by L.H. Cosway
I narrowed my gaze. “I’ll have you know my phone is selfie free. Not all of us can’t get enough of the sight of our own faces, Julian.”
He chuckled, and I left his bedroom. When I entered the living area, the party seemed to be in full swing. There was a group gathered around Iggy as he sipped on a glass of wine and recounted some story they all seemed to be finding fascinating. I’d bet my last penny he was telling them about the weekend he spent with Boy George.
Both Alicia and Damon were among the group, and Alicia was standing way too close to Damon for my liking. Ugh. She thought she could kiss Julian and keep it her dirty little secret, while returning to the party and acting like Damon was the only one for her.
Excuse me while I roll my eyes.
I approached and tugged on Damon’s arm. He glanced at me.
“Hey,” I said quietly. “Could I get my phone back?”
“Sure,” he said, moving away from Alicia to pull the phone from his pocket and hand it to me.
“Thanks.”
“Your dress is very pretty, Rose,” said Alicia, the compliment dripping with honey. Perhaps she thought that if she buttered me up, I wouldn’t reveal her excursion in Julian’s bedroom to Damon.
“Thanks. Yours is, too.” I peered up at Damon, who wore a vaguely uncomfortable look. He clearly didn’t know what to do about Alicia, and she was very obviously determined to stick to him like glue for the evening. I actually felt a little bad for him. Well, that and obscenely jealous.
Julian interrupted all conversations as he re-entered the room and loudly made an announcement. “Okay, everybody who wants to take part in a game of Spin the Bottle, gather round and take a seat on the living room floor. The rest of you dirty voyeurs can hang about and watch, or completely ignore us. Whatever wets your whistle.”
I almost groaned, preparing to make a speedy exit, when all of a sudden Iggy grabbed my hand and pulled me down to sit on the floor.
“Let go!” I hissed, but he only smiled at me blandly.
“Rose dear, I spent the entire day slaving away for you. The least you can do to repay me is take part in a little game of Spin the Bottle.” There was a sparkle in his eye that told me he was up to something, and I knew from past experience there was no end to the mischief my boss could create with when fuelled by several glasses of white wine.
In the end about fifteen of us had made a circle on the floor, the twenty or so other party guests happy to chat amongst themselves and ignore Julian’s childish games. You’d swear we were attending a sweet sixteen. I caught Damon’s eye directly across from me on the other side of the circle, and thought Alicia must have roped him into taking part. He looked like he’d rather be anywhere else right then – like say, dancing the Macarena naked in front of five thousand people. Still, I wished he wasn’t playing. The idea of Damon kissing any of the women currently present made my stomach twist with discomfort.
Julian, who still had yet to sit down, came and placed a glass of champagne in my hand before sitting next to me. He put an empty wine bottle in the middle of the floor and spun it. It landed on a woman, one of the backing dancers from the show who I’d invited. When he spun it again, it landed on a man I didn’t know, but who must’ve been an acquaintance of Julian’s. The two crawled across to each other and kissed awkwardly at first, but then they seemed to get into it and I noticed a definite hint of tongue action.
“Get a room!” Iggy jeered loudly and they pulled apart, both looking slightly breathless.
Julian laughed with devilish glee, and a few more kisses followed. Iggy ended up kissing Farrah, and he hammed it up by licking her face first before mussing up her hair like a couple in an ’80s music video. I chuckled and tucked my legs under my bottom, sipping my champagne and sort of getting into the game. It was fun, so long as that bottle never landed on me. I wholeheartedly made an effort to ignore the fact that Blake was standing just outside the circle, not taking part but watching. It struck me as odd, though, because he was usually the type to relish this sort of thing.
Sitting on the floor was giving me pins and needles in my feet, so I slipped off my heels and rubbed at the base of my foot. Feeling someone’s attention, I looked up and saw Damon watching the movement of my fingers. For some reason it made me flush, so I pulled my hand back into my lap. Iggy took a turn spinning the bottle, and I was too busy wondering about the way Damon had been looking at me that I didn’t immediately realise it was pointing at me.
