Take Two

Chapter Seventeen

Maddie grabbed a french fry off the dining cart next to the bed and dipped it in ketchup. She twisted to face Micah, who was stretched out next to her studying his script. She leaned over and fed the fry to him.

“Yum.” He groaned. “French fries and sex…now that’s what I call a perfect evening.”

“Post-coital fries are the best. You sound like you don’t get that very often. I’m going to assume you don’t usually eat french fries.”

“Not on my diet plan. But I figure we’ve been burning enough calories that I could indulge.”

She giggled as she stuck a fry in her own mouth. “No french fries, no girlfriends…you kind of make it seem sucky to be a Hollywood star.”

He gave a dramatic sigh. “You have no idea.” He resumed reading his script.

She picked up another fry and chewed on it slowly, watching Micah as he closed his eyes and silently mouthed his lines. It had been a great day, waking up with Micah, sex in his trailer, a perfect shoot. Then, after she’d cleaned up the set and stopped in her hotel room for a change of clothing and some personal items, she’d arrived at Micah’s hotel room. They ordered burgers and fries from room service, and while Micah was supposed to have been reviewing his lines, occupied their wait with more physical activities.

They still hadn’t talked about their arrangement, and though that was what they agreed on, she still couldn’t help feeling anxious. Was all of this new for Micah or had he been with a woman longer than one night before? What was the best way to balance getting to know him under the covers with getting to know him outside of the bedroom? How should she act with him around others? Could she expect that she was with him in general until further notice or would she have to wait each day for an invitation to his bed? They were standard new relationship questions, but because of who Micah was, they felt heavier.

He reached up and stroked her arm. “Hey. What’s going on in that pretty head of yours? You seem to have gone someplace serious.”

“Not too serious.” She decided that if she didn’t share her thoughts, she’d never get to know him. “I was wondering how long you’ve had your no-girlfriend rule.”

His hand rested on hers. “Wow, not too serious at all. I must not be very entertaining.”

She slipped her hand out from under his and poked him in the ribs. “Oh, you’ve been plenty entertaining. Now answer the question.”

He sighed. “Seven years. Right about when I signed with my manager, Stu. That was just after I met you, actually.”

She bit her lip. “And, in seven years, you’ve had no long-term anything?”

Micah tossed his script on the nightstand. “Now I didn’t say that.” He spoke carefully. “I dated a model about four years ago. For several months. It was all over the tabloids. Maybe you read about it.”

Maddie’s breath caught. She vacillated between jealousy and hope. Who was the bitch? And did that mean he was open to a relationship again?

“I don’t read the gossip mags.” She spoke as cautiously as he had. “What happened?”

“I, uh, do you really want to hear this?”

“Yes, I really do.”

“Okay. Nichelle was her name. And she’d just started getting some major jobs when I met her. Then we started going out and I decided to break my rule and give the whole relationship a try.” He blew out a heavy breath. “That’s when I discovered yet another reason Hollywood relationships don’t work. You can never tell who’s into you for you and who’s into you for what you can get them.”

She tensed, realizing that whatever this Nichelle had done to Micah had made an impact. “What did she do?”

“Turned out she wanted a part from a director I was working with. She pushed me to introduce them so I did. Then when he didn’t give her the part, she dumped me.”

“Are you kidding me?” Maddie felt a wave of nausea, but she kept it to herself. The man had such a jaded opinion about romance in the first place, then to have someone use him like that? It would make her goal of getting close to Micah that much more difficult.

“I’m dead serious.” He stared at her, sensing her anxiety, perhaps. After a moment he asked, “What about you?”

“No one’s ever used me to get a part in a movie.” She took another french fry and fed it to him, hoping to remind him of the awesome parts of girlfriends, such as post-coital french fries.

He sneered at her. “Have you had anything serious?”

“Who says I don’t have a boyfriend right now?”

“Ha-ha-ha.”

“What?” She tried to hide the hurt from her voice. “Does it seem utterly impossible that I’d have a boyfriend?”

Micah gave a genuine laugh this time. “No, it seems utterly impossible that you don’t. You’re incredibly smart, beautiful, creative, sexy as hell…” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively. “But you wouldn’t be here with me if you had a boyfriend.”

“I don’t know.” She smiled coyly. “You could persuade a girl to forget her man for more than a minute.”

“But you wouldn’t do that. You’re too decent.”

Her cheeks warmed. Why did that make her blush? Yes, she was decent. No, she wouldn’t cheat on a boyfriend. Even for Micah.

Micah’s eyes twinkled, enjoying her discomfort. “Plus, I think you’re secretly hopelessly romantic.”

She lowered her gaze. “No way.” But she really was a hopeless romantic. She wanted the whole thing: the awesome guy who loved her and only her, the ring, the wedding cake…

And Micah knew it. “Yes way,” he said. “And perhaps the fear that you won’t ever actually find ‘the one’ is what keeps you so emotionally unavailable.”

