The World is a Stage

by Tamara Morgan

  He wanted her. And, oh, how she wanted him too. “I’m not going anywhere else unless you tell me where it is—and it’s actually someplace I want to go.”

  “You’re taking all the fun out of this, you know that? Go upstairs and put on something warmer. Is there food in your kitchen?”

  “You want a snack? Are you kidding? We came here so I could grab a sweater and you could get something free to eat?”

  Michael pointed first to himself and then at Rachel. “Me. The fun one. You. Ask too many questions.”

  She hesitated, at which point he lunged toward her, the threat of Mommy Scariest and barricaded doors spilling out of his mouth.

  “Okay, okay,” she said, laughing, heading toward the stairs. It wasn’t exactly the physical connection she’d been after, but she wasn’t ready to quit. Not yet. “But that’s not really fair. You’ve seen my biggest weakness now—you can make me do almost anything. I think it’s only fair you tell me what yours is in return.”

  He paused for a moment. Because she was a few steps up, they were head to head, eye to eye. She thought he was going to make a joke, open his mouth and let the cracks fly, but there was nothing humorous about him as he replied, “That’s easy. My weakness is you.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The Expense of Shame

  It was the most nauseatingly romantic date she’d ever been on in her life.

  She should have known that warm clothes and snacks from her house would equal an impromptu picnic out on the range, but she was still so off balance from Michael’s stairwell confession that she saw only stars—the kind that came from a sudden blow to the head. The real tip-off should have been when Michael took one look at her fridge, saw nothing but the green olives and cookie dough that nested there, and announced his intention to hit up the drive-through at Kentucky Fried Chicken.

  “A bucket of chicken?” Rachel asked. “Are you serious?”

  “I never joke about fried food,” he returned.

  With any other man, it would have been a farce of an outing. They sat on a blanket in a field of what he said was wheat but looked more like dirt, snacking on biscuits and diet Pepsi. The temperature seemed to be making a dramatic turn for the worse, and the heavy clouds signaled an impending rain.

  But she wasn’t uncomfortable, and the charm of it didn’t feel forced. Her feet, which had been slipped out of their low-heeled, sensible pumps, rested casually in Michael’s lap, and he used a half-eaten drumstick to point out the various landmarks of the area.

  “Why do you keep laughing?” he asked.

  “I can’t help it,” she said, wiping at her eyes. She was giddy with chicken and freezing-cold picnics and him. She couldn’t remember a single time in her life when she’d been giddy. “You keep saying butte.”

  His smile deepened. He ran a finger along the sole of her foot, his touch light and grazing. “That’s what they’re called.”

  “I know that. But it’s funny to hear you say it.”

  He went through a series of poses, each one more ridiculous than the last, each one punctuated with the word butte, which he mouthed slowly and with a mock sensuality that cracked her up every time. By the time he was done, Rachel was laughing so hard she was crying, and the entire bucket of chicken had toppled over into the wheat.

  He dropped to the ground next to her, rolling onto his back with his hands behind his head. When he relaxed like that, the charming, little-boy features of his face stood out, signaling just how attractive and vulnerable he really was. She preferred this stripped-down version. No gimmicks. No false front. Just him.

  She felt the urge to lean over and kiss him, but it didn’t seem right somehow. Almost as though she didn’t dare—without the sex jokes and invitations, she wasn’t sure where she stood.

  “So what happens now?” she asked instead. It was an odd question, she knew, and one she wasn’t used to asking. But she had no idea what to expect from this man and this date, and that made her more uncomfortable than she cared to admit.

  “The way I see it,” he said, not moving from his supine position, “we can either talk or we can have sex.”

  She almost spit out her drink as she shot to her feet. “What is wrong with you?”

  He laughed, watching her. “You asked.”

  “Geez, Michael. I didn’t mean for you to just barrel in like that.”

