“That’s it, sweetheart,” he said. “Take it. Take me deep.”
And I did, giving him all I had in return, drowning in the paralyzing sparks of pleasure that shot through every cell of my body. Making love with Noah was more than a union of bodies. It was a melding of souls. And nothing in my life had ever felt more right.
As the room spun and color faded, Noah, still inside me, managed to reverse our positions, collapsing on the mattress, cradling me against his chest. Against the backdrop of the gentle hum of electric air and the wild race of our beating hearts, the world outside us didn’t exist.
…
I woke up alone in my bed. The sun, just beginning to rise, peeked through closed curtains. A dim glow of lamp light filtered in from the living room. The strangled gurgle of fresh brewing coffee sounded.
Last night had been incredible. I couldn’t keep the smile from settling on my face, or the gratitude from warming my heart. After what happened yesterday, Noah had given me what I needed most—a distraction from thinking about Kyle Pritchard and his terrible threat. But I knew the reprieve wouldn’t last long. Sooner or later, Noah would ask about what happened with Kyle. He’d think demanding answers to his questions would be his right.
I reached my arms above my head and indulged in a decadent stretch, wondering where Noah and I would go from here. My spirits deflated somewhat when I realized the answer. Nowhere. We’d come together for the sake of the play—for Broadway, my inheritance, the theater, the bar, the town. Just like how even the best shows come to an end, so too would Noah and I.
Because despite how fantastic my body felt, there was no way I could ever be with a man who acted like my avenging knight when all I wanted to do was forget about the one time I’d been a damsel in distress.
But that didn’t mean we couldn’t enjoy it while it lasted.
He entered the bedroom, wearing only his boxers. With his finely chiseled pecs and broad shoulders, he looked like a Renaissance sculpture had formed him of marble. A sexy coat of stubble dusted the lower half of his face.
“Good morning, beautiful.” In one hand he carried a cup of coffee, in the other, an apple.
I sat up, covering myself by tucking the sheet beneath my arms. “Are you always such an early riser?”
He handed the coffee over. “I am when five a.m. here is eleven in London.”
I took a sip then set the cup on the bedside table. “What’s going on in London?”
He took a bite of the apple, then held it out for me. “The Double Shot is conquering Europe, one city at a time.” His knee sank into the bed beside me. “Also, I promised myself if I got up, got some work done, and let you sleep, I could have you as a reward.”
“That’s mighty presumptuous of you.” I took another bite of the apple and set it alongside the cup of coffee. “What if I’m not in the mood?”
He tugged the sheet down past my breasts. “I have ways to put you in the mood.”
I reached for the waistband of his boxers, pulling him closer. “Is that why you woke me up three times during the night?”
His jaw clenched as the tips of my fingers brushed over his growing erection. “Actually, I only woke you twice. The third time was all you.”
I grinned. “That’s not how I remember it.”
“You crawled on top of me and rode hell for leather.”
Acting the way I had last night was so out of character for me. But what could I do? No one had ever turned me on the way Noah did.
Noah pinned my arms above my head and peppered my breasts with light tickling kisses. “I remember you saying there’s a pretty hot love scene between Caroline and Andy. Does she get as nasty with him as you did with me last night?”
“No.” I wiggled beneath him, loving the way he grew harder in the struggle we played at. “It’s a completely different context.”
Noah’s mouth covered mine, taking horseplay to the edge of foreplay. When he pulled away, I couldn’t miss just how much his eyes darkened.
The mood went from light to serious as something inside me shifted. I brushed his hair that’d fallen across his forehead aside.
“Whatever’s going on between us….” he said, “we know it can’t last.”
Even though I’d just thought the same thing, his words stung in a way I never would’ve guessed they could. Yes, Noah was right. A romantic relationship between us would never last. And not just because of my own reasons.
