Please don’t say it. Please don’t say that word.
He must have seen it in my eyes because he stopped himself. “I know that you were...hurt, in ways that mean...maybe you’re not ready to….” He sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Shit. I’m sorry. I’m not good at this.”
I grabbed his wrist. “You’re great at this,” I told him in a small voice. No one else had even tried, because no one else knew.
“What I’m saying is...I don’t want you to feel under any pressure. We don’t have to do anything you’re not ready for.”
My heart swelled until it felt as if it was filling my entire chest. God, he thought...he thought I didn’t want to have sex because of what had happened to me. I had to tell him that it was just because I wanted it to be right. And yet, even as I opened my mouth to say it, I knew that wasn’t true.
I’d been telling myself that. I’d been convinced that was the reason. After all, what happened in Chicago had never put me off sex before.
Me.
Jasmine.
It hit me so hard I actually stiffened in my seat. He wasn’t talking about Jasmine. He’d seen right through me, yet again. He was talking about Emma.
He wanted Emma. And he was dead right—she was traumatized by what had happened. She wasn’t ready for sex.
I nodded, my voice cracking with emotion. “Th—Thank you,” I managed. And then I just sat there, looking helplessly at him. God, he was gorgeous. What the hell is he doing with me?! I wanted to touch him. I wanted to hurl myself into his arms, but I didn’t want to start something I couldn’t finish because he was right: Emma wasn’t ready for sex.
And I didn’t feel like being Jasmine, tonight. I didn’t want to lie to him anymore.
“Would you like,” he said slowly, “to dance?”
I almost laughed. “You’ve never see me dance,” I said.
“You’ve never seen me dance. I’ll outdo you, lack-of-moves-wise. I promise you.”
He held out his hand and I took it. It felt as if I was in a dream. He led me into the middle of the kitchen floor and turned up the music just a little—some slow song about love and hope that fitted just perfectly. He put a huge, gentle hand between my shoulders and drew me to him.
I pressed myself to his body slowly, each part of me making contact in turn. Something felt different. Just the touch of my leg against his was electric. The very tips of my breasts brushed his chest and I caught my breath. What the hell’s going on?! I was behaving like Karen—well, Karen pre-Connor. But I wasn’t some blushing virgin. I’d done things with guys that most people only read about in books. And yet, as he began to move clumsily to the music and I rocked against him, I was almost trembling. I was—
I was Emma. I’d slipped into Emma. After three years of keeping my Jasmine mask firmly in place, with only a couple of brief slips, now I was switching to my true self without even being aware of it. And to Emma, this sort of close contact was completely new.
We began to move. It was very different to anything that Natasha or Clarissa would have done, with their lithe, elfin bodies. With my curves and his rugged, muscled form, we looked more like a couple of old-style ballroom dancers. I needed a long gown with sequins. Except—
“Wow,” I said as we turned in slow circles, both focusing intently on not treading on each other’s toes. “We really can’t dance.”
He grinned. “I told you.”
“Yeah, but I presumed you were being modes—OW!”
“Sorry!”
“”—modest, but oh my God you’re like an out of time elephant.”
In answer, he pressed me closer to him and I felt the heat throb from his body and soak into mine. I suddenly didn’t give a damn about how badly we were dancing. We slowly turned and stepped and circled around the darkened kitchen and I wanted it to go on forever. I felt...triumphant, I guess. We were finally together and nothing was ever going to split us apart. With every step, I felt the broad curve of his chest pressing into my breasts, the warmth of his palms on my back. It felt like nothing bad could ever happen, as long as I was in his arms.
The song ended.
We looked at each other and, as I saw those gleaming, clear blue eyes in the darkness, the candle flames reflected in them, I felt a deep, hot tightening in my groin. Maybe I’m holding back too much. Maybe we could just...maybe tonight is the right time.
“Ryan,” I said slowly.
And then the next song started and it was that song. I reeled as if I was drunk, ducking my head and staggering to the side.
