A Midsummer Night's Fling (Stage Kiss Series Book 1) (30 page)

A long, drawn out moment of quiet followed. Peter went to the sink and got himself a glass of tap water, and all the small sounds were overloud, echoing in the quiet kitchen, the clink of glass, the flow of water, the sound as he took his first long gulp. Torture.
 

Nicola curled her hands into fists, her fingernails making red crescents in her palms. Peter set his glass down, a precise
click
of glass on stone filling the kitchen, then he said, voice going hoarse, "I never told you how I got the part in
Fortune's Fool
, did I?"

"I always assumed you knocked it out of the park at the audition as usual. You make a fantastic pirate."

"
Mmm
. Not exactly. I don't think it's a secret that back then Max and I were going out for a lot of the same parts."

"Right. You both auditioned for that football movie he ended up making."

Peter grimaced, clearly it still rankled Max got that part over him. "Yeah. Well. On
Fortune's Fool
, the producers screen-tested both of us."

"He never told me that." Seeing Peter's face, his deep guilt, she reached out to touch his hand. "Oh, Petey, I'm sure Max doesn't harbor a grudge about that. Like you said: you guys were competing all the time."

Peter ground his teeth, a muscle in his jaw flexing. He dropped his gaze from hers. "Max booked
Fortune's Fool
. The director cast Max in the lead role first."

"
What?
"

"They
cast
Max. He had the part. His big fucking break. Shit." Peter rubbed his face, looking tired, as haggard as someone that beautiful could manage.
 

"What happened?" Nicola asked.

Peter stole another gulp of water.

When he lowered his glass and just stared at the counter, Nicola jiggled his arm. "
Peter
. What happened? You started the story. Tell me."

Peter sucked in a long breath then blew it out on a sigh. "The week of the first big production meeting was the week you broke the engagement with Max."

"Oh
shit
." Nicola hunched on her stool, holding her stomach as every particle of alcohol she'd drunk that night seemed to slosh sickeningly into the back of her throat.
 

"Max went on a bender after you left him. He was dead-drunk for weeks. Yes, he partied a lot after you broke up, but that was because he didn't give a damn about anything anymore. Not his career. Not his family. Not himself."

Nicola held her hand up, trying to stop the tide of his words, but Peter just barreled on, "Max showed up drunk to the production meeting, and they fired him on the spot." As Peter went on his voice became harsh, ragged. "But the director liked Max's look, his physique. Someone from casting said, 'Hey, doesn't he have a brother?' I got the call, and I accepted the job even though I knew what it would do to Max. And my baby brother spent the next year drunk. I've got one of the best careers in Hollywood right now, but it all started at the expense of Max."

She turned away, sliding out of the chair to land on her feet. "
You bastard
. How could you do that?" She wobbled, and slapped a hand onto the island to steady herself. The marble cool against her flaming skin.
 

Peter crossed the island to stand next to her, towering over her, a full head higher. Max was as tall as Peter but somehow he never used it against people, never made them feel small.

Nicola pushed against Peter, trying to get past him, but he caught her wrists, holding her in place as he hammered her with his words. "Between us, Nic, we managed to royally fuck Max's life up. His name is still mud with the studios. I've tried to get him small parts in my movies. In friends' movies. He's been sober for years, but Max is still on the blacklist. When you left it destroyed him, Nicola. It killed him. And
I
had to put him back together." Peter gave her a small shake, just enough to startle her into meeting his gaze. His face was bleak, his eyes sad. "Don't start things again. Don't hurt him again."

Her face was wet and, as a small sob broke from her throat, she realized she was crying.
 

"I didn't punch you for
Henry V
," Max's voice rumbled from the doorway, "but you can bet your ass I'll pound you for upsetting Nic."

Peter released her and lifted his hands in surrender. "We were talking before I leave for Mom's house."

Max stepped close to her and smoothed his palm along her arm. "Are you OK?"

She scraped at the betraying tear tracks. "I'm fine."
 

"Are you?"

"Yes. Don't pound Peter." She tugged on Max's shirt, pulling him to her level so she could whisper, "And don't make Peter stay with your mom. He's a jerk, but he doesn't deserve that."

Max chuckled and straightened. "Peter, go back upstairs. We're OK for now."

Peter hesitated then grabbed his bag. As he passed Nicola, he kissed her cheek and murmured, "I don't like to see you get hurt either, kiddo."

"I know," she whispered.

"Be careful," Peter said.

Nicola managed a small grin, but as Peter left and she stared at Max, warm and sleep-rumpled and wonderful, she could only think,
How?

How
could she be careful? She'd been trying to stay away from Max for weeks. How could she manage that now? How can you push the flood waters back when the dam's already burst?

***

The boards creaked on the stairs as Peter bounded back to Lachlan's room. Nicola circled around the counter to put a glass into the sink, probably Peter's, because she grabbed a fresh glass for herself out of the drying rack and filled it. "Peter found your bacon," she said.

"Crap. I'm glad I let him stay. Now there'll be time to smother him and hide the body before he can tell Ma." Max watched Nicola, her stiff, uncertain movements, and knew he should have punched Peter when he had the chance.
What did Pete say to her?
 

Max didn't know what he'd hoped from her, what he wanted the two of them to be. But, staring at her hunched, defeated frame, he knew it wasn't this. If he couldn't make her happy then he shouldn't be with her. "Say it, Nic. Quick cuts hurt less."

She still had her back to him, but he heard the click as she set her glass on the counter. "How would you feel about a fling?" she murmured.

"A fling?"

"Yes." She whirled to face him, her eyes red. "These feelings we have aren't going anywhere. I want to pull you down and have my way with you right now, in fact. But I think we can both agree any kind of a real relationship between us is not a good idea. So: we have a show fling. We don't fight the chemistry. We screw our brains out."