I suspected Noah was chasing some serious demons. From what I knew about his dad—a major drunk with anger problems—I suspected Noah’s issues stemmed from that relationship. The way he’d backed away from me after grabbing my arm that day in the hall and the disgusted-with-himself look that came over his face when my shoulder slammed against the door frame proved it. Then there was Noah’s admirable sense of loyalty to Quinn. I wasn’t sure if he’d risk his strongest friendship to go after Quinn’s sister.
Still, his words pierced at the place deep inside me that I’d fought to harden against him years ago.
“Maybe, then, we should stop with the sex,” I said, only the way my hands moved over his shoulders and down his back said just the opposite.
Noah’s lips feathered over mine. “What about the play?”
“Lucas threatened to find someone else to finish the play if we refuse to follow through with his plan, so…” The sheet still between us, I moved my legs, cradling Noah’s lower half between them.
“It’s the improvisation that gets us in trouble.” His teeth scraped over my neck.
“There’s also Quinn.” I said. “He wouldn’t like this.”
Noah stopped the neck nibbling, rolled off of me, onto his back beside me. Then he took the mother of all deep breaths. “No, he wouldn’t.”
I covered myself with the sheet. “Then it sounds pretty simple. We have to keep spending time together until the play is finished, but not like this.”
From the corner of my eye, I watched as a scowl spread over Noah’s face. “Then I guess we’ve reached a consensus.”
We had.
No more improv, no more sex.
Last night had been all about Caroline and Andy—or at least that’s how it started. But I didn’t like the empty feeling I got in knowing Noah and I would never be together like this again. Seeing him every day and knowing exactly what I was missing seemed the most excruciating form of torture. Judging from the look on his face and the way he quietly gathered his clothes and dressed, I took no comfort from seeing he felt the same way.
I just couldn’t see any other option.
Chapter Twelve
Noah
It had been twenty-nine hours and thirty-seven minutes since I’d told Ashlyn a relationship between us couldn’t last. So why was I still so eaten up that she’d agreed? Sure, agreement between us was a rarity, but that didn’t change facts. The two of us becoming lovers was a bad idea—one worse than Lucas Marshall forcing us together for the sake of her writing and the play meant to save us all. The other night had been off the charts, yes, and it was an experience I’d never regret, but sometimes even the greatest experiences shouldn’t be repeated.
What it boiled down to though, and what pained me the most, was that she hadn’t put up a fight. In fact, she’d been the one who said maybe we should stop sleeping together. And when I’d gone back to her apartment after finishing the pressing matters I needed to attend to in my office, she’d greeted me by saying she was on a roll and had asked for the night off from obeying Lucas’s directive. That’s why I sat in my office Saturday morning, staring at an email from Cambridge Hotels like it’d been written in Sanskrit, video surveillance of Kyle Pritchard’s trailer loaded on the side-bar. Within five days of Lucas’s ultimatum, Ashlyn Carter already had me completely unraveled.
Without knocking, Babs barged through my office door, her forehead creased in a deep frown. “You’re sleeping with her, aren’t you?”
I looked up from my computer. Where the hell had that com
e from? “Who is her?”
“Don’t play dumb.”
“No. For the record, I’m not sleeping with Ashlyn.” Which technically was true, since I was sitting in my office chair, working, and Ashlyn was across the street in her apartment, supposedly writing the script of her life. Plus Babs had used the present tense. Whatever Ashlyn and I had going, at least in the sleeping together sense, was now in the past. We’d reached a consensus. Made an agreement.
Movement on the monitor pulled my focus back to the screen. Pritchard was leaving the RV, walking to his car. I flipped to the GPS monitor, waiting to see where he was headed.
“I don’t believe you. But I won’t argue,” she said. “Lucas wants to see you. He’s downstairs. That’s partly how I knew about you and Ashlyn.”
I frowned. “What about Lucas being downstairs makes you think Ashlyn and I are sleeping together?”
