Playing With Her Heart

by Lauren Blakely

  “Did she?”

  I nod as we sway in a small circle.

  “Are you going to stay away?”

  “It doesn’t seem that way, does it?”

  “Don’t stay away,” he says, his strong hand on my waist bringing me a bit closer to him.

  “I should ignore your sister?” I ask, as if I’m challenging him, because I am. I don’t like all these women who have their hooks into him in different ways.

  “Ignore her.”

  “What about Madeline?”

  “It’s just work. I don’t feel anything for her anymore. How could I?” he says with such certainty, such confidence. “Everything I feel is for you.”

  A heady feeling swoops through me, and I don’t know what it is. It’s so different from how I felt about Patrick for so long. It feels like I’m flying, and like I’m being cut open at the same time. As if I can feel all the good things and all the awful things at once. I don’t know what’s going on, especially since he moves his hand from my waist to the open V on my back. He doesn’t say anything, and my mouth is too dry to speak. He strokes my back with his finger, sending shivers radiating across my skin.

  “You’re touching me,” I say in a low voice, as Jane and Michael sing about falling so deeply you can’t go back. The song might as well have been written for me right now. I can’t go back to who I was. I can’t go back to my carefully constructed self. But more than that, I don’t want to return to the Jill I was before. I have to be this new person who doesn’t have a mask or a costume to hide behind. If I want to have the things on the other side, I have to start anew. “Do you think everyone knows?” I ask.

  “Knows what?”

  “How we feel.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “I think you know,” I say, and we haven’t once looked away from each other. The connection between us is so intense it’s like nothing else exists but us and this tiny little patch of the Terrace Room where we barely move our feet, and dancing is just a euphemism for being able to touch each other in public, even if it’s only a hand on a shoulder. But that bit of contact with him makes me tipsy.

  “I think I’d rather hear it from you.”

  “Davis,” I say, but that’s all. I can’t get any more words out.

  “This song,” he says and now there’s a touch of nerves in his voice. But he pushes through them. “This song is for you. I asked them to sing it for you.”

  And that’s when I know. That’s when I feel it all through my body and my heart and my mind. I feel everything. Like all the pieces that encased my pretending heart shear off and splinter to the ground, leaving me with only the real thing, because these words, this song about two people falling in love is all too true, and all too real, and there’s nothing fake about it, and nothing happening from afar. It’s happening right here, to me, and I can barely even comprehend how I might feel when there are no more walls. But I need him. I need to be close to him. I need to touch him.

  “I can’t be on this dance floor with you right now.” I can hardly get air. I’m overcome with all these feelings crashing through my body.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I need to be alone with you for a minute.”

  He places a hand on my lower back and guides me out of the Terrace Room, down the hall and to a nearby bathroom. He opens the door, shuts it and locks it. He looks me over like he wants to kiss me senseless from head to toe. Everything is electric between us as I wait in that sliver of a moment for him.

  Then he leans into me, pushes one strap off my shoulder and kisses my bare skin. I am light-headed and woozy. I want so much more, but even the slightest touch sends me into another world. He rains hot shivery kisses all along my shoulder and to my neck, blazing a trail up to my ear.

  “Are you finally going to put me out of my misery?” I might be begging, but I don’t care. I’m beyond ready for him. The question is—is he ready for me?

  His lips brush my earlobe, and I think he’s about to whisper a yes in my ear. Instead, he breaks the contact and pulls back to look at me, his dark eyes seeing me as I truly am. As the woman who wants only him, and he finally knows it, and finally believes it. He is as stripped bare as I am right now with this need we have for each other that’s become so consuming. I am on edge, holding my breath for an answer.

  “Yes. Tonight.”

  Tonight.

  It’s finally going to happen. The possibility of being with him is terrifying and thrilling at the same time. Then we smash into each other and we kiss in a frenzy, as if we are claiming each other, marking this moment when everything is so completely clear between us. His hands are on my face instantly, and his tongue is searching my lips, my mouth, and I can’t get enough of him. I want to crawl up him, and wrap my legs around him, and slam him into me. Instead, he pushes me against the wall, trapping me with his body, the way I like it.

  “I like it when you do that,” I whisper.

  “I know.”

  He presses against me, and the feel of him is extraordinary. Even while standing, I love the pressure and weight of him. He runs his hands from my neck down to my breasts, then he turns me around and I’m looking at the mirror. He kneels behind me, so I can’t see him. I tremble with anticipation, then I feel his breath along my calf, and he’s kissing his way up my leg, stopping to trace his tongue along the back of my knee in such a delicious way that sparks of heat shoot across my body. Now, he’s bunching up the fabric of my dress at my waist and he kisses my thigh. He reaches my ass, and I cry out because everything he does feels so incredible, especially as he runs the tip of his tongue along one cheek, then flicks his tongue against my lace panties. I bow my back, giving him better access for anything and everything.

  “Whatever you’re doing feels amazing,” I say in between broken breaths.