“Jasmine?!”
I could barely hear him. In my head, the song was so loud, so loud, because Brady had turned the volume up so that no one could hear me screaming.
“Jasmine!” Ryan as reaching for me but I batted his hands away. My gaze was darting around the room, seeing scratched wood paneling and the thousands of tiny holes around the dartboard. I could smell the cigarette smoke, feel the squish of spilled beer on the carpet.
“Jasmine!”
I was in the back room of the bar. I was eighteen.
The music ended abruptly. I squeezed my eyes tight closed because I was scared that if I opened them, I was going to see all their faces. Brady. Earl. Thomas.
My dad.
I had my hands up in front of me protectively, palms out. I felt another set of hands brush mine, large and male. Just a tentative touch. I jerked mine away but I didn’t lash out. A few seconds later, the male hands came back. Just the fingertips, this time, touching my fingertips. Making the smallest, most delicate connection they possibly could.
I felt something throbbing through my body, pushing back the memories. Something warm and pure.
His hands slowly pressed into mine, finger joint by finger joint, rolling down until our palms were touching. When I didn’t resist, he laced his fingers into mine. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “It’s okay. It’s me. It’s Ryan.”
I drew in a shuddering breath. I still didn’t dare open my eyes.
“He can’t hurt you, now,” said Ryan.
It welled up inside me, black and filled with poison, like some living, breathing abomination that I had to exorcise or be destroyed by. I couldn’t tell him what happened but I could vent that one piece of it, to help him understand. I spat it out in a single word. “They.”
And immediately, I felt his hands tighten on mine. I could sense his whole body tensing—he almost seemed to swell, his already huge frame expanding, muscle and bone creaking as he prepared to fight. To kill them all.
He pulled me hard to him and I nestled into his chest as the sobs overtook me. Hot, jagged pain that came from way down deep, that burned and tore as it emerged. But the feel of him against me gave me strength. I clung to him. I wanted to cling to him forever.
“I—I don’t want to g—go home,” I said between sobs. His shirt was wet with my tears.
In answer, he wrapped his hands tighter around my body. His hands stroked down the back of my head, over and over.
“But I don’t want to—I’m not—”
“Shh,” he whispered.
“Could you just—could you just hold me all night?”
He pulled me hard against him. “I’ll hold you forever.”
***
We spent that night in his bed, with me in one of his t-shirts and him spooning me from behind. He wrapped his arms around my waist and put his face against my neck and the solid, reassuring warmth of him eventually allowed me to sleep.
The next morning, I was worried he was going to ask about it. I could tell he wanted to. I could see the anger in his eyes, the instinctual need for revenge. But he just asked me if I wanted juice and made me toast.
I sat there stewing at the kitchen table, drinking cup after cup of coffee as he showered. I knew that his patience wouldn’t last if he found out about the rest of my past. Me being a victim—maybe he could handle that. Maybe he could live with the anger and never try to seek revenge, although I doubted it, long term. But, whe
n he found out the sort of life I’d had, he’d start asking question after question until eventually he arrived at the truth. A truth that would destroy his vision of me. And if he dug too deep and alerted my dad, we could both wind up dead.
I’d promised I’d be straight with him—that I’d stop acting. If I wanted us to have any sort of real relationship, I had to tell him the truth. But if I wanted to keep him, I had to keep lying.
***
It was the first time we’d arrived at the studio together, so we had to have the whole should we go in together or separately conversation. Eventually, we decided that we’d better be discreet and not let on that we were seeing each other. Filming was nearly over and it was probably safer not to complicate things. At least now, there would be no more problems between us when it came to shooting Tony and Isabel scenes. We were in love, and so were our characters. What could be better?
When we got to the set, though, the script manager had fresh pages for us. Salmon pink ones that replaced the taupe ones we’d been given just a few days before. I’d known from the start that Dixon and his writers tended to fiddle with the script during shooting, so it wasn’t unexpected. It just meant Ryan and I would have to learn a few new lines. I wondered why Dixon was changing things, though, so close to the end of filming. If we stayed on schedule, the shoot should wrap the next day. I paged through the new material.