She gathered the comforter around her, suddenly feeling very exposed. How did this conversation turn to her, anyway? “I’m not emotionally unavailable.”

“You so are.”

“I’m here with you.”

“Yes, you’re here with the guy who declared he was also emotionally unavailable. Way to prove your point.” He grabbed a handful of french fries and stuffed them in his mouth.

Maddie furrowed her brow. His remark about his unavailability stung. Didn’t they say they weren’t putting preconceived barriers on their relationship?

But more than that, was he right? About her? She didn’t feel emotionally unavailable. Yet how many guys had she dated since college? Not very many. Besides the casual fling here and there, there had been almost no one.

Because I hadn’t met anyone.

As if reading her thoughts, Micah countered, “Look, you have multitudes of men falling at your feet and you don’t even have a clue.”

“Whatever.” He was so dramatic. “Like Sam?”

Micah shrugged. “Sam’s a good guy.”

She cocked her head and looked at him curiously. “I thought you said he was a douchebag.”

“I may have spoken falsely.”

His sudden endorsement of Sam put her on edge. Sam was…was… She actually didn’t know what Sam was. She hadn’t taken the time to find out. What she did know was what Sam wasn’t. He wasn’t Micah.

She wasn’t brave enough to say that, though. “Sam’s, like, barely twenty-one.”

Micah shrugged. “Young enough to train.”

“And he’s always so in the way.”

“He’s a pleaser.” He lowered his voice. “He’d probably try really hard to please you.”

Maddie fought to hide the tears that were threatening. Did he really want her with someone else? “So are we done now, is that it? And you’re trying to softly hand me over to Sam to ease your guilt?”

“Fuck, no!” He pulled her into his arms, wrapping her tightly against him. “Imagining any guy, let alone Sam, with you—touching your incredibly soft skin, fondling your adorably perky breasts—feels like I’m being stabbed in the gut.” He unrolled her from the comforter so their skin met. “And now I have to fondle your breasts since I was talking about it.”

She giggled as his palm found her bosom. “So you’d be jealous?”

“Incredibly.”

Awesome. “And you aren’t trying to get rid of me yet?”

“Not a chance.”

Even more awesome.

She relaxed under his soothing massage, her nipple hardening under his fingers. She was exactly where she wanted to be, with the kind of guy she wanted to be with. Didn’t he know that?

Head pressed against his chest so she wouldn’t see his face, she told him. “I don’t want to be with multitudes of other guys. I want to be with you.”

“I know,” he whispered. He kissed her forehead and then nuzzled his face against hers.

He feels it too. Even though he won’t say it. Her chest warmed at the realization.

Then she started to sink again as she recalled the complexity of their situation. “How do we do this? Get to know each other, I mean. With you being you, and all. What do we do?”

He returned his hand to her breast. “I don’t know about you, but I’m fondling. I can give you some suggestions as well.”

“Micah, I’m serious.”

He sighed. “I know.” He was quiet for a moment and she wondered if he wouldn’t answer her. But then he did. “I don’t know. I haven’t done this either. Not successfully. The press likes to connect me with every woman I come into contact with. They’ll say that I’m with someone or another, and they will have pictures, but you can’t believe it.”

“I told you, I don’t read gossip magazines.”

“Good. Don’t start. And the minute they find out I’m seeing you…it will be tough, Maddie, I’m not going to lie.”

“So then we should try to remain media free. Don’t you think?”

“If we want to stay media free, we have to sneak around on set.”

She swallowed. “I realize that.” She couldn’t deny that it made her more than a little sad to be Micah’s secret. The way she felt about him, she wanted to tell the world. But they were still so new, and she really did want to give their relationship a chance. “I suppose I can live with it.”

He tilted up her chin so he could look her in the eye. “It won’t mean anything, Maddie. What other people say or know. It’s between you and me. If you wonder at all, you ask me. You have to promise.”

His seriousness was so startling she took a moment to answer. “Okay. I promise.”

“Thank you.” He released her chin and stroked her cheek. “If we stay low on set, the better shot we’ll have of staying out of the media’s eye. It won’t be easy. But while we have the excuse of working together I think we could pull it off. That gives us…what? Four weeks left to figure the rest out.”

“Four weeks,” she repeated. It felt like she was saying “four minutes”.

“To figure it out,” he added.

It was a step in the right direction. Nothing permanent, but at least she knew where she stood with him for now.

Micah shifted, turning his whole body toward her. “But we’re not figuring it out right this minute. Right now I seriously have some suggestions of things you could be doing while I resume my fondling.”

She grinned. “Naughty things, I hope.”

“Extremely.” He growled as his mouth found her neck, nipping along her throat.

