Please

by Hazel Hughes

  “Well, whatever works, but if I were you, I’d try a little light porn. It’s a hell of a lot more comfortable than itchy lace thongs. And cheaper.”

  The elevator doors finally opened. Elizabeth stepped in.

  “Elevator’s here, Em. I gotta go,” she said in a posh voice. “They need me on set.”

  Emily laughed, mimicking Elizabeth’s languorous drawl, “Okay, darling. Ciao.”

  *

  Back on the set, Elizabeth really wasn’t sure what she was doing there, other than taking notes for her next novel. Cullen barely glanced at her. Neither did Sebastian. In between takes, he sat off to the side, immersed in his book. This filled Elizabeth with a strange irritation that she tried to talk herself out of.

  After a few hours of tapping desultorily on her laptop and nibbling on Charles’ array of healthy snacks, Elizabeth got up. She had been waiting for Sebastian to come talk to her, she realized. Clearly, he wasn’t going to. She decided to go back to her room, call the kids and spend a few hours looking at Abbie’s edits. Tomorrow, she wouldn’t even visit the set. If Cullen wanted her, his assistant had her cell number.

  Elizabeth stepped into the elevator just as Naomi was stepping out.

  “Oh hi!” Naomi said, squeezing Elizabeth’s arm as she walked past her. “You leaving?”

  “Yeah. Are you just getting here?”

  Naomi nodded, smiling like the cat who got the cream. “Cullen sent me for a massage. He said I needed to be extra ‘on’ for the next scene, and I was just not looking my best. Laaate night, you know.” She winked at Elizabeth and giggled. The elevator doors closed.

  Screw the edits, Elizabeth thought. She needed a treat.

  She decided to stop by the Mercer’s library for a magazine to bring back to her room. She had been grazing all afternoon on Tempe rolls and vegetable sticks, so she wasn’t hungry, but she thought she’d order room service anyway, just to stick it to Cullen. She’d have a nice quiet evening in, maybe have a bath and something from the minibar. She’d dipped her toe into the world of celebrity, and that was enough. She was happy to have it wrapped in a warm terrycloth slipper instead.

  Flipping through the pages of Tattler as she walked down the hall to her room, Elizabeth sensed someone and looked up. Sebastian was leaning against her door.

  Elizabeth’s smile widened, involuntarily. “Shouldn’t you be on set?” she asked, stopping.

  “My scenes are finished.” He walked toward her, slowly.

  “For today,” she clarified.

  “No. Forever. Cullen wants to look at the rushes tonight to see if we need to reshoot, but I doubt it. I never reshoot.” The cocky smirk.

  “So, after tomorrow ...” she said, trying to keep the disappointment out of her voice.

  “I’m back in LA.” He stood so that their toes were nearly touching. “Unless there’s something that compels me to stay.”

  “Like reshoots,” she said, feeling her pulse in her ears. He was so close.

  “Right.”

  She was holding the Tattler open against her chest, her arms crossed over the top. Sebastian slid it out, laughing. “Tattler? Really?”

  “It’s my guilty pleasure,” she admitted, defensively.

  He smirked, looking down at the page she had opened it to. “Is it?” He held the magazine out to Elizabeth. It was the Calvin Klein underwear ad. The picture showed Sebastian reclining on a kitchen table in a pair of tightie-whities, looking at the camera through half-lidded eyes, one hand resting suggestively on his thigh.

  Elizabeth felt the blood rush from her toes all the way to the crown of her head. She reached for the magazine, but Sebastian held it behind his back.

  “I was just flipping through it ...” she started, angry in her embarrassment.

  He smiled, dropping the Tattler and lunging for her, pressing her up against the door to her room.

  “I like that I’m your guilty pleasure,” he said, holding her hands above her head, against the cool wood of the door.

  Elizabeth was almost dizzy with his proximity. He smelled like a cornfield on a hot day, green and fresh and dark and loamy all at the same time.

  He held her wrists with one hand as he slid his hand down her back to her butt, squeezing her against him so she could feel him, hard, through their clothes.