  “Yes, you did.” He got to his feet then, favoring his knee but still managing to look cool and calm as he moved. Rachel felt like a deer in headlights, unable to do much more than watch him as he loomed closer. “You like it when I’m in control, but you won’t admit it. You’re waiting for me to make my move so you can either push me away or dive right in. Well, I’m not going to give you that chance. If you want to talk about things—Molly, Peterson, your mom, me—we’ll talk. I’m a really good listener if you give me a chance.”

  She felt herself stiffen, and it wasn’t from the cold. “And if I don’t want to talk?”

  “Then I’m afraid I’m going to move to option B. Sex. Lots of it, right here among the buttes.”

  This time, she didn’t giggle. “What if I pick option C and just leave?”

  His hand came up, his knuckles tracing a pattern along her cheek. Without thinking, she turned into it, closing her eyes and basking in the seemingly innocent caress. “I think if you really wanted to leave, you would have done it already.”

  She kept her eyes closed and let her lips fall open in anticipation of his kiss. After one beat too many, her eyelids flew open. He smiled down at her in that arrogant, bewitching way he had.

  “Are you really going to make me say it?”

  “Oh, yeah. I want to hear this.”

  She could have chosen to be embarrassed, to let him win the deadlock of emotion and passion that swirled around them. But she was a classically trained actress, dammit, and words were the tools of her trade.

  “Consider this a formal invitation to view my honey pot,” she said.

  Michael laughed so hard he threw his head back and let out a roar. “Oh, Rachel. You are going to pay for that.”

  I hope so.

  Michael’s mouth on hers was everything she remembered and so much more. He wasn’t greedy, taking his time to explore her lips, to make his mark with the sweep of his tongue and a steadily increasing pressure. That same pressure was everywhere—in the arms wrapped around her, drawing her close, in his body pressing up against hers, in the pull of her belly as the kiss intensified.

  He was moving too slow.

  So many of her interactions with Michael had been filled with the promise of what he could do, how hard and how many times he could make her come. The restraint he showed now was practically killing her. She wanted the sex-dungeon master and half-naked Roman soldier. She wanted the Highland athlete and whisky-swilling barbarian.

  It was almost disappointing to find he was just like every other man she’d ever slept with. Respectful and polite, ready to treat her like a lady. She didn’t want to be a lady—she wanted debasement. She wanted to be sex-slave Leia.

  With a growl, she pushed him back, ending the kiss but starting a whole lot more.

  “Take off your pants,” she commanded.

  “You take off yours,” he returned.

  “I mean it, Michael. I’m not out here to play games. If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do this right.” Without waiting for a reply, she lunged for the crotch of his jeans. He made a feeble attempt to keep her hands from his fly, but the moment she snuck a hand between the flat plane of his stomach and the soft cotton of his boxer briefs, all his movements stilled. She trailed her fingers lazily along the outer ridge of his lower abdomen, not stopping until she reached her goal.

  Michael’s breath was sharp as she unzipped his fly and nudged the top of his jeans down his hips. Without waiting for him to respond, she slipped her hand past the smooth, hard line of his cock and went straight for his favorite—and oft-mentioned—body part. Wrapping her hands
around his balls, she gave them a generous tug before cupping him, her fingers continually moving and working.

  “Holy shit, Rachel,” he murmured.

  She just smiled and pulled him closer. This man and his testicles. She could have probably used this moment to ask him for all his millions of dollars and he would have signed a check right then and there.

  But then he removed her hand and pulled away, shaking his head. “Hey, now. That’s not fair.”

  “How is that not fair? You want me to stop?”

  “Yes. I mean, no.” He shook his head and ran a hand through his hair. “I know what you’re doing here—I know what you want.”

  She stared at him, her body growing cold. What she wanted? After all this time, was he about to tell her he couldn’t go through with it anymore, that it was all a lie?

  But then he touched her again, this time slipping a hand underneath her bulky sweater, inside the edge of her bra. His fingers moved under the thin cotton of it, not stopping until he grazed her nipple. She arched her back, begging him to take it.