Isabel is pushed back in her seat. They kiss passionately.
I smirked. This was going to be fun.
Greg: I’ve wanted to do that since the first day at the academy.
Wait, what? Who’s Greg?!
I looked up at Ryan, who was also scanning the pages. He met my eyes, aghast.
***
“It’s to give us options,” said Dixon.
“Options?” I echoed.
“It’s a pilot. We don’t know how test audiences will react.” He grinned, warming to his subject. “You see, Tony is the bad boy. The anti-hero. Now we think women will lap him up, but we want to make sure we have some flexibility. So Isabel’s unrequited love from police academy also shows up, toward the end of the episode. Greg. He’s the good guy. And Isabel, she’s conflicted. Caught between two men she loves!” He looked at me. “Can you do conflicted?”
“I’ve had some practice,” I managed.
Ryan and I stumbled away from Dixon. I could see the expression on Ryan’s face, so I quickly pulled him into the nearest room so he wouldn’t be heard. The nearest room happened to be the police station’s old, disused guy’s bathroom. Eww.
“You have to kiss him?!” Ryan asked.
I raised my hands in defense. “Not really kiss him.”
“What, you won’t actually touch?”
“Well...yes, we’ll have to kiss. But not really kiss.”
“How is it not really kissing if you kiss?!”
“It won’t mean anything! It’s just acting!”
His blue eyes were burning. “You kissed me as acting and that felt pretty real.”
“But that was real. This will just be a screen kiss.”
“That’s what you said to me. And look what happened to us.”
I flushed. All my old lies were coming back to haunt me. “I’m not going to run off with some guy just because I screen kiss him. I was in love with you. I don’t even know this guy.”
“But you’re going to let him stick his tongue in your mouth.”
I stood there, stunned. Screen kisses were just one of those things you did, in acting. I hadn’t been ready for the outpouring of jealousy. From his point of view, it must seem really weird.
Actually, when you stopped to think about it, it was kind of weird, doing that intimate act with someone you barely knew.
I put my palms on Ryan’s chest and looked up into his eyes. “Look,” I said slowly, “it means nothing. I won’t even be thinking about it. I’ll be thinking about my expression and if the angle to camera is okay and what line I have to say next. I won’t be kissing.”
Except...I kind of would be. Shit. Doing a kissing scene had never bothered me before, not even when it was up on stage at Fenbrook with some guy I didn’t really like, in front of all my friends. But back then, I hadn’t had Ryan in my life. I suddenly started to understand how he felt. How would I like it if he had to kiss some woman?
“And what about him?” asked Ryan. “What’s he going to be thinking about? Just because you’re professional, doesn’t mean he will be. What if he….”
We both stared at each other.
“...enjoys it,” Ryan finished at last.
There was silence. Neither of us knew what to say.
“It’ll be fine,” I said weakly. “He won’t...enjoy it. And I won’t enjoy it. He’ll probably be some troll with...with slobbery lips.”
***
He was gorgeous. With lips like a Roman emperor’s, all full lower lip and hard power. He had cheekbones to die for and curling, pale blond hair that probably looked angelic when he was a baby. Now that he’d hit his mid-twenties—just a few years older than me—it managed to look angelic and broodingly evil at the same time. He looked like a choirboy who’d joined a rock band.
Goddamnit, I thought. Why couldn’t he have been ugly?
Tyler, the actor who’d be playing Greg, was nothing like Ryan. He was the opposite of Ryan, in a way. And of course I wasn’t interested—I knew very well who I wanted. But I could still feel myself flushing as I looked at him.
“Troll, huh?” whispered Ryan beside me.