  “What do you want from me?” she asked. Her senses were all singing, but her brain had checked out. If someone had asked her what her name was, she couldn’t have answered.

  His mouth was close to her ear. “Complete and total submission,” he whispered, then laughed, a low, throaty chuckle. He slid his hand into the back pocket of her jeans and slipped out her room key.

  Chapter 5

  Freeing the card from her back pocket, Sebastian released her wrists. Elizabeth’s arms slid down the door as he grabbed her hair and tilted her head back. Her eyes were closed, her mouth open. She felt his lips, barely brushing hers, sending fingers of sensation into her core. She heard the click of the door releasing and she was walking backward into the room as Sebastian kissed her, parting her lips further.

  He pushed her against the wall, just inside the door, letting it close behind him. His tongue was in her mouth, hot and wet and muscular. His firm body pinned her to the wall. Elizabeth felt as if she had no skin, no bones. She was just a mass of nerve endings and a pounding pulse.

  Suddenly, she was kissing him back, her hands sliding up under his t-shirt on the warm flesh of his back. It was as if all thought had deserted her; she was just stimulus and response. She had never wanted anything more.

  Sebastian reached behind him and grabbed her hands, sliding them over his skin to his stomach, taking a step back so that there was a narrow band of space between them. Bringing one hand up to his mouth, he kissed her palm, flicking his tongue against it. His eyes, black with lust, held hers, a smirk on his parted lips.

  She ran her other hand over his smooth, hard stomach, along the waistband of his jeans, inhaling sharply when her fingers grazed the silky tip of his erection protruding above it. Sebastian grabbed her hand, holding it there.

  “Beg me,” he said.

  “What?” Elizabeth asked.

  He slid her hand inside his jeans, along the length of his shaft. Elizabeth’s eyes widened as a shiver of desire ran down her spine. He was huge.

  “Beg me to fuck you,” he said, sliding her hand up and down, slowly.

  Elizabeth laughed, incredulous. She pulled her hands out of his grasp, the fog of lust that had shrouded her brain beginning to clear. “I don’t think so.” She half-heartedly tried to push him away.

  Sebastian spun her around, so her face was pressed up against the wall. His body was hot and hard behind her. He slid his hand over her stomach and under the waistband of her jeans, homing in on his target with the speed and precision of a fighter pilot.

  He chuckled softly in her ear, biting it. “Uh-uh. Not so fast.” His voice was low and husky. “Beg me.” He moved his finger in tight lazy circles.

  Elizabeth moaned, fighting the rising tide of desire. “Naomi would be happy to beg you.”

  Sebastian laughed again, rubbing faster, pressing into her from behind. “I know. But where’s the fun in that?”

  Just then Elizabeth’s phone rang. “Humps,” by The Black Eyed Peas. Steve’s ring tone.

  Elizabeth pulled Sebastian’s hand out of her pants and squirmed out from under him, a cool surge of guilt drowning her arousal like she’d had a bucket of cold water dumped on her head. Behind her, Sebastian sighed, but she ignored him, fumbling in her bag for her cell.

  “Hi honey,” she said, her voice high and false in her ears. “What’s up?” She put her hand over her heart, willing it to stop pounding. The adrenaline was screaming through her veins, making her hands shake.

  “Elizabeth.” Steve’s voice was tinged with annoyance. “What did you do with Keenan’s soccer uniform? Your mother doesn’t know where it is, Keenan doesn’t know where it is, and he’s got practice i
n ten minutes.”

  Elizabeth tried to keep the irritation out of her tone. “Steve,” she said slowly, “I told you I left it with his coach. They had to get the team logo sewn on, remember?”

  “You didn’t tell me that,” Steve answered flatly.

  Elizabeth sighed, rubbing her forehead. She should have told her mother. Steve never remembered anything that had to do with her or the kids. Hearing the soft click of the door, she turned to find Sebastian gone. Elizabeth slumped down on the bed, letting herself fall back.

  “So what is he supposed to wear?” Steve was saying.

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Elizabeth snapped. “Is my mother there?”