“Woman’s intuition.” She inhaled slowly, letting out an equally long exhale. “That, and logic. He said it’s been a day and a half since he’s gotten anything new out of her. Time stamps on your emails prove you’ve been working…which means you haven’t been with her.”
I continued staring at the computer screen, engrossed with protecting Ashlyn. Then, when Babs didn’t leave, I looked back up at her.
Babs cocked her head, a dorky smile on her face. “You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”
“That’s quite a leap.”
“I see the way you’ve been with her—the way you’ve always been.”
I rubbed my forehead with the tips of my fingers. Babs wasn’t going to let this go. “Even if I was—and no way am I saying I am—after the festival, Ashlyn will be leaving for New York.”
“It’s a stupid man who lets a little thing like geography get in his way.”
I shook my head. “I can’t go back. I run my business out of Phair now.”
“No such thing as can’t. And you can run the Double Shot expansion and the deal with Cambridge just as easily in New York. Maybe Ashlyn’s the reason you should go back. Make new memories.” Babs turned off her cigarette. “I know you came to Phair for me, son. That doesn’t mean you have to stay.”
I hadn’t come entirely for Babs. Years ago, with the advent of new technology, I realized I could run the Double Shot business from a remote location, which meant I could build the business anywhere. Phair was as good a place for that as any. Besides, I hated New York. Hated what it reminded me of.
Her dark eyes turned contemplative. “You always get that look on your face when you’re thinking about your father. That sad, unsure look. You’re nothing like him, you know.”
If only that were true.
“You have his business savvy, and his big brown eyes. Other than that…”
“Sometimes I snap.”
“You mean like you did when you put Michael in the hospital that time? Or when you did the same to Kyle Pritchard?” Her hands flew to her hips. “Ask yourself this, Noah. What kind of man would you be if you hadn’t?”
“It’s more than that, Babs, and you know it.”
“Michael had a disease.”
She meant the alcoholism, not the cancer he later died from. “Is that why you stayed with him?”
Babs’ eyes bore into mine. “I stayed because even though you weren’t born from me, you’re still my son.” Softer, she repeated, “He had a disease.”
“If that’s true, who’s to say I won’t catch it?”
“So that’s what this is about?”
I stood. “I shouldn’t keep Lucas waiting.”
A few minutes later, I walked into an empty bar that would be packed this time next week. I nodded to the bartender as he excused himself to the kitchen.
“How’s it going, Lucas?” I said, leaning on the bar counter to face the older man.
He set his glass of lemonade on the napkin in front of him. “It was going well until I stopped getting material from Ashlyn. Can you give me an update?”
I raised my brows. “No offense, but shouldn’t you be asking Ashlyn this?”
“The creative process is a delicate one that I’d hate to interfere with. Per our agreement, I assume you’ve seen her recently?”
I hadn’t, but maybe it was time I did.
Chapter Thirteen
Ashlyn
Wow. I’d stumbled on the magic formula for productive creative writing.
Sex.
More specifically, sex with Noah. Except it had been more than twenty-four hours since I’d seen him and my Noah reserves were low, causing me to fall short during the second scene of the third act.
How had we gone from me hating him to me craving his body?
I looked down at the calendar in the bottom corner of my computer. Rehearsals were starting today. With Midnight in Summer still incomplete, Lucas was probably stressed to the max. I had to figure a way past this that didn’t involve sex or opening myself up to greater vulnerability.
Before I could dive back into my script, a message popped up on my computer screen. It was Quinn. I opened the video chat to see my older brother, grinning at me. Ugh. Should have hit “invisible” on the chat screen.
“You look rough,” he said by way of greeting.
“Hello to you, too.”
“Still pissed at me?”
I shrugged. “Would it matter if I was?”
“Probably not,” he said. “How’s the new play coming along? Finished?”
“Unfortunately, no. Just when I think I’ve hit my stride, there’s a setback.”
“Are you doing anything different now than you were doing then?”
I played dumb. “I don’t think so.”