We were in the briefing room. The scene had all the cops—including Tony, the cop played by Ryan—receiving their daily briefing. Then, after Tony and all the others had left, Greg would grab Isabel’s arm and hold her back until they were the only ones in the room. And then he’d Reveal His True Feelings. And then, in the next scene, he’d kiss her.
Kiss me.
I gave my best disinterested sniff. “He’s not my type.”
Ryan just looked at me.
“Too....pretty,” I whispered.
“Yeah. I hear that’s a common complaint.”
I squirmed a little. “He’s...pretty boy. All cheekbones and long eyelashes.”
“I don’t have cheekbones?”
I looked across at him. He had awesome cheekbones. “They look better on you,” I said weakly.
“Okay,” said Dixon. “Everyone form up.”
All of us playing cops went to sit at our assigned desks and faced the guy at the front who was going to give the briefing.
“Now, Ryan?” asked Dixon. “I want you to look across at Tyler here, who’ll be playing Greg. You’re suspicious. He’s new and he’s good looking and he’s sitting next to your girl. Tyler? You see the look and you’re not fazed at all. You’ll sit where the hell you like.”
Ryan and Tyler nodded.
“Action!” called Dixon.
The cop at the front of the room finished up the briefing, some authentic-sounding stuff about gangs and drugs. It didn’t really matter: the audience’s attention would be on the foreground, where Ryan was looking across at Tyler. It looked as if he wanted to pick up his desk and hurl it at him. Tyler, meanwhile, looked back impassively. Imperiously, even—he had that whole Roman emperor thing going on. He’d have made a great prince. Or some young king, demanding that the servant girl be sent to his quarters. Ripping her blouse from her body before he—
Ahem. I felt myself flush again. I wasn’t interested in him...but that didn’t stop him being hot.
“Aaand cut!” said Dixon. “Good, Ryan. Excellent. You two really spark. I’d totally believe you hate each other. Okay, everyone got ready to file out and we’ll go tight on Jasmine and Tyler.”
The cameras moved in close to us. I swallowed.
“Action!”
“Okay,” said the cop at the front of the room, and shuffled his papers. “Let’s be careful out there.”
I started to walk toward the door, trying to forget that I was about to be grabbed. It’s
hard to act surprised when you know something’s coming. Think of something else. Think of Ryan and the meal and dancing and—
A hard hand grabbed my arm just above the elbow. I actually yelped. I span around.
Tyler was there with those cold, determined eyes. Something melted inside me. I mean, I knew it was just acting. But it really did feel like the kind of look a guy would give you when he’s crazy about you. When he’s been crazy about you for years but hasn’t said anything.
“We need to talk,” said Tyler.
I had to fight to remember my line. “H—Here?” I was meant to sound nervous. That part was easy.
“I’ve been trying to keep quiet,” said Tyler. “I can’t, anymore.”
I looked over my shoulder at the empty room. I was meant to be Isabel, checking the coast was clear, checking that my lover, Tony wasn’t watching. What I was actually doing was seeing if Ryan was anywhere in sight. He wasn’t.
Tyler grabbed my shoulders and I jerked my head round to face him. “I should have said it in our first year,” he said. “Or the next. Or the next. But I never thought...I thought there’d be time.”
“I—I’m with someone,” I said. And, just then, I saw Ryan. He’d circled around and re-entered the briefing room through the rear door, out of sight of the cameras. And he was watching us.
“I know,” said Tyler. “And I...don’t...care.” He moved in very close to me, close enough that I had to move back. My ass hit the wood of my desk and suddenly he was right up against me, his muscled body hard against mine. This was all in the script. But in the script, it hadn’t seemed so—
I looked up into his eyes. Real.
I gave a quick, desperate shake of my head and ran for the door, just as the script said. Except that, in my hurry to get away, I banged into a discarded chair and went stumbling. I kept going and made it through the door and into the hallway. I heard Dixon yell “Cut!” behind me. Only then did I stop and walk back in.
“Do you want me to do that again?” I asked. “I hit the chair.”
Acting Brave (Fenbrook Academy #3) Page 29