  “Yes,” Steve said, like a sulky child.

  “Put her on.”

  By the time Elizabeth got off the cell with her mother, her pulse was back to normal, but she felt anything but. She picked up the landline beside her bed, contemplating calling Sebastian. But what would she say? She called room service instead, hanging up when a high-pitched Asian voice answered. She wasn’t hungry. Not for food.

  Elizabeth stripped out of her jeans and sweater in front of the mirror, imagining Sebastian’s hands and eyes on her. She felt a dull throb in her panties when she thought of him kissing her, touching her. Would he come back? She wondered. Did she want him to? Sitting cross-legged on the bed, she opened her laptop and did what she always did when in doubt. She made two lists, one for and one against. The document called Grocery Lists had dozens of these, listing the merits and demerits of everything from cutting her hair (con had won) to asking her mother to move in (pro).

  She tapped on her keyboard, frowning when the two lists were complete.

  Reasons Not to Sleep with Sebastian

  The kids

  Naomi/other women

  C-section scar

  No tits

  Career

  Steve

  Reasons to Sleep with Sebastian

  Sebastian

  She thought of Steve’s phone call and added one more to the list of reasons for:

  Lack of sex life

  Even as she wrote it, she knew it didn’t count. So Steve had gained some weight. That hadn’t stopped them from getting down and dirty when she had practically doubled in size during her two pregnancies. It was she who had given up on their sex life.

  Tucking a lock of hair behind her ear, she tapped out another Reason Not to Sleep with Sebastian:

  Sebastian’s reputation.

  According to Abbie, Sebastian had destroyed his former agent’s marriage. Obviously, seducing her was just a game. Once he had won, he would chuck her in the trash like a used condom. He only wanted her because she was resisting him.

  Still, what harm could it do, to have a one-night stand with a firm, hot body? She doubted any man, including Steve, would be able to refuse a similar offer, from, say, Naomi Clamp. It might even revitalize their sex life, she thought. Recharge the batteries. She leaned back on her hands, pondering this possibility, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth at the ridiculousness of her rationalization.

  “Ah, who am I kidding?” she said out loud.

  With one last glance at her lists, Elizabeth shut down the computer, closing it with a snap of finality. Seven Nos to one and a half dubious Yeses. The cons clearly outweighed the pros. She was not going to have sex with Sebastian.

  After slugging down a generously alcoholic gin and tonic from the minibar, Elizabeth fell asleep in her bathrobe on top of the covers, reading yesterday’s New York Times. Madame Bovary was banished to the desk across the room.

  *

  When Elizabeth awoke the next morning, the first fingers of dawn were creeping across the city. She must have forgotten to close the drapes, she realized, lifting her head from her pillow. She was lying on her stomach, the pages of the Times squashed beneath one bent knee. Her mouth tasted toxic.

  She heard a soft rustling noise and realized she was not alone. Her heart surging in a primordial panic response, rolling over she saw Sebastian sitting in a chair in the corner of the room, his legs stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankle. He was wearing a black tracksuit and running shoes.

  “Good morning,” he said, stretching.

  Elizabeth slumped back down on the bed and peered at him from behind a tangle of hair. “What are you doing here?” she groaned. “How did you get in?” As she said it, she remembered the key card. He must have taken it with him.

  He stood up, taking the thin rectangle of plastic out of his jacket pocket, running the edge of it slowly up her exposed calf. She reached for it, but he slipped it back into his jacket pocket.

  “I think you should ask reception for another one,” he said. “I want to keep this one. As a souvenir.”

  “Look, Sebastian ...” Elizabeth started, wrapping her robe more tightly around her as she wiggled her way to a seated position.

  “Wait.” Sebastian sat down beside her on the bed. Elizabeth was glad she couldn’t see herself in the mirror. Even though she was going to tell Sebastian once and for all that she was not interested, some small vain part of her still wanted him to want her. She edged away from him, partially to avoid being distracted by his proximity and partially to keep him out of the range of her morning breath.

