. He told me he decided to buy a house instead of a condo just in case he ever met the girl of his dreams—because domestication is a turn-on. His words.
Damn sap.
Linking my hand with Stevie’s, I pull her over to the chair I was sitting in. All the other chairs are taken, so when I sit down, she remains standing, unsure what to do. “Sit,” I say again, nodding at the open space between my legs.
She blushes. Luckily, the sun is scorching today, so it acts as camouflage. Hesitating for another beat, she slowly turns and lowers herself onto my lap, her bare outer thighs grazing my inner. I’m wearing swim trunks, so the layers between us are limited.
I lean back in the chair, taking her with me. My arms wrap around her middle, my hand splaying until my pinkie finger is brushing the trim of her bikini bottoms. She’s stiff in my arms, so I bend toward her ear and whisper, “It would help if you pretended to like me, Nicks.”
She melts a little, tipping her face up, our eyes meeting over her shoulder. “Sorry.”
My lips brush waves of dark-brown hair, the shell of her ear. “I know you’re a better actress than this.”
Her eyes spark with a challenge.
Loosening further, she drapes her palm over the top of my hand, curling her fingertips until her ruby nails are tickling my knuckles. Then she shimmies her ass against me.
I inhale a sharp breath, practically a hiss, which I know she notices, since my mouth is still hovering against her ear. Her hair smells like fucking piña coladas, so that’s not doing anything to keep my pulse from fritzing out and my dick from twitching inside my swim trunks.
I stroke a hand over her soft abdomen, my eyelids fluttering.
Aside from acting roles, my experience with physical intimacy is next to nothing.
Just a kiss.
One real kiss on an old high school stage, one I stole because there was no other choice; I had to kiss her. I told her—in my moment of embarrassing, confusing emotional whiplash—that it was only for the show. For the audience, for the performance’s sake. But that wasn’t true. I kissed her because I needed to, because she’d never looked so beautiful, and because I knew it would be my greatest regret if I didn’t.
Turns out I have a mile-long list of greatest regrets these days, but I’m still not sure where that kiss falls. Somewhere between a colossal mistake and the only time I ever felt truly alive.
But it’s not the time to be thinking about that.
We’re on the clock, in character.
I widen my legs a fraction, my knees slightly bent as our feet kiss at the bottom of the chair. Stevie’s head lolls against my chest, right beneath my chin, as she intertwines our fingers. My other hand journeys off course, trailing the side of her torso, up and down in steady lines, my fingers moving higher, my thumb dusting the side of her breast.
She freezes, tenses up. I feel her breathing accelerate, her stomach quivering under our clasped hands.
Then I drop my arm to my side.