“Think about it. Find the ritual and recreate it. It’s what I do when I’m designing something new.”
Good advice, but Quinn had no idea what he was saying—essentially giving me permission to sleep with his best friend.
I remembered Noah’s reaction yesterday morning when I’d mentioned Quinn. Their friendship had been the proverbial straw that had us agreeing not to sleep together anymore. And while that straw was a valid point, in the broad light of day it absolutely sucked.
Quinn leaned forward, pulling my attention back to him. “You said you were hung up with writing…any way I can help?”
I wished there was. Quinn was incredibly creative in his own way, but that way wasn’t the same as mine. Unfortunately, the only person who could help me was one I needed in a way I couldn’t have.
God, why couldn’t things be simple?
“Ashlyn?”
But what if I had Quinn’s permission?
“Maybe you can help,” I said. “I have these two, um…characters. A brother and sister. The brother is thinking about sleeping with his sister’s best friend. What do you think a realistic reaction would be?”
“Hmm,” Quinn said, pursing his lips. “I don’t know. I’ve never been tempted to sleep with any of your friends.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“But if it were my best friend putting the moves on my little sister…” Quinn made a show of cracking his knuckles.
I rolled my eyes. “Can you be serious for five minutes?”
“I’m being dead serious, Ash.” His blue eyes stared straight into mine. “It would be way too weird and probably more than I could get past.”
The brother giveth, and he taketh away.
…
I found Jessica in the costume workroom a few minutes later. The way she frantically sliced thread and sewed on her commercial-grade machine, I could tell that, like the rest of us, she was feeling the stress of the approaching show.
But that didn’t stop me from unloading my burden.
In under fifteen minutes I told her about my visit with Kyle at the RV park. How he threatened to ruin my career if I didn’t sleep with him, how Anderson Jones was in line to take his place if Kyle was removed as judge. How Noah had showed up later that night, probably to see how I was doing, only he never got around to a
sking because we ended up having the hottest sex I’d ever had—and how in doing so, I’d found my muse, blasting the hell out of the beginning of act 3 and inspiring dynamic changes to the end of act 2.
I also told her how incredibly confused I was about how I felt and what it could mean to Quinn and Noah’s friendship if Quinn ever found out.
“Wait, he let himself into your apartment while you were in the shower?”
I nodded. Of all the things to harp on…
“Has he not realized where he is? This is Texas. People get shot for that shit.” She shook her head. “Lucky for him the only thing you’re carrying is a torch.”
“Ha-ha.”
“Seriously, I don’t get why sleeping with him is so confusing,” she said. “It’s just sex. Since you’ve been in Phair, you haven’t gone on one single date.”
Actually, it’d been longer than that. Almost a year, in fact. Longer still since I’d had sex.
“With that kind of record,” Jess added, “it’s no wonder your brain was stalled. Your system needed a reboot. Believe me, it has nothing to do with love.”
I reached for her monster bag of peanut M&Ms and dumped a few in my hand. “It’s confusing because I hate him…or I did hate him, and now I don’t. I might truly be in…oh, I don’t know!”
“You’re over-thinking, Ash. To him, you’re forbidden fruit. To you, he’s the one who got away. It’s the unknown you’re infatuated with. Things will look different when the shine wears off. What you should do now is grab Mr. Sex Pistol, have some hot bump ‘n grind, and finish the freaking play. After all, I can’t do my job until you do yours.” Jess tossed one garment aside and grabbed another. “Act now, think later. That should be the theme for the day. Not analyze the hell out of everything until you screw us all.”
Jessica was stressed, like we all were. I took no offense at her down-to-the-wire testiness. With this being our third show together, by now I was used to it. “Say I follow your advice. How am I supposed to handle Quinn?”
“He said he wouldn’t be able to get past you sleeping with his best friend. Handling him is easy. Don’t tell him.”
I put an M&M in my mouth and chewed very slowly.
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