Shit.
Iggy rubbed his hands together, preparing to spin it a second time. “Okay, Rose, let’s find you a kissing partner, shall we?”
I closed my eyes, tension coiling in the pit of my stomach, and when I opened them, the first thing I noticed was the unhappy slant to Alicia’s mouth. The bottle was pointing at Damon, and there was some kind of annoyance in his expression.
“Better pucker up, Christian,” Iggy crooned in delight, teasing Damon as he addressed him by his character’s name.
I picked up my glass and downed the rest of its contents before crawling on my hands and knees over to where Damon sat. When I reached him, I sat back and whispered, “Sorry about this.” I wasn’t entirely sure why I was apologising. It was probably because he still seemed annoyed for some reason.
He reached out and took my hand in his, pulling me close so he could murmur in my ear, “Don’t be.”
“You don’t seem happy,” I ventured, still quiet enough so that only he could hear.
“I’m not.”
My stomach lurched. He didn’t want to kiss me. But why? Back in my bedroom he seemed ready to throw me down on the bed and fuck me into oblivion. Now he looked like he’d rather kiss anyone else in the world, and it was making me nervous and unsure.
“Take your time, you two,” Iggy put in sarcastically. “It’s not like we haven’t got all night or anything.”
I turned and shot my boss a dark look. He’d been the orchestrator of this scenario to a certain extent, and I wasn’t quite sure he hadn’t somehow made the bottle stop on Damon. Turning back to the man in question, I leaned closer, placing my hands on his shoulders and inhaling a deep breath. This was it.
I was about to kiss Damon Atwood.
Thirteen.
*Damon*
This wasn’t how I envisioned our first kiss playing out, not in a roomful of people, and certainly not in the middle of a fucking party where I couldn’t do all the things I’d been wanting to do to her for weeks.
The memory of her tits, full and heavy with perfect rosy nipples, was branded into my skull. The way it felt when I brushed one with the back of my hand to remove the phone from her bra, so soft, made my head numb. I felt like I’d been walking around in a constant state of arousal, which was a pain when you were stuck in an apartment with forty or so virtual strangers.
Rose had both her hands braced on my shoulders, but she only stared at me. I noticed her tremble a little. She was nervous. Fuck. My irritability at the situation couldn’t have helped matters. She thought I didn’t want to kiss her, but bloody hell I did. I just knew that once I started, there was a good chance I wouldn’t be able to stop.
I’d want to lose my hand under the skirt of her dress, feel her slickness.
I’d want to bury my face in her abundant, beautiful fucking cleavage until I couldn’t breathe.
She seemed frozen in place, so I pulled her hands from my shoulders and lifted her into my lap. I took control, not giving her a choice. If this was going to be our first kiss, I was going to make it count. Fuck all the people watching us. For once in my life I was going to be unselfconscious about something. I was going to take fucking charge.
She moved onto me with ease, and her dress rode up as she levelled her thighs on either side of my hips. The edges of her lacy hold up stockings were revealed and it was all I could do not to groan at the sight. I palmed her cheek, caressed it softly, and noticed her let out the tiniest gasp.
I whispered my lips across hers first, fea
ther light, before capturing them fiercely and sinking my hand into her hair. She let out a sexy little whimper. I tugged on her hair, adjusting her head so I could kiss her more deeply. She moved on me, as though trying to climb closer, and I felt my balls tighten as I began to harden. She was so sexy in a completely oblivious way, and when I felt the heat between her legs press into me, I had to stifle a groan.
Her arms came to wrap around my neck, her tongue moving with mine as I savoured her. She tasted like champagne and sunshine. I couldn’t get enough. Her full, round chest pushed into me torturously, and I knew I had to end the kiss before I took her right there on the floor. Giving her hair one more gentle tug, I felt her shudder, like she liked it.
I fucking loved that she liked it.