"After the show's over?"

"You stay with the RSF, and I . . . don't. I meant to tell you before, I got offered another national tour.
Anything Goes
. I'm going to do it." She gave him a wobbly smile. "But we'll have a few more good memories out of the whole thing." Her voice cracked and one tear rolled down her cheek.
 

He smudged the tear away. "A fling, Nicci? Really?"

"I can't do it, Max. My heart can't take it." She was crying now, tears tumbling from her eyes too fast for him to wipe away. "But I would like to have you again. To borrow or something. For the short time we can steal until
Midsummer
is over and I leave." She sucked up a breath that rasped into her throat. "I understand if you don't want to do that, but a fling is all I can handle, all I can give you. Light and fun. No strings."

He cupped her cheeks, smoothing tears away with both thumbs, and offered her a wry grin. "Light and fun, huh?"

"Yes?"

He wrapped her in his arms, aching, mad at her, mad at himself, but wanting her more than he wanted his next breath. He leaned forward. "OK," he said against her lips. He kissed her and hurt inside.
 

Chapter Twenty

After their talk in the kitchen, their "light and fun" fling didn't start so well: her blowing her nose and Max leading her to his bedroom where they fell asleep without making love.

But when Nicola woke in the morning beside him, his arm around her waist, his breath in her ear, a fling didn't feel like such a bad idea. She rolled in his arms, and he beamed at her. "Hey."

"Morning." She burrowed against his chest, snuggling close to his body.
 

He eased onto his elbows, hovering over her, and she tipped onto her back. Caressing her cheek with his knuckles, he stared at her with a warmth that made her heart flutter. "So," he said, "in a fling it's important to savor the moment, right? Make every second count?"

"I suppose so."

"All right, Nicci." He grinned. "Pay attention."

***

"
Mmm
. That never gets old," Nicola murmured from under the mat of her hair. It had fallen in her face sometime during the sex and she hadn't bothered or cared to move it. And she was too blissed out to move now; her muscles had melted and were oozing into the plush mattress.

Max came to the rescue and peeled strands of her hair away so that cool air wafted over her face.
 

He kissed her shoulder. "We have to get up. Rehearsal."

She groaned and rolled over. His hair was tousled into soft, dark blonde waves and his eyes were bright, bluer than the clearest sky could aspire to be. She smoothed her fingers into his hair and, joking, murmured, "'Yon light is not daylight, I know it, I: it is some meteor that the sun exhal'd. Therefore stay yet.'" She banded her arms around his neck, pulling him toward her. "Maxim, we
so
don't need to get out of bed yet."

His mouth twitched in amusement and he settled his body over her, the corded flesh of his thighs and arms pressing against her. "'Let me be taken," he said. "'Let me be put to death; I am content, so thou wilt have it so.'" He kissed her navel then turned and rested his cheek on her belly, the hair of his beard a delightful prickle on her sensitive skin there. "'I'll say yon grey is not the morning's eye . . . '" He paused and lifted his head, his forehead screwed up in a frown.

She smoothed the frown lines and, cueing him, murmured, "'Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow – '"

"
Tsk
. You freaking know-it-all." Laughing, he blew a raspberry against her stomach, and when she giggled and tried to wriggle free, he held her down by the wrists and punctuated every line from
Romeo & Juliet
with another tickling raspberry on her belly: "'Nor that is not the lark . . . "
Tttthpbt
. "' . . . whose notes do beat the vaulty heaven so high above our heads . . . "
Tttthhhppbt
. "'I have more care to stay than will to go . . . '"
Tttthhhppbbbt
. "'Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so.'" He finished with one particularly loud and long razz against her stomach which left her convulsing with laughter.
 

"
I hate you! Maxim! Stop!
"

His eyes crinkling with laughter, he gave her a large, smacking kiss on the mouth then let her wrists go. Staring up at him her heart did that awful
flopflipflop
thing, like a landed fish trying to jerk its way back to the sea. But her heart was reaching toward
him
, aching for
him
.

As if he could sense the feelings welling inside her, threatening to swamp her, the grin slid off his face. Max traced the line of her cheek and bent to kiss her again, slowly.
 

Someone banged on the bedroom door, making the hinges rattle. Lachlan's hoarse voice boomed through the wood, "Oy, Max, we're running late!
Nicola
, tell your boytoy to hurry the hell up! You lot can shag at rehearsal if you have to!"

Max groaned and rolled out of bed, going to his dresser. "Damn Brit. I should charge him more rent." He shrugged into clean clothes: a pair of blue sweats and a white t-shirt. It was a baggy, slovenly outfit yet he could have been in an ad campaign. One of those classy black and white spreads with the gorgeous, moody models.

Grinning wryly at life's unfairness, Nicola picked her own clothes off the floor. She snagged her leggings and tank from yesterday but the thought of wearing the sweaty, stinky clothes was unbearable. "Maxim, do you have anything that would fit me? That I could wear to rehearsal? I forgot to wash these last night."

Max peered at his own ripped, six-foot-plus frame then over at her petite five-foot-mumble-mumble something stature. He puckered his lips in a gesture of uncertainty. "Um."

***

Eventually, she ended up in an old Placebo t-shirt from a concert he'd attended freshman year of high school – before the growth spurt which had turned him into a six-foot-plus demi-god – and a pair of his gym shorts which had seen better days.
 

They wandered to the kitchen together. Peter and Lachlan were already eating. Peter was busy at the stove while Lachlan slumped in one of the chairs around the island. Lachlan's eyes were red with black circles beneath them.

"Morning," she said.

He grunted at her and wallowed into his coffee cup, pounding the drink back like a shot then holding his mug out to Peter for more. Peter poured and eyed Nicola's outfit at the same time. "Making a fashion statement today, are we?"