The Pretending Plot

by Lauren Blakely

  “In any case, I was calling about something else.” If it were someone besides Janelle Pinkerton, I would have relaxed a little when she changed the subject. “We are so close to making a decision on this film, and one of the things we’ve yet to determine is the best location in the library to use for the—well, you know.”

  Right. The library scene. I knew the library scene well. Hell, the world knew the library scene. Flip through any copy of the book and it fell open to that scene from the extra wear, much like the elevator scene in another famous book. In Escorted Lives, the woman who falls for her escort takes him to the New York Public Library to show him a rare old book that she wishes she could have for her collection. While at the library, they find a quiet nook and he makes love to her in the stacks.

  “Oh. It’s been difficult?” I asked, trying to put together the reason she’d called.

  Normally, casting directors don’t have a role in scouting locations. Our responsibility is to recruit on-camera talent, and the job ends there. It was odd for Janelle to bring up location work with a casting director.

  Janelle sighed heavily, as if this issue had been weighing on her. “It is. I went to the library myself, but I can’t find a place that’s just right. And you have such a good eye for talent that I thought you might have an eye for this as well.”

  “Okay,” I said carefully. I felt as if I were being tested in a new way. There was still no ink on this hypothetical deal, but the Pinkertons were asking me to jump through yet another hoop. But I really wanted this job, and having already gotten myself fake-engaged, what was a scouting trip? “Do you want me to go with you?”

  “My schedule just won’t allow it—another reason I’m calling you, to see if you’d be able to go today. There’s a section on Renaissance Astrology on the fourth floor we’re thinking about. If you could visualize how the actors would look in that setting and give your opinion, it would help immensely as we get closer to making a decision.”

  I sighed, keeping it quiet enough that she wouldn’t hear. “What is it I should be looking for?”

  “I think that section will be a wonderful backdrop for the scene, but Johnathan and the director are quibbling about whether it’s the right scale to frame the two actors. And of course, there’s the logistics of fitting two people and camera equipment into a private nook. If you could take your fiancé . . . Having Reeve help you would allow you to get a sense of scale. What do you think?”

  I took off my glasses and pinched the bridge of my nose. What the producer wanted . . . I would play her game this time but this contract better materialize soon. Friday at the dinner party, I was thinking. “I’m sure Reeve would be a big help. Renaissance Astrology, you say?”

  “Yes. Renaissance Astrology.”

  “All right. I’ll make this last call and then head on over.”

  After hanging up with Janelle, I phoned the final agent on my list then rang up Reeve. “Hello, pretend boyfriend. Where are you right now?”

  “Just going for a run with my friend Jill.”

  This news stoked a flare of jealousy in me. “Jill? Good mate, is she?”

  He laughed. “She’s a great mate. A great friend.”

  “How lovely,” I said coolly, trying but failing to set aside this annoying envy.

  Just focus on the job, Sutton.

  “Is there a chance you could meet me at the public library on Fifth and Forty-Second in an hour?”

  He was quick to answer. “I need to shower,” he said. “So an hour from now, I might be naked . . .”

  I drew in a sharp breath. The tease. The absolute tease.

  “So better make it an hour and a half.”

  “Yes, let’s do. Enjoy your run. And your shower.”

  There was a sound that might have been his chuckle. “I always do. Though even more when it’s shared . . . You know. To conserve water.”

  With that little nudge, I was picturing Reeve in the shower. Maybe it was just as well that I got out of my office and into someplace full of books, art, and science—stimulation for the mind and less for the body.

  14

  Reeve

  I was just following orders, and man, did she give them well.

  “Gotta go,” I told Jill as we ran down the West Side Bike Path.

  She pouted. “Come on! You’re the only one who can keep up with me. I thought we were going for eight miles today. You’re going soft.” She pushed my not-at-all-soft arm as we kept pace together.

  I scoffed. “Ha. I could totally school you. But, one, I already did weights at the gym this morning, and two, I have to be somewhere.”