Her heart flip-flopped at the primitive sound. “Tell me,” she hissed. “Tell me what to do.”

He lifted his head and gazed at her considering. “Touch yourself.”

“Hmm, what?” She wasn’t naïve—she knew what he meant. He wanted her to play with herself. But she’d never done that in front of anyone, and while she wasn’t saying no, she wanted him to tell her how to do it.

He circled her nose with his own. “I want you to touch yourself.” He licked at her upper lip. “As if you were thinking about me.” He kissed her once. “Do you make yourself come while thinking about me?”

Holy hell, did she ever. How many nights had she slept on wet sheets because of the orgasms she’d brought herself to with him on the brain?

“Yes.” She met his eyes.

“Show me.”

“Okay.”

His breath hitched and she felt a fresh pool of liquid between her legs. She was nervous and embarrassed as she pulled away from him, but she was also excited. Incredibly excited. Though she had never been turned on by the idea of playing with herself in front of another person, she was more than aroused by the thought now. She plopped the pillows up behind her and centered herself on top of them. Slowly she dragged her legs up until her knees were bent in front of her. Then, she let her knees fall open.

Micah’s eyes widened ever so slightly. He moved himself to a spot with a better view and focused on her intently.

She was tempted to move her hands directly to her clit. She was already turned on and it wouldn’t take long. But he wanted to see what she did when she thought about him, and her more intense fantasies of him started elsewhere.

She watched him as she ran her fingers through her hair, several times, pulling and tugging at the ends. “First, I think of you doing this.” She was surprised how sultry her voice sounded. “Then, your hands would move.” This time when her hands reached the bottom of her hair length, she continued gliding them down to her breasts.

His breath grew heavier as he watched her squeeze and crush her tits, his reaction emboldening her. She pinched at her nipples, tugging the buds until they stood erect.

“And then your tongue would arrive.” She licked her index finger then circled a nipple with the wet pad. Next, she brushed against the tip in a zigzag motion. She repeated the pattern on her other breast, the one closest to Micah.

He leaned in, eyes large and dilated and blew across the top of her wet bud.

“Uh-uh,” she chided. “You don’t do that in my fantasy. Not that it wasn’t nice, but you’re supposed to be watching.”

He pouted but sat back.

“After you thoroughly enjoyed my breasts—”

“I want to thoroughly enjoy your breasts now.”

She ignored his interruption. “You’d move your hands again. Lower this time.” She trailed her hands along the sides of her torso and down to her hips, then the outside of her thighs. When she reached her knees, she slid her fingers back up her limbs, this time moving up the inside of her legs toward her core.

Just as her hands reached her center, she swept them up to splay across her belly instead of touching herself where she ached for him. “You’d tease me like this.”

He grinned. “I’m such an ass.”

“You are. But eventually…” One hand moved up to grope her breast while the other descended ever so slowly until it sat just above her slit. She was so turned on by showing him this—by sharing this most private act. “Eventually you’d arrive where I wanted you most.” She skidded a finger past her nub, moaning at the sensation. She repeated the movement, this time with two fingers, stretching her outer lips.

Micah sucked in an audible breath as her two fingers circled her clit, little by little increasing speed. Her body thrummed with a new wave of electricity at each round.

“Are those my fingers?” His eyes blazed, fixed on her movement. “Or my tongue?”

“Your fingers.” Her other hand journeyed from her bosom, drifting past the motion at her nerve center stopping at her tight, wet opening.

“Yes,” he hissed as she plunged two fingers deep inside her. When she pulled them out, she dragged her hot liquid up to moisten her clit.

“Now it’s your tongue.”

“Yes, baby.” His voice was husky with need. She moved her gaze from his face and saw he clutched his hard shaft. So hot. He stroked his penis, his rhythm echoing her fingers as they plunged again and again inside her.

“Ah, that’s it, baby. That’s it.” His encouragement combined with the sensations of her moving hands and the intense heat of his stare brought her to orgasm. She quivered as she threw her head back and shouted her release.

While she was still mid-climax, she felt the bed shift underneath her, and heard the rip of a foil packet. Then he was on top of her, inside her, with one deep thrust he filled her to the hilt.

“Ah, baby,” he growled as he pounded into her. “You are so beautiful. I’m going to come so hard. I’m going to make you come so hard.”

He continued his vigorous assault, hitting a spot deep within her, one she hadn’t known existed. “Oh, fuck me!” Her orgasm crashed over and over, long beyond what she thought possible, exhausting and elating her. By the time he joined her, coming in one long stroke as he called her name, every muscle in her body was already limp from her prolonged release.

He fell next to her, his ragged breath becoming even as he slid into sleep. She drifted into her own slumber, tingling in the warmth of her waning orgasms and the weight of his body tangled with hers and the promise of four more weeks.