“Oh,” she says, and there’s the faintest note of being let down in her voice, as if she wanted me to have looked her up just for her. “Coaching is good,” she continues. “I scaled back a bit when I got the part, but I’m still working with a core group of women who are training for a breast cancer awareness run to raise funds for research.”
“That’s great. Takes a lot of discipline to do that, to run every day. I imagine it takes even more discipline to have run five marathons.”
“Yes. I am immensely disciplined,” she says and there’s something veiled in her answer, so I can’t help but wonder what other areas she is equally disciplined about. “In fact, I’ve learned all the lines already.”
Oh, so that’s what she meant. My mind was drifting off to tawdrier shores.
She stops briefly on the landing to the fourth floor. I stop, too. She turns and wheels on me, and a look of frustration mingled with a hopeless sort of desperation crosses her gorgeous face. “You can’t just do this. You can’t keep coming in and out of my life,” she says, her voice nearly breaking.
I step closer to her, worry pounding through me. “I’m sorry,” I say, but I don’t know what I’ve done wrong. “Are you okay?”
She smiles, the kind you flash when you’ve pulled something off. “It’s from the show. Act II, Scene Five. Near the end.”
“Damn,” I breathe out, shaking my head, and matching her grin. “You had me. You were so convincing that it didn’t even occur to me you were giving me a line. Because I know them all too.” Though I’m not an actor and would never want to be one, I shift into Paolo seamlessly with one tilt of the head, one cocky stare. “But I’m in your life. I’m in it, Ava,” I say, emphatically. We’re no longer in the stairwell. We’re in an art gallery, where this scene takes place and Ava is angry with Paolo because he’s shown up when she didn’t expect him.
With every word crisply enunciated, because Ava is through with all their ups and downs, she commands, “Then be in it.”
“I will if you’ll stop pushing me out.” I step closer to her.
“I never did that and you know it,” she says, fixing me a tough stare, but she doesn’t back away.
I pause. Breathe. Let go of the anger. “Ava, I can’t stand this fighting anymore.”
She raises her eyebrows playfully. “Let’s do something other than fight then.” Then, her eyes soften. She reaches for my face with tentative fingers. “You have something on your…”
I frown, puzzled by the words that don’t fit. “That’s not the next line. The next line is I have something in mind—”
She cuts me off. “No, I was going to say you have a sesame seed right here.” She taps her chin lightly to demonstrate.
“Oh.” I swipe once to wipe it off.
“You missed,” she says softly, and now we’re done with lines. It’s just us. “Davis,” she adds, and it’s halfway to an invitation because she’s talking to me now, not Paolo, and she’s still got that seductive tone in her voice. I want to hear her say Davis in other ways. I want her to say my name because she can’t not. Because she’s reaching for me, and pulling me deeper, and because I’m doing things to her that drive her so wild she says my name in a breathless, fevered way.
I want her to say my name to ask for it, to plead for it, to beg for it.
She sweeps her thumb across my chin gently. I hitch in a breath as she touches me. “I got it,” she whispers, flicking the errant sesame seed quickly to the floor. I don’t know if she’s Jill or Ava anymore, but I don’t care because now she’s running her thumb across my jawline, and the barest touch from her makes me hard.
“Did you find any more?” I ask, in a low, hoarse voice.
She shakes her head, her hair moving with the slightest swoosh, enough that I catch a faint scent of her pineapple shampoo that already is her scent to me. The one that will always make me think of her. Now she’s running her index finger across my lower lip, and that’s it. That’s all I can take.
“Jill,” I warn.
“What?”
“If you keep doing that…” I let my voice trail off.
She keeps doing it, tracing my lips with her finger, obliterating all my willpower. I place my coffee and bagel on the stairs then grab her wrists, walk her two steps backward. She’s up against the concrete wall. Her lips are parted and her eyes are full of lust. I hold tight to her wrists as I capture her mouth with mine.
She lets out the tiniest little whimper at the first touch of my lips. I want to kiss her hard and hungry, because she makes me feel that way. But I want her to know I’m in control, that I’m leading now, not her. Without breaking my hold on her wrists, I trace her lips with the tip of my tongue, slowly, torturously. She tries to deepen the kiss, grappling at me with her sinfully delicious mouth but I take my time, tormenting her with my tongue, leaving her no room to think of anything else but how she’d feel if I were doing this to her in other places.
I move to her jawline, kissing her there, then teasing my way to her earlobe, flicking my tongue against her skin. “Is that what you wanted me to do?” I whisper.
“Yes,” she pants.
“Is that why you touched me?”
“Yes.”
“Have you been thinking about me since that day in my office?”
“No.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
She inhales sharply, then whispers in a ragged voice. “Yes.”
I let go of her wrists, and they fall to her sides. I untie the belt of her jacket looped at her waist, then undo each button on her coat, letting the fabric fall open. “I hate winter,” I say. “Too many layers.” Then I pull back to look at her. She’s wearing a V-neck sweater that makes her br**sts look fantastic. Her ni**les harden under my gaze. I finger the bottom of her sweater, careful not to take this too far, but dying to know what her skin feels like. I lift the fabric, and run my fingers across the soft skin of her stomach.
She shivers, practically vibrating with sexuality. It’s as if her body is on a low hum, waiting for the right person to turn her all the way up, all the way on. So I give her what she wants, slanting my mouth against hers and kissing her hard and rough, so she’ll still be able feel me later when she’s all alone. She responds instantly, grabbing my hair, pulling me closer, tangling her tongue with mine. It’s a hungry kiss, as I explore her mouth, tasting her lipstick until I nearly lose my mind with the need to know more of her body.