  He did, giving her nipple a gentle tweak, a jolt of pain and pleasure moving through her like an electric chain. “You told me once how you envisioned this. I believe your exact request was that I ‘bend you over the table, pin your wrists to the side and take you from behind’. Am I missing any of it?”

  She shook her head, unable to do much while he still had her nipple between his fingers, playing with it until she was gasping with need. “That sounds about right,” she murmured hoarsely.

  “I want to do that.” He leaned down and bit her shoulder where the slope of her neck met the rest of her body. His free hand wrapped around and grasped her bottom, pulling her so close she couldn’t mistake the hard need of his body. “And I’m good at that.”

  “So show me,” she said. Begged, practically, but there was no use dwelling on it at that precise moment. She ran her hands up his arms, the muscles of his biceps round and firm under her touch, even through his clothes.

  “I will.” He released the grip on her nipple, letting it slide slowly between his fingers, gentle and teasing. “Just not today.”

  She didn’t have time to analyze his meaning, because he chose that moment to cup the full weight of her breast, his thumb tracing an agonizing pattern over the tip of her nipple. He laid a gentle kiss on her neck, continuing a path up to the jawline. Everything about his movements was gentle and soft, the caress of a lover, not just a sexual partner.

  The bastard.

  She was very close to backing away, telling him to stop. This was not what she’d envisioned when she imagined a roll in the hay on the O’Leary farm. This was tender and warm, and the way he moved his hands gently over her stomach filled her with a strange desire to cry. When his hand dipped down, slipping underneath the elastic of her skirt’s waistband, her senses swirled around her even more. Fiery longing urged her to press against his hand—a deeper part of her knew that things were spiraling too far out of control.

  Control. She wanted it. She needed it.

  She grabbed the front of his jacket and twisted, gripping the fabric with a sense of urgency there was no mistaking. With a gentle push, she managed to get him down onto the ground and pinned him with her legs straddling on either side. He was very strong, but so was she, and she applied force with the clamp of her thighs pressed against his. Even though they were both still fully dressed, she felt wanton and powerful and good.

  “Are you trying to have your wicked way with me?” he asked, grinning up at her.

  “Trying being the operative word,” she shot back. “I’m tempted to leave you here with your bucket of chicken.”

  “I do love chicken,” he confessed. “But even more than that, I love—”

  She leaned down and captured his mouth with hers before he could say another word. Her legs lost all their strength, having been reduced to something gelatinous and weak, and he used the moment to roll her underneath him.

  He pulled back, looking down on her with infinite kindness. Her breath caught in her throat, and she longed to be able to look away, but she was trapped. Now he brought out the strength. Now he told her body what to do and how to do it.

  “Relax, Red,” he said, chuckling softly. “I was going to say that I love the feel of your body against mine.”

  “You’re impossible,” she muttered, blinking rapidly.

  “You’re impossible too,” he whispered, wiping at something on her face. His finger was damp as he brushed it across her cheek. “Are you sure you want me to keep going?”

  Yes. More than anything else in the world, she wanted to retain the feeling of his weight on top of her, feel the hard press of his erection against her belly, keep his arms encasing her like she was some sort of precious commodity worth saving.

  “Only if you promise not to cuddle afterwards,” she finally said, her body rolling underneath his, urging him to get closer, harder, faster. Anything with an -er. “I don’t do cuddling. And if you try to offer me a single nauseating compliment, I’m biting your ear off.”

  He nipped at the corner of her mouth, and she could feel his smile. “You don’t hug, you don’t cuddle, you don’t sweet talk. What do you do, Rachel?”

  “Anything, Michael.” She sighed as one of his strong hands gripped hers, forcing it above her head. With his free hand, he lifted her sweater but didn’t go any farther than to place his hand on the bare curve of her belly. It was a promise of things to come, achingly intimate, almost innocent. She arched. “I’ll do everything.”

  What followed was everything—everything textbook, everything the way they told you sex was supposed to be. Man on top, woman on bottom. Plenty of blankets for warmth. Safety before pleasure.