  “Elizabeth, I’m sorry.” Sebastian hung his head, toying with the zipper on his jacket. “About last night, I mean.”

  Elizabeth stared at him. She had been expecting another attempt at seduction, not an apology.

  “I guess I read you all wrong. I thought you wanted me the way I want you.” He bit his lower lip and looked up at her through his lashes. Elizabeth did want him. She ached with want. She tried to remember the lists she’d made, but the way his pecs strained against the fabric of his t-shirt seemed to short-circuit her brain.

  He stood up suddenly and walked to the window, rubbing his hands over his crew cut in exasperation.

  “It’s just ...” he said, his back to her. “Have you ever met someone and felt that they could look into your eyes and see your soul? That they could see all the dark and twisted parts and not only accept them but maybe even love them?”

  “Um,” Elizabeth said.

  Sebastian turned around. He was back-lit and Elizabeth couldn’t see the expression on his face.

  “That’s how I felt when I met you. Before I met you, even. When I read your book. When I saw your picture.”

  “Wow. You got all of that from the jacket shot? I should have paid the photographer more,” Elizabeth joked. Sebastian didn’t laugh. Standing up, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror and groaned inwardly. Her hair looked like a haystack.

  “Sebastian,” she said, making sure to keep her distance. “I can’t deny that I’m attracted to you. What woman wouldn’t be? But I’m married. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

  Sebastian looked at her blankly.

  “I guess not,” she said.

  “Do you love him?” he asked.

  “Uh, sure,” she answered, not even convincing herself. She had once, she knew. And she probably would again. She and Steve were just going through a rough patch right now and letting Sebastian seduce her wouldn’t do anything to help that.

  Sebastian laughed. “Right.”

  Elizabeth sighed. Sebastian moved closer to her but didn’t try to touch her.

  “Look,” Sebastian said, his expression sincere. “I booked a flight back to LA. It leaves at midnight. Spend the day with me. Let me show you my New York. Then, if you still want me to leave, I’m on that plane.”

  “I don’t know,” Elizabeth said, feeling her heart beat faster with his proximity.

  “I’ll be on my best behavior,” Sebastian grinned. “I promise not to touch you unless you want me to.” Elizabeth opened her mouth to protest, but Sebastian held a hand up to her lips, almost but not quite touching them. “I mean unless you say it.”

  “Unless I beg you?” Elizabeth arched an eyebrow, smiling, expecting him to laugh. He didn�
��t. His face was serious, his dark eyes searing into her.

  “That’s right,” he said. “Unless you beg me. Now get dressed. We’re going running. I want to show you something.”

  Elizabeth hesitated.

  “Unless you have something better to do?” Sebastian smirked.

  Elizabeth thought about her special chair in the corner of the set, Cullen Zweibeker’s self-important posturing, Naomi’s narcissistic chatter and Charles’s macrobiotic spring-rolls. She thought about the first draft of her manuscript on her laptop decorated with more red than a Christmas card.

  Before she could change her mind, she grabbed her gym clothes and went into the bathroom, locking the door, just in case.

  *

  “Wow,” Elizabeth said, panting slightly, trying to catch her breath. “This place is amazing.”

  They had run through the low-rise brick buildings of West Village and Chelsea and were now up on the High Line, a former elevated railway recently greened into a long sliver of park above the Meatpacking district. The bare branches of a patch of birch trees strained like twisted fingers toward the gray sky. Elizabeth half expected a crow to emerge from a tangle of naked sumac, cawing a shrill warning. At just past 7:00 on a bitter March morning, she and Sebastian had the park to themselves.

  “Yeah,” Sebastian agreed. “It looks kind of Gothic at this time of year, doesn’t it? I like it even better like this. The first time I came here, it was June. Everything was green, there were kids and tourists all over. It had a totally different vibe. But I like this post-apocalyptic look.”

  Elizabeth nodded. That’s exactly how it felt. Like they were the only two people in the world. Well, if you ignored the sounds of the traffic below them. The illusion was broken by a pair of runners slashing through the park, their fluorescent Lycra tights cutting the gloom.