  “One, you can’t school me. Two, where do you have to go? I thought you weren’t working this week.”

  “Not at the messenger job, no. This is a side gig.”

  “And you were supposed to help me get ready for my Crash the Moon audition,” Jill said. The midday sun beat down. It was November, and the air was chilly, but with five miles under our belts already, I felt pretty warm.

  “I’ll help you tomorrow,” I said as we ran farther. “I have to cruise all the way over to the east side to shower, then get to Midtown.”

  She shot me a curious look. “Fine. Leave me, if you must, but don’t leave me hanging. What’s the gig? Who was that on the phone?”

  I shook my head and laughed. We had just enough run left for me to tell Jill everything. As we slowed, her eyes widened, and then she punched me on the arm as if she were proud of me. “Can you get me an audition for Escorted Lives? I’d be happy to play a receptionist at the agency. Anything, anything at all.”

  I stopped running and kissed Jill quickly on the forehead. “You know I’ll do whatever I can for you,” I said, and I meant it. “You’re my good mate.”

  She affected a British accent too. “Cheers, mate.”

  I waved goodbye, then I ran across town, showered, changed, and caught the subway to the New York Public Library where Sutton was waiting outside by the lions. Damn, she looked sharp in black leather boots, a short skirt, and a black coat cinched at the waist. All that luscious hair was pinned up again, and she had her glasses on. I couldn’t stop my eyes from wandering to her legs, and just as I suspected, I saw the slightest hint of lace. Thigh-high stockings again. She was killing me.

  Sadly, maddeningly, her smile was as plastic as it had been after the theater. That hard smile didn’t go with the lace-tipped stockings. I couldn’t read her.

  She leaned in and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

  I shook my head. Hell, no. That was not going to do. “After six months together, all I get is a peck on the cheek?”

  I placed my hands on her face and tilted it so her blue eyes met mine, and as I gazed at her, her pupils grew bigger and her walls started to melt away. Her body shifted the slightest bit closer, but I stayed totally still. I wanted her to feel the weight of my stare. I wanted her to feel undressed by my eyes, unwound by my touch.

  And then, there it was. The slightest parting of her lips. I wasted no time, diving in for a deep and hungry kiss, right there on the front steps of the library as book borrowers and researchers and students and tourists streamed past on their way up or down. We were a postcard of kissing. We were the naval hero and his sweetheart reunited after he’d been at sea. We were lovers who couldn’t keep their hands off each other after weeks apart.

  We were every kiss on every street that anyone had ever gawked at and wished it was them being kissed like that.

  Sutton moved against me, her chest lightly pressing against the cotton of my T-shirt beneath my scuffed leather jacket. Just when I felt her start to give in completely, I pulled away, grabbed her hand, and led her up the stairs.

  Still wobbly from the kiss, she missed a step and stumbled. In one swift move, I grabbed her elbow then slid an arm around her waist.

  “You okay?”

  Her eyes were wide, the tiniest bit shocked. It would only have been a small tumble. It would only have caused a minor scrape or brui
se. Still, she seemed glad to have been caught.

  “Thank you.”

  Then I stopped and gave her a soft kiss on her forehead. “I’m always happy to catch you.”

  It was just a thing to say. But hearing myself, I realized how earnestly I meant it. I was happy to be around her and even happier to be able to save her from even minor discomfort. It made me feel useful. It made me feel like there might be a way to get her to always look at me the way she did now.

  15

  Sutton

  That kiss.

  He kissed me like it was the only thing that mattered in the world. I ran my fingers absently across my top lip as if I could feel the kiss still there. I wanted to revel in it. To live in it. To encase myself in that bubble of an afternoon kiss.

  It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair in the least because it was all an act. Because he had the raw talent to pull that off, to make a kiss seem so convincing I’d suspended disbelief out there.

