Finally, when I can breathe and speak and make contact with reality, I look at him, and he has the most satisfied grin on his face when he shows me the bite marks I left on his knuckles.
“I’m so sorry,” I say.
“Don’t ever be sorry for that.” Then he takes my hand, and he presses it against his pants so I can feel his c**k straining against the fabric. He unzips the fly, locks my fingers into his, and brings my hand inside his pants, then down his boxer briefs, and I nearly combust when I touch him for the first time. He’s so hard and big and velvety smooth. He’s throbbing in my hands, and I can tell how much he wants me to touch him.
“Let me,” I plead.
He gives me a smirk, then shakes his head playfully as if I’ve been naughty.
“God, when are you going to sleep with me?” I ask because I’m so keyed up and so frustrated. “I want you inside me.”
He removes my hand from his pants, then zips them up and fastens the button.
“When I can f**k you and make love to you at the same time, Jill. Like I want to. Because that’s what I want from you,” he says, so matter-of-factly he could be giving me a note on how to do a scene better in the show. This is what he wants. This is what he expects from me. This is what I’ll have to deliver. “That’s how I want to have you. Now it looks like our food is here and I’m hungry.”
The waiter serves our fish, and Davis says thank you, and all I can do is mumble a thanks. He is so cool and collected and yet I’m the one who got off. This man vexes me with the way he takes care of me so thoroughly, and protects his own heart so fiercely.
But then, I suppose I know what that’s like. I’ve been doing it for years.
He slices his fish and spears a forkful. “Now, I want to ask you to go out with me again.”
“A second date?” I ask, as he takes a bite of his dinner.
“Yes. Come with me to the Broadway Cares event.”
“It’s one thing for me to be at a restaurant with you. But there will be people there we know.”
He huffs out a sigh. “Fine. You’ll come in a restaurant for me, but you won’t attend a formal event where I have to say a few words about the fundraising,” he teases, shaking his head.
“It’s not the same,” I try to point out, but my argument seems invalid, even to me.
“You’re right, Jill,” he says, playing along, as he places his fork and knife down to take a drink. “That’s why it’s a good thing I have access to extra tickets. Perhaps you can go with Shelby, and I can look at you across the room and pretend I don’t know what you look like and sound like and feel like when you come for me.”
A charge races through me, and I’m about ready to grab him, pull him into the bathroom and insist on what I want right now. Him. But instead, I try my hand at negotiation. “I’m pretty good at acting. Maybe I’ll go and act as if I’m not dying to have you. Maybe then you’ll finally let me.”
The gauntlet is thrown.
Chapter 18
Davis
Clay calls as I’m leaving the Times Square subway station, heading up the steps to the street.
“Are you emailing me that new route to work? Because I’m walking precariously close to the Belasco in about thirty seconds when I cross Forty-Fourth Street,” I say, and the funny thing is it wouldn’t bother me if I bumped into Madeline.
“Man, you are just a tough bastard, aren’t you? But that’s not why I’m calling.”
“Ah, you missed me even though I saw you an hour ago at the gym,” I joke, as the smell of pretzels wafts past me from a nearby street vendor.
“Yeah, exactly. So, I’m calling with a heads up.”
I groan. A heads up is never good.
“Don is at the St. James already. He’s got some film producers there to check out Patrick.”
My shoulders tighten. “What? Nobody told me about this.”
“It’s the Pinkertons,” he says, mentioning the names of a pair of British brothers who bankroll films. “For the second picture in Escorted Lives.”
“The first hasn’t even started shooting yet. They’re turning that into a trilogy already?”
“Books were so damn popular, the Pinkertons are doing all three. And there’s a new-guy-in-town role for the second film, so they want to consider Patrick for it. You know his Crash The Moon contract is for ten months, so his agent brought in the producers since they’re in town for a few days.”
“Do they think they’re going to watch the rehearsal? Because that’s not how it works,” I say firmly, my muscles tensing all over. “It’s not a god damn open rehearsal. If the film producers want to see him play Paolo, they buy a ticket to the show when it opens in two weeks.”
“I know,” Clay says, heaving a sigh. “I said the same thing to Don. But you know Don.”
“Yeah, he’s an ass. What’s the deal? Is he in bed with the film producers? Is he getting a cut?”
“I think he’s vying for some small producer credit on the film. That’s why he brought them in. It should only be a few more minutes. He’s got that understudy with him.”
I stop in my tracks. Like I’ve been punched in the ribs. A woman in a suit and heels bumps into me, and I mutter an apology, then step into the doorway of Sardi’s to get out of the way.
“That understudy?” I ask through clenched teeth.
“McCormick? Is that her name?”
“Jill McCormick.” I shut my eyes. My blood feels like it’s boiling and I don’t know what pisses me off more—Don commandeering the stage or Jill not mentioning she’d be doing a scene with Patrick for the producers of a romantic movie.
Rationally, I know she’ll play many romantic roles throughout her career. Logically, I would never do anything to stop her. But seeing as she’s auditioning for all intents and purposes with him I would have appreciated a heads up from her. I don’t know why she wouldn’t tell me she was reading with him, but the omission sends a hot rush of jealousy through my veins.
“Patrick likes working with her, so he wanted to do a scene with her for the producers. Not from Crash the Moon though. Don’t worry about that. They’re just running lines from the next book.”
“Oh great,” I say sarcastically. “That just makes it all f**king better.”
“Yeah, sorry, man.” But he doesn’t know the half of why I’m angry. “And listen, I know you can’t stand Don. But the show opens in two weeks, so if you could do your best to let it go that would help me a ton as I work on what’s next for you. Got a few possibilities I’m working on. Maybe some Twelfth Night in London. Maybe a film.”