Every single time she wore a ponytail to rehearsals, I’d had visions of gripping her hair in my fist as I sank into her from behind. Pulling back, I gave her bottom lip the tiniest nip. Her eyes were closed. She breathed heavily as they fluttered open, and for a second I was lost in a sea of blue.
“Hey,” she whispered, her gaze unfocused.
“Hi,” I whispered back.
She bit her lip, dazed. “Um…”
“Rose, I just need to…” I murmured, cupping her cheek again and moving to capture her mouth one last time. Her lips had me hypnotised. I only remembered the people watching when someone spoke.
“Well, that was fucking hot,” Farrah exclaimed from the other side of the circle, knocking back a mouthful of wine.
“If that’s what you’re into,” Julian commented with a wink, and Rose shot him a dark look. He raised his hands in the air. “What? I’m sure you two would have very lovely missionary sex with lots of eye contact and murmured declarations. That’s not my cup of tea, is all I’m saying.”
Rose was suddenly blushing beautifully. I wanted to caress her cheek again, but she moved further away from me and returned to where she’d been sitting previously. If only Julian could see the fantasies I’d been having of doggy-style sex with Rose, he might have had to rethink his prediction.
Alicia was decidedly quiet beside me, but I didn’t look to see her reaction to the kiss. I’d never given her any indication I was interested, so I couldn’t really be held accountable for putting her nose out of joint.
I wanted Rose. Only Rose.
In the end I didn’t have to look, because she got up from the floor, brushing down her skirt and announcing, “I’m bored. I’m going to get more champagne.”
Without a word Julian went after her, and everyone seemed to silently accept that the game was over. When I saw Rose making her way over to the kitchen, I stood and intercepted her.
“We okay?” I asked, studying her pretty features. She didn’t say anything for a moment, and wouldn’t – or maybe couldn’t – meet my gaze. I tilted her chin up with the tips of my fingers. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable with what I said earlier, if I did….”
She shook her head as she swallowed. “No, no, you didn’t. I liked….” She paused to lower her gaze again. When she spoke, it was to the floor, and I really hated how she refused to give me her eyes. “I mean, I don’t exactly find it unpleasant when you say stuff like that.” When she finally looked up, her expression was meaningful, and something flipped inside me.
She enjoyed when I spoke to her explicitly? In that case, I could murmur dirty nothings to her all night long.
“So,” she went on, breaking the moment and clearing her throat, “another drink?”
“Yeah, another drink,” I agreed in a warm voice before bending low to whisper in her ear, “Those stockings are sexy as fuck, by the way. I can’t stop thinking about how they’d look like without the dress.”
She stilled, her throat bobbing as she swallowed. “D-damon.”
“Rose?” I slid my hand along the curve of her spine and she went silent as she breathed heavily and closed her eyes.
“Maybe I’ll show you sometime,” she said shakily.
It was all I could do not to drag her into her bedroom and demand she show me now. “I’ll hold you to that,” I replied.
She started walking again and I followed her to the kitchen, where Julian stood a few feet away from Alicia, a look on his face like he wanted to eat her alive. She was ignoring him by chatting with some other party guests.
I still wasn’t too sure what to make of Rose’s flatmate. There were too many question marks hanging over his head. He seemed like a normal enough bloke, so I just didn’t understand why he chose to do what he did for a living. Admittedly, I was biased, and, thanks to my father, had some fairly traumatic memories of prostitutes. This was why I was trying to reserve judgment where Julian was concerned.
“Here you go,” said Rose, handing me a bottle of Budweiser.
I allowed my fingers to skim over hers, and she shivered slightly. She was still feeling the kiss, same as me. I was just about to suggest we go somewhere a little more private, like her room, for instance, when some cheers sounded from the living area. Aside from the bedrooms, the entire apartment was open plan. I looked over the top of Rose’s head to see Blake seated by the piano, taking requests from the party goers.
“That slag better not be trying to steal my birthday thunder,” Julian commented dryly, right before Blake burst into a rendition of “I Got it from Agnes” by Tom Lehrer.
