Playing With Her Heart (Caught Up In Love #4)(37)
Author: Lauren Blakely

I move the curtains aside and walk to the piano, trying to compose myself. But into what I don’t know. The actress here for rehearsal? The woman unfazed by her boss? Or the person who doesn’t have a handle on herself?

He’s on the bench, straddling it rather than sitting at it, and he’s swiping his index finger across his phone.

“Texting someone?” Something annoys me about the fact that he’s doing something so ordinary—texting—while I don’t have a clue how to act. I wish I could abort the snottiness in my voice, but it’s too late.

He shakes his head. “No. I’m reading the news.”

“Oh.” Now I feel foolish, but also relieved. I sit down next to him. “Anything interesting going on in the world?”

“It’s snowing, and the government still has a deficit,” he says with that wry smile. I want to reach out and touch his face, trace the outline of his lips. So I do, and he leans into me, like a cat who likes being pet. Then I stop because I want to know more about him. I want to understand him.

“Are you a news junkie or a weather junkie?”

“Both. But in this case, news. I read the New York Times religiously.”

“What else? Do you read books?”

“I have nothing against books. But I would have to say nearly all my reading is the newspaper. Well, the paper online.”

“Cover to cover?”

He nods, and it seems fitting that he’s a news hound. It works for him. It suits him. He seems like a man who wants to understand the world, and so that’s what he does. But I also think there’s more to it. “Do you think you lean towards news so much because you spend your day with make believe?”

His lips quirk up as if he’s intrigued by the question, considering it. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. But yeah, maybe that’s part of it. I spend all my hours constructing the most believable artifice I can, so when I’m not playing pretend, I want to know what’s real.”

Real. There it is again, and the word makes me wince because I’m struggling so much with holding onto real and make believe, and they seem to be seeping into each other.

He fingers a strand of my hair absently and it’s such a sweet gesture, because that’s all it is. It’s not a prelude, it’s not the start of something more. It is what it is. “What about you, Jill? What do you read?”

I take a long but quiet inhale and I stare off at the faraway balcony of the theater. The balcony that will be full of people soon. I flash back to Sunday with Patrick, to how I was paralyzed with some strange fear about answering truthfully. Maybe that’s why I’ve been asking Davis these questions. Maybe I’ve been asking so he could ask me back. So I can test myself. See if I can do it. If I can speak a simple truth.

I look at him, and it doesn’t hurt, I don’t feel like all my words are stuck. It’s easy, remarkably easy to answer.

“Romance,” I say, and it’s as if a piece of my regret floats away when I voice a truth. It feels good, so I keep going. “Racy romance, to be precise.”

A grin tugs at his lips. “Of course you read racy romance,” he says in a flirty, sexy voice. No judgement. No teasing. Just knowing.

“Why do you say of course?”

“Because you couldn’t play this part if you weren’t a romantic. Because I see it in you. Because I see all this passion, all this pain, all this hope. All this sexiness.”

I can feel it again. The same thing I felt when I sang in our first private rehearsal. As if a fragment of my frozen heart is breaking away, as if the ice I’ve encased myself in is calving off, freeing up a tiny part of me that wants to be known. And it feels good, so more words spill out, like a confessional. “I read dirty stuff. And racy stuff. And erotic romance. And I love books with heroes who talk dirty,” I say as I move closer, and run my fingers along the smooth buttons on his shirt.

“I had a feeling you did,” he says, and he can’t stop grinning.

“It doesn’t bother you?”

“Why would it bother me?”

“I don’t know,” I say with a shrug.

“Do you masturbate when you read your erotic novels?”

“Yes.”

“I would love to watch you sometime.”

My eyes widen with shock. “You would?”

“Of course,” he says, as if it’s the most normal thing in the world, when it never occurred to me he would. Or anyone would want to. “I want to know how you touch yourself.”

My skin is burning again, and if we keep talking like this, I’ll be doing a striptease for him in the middle of the stage. But I can’t seem to resist. I reach for him, trailing my hand through his hair. I love the way his hair is so soft under my fingers. He sighs deeply, and leans close to me, resting his forehead against mine. “Jill,” he says in a low voice.

“Davis,” I say, and that’s all, because there’s nothing more to be said. Then we’re silent like that, quiet for a few moments, and there’s something very comforting about being with him, as the snow falls outside, and we’re inside. But soon I break the silence.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Yes.”

“Did I taste like sin and heaven?”

He nods, then presses his lips lightly to my forehead. “You are my sin.” He brushes them gently against my earlobe. “And my heaven.” Then the barest of kisses on my lips. “And everything in between.”

Then he pulls back, and his expression has changed from the softness of the moment to a steely one. “And I hate that you’re in love with Patrick. I hate it. Because it makes me crazy to want you this much and to know how you feel for him. It makes me utterly insane.”

I open my mouth to say something, to deny it, to ask how he knew it was Patrick. But I stop, because he’s right. And he’s waiting for me to offer a denial, but when no words come, he stands up and turns away from me, his voice suddenly cool as he reminds me why I’m here. “We need to get back to work.”

“Do you want to do that scene again?” I ask tentatively, the words coming out all choppy.

He shakes his head, and waves a hand dismissively. “The blocking is fine. We’ll work on your solos.”

So we spend the next two hours working and nothing more. When we’re done, he holds open the door for the car, but doesn’t join me. And of course, that’s because he doesn’t want anything more from this actress.