  “Good. That’s how it should feel.” Then he stands, moves his hands to my hips, and yanks me against him. I start to circle my hips without even being aware of it. I want him so badly, and he knows it. He knows what he does to me, and he enjoys it as he hooks his arm between my legs, his fingers touching me through my panties. I shudder, and desire spreads through my whole body, as if every cell is comprised solely of the dark craving to be touched by him.

  “Look at yourself,” he says, grabbing my wrists and pinning them above my head. I look at my reflection. My face is flush, and my hair is wild, and my lips have that just-been-kissed look.

  “I look like I’ve just been fucked,” I say.

  “No. That’s how you’ll look later tonight when this damn event is over, and I can take you out of here and finally have you the way I want,” he says, and an image of later, of him inside me flashes by, making me hotter. Then he lowers his voice, “and the way you want too.”

  “I do. I do want that,” I say, breathless with my need for him.

  “Now press your hands against the mirror because I want us both to watch you as you come,” he tells me, and I do. Then, I hear him unzip his pants, and soon I can feel him press his erection against my backside. God, he feels amazing, and reflexively I push back, trying desperately to lure him in for more contact. “Please,” I whimper.

  “Jill,” he says, tsk, tsking me. “I promise you, there will be plenty of time for that. But I’ll give you an idea.”

  Then, maybe just to tease me, he slides his cock between my legs, and I nearly scream. It feels so good to have him against me, even for one brief moment, and I am absolutely aching to filled up by him. But all he gives me is that—a taste, before he returns to that tantalizing way of holding me tight, his hard length against me, taunting me with what I want.

  “Oh, Jill. The things I’m going to do to you,” he says, as if he’s simply musing on the topic.

  “What are you going to do to me?”

  Holding my wrists firmly in place, he dips his other hand inside my panties, and rubs his finger in dizzying circles against me.

  “I’m going to spread you out on my bed and tr
ail my tongue between your legs, and just when you reach down to grab my hair, I’ll flip you over on your front, and then bring your ass up in the air, and I’m going to go down on you in that position.”

  No one has ever gone down on me like that. No one has ever talked to me this way. Hell, no one has touched me this way. But I want so badly to do all these things with him. Only with him. I want to feel his talented tongue swirling against me. I want to take him in my mouth and taste him when he comes. I want to wrap my hands around him again and feel how hard he is. My mind is racing with images of all we will do, and when he rubs his finger against me, it’s sweet agony. I am burning all over him, my entire body a delicious ache.

  “And you’re going to squirm and raise your ass for me, as I run my tongue across all this fucking fantastic wetness,” he says and takes his time tracing lazy circles across my clit, until all of a sudden, he slides his finger hard inside me, crooking it, and reaching that spot where he starts to send me over the edge. “And you’ll grab the pillows hard in your hands, and push yourself back into me.”

  “Oh God. I can’t wait much longer.”

  “It won’t be much longer,” he says. “Now open your eyes, and watch in the mirror as I make you come.”

  I do as he says and my hair is a wanton tumble, my shoulders are rising and falling, and Davis looks like he wants to consume me.

  “Do you know what else I want to do to you?”

  “What else do you want to do?” I ask him in the mirror, his reflection wild as he stares at me.

  “I want to be underneath you and pull you on top of me so I can taste you that way. Would you like that? Would you like to be on top of me, fucking my face?”

  I can’t form words any more. All I can manage is a loud moan. He strokes me harder, pushing me closer to the release, and all the while, he keeps whispering, a low, dirty growl that sends new shivers pulsating through me, as I race to the edge. “The next time you come, I’m going to be inside you,” he breathes, his strong arm locking me in place, his steel length pressed hard against my back. “Filling you up, over and over, until you can’t take any more. I’m going to fuck you so deep and slow, that all of New York City will hear you call my name when you come undone.”

  That’s all it takes. Those words. Those dirty, sexy words he whispers to me, for me, about me, and I am lost in this haze of desire he’s unleashed in my body, as an orgasm careens through me, and I shudder violently against his hand. I’m about to scream, when he clasps his hand over my mouth to muffle my sounds.

  “You feel that?” He demands as the waves of pleasure slowly start to fade away. I manage a weak nod, because I am awash in the fog.

  “This is only the beginning, Jill.”

  Then he lets go of my wrists and I fall into his arms. He catches me, spins me so I’m facing him, then kisses me softly on the forehead. “Do you have any idea how much I love making you come?”

  “I think I have a clue,” I say, with a happy, woozy smile.

  “It is my favorite thing in the world. I love how fearless you are. I love how much you want it. I love the way you let go when I touch you,” he says, returning to a tender voice, his lover’s voice that melts me even more for him.

  “You should know by now I love everything about the way you touch me,” I say, as I loop my arms around him.

  “I love the sounds you make, how you smell, the way your body responds to me, and, most of all, how you give yourself over to me. But the reason I love all that is because I’m so fucking crazy about you.” Then he stops, takes a beat, and becomes more serious. “Jill, what am I going to do with you?”

  “I thought you just told me what you were going to do with me,” I tease as I lay my head against his strong chest, and adjust my dress.

  He cups my chin, so I have to look up at him.

  “No. Not that. What am I going to do about the fact that I’m not just falling for you,” he says and his eyes never stray from mine. They hold me tight, and I can’t look away, nor do I want to. “I am so completely in love with you that I can’t imagine ever being without you.”

