Reeve flashed a what-can-you-do kind of smile, and Janelle’s features seemed to soften. Reeve was good. He knew how to play this woman. He knew how to spin fables on the spot, especially because he now had Janelle eating out of his palm. Soon, the tightly-wound hawk of a producer’s wife was chattering about MoMA and her favorite artists and Reeve was saying something about an Edward Hopper painting, and Frederick was looking only at his wife, and Janelle was beaming, and Sutton felt like she could breathe again.
This man—this young, delicious man—was saving the day. She looked up at Reeve, he was easily a good six inches taller, and she felt a rush of affection for him, a surge of gratitude. Impulsively, she stretched to give him a quick kiss on the cheek. He looked at her, and shot a quick smile. She thought she might have even seen him blush.
He gestured to the seats, letting the ladies sit first. He sat between them, with Frederick by Janelle’s side. Then Sutton felt Reeve’s warm hand and glanced down to see him loop his long, strong fingers through hers and squeeze. It was tender and comforting, and it was exactly what she needed. As if he’d sensed the way she’d forgotten her lines earlier. She leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder. That was odd. Sutton was never the cuddly type, except when it came to her darling dog.
Soon, the lights dimmed, the curtain rose, and the play began. Sutton sat up straight and focused on the stage, but Reeve kept his fingers linked through hers. As the characters argued about who’d forgotten to do the laundry on time, Reeve began stroking the inside of her palm with his thumb. Light, fluid lines. From her wrist to the edge of her fingers.
It was soft, and it was sweet, and most of all, it was caring. She closed her eyes, giving into the way his touch felt. It was a caress, it was a promise. He drew soft little zig zags across her palm, lazy lines that told stories of the two of them, of the things they’d done, the times they’d had, the love they’d shared. Or so it felt as he crept casually past her barriers, his touch making her believe in the fiction of them. Soon, his fingers were tracing the inside of her wrist, then the soft skin on her arm, and then, as all the words spoken from on stage became a distant faraway sound to her, he moved closer, planting a tender, soft kiss on her jawline.
As Reeve pressed his lips on Sutton, he couldn’t help but notice Janelle sneaking peeks at them, all while her husband focused on the stage as if it pained him to look anyplace else. Why was she watching them now? To appraise their relationship or for some other reason? Well, Reeve wasn’t going to let a high-strung lady like her win. He and Sutton were winning this game, they were landing the gig, and he was going to do whatever it took to make sure there was no question they were together. Of course, he didn’t mind kissing Sutton. He didn’t mind touching her. He was a guy, and she was hot, and that was that. Do the math. Two plus two equals…Wait…Reeve heard a slight swishing of clothes behind them, and Frederick glanced quickly over his shoulder. The cute little usher from earlier had just walked behind them.
Janelle gave her husband a sharp stare that Reeve was sure translated into “Don’t you dare.”
Frederick muttered something under his breath that sounded a lot like “…help me out now and then…”
Reeve chuckled silently. He’d heard the rumors about Frederick’s multiple faux pas. But had Janelle cut him off?
Frederick sneezed, then coughed, then cleared his throat in rapid succession. As someone who’d been trained to do those three things on cue—sometimes, an actor had to sneeze, cough, or clear his throat—Reeve could tell Frederick was faking it. The man rose, muttered an embarrassed “excuse me” and exited the box.
Janelle whipped her head around and watched her husband disappear down the hallway. She narrowed her eyes, and her expression said she might start breathing fire.
What was up between the two of them?
But Reeve needed to focus on his role, and he was playing it to the hilt. So he layered another kiss below Sutton’s earlobe, hearing the breathiest little whisper escape her throat. There was nothing fake about that sound, and Reeve forgot about the Pinkertons and their strange habits, as he found himself drawn back to Sutton’s neck, brushing her with another kiss.
As Sutton moved the slightest bit closer, Janelle grabbed her purse and leaned over to whisper in a forced, happy voice that barely hid the anger beneath, “Looking forward to Friday night.”
Then she was gone.
Sutton opened her eyes. “What was that about? They both left?” she asked in a low voice.
He shrugged. “Guess they didn’t care for the play,” he said, but he suspected Janelle was making sure Frederick wasn’t chasing a hot young usher into a broom closet for a quickie.
“I suppose not.”
Sutton looked at the stage, as if she were enrapt in the acting, and Reeve could have gone back to watching the play. But he’d lost track of whatever the characters were up in arms about, and he didn’t really care in the first place. He was much more interested in this woman beside him, in the way she seemed to respond to his touch. He hadn’t expected it, but he sure as hell liked the way she seemed to want his hands on her, from the kiss in the dressing room, to now here in the theater.
As far as he could tell, there was no reason for him to stop touching Sutton. They were both having a good time, and there was nothing wrong with that.
He brushed a long strand of her hair from her ear. She shivered, and he loved the way the littlest thing elicited a reaction from her. He bet she was a tiger in bed, clawing and moaning, and screaming his name. Damn, he was even more aroused now, picturing the way she must make love, with a sort of fearless abandon. “Do you like the play?”
She swallowed and nodded once. “Very much so.”
He glanced back at the entrance to the box seats. The Pinkertons seemed long gone, there weren’t any other ushers nearby, and the closest patrons were in the next box over, a low wall between them. So he went for it. He placed one hand on her opposite cheek and shifted her face toward him, then moved his other hand to her thigh. She looked at him, and even in the dark of the theater, he could read those blue eyes, he could tell they were trying so hard to resist, but yet not wanting to resist in the least. Hell, he didn’t either. He moved his thumb along her cheek, tracing a line to her lips. Then over her lower lip, and she nipped playfully at the pad of his thumb. He smiled in the dark, as he outlined her mouth, then moved down to her neck, as if he were imprinting the feel of her throat, the heat from her skin, the way her body seemed to pulse toward him with every touch. She practically radiated the words kiss me and so he took the liberty to do just that. It was the barest of kisses, the kind that signals the beginning of something.