  I had to restore the balance of power somehow, especially after the way I’d tripped. I was woozy and drunk from his kisses, so drunk I could barely walk straight. I had to right my ship. So as we wandered through shelves upon shelves of hardbound volumes on science and literature, on history and make-believe, I chatted in a low voice.

  “So you took a degree in literature?” I asked as we rounded a corner on the way to Renaissance Astrology. The smell of musty old books was strong, and there was dust in the air. Nearby, quiet patrons worked on computers or slouched low in crackly leather chairs with their tomes, the pages lit by the faint glow of green lamps with pull-chain switches.

  Reeve nodded. “Yep, American Lit. Ernest Hemingway. Ralph Ellison. Faulkner,” he said, rattling off names. He paused, shaking his head. “Faulkner—definitely not a fan of.”

  “Why not?” I asked as I peered down a long row of books on—as promised—Renaissance Astrology. The wooden shelves were high, and no one was in the aisle. I tipped my head that way, and he followed.

  “He made no sense,” Reeve said about Faulkner. “You ever try to read him?”

  I nodded. “All I remember is it felt like Yoda talking. Every sentence was written backward, it seemed.”

  Reeve laughed, and I liked the sound of his laughter. I liked, too, that I felt back in charge.

  “But I’m definitely a fan of F. Scott Fitzgerald.”

  “Right. Of course. You said Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and The Great Gatsby were toss-ups for your favorite book ever.”

  Reeve flashed a small smile at me as we reached the end of the aisle. I looked around. We were in a section of the library full of books on the most prominent constellations in the 1600s and what they portended.

  Taking them all in, Reeve quoted in a sultry voice, “I’ve been drunk for about a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library.”

  I cocked my head and looked at him curiously. “What is that?”

  “Some dude says it in The Great Gatsby when Nick finds him in the library.”

  “Oh. How apropos,” I said. There seemed to be a double meaning in the line—or perhaps it was the parallels to where we were. A library, the feeling of being drunk on kisses. Then there was the scene we were scouting for.

  Or maybe my mind went straight to double-entendres around Reeve.

  I felt that dryness in my throat again, and I swallowed.

  “So I suppose you’re a big fan of Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan then?”

  Reeve shook his head and leaned against the wooden panel of the shelves. “No. I think they’re selfish pricks.”

  “Really? You don’t hear that often.”

  He nodded intensely, his jaw ticking. “All they care about is themselves. They’re held up as this great ideal of a doomed love affair, but they’re totally self-centered. Daisy especially. She pretty much ignores her kid all the time.” He scoffed derisively.

  “I don’t disagree with you, but it does raise the question. Why do you like the book then?”

  “Easy,” he said with a grin. “I like the writing. Lines like ‘I love New York on summer afternoons when everyone’s away. There’s something very sensuous about it—overripe, as if all sorts of funny fruits were going to fall into your hands.’”

  Listening to him quote sumptuous passages from literature in that sexy, smooth voice of his was not going to help me stay in control. My knees felt wobbly. I pressed a hand against my forehead as if I might faint.

  “You okay?” he asked in a soft voice. Then he reached for me, brushing loose strands of hair across my forehead.

  I nodded, afraid to speak. No other actor had ever affected me like this. It was much easier to say “I don’t date actors” if no actor had ever tempted me before. They were work to me. They were my job. A job I loved, but that was all. Call them in, try them out, pick the best.

  Reeve was far too skilled at playing the role of a man who loved me. He made me suspend disbelief too easily. Or maybe it was that I wanted so badly to believe him.

  He looped his hands around my neck, drawing me nearer to him.

  “I like the last line of the book too. ‘Tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther . . . And one fine morning—So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.’”

  I inhaled sharply and damn near collapsed. This was too much. I was Silly Putty with him, I was a teenager touched for the very first time. There were sparks inside all the private places in my body, and I wanted him to know he put them there. I inched closer, and he drew his arms tighter around me.