  Time stops in a second, and then it unwinds in a flash. Six years unspool behind me, and my blood goes cold. It’s as if the floor is falling out from under me, and I’m tumbling into the past, the past I’ve tried to break free of. Those same words Aaron said to me. His last words. I’m barely even here anymore. I’ve been kicked back in time to the moment when I stopped feeling.

  Davis presses a finger to my lips. “I have to go back out there. Wait for me. I’ll have the car meet us at the front in ten minutes and you’ll come home with me, okay?”

  I nod, mutely, unable to speak, to move.

  Because I don’t want to be loved like that. I don’t want to be loved madly, deeply, and most of all, I don’t want to be loved without reason.

  Because I know the outcome.

  I know the end, and I’m starting to shut down already.

  He presses another kiss against my forehead but I’m numb, blindsided by his words. The exact same things Aaron said before he killed himself.

  Over me.

  CHAPTER 20

  Davis

  She is nowhere to be seen. She’s not waiting in the hallway. She’s not in the Terrace Room, and I don’t see her in the Palm Court. I bump into Shelby as she’s heading back inside.

  “Shelby, have you seen Jill?”

  “She ran out of here five minutes ago. She said she had a horrible headache and had to go. And she asked me to let you know for some reason,” Shelby says, then shrugs as if she’s not entirely sure why Jill would want to pass that message onto me.

  “Thanks for letting me know,” I say, wishing my heart weren’t beating fast with worry. But I already know Jill’s done it. The thing she said she wouldn’t do. Run.

  Shelby returns to the Terrace Room, and I’m alone in the hall briefly and I clench my fists then push my hand roughly through my hair.

  “Fuck,” I say under my breath, and turn toward the wall, wishing it were a punching bag and I could slam it several times. I should have known better. I should have known it would be too soon for her. That she’d need to take it slow. But hell, I thought she was right there with me. I could have sworn she was feeling the same things. She nearly said as much when we danced. I grab my phone from my pocket, but as I’m about to call her, I spot my sister walking toward me, her head cocked to the side in question. “What happened?”

  “Nothing,” I answer gruffly. I don’t want to get it into with her, given how she tried to stage her intervention earlier.

  She tilts her head to the side, her eyes demanding an answer.

  “She left, okay?” I admit because Michele would pry it out of me soon enough.

  “She left?” Her voice wavers.

  “Yes. And would you like to tell me why you told her to stay away?”

  Now she’s steely again as she places a hand on my arm. “You know why, and I don’t regret it.”

  I shrug off her hand, and stare hard into her eyes. “What. Did. You. Tell. Her?”

  Her lips are pressed together, her jaw is set. She is the most determined person I’ve ever met. “I told her not to play with your heart,” she says with a fierce protectiveness.

  “And what exactly does that mean?” My entire body is tense, bracing for words I’m sure I don’t want to hear. “You need to tell me exactly what you said.”

  She sighs heavily, as if this pains her as much as it pains me. “I told her if she wasn’t serious about you that she should leave. That if she was making some kind of career move or using you that she should get out,” she tells me, and it feels as if she reached her hands into my chest and grabbed my heart, and is squeezing it. I can’t breathe. There’s a vise around me.

  I drop my face into my hands, shaking my head over and over. “No. That’s not what you said. Please tell me that’s not what you said.”

  She wraps her arms around me, and whispers in a soft, caring voice. “
I’m so sorry.”

  But she’s not sorry for what she said. She’s sorry for me. And she should be, because she was right. She was right when she warned me at our dinner. Because this is Madeline all over again.

  I knew better. I fucking knew how this would end, and I did it anyway, against all my better judgement. I took a chance and chucked all my rules for Jill. And for what? To have her turn out to be like the last actress I fell for. Damn all the fucking actresses in the world who love playing pretend more than anything. Who put their careers first. Who move onto the next job without even looking behind at the people they discard.

  I thought Jill was different, but really that was a stupid hope, because she did exactly what my sister asked her to do.

  Leave if she didn’t feel the same.

  I hate that I’m standing here in this hotel with my sister hugging me, while the woman who doesn’t love me enough is gone. I hate everything about this and I can’t stand to be here another second.

  “I need to go.”

  “I’m coming with you,” Michele says.

  And that seems fitting. It’s been the two of us for the longest time, and we have to look out for each other. Because no one else will.

  I turn off my phone on the way to car. She’s not going to call anyway, so there’s no point in leaving it on. The driver holds open the door and Michele slides in first. I follow, wishing my sister weren’t the woman joining me as the driver pulls out into the late night traffic by the hotel.

  I groan and bang my head several times against the back of the seat as I bite off a string of curse words. “This wasn’t how this evening was supposed to go,” I mutter, loosening my bow tie as we drive down Fifth Avenue.

  Michele rubs her hand gently along my arm. “I know. But this is for the best. You know that, right?”

  I nod. “Yeah.”

  “It’s better that it ended now than later,” she continues, and I’m reminded of why she’s good at her job as a shrink, because she knows what to say. She knows what people need.