My gran used to love Tom Lehrer. She thought he was hilarious. Rose turned to see who was singing and I saw her lips turn downward, forming a frown.
“He always has to be the centre of attention,” I heard her mutter under her breath.
I stood next to her in silence. Blake pointedly levelled his gaze in her direction. Rose’s lips firmed and her cheeks began to grow flushed, though I thought it was in annoyance rather than embarrassment. The party-goers laughed at the innuendo in the song, while Rose placed her glass down on the table and said, “I need the bathroom.”
I nodded and knocked back a gulp of beer. Only seconds after Rose left, Alicia was in front of me, one hand on her hip as she eyed me curiously.
“You like her, don’t you?”
I almost choked on the beer. “Who?”
She cast her eyes to the ceiling like it was obvious. “Rose.”
I gave her a stoic look. “I might.”
“You don’t kiss someone you only ‘might’ like the way you just kissed Rose, Damon. Aren’t you worried?”
“Should I be?”
“Of course you should. She’s got history with Blake, and he clearly still has a thing for her. He’s barely taken his eyes off her all night.”
I firmed my jaw, the notion making me want to break something. I didn’t enjoy the feeling.
“She doesn’t want him back.”
“They all say that, and then before you know it, you’re walking into their trailer and finding them naked and fucking on the couch.”
I stared at her, perplexed.
“Sorry. I’m letting my own experiences cloud my judgement. I’m sure Rose would never hurt you like that.”
“Did that happen to you?”
She tucked a strand of her scarlet hair behind her ear and leaned back against the counter. “Yes. About two years ago I was dating another actor, and I won’t name any names, but let’s just say he began cheating on me with his ex. I caught them both going at it in a trailer on set one day and naturally put an end to things.” She tipped her glass to her mouth, all c’est la vie.
“I’m sorry.”
She waved away my apology. “I’m over it now. Still, I know how much that shit can hurt, and I wouldn’t want the same thing to happen to you with Rose.”
Alicia gave my shoulder a tender squeeze and walked away. I stood in place, contemplating the idea of Rose giving Blake another chance. It made me feel sick to my stomach. I lifted my beer and almost downed the entire contents of the bottle in one go.
Before I knew it, the party had progressed, and I’d had more drinks than I could count. I sat in the living area with
Farrah and Iggy as they both recounted all manner of interesting stories from their years working on the West End.
Rose remained out of sight. In fact, I hadn’t seen her since she’d disappeared to use the bathroom. I clenched my beer bottle tightly, almost smashing the thing in my hand as I imagined her in her room with Blake, patching things up. My tension faded when I saw Blake over by the window, chatting with a group of people.
But where was Rose?
I wanted to go find her, but at the same time I didn’t want to suffocate her, so I tried to keep from searching the apartment for where she’d hidden herself away. The hours went by, and slowly but surely the party guests started to leave. The alcohol must’ve taken hold, because the next thing I knew, it was morning and I was waking up on the couch. Alicia was next to me, her head resting on my shoulder as she lightly snored. On the opposite couch were Julian, Iggy, and Farrah, all asleep, too.
Christ, I felt like death warmed up.
Memories began trickling back. We’d well and truly burned the midnight oil, having drunken discussions about all sorts of random topics. Rubbing at my eyes, I blinked a few times, peering around at the mess left over from the night before.
At first the apartment seemed silent, but then I heard voices coming from the direction of the kitchen.
“I can manage by myself, Blake. You don’t need to help,” said Rose quietly, probably not wanting to wake anyone.
“I’m here, aren’t I? I might as well do something useful.”
Rose sighed, and I heard the crinkle of a plastic bag as she cleaned up. “Just go home. It’s morning. The party’s over.”
“I have nothing on today. Want to hang out once the apartment’s clean?”
“Have you got a hearing problem? I said I don’t need your help.”
“Yeah, well, I’m going to help you anyway.”
“Good God, fine, help me if it’ll make you happy, but I’m not hanging out with you today. I have plans.”
“And what would those be?”
“Washing my hair.”
“You clearly just showered.”