  “I see great writing turns you on, Sutton,” he whispered, then left a soft kiss on my neck.

  “You too,” I said, and pressed against his jeans. He was rock hard, and knowing I affected him made me suddenly feel like I could turn the tables. Most of the time, I felt so out of control, so much like an open book, that I needed to get my power back before I fell even further under the spell of his words, his tongue, his fingers—those eyes that drowned me in desire.

  This was how I’d regain the upper hand.

  I pressed a palm against the denim of his jeans, and he responded with a long, low moan. I grinned wickedly. Oh yes, this was going to be fun.

  Glancing one way, then another, I saw that no one was near us. We were in the far corner of the stacks, all alone on a Wednesday afternoon. I heard no footsteps, only the faint ticking of a wall clock somewhere and then a low hum, likely a heater. We were surrounded only by books, by the facts and fictions of Renaissance men and women trying to map their lives from the moon and the stars.

  This man made me feel wild, unhinged. Might as well be that wild woman.

  “There’s really only one way to know for sure if this is the ideal location for the famous library scene,” I said, feeling naughty as I began unzipping his jeans and loving that feeling. I looked up at him, as if to ask if it was okay. But I wasn’t really asking. I just wanted to see the surprise in his eyes, and yes, it was there. He hadn’t expected this. There was a little nervousness in him right now. But as I reached my hand inside his briefs, feeling the hard length of him, I knew he wouldn’t back down.

  He felt amazing—long and thick and sculpted. Velvet soft outside, rock hard inside. I could have spent all afternoon playing with him, toying with him, delighting in the perfection of his size. But there was work to be done, and orgasms to be achieved, and the clock was ticking. I kneeled, and keeping one hand wrapped firmly around the base, I kissed the tip. He let out another quiet moan, and when I glanced up, I saw him leaning back against the books, biting down hard on his lip.

  I teased him for a few seconds with my tongue, and from the way he twined his fingers into my pinned-up hair, he enjoyed the feel of my lips on his long, hard length. I wanted to run my tongue from one side, then the other, tasting every inch. I wanted to savor his deliciousness and take my sweet time getting to know every fabulous inch of him. But instead, I wrapped my lips around him, and brought him all the way into my
mouth.

  He gripped my hair tighter as little sounds and moans escaped his lips. As I moved up and down, bringing him as far into my throat as I could, wanting him to feel completely surrounded by my warm, inviting mouth, I gazed up at him. His eyes were shut hard, and his features were screwed up in a look of exquisite pleasure. At last. I could do to him what he’d done to me. I could take charge of his pleasure. I could ensure that those waves of sweet release washed over him. I could have told him, “Don’t worry. I’ve got this,” but I had a feeling he wasn’t worried at all. Besides, my mouth was quite full.

  I teased him all over with my tongue and my lips, pressing my hands against his strong, hard thighs—toned from all that cycling—for balance. He grabbed at my hair, and that aroused me more, knowing how close he was.

  I wanted to touch myself at the same time. I was aching, longing desperately for him to lift me up so I could wrap my legs around him and slide onto him, riding him there in the library, fighting the desire to scream his name in pleasure. I was a loud one, and I never held back if I had a choice.

  But this moment was for him. Because pleasing him would give me back my power. I wouldn’t feel so helpless. He was a perfect specimen of hotness in every way, and I couldn’t resist bringing him in deeper.

  “Sutton,” he moaned, and that made me tighten my lips around him. I loved that he was so far gone into the feeling that he had to say my name, he couldn’t keep quiet. Soon, he rocked his hips into me, and I went faster, as more low and quiet moans met my ears. Then he thrust once, twice, and I tasted him for the first time, and I loved it. I wanted more of it, more of him. I could do this every day.

  When he was done, I rose and brushed one hand against the other. Reeve had a dazed look etched across his gorgeous features.

  “Why, yes, I think the Renaissance Astrology section will do just fine.”