  There was even that moment when he first entered her body, their eyes meeting and their voices combined in a single gasp that reached all the way to the sky. And slow, mounting pleasure that never seemed to come—and when it finally did, it never seemed to end. His hands everywhere, on her breasts, between her legs, caressing her stomach and her arms, and finally, when she was too far gone to stop him, through her hair and over her face, endlessly affectionate and warm.

  And when it was over, when her body felt empty of everything, he murmured a low apology.

  “Just this one compliment, Rachel. I can’t help it.”

  “What?” she asked warily. Looking up at the sky, she wondered if the clouds overhead were going to open and pour on them the same way the stinging in her eyes threatened to do.

  He kissed her softly on the forehead. “You’re the most amazing and beautiful woman I’ve ever met. There’s no way a man like me could ever find the words to say it all.”

  That was when she turned her head away and sobbed.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Overflow of Good

  Rachel sat brooding into her breakfast of lime-green Gatorade. Before he’d left after dropping her off yesterday, Michael stocked the refrigerator with several bottles of it, saying something about how many of her electrolytes he’d zapped. It was a dumb-jock thing to say, a completely Michael-like boast designed to put her back at ease.

  But she wasn’t at ease.

  What they’d done the day before—that wasn’t sex. That wasn’t a fun whirlwind of hormones she could revel in for hours, only to get up and walk away from it a few hours later. They’d done something else entirely.

  In her lifetime, she’d had countless one-night stands and an illicit affair with her college professor. She tried almost everything at least once, and rarely with men she cared about. She was free of romantic illusions of any kind, and her inhibitions in the bedroom were a direct reflection of that.

  But this was the first time she’d ever been mastered by sex, ever lost control. This was the first time she ever felt ashamed to look the man in the eye afterward.

  “What’s wrong with your drink?” Molly asked, coming into the kitchen behind her.

  “It’s green, for starters.” Rachel push
ed the offending item away and did her best to appear calm. She didn’t want to invite questions she didn’t know the answers to. “You can have it if you want.”

  “I’m not thirsty.”

  Molly looked as dejected as Rachel felt. Normally, that would have put her on high alert. Today, she just felt tired and unequal to the task of ironing out the kinks in Molly’s life.

  That had once been her every waking thought. She was slipping.

  “Where did you end up going after rehearsal yesterday?” Molly asked. “I tried calling, but you weren’t picking up.”

  Rachel waved her hand. “I was working on a few things for the show.”

  “Oh.”

  “What about you?” Rachel asked politely, unsure how else to fill the silence. The only other alternative was to go back to sitting alone, thinking. Remembering. Reliving each touch, each kiss, those agonizing minutes when he held her and let her cry, not once asking why or what he could do to help.

  She got up and poured the Gatorade down the sink, the slug-slugging of the liquid filling her with an odd satisfaction. When she finally turned around, it was to find Molly gripping the edges of the kitchen island, tears brimming in her eyes.

  Eric. He’d finally broken her. Every other thought fled, and Rachel had her arms around her sister within seconds. She ran a soothing hand over her hair and murmured things that probably didn’t make any sense.

  The words didn’t matter, though. The sound of her voice seemed to calm Molly down, and the regular movements kept Rachel from the uncontrollable shaking that threatened to take over her whole body.

  “What’s wrong, Molly?” she asked as soon as the worst of the crying stopped. “Where were you yesterday? What happened?”

  Molly blew her nose into a napkin before turning her red-rimmed eyes Rachel’s way. “I was with Lily.”

  Lily.

  Rachel fell to the stool. They hadn’t said her name in over a year.

  It had been their girlhood dream name, the name given to every single doll they’d ever had, adopted by whichever one of them happened to be playing Queen of Dress-Up at the time. There had been a pact at some point, sealed in blood from twin pinpricks, that whichever of them was the first to have a daughter could claim sole ownership of the name.