Pretending He's Mine (8 page)

She looked one way, then another. No one was near them. They were in the far corner of the stacks, all alone on a Wednesday afternoon. She heard no footsteps, only the faint ticking of a wall clock somewhere and then a low hum, likely a heater. There were surrounded only by books, by facts and fictions of Renaissance men and women trying to map their lives from the moon and the stars.

“There’s really only one way to know for sure if this is the ideal location for the famous library scene,” she said, and began unzipping his jeans. She looked up at him, as if to ask if it were okay. But she wasn’t really asking. She just wanted to see the surprise in his eyes, and yes, it was there. He hadn’t expected this. She could tell there was a nervous side to him right now. But as she reached her hand inside his briefs, feeling the hard length of him, she knew he wasn’t going to back down. He felt amazing, long and thick and sculpted. Velvet soft outside, rock hard inside. She could have spent all afternoon playing with him, toying with him, delighting in the perfection of his size. But there was work to be done, and orgasms to be achieved, and the clock was indeed ticking. She kneeled down. Keeping one hand wrapped firmly around the base, she kissed the tip. He let out another quiet moan, and when she glanced up, she saw him leaning back against the books and he bit down hard on his lip. She teased him for a few seconds with her tongue, and from the way he twined his fingers into her pinned-up hair, he rather enjoyed the feel of her lips on his long, hard length. She wanted to run her tongue from one side, then the other, tasting every inch. She wanted to savor his deliciousness and take her sweet time getting to know every fabulous inch of him. But instead, she wrapped her lips around him, and brought him all the way into her mouth.

He gripped her hair tighter, as little sounds and moans escaped his lips. As she moved up and down, bringing him as far into her throat as she could, wanting him to feel completely surrounded by her warm, inviting mouth, she gazed up at him. His eyes were shut hard, and his features were screwed up in a look of exquisite pleasure. At last, she thought. She could do to him what he’d done to her. She could take charge of his pleasure. She could ensure that he would be the one feeling waves of sweet release wash over him. She wanted to tell him, “Don’t worry. I’ve got this,” but she had a feeling he wasn’t worried at all. Besides, her mouth was quite full. She teased him with her tongue and her lips all over, pressing her hands against his strong, hard thighs—toned from all that cycling—for balance. He grabbed at her hair, and that made her even wetter, knowing how close he was.

She wanted to touch herself at the same time. She was aching, longing desperately for him to lift her up so she could wrap her legs around him and slide onto him, riding him here in the library, all the while suppressing her own desire to scream his name in pleasure. She was a screamer, that’s for sure. She was a loud one, and she never held back.

But she could take care of herself later. This moment was for him. Because pleasing him would give her back her power. She wouldn’t feel so helpless. He was a perfect specimen of hotness in every way and she couldn’t resist bringing him in deeper.

“Sutton,” he moaned, and that made her tighten her lips around him. She loved that he was so far gone into the feeling that he had to say her name, that he couldn’t keep quiet. Soon, he rocked his hips into her, and she went faster, as more low and quiet moans met her ears. Then he thrust once, twice, and she tasted him for the first time, and she loved it. She wanted more of it, more of him. She could do this every day.

When he was done, she rose and brushed one hand against the other. Reeve had a dazed look etched across his gorgeous features.

“Why yes, I think the Renaissance astrology section will do just fine.”

Later that night, Sutton had just finished researching all the vital details on a rising filmmaker who’d requested a meeting with her next week. The filmmaker had nabbed top honors at Sundance and wanted to bring both marquee and unknowns into his next project, a dramedy about a group of guy friends a few years after college. She placed her file and notes on her coffee table, and poured a glass of chardonnay, allowing herself a few minutes away from work to kick back.

With a wine glass in one hand, Sutton wandered over to her bookshelves, scanning for a paperback she’d held onto since university. She took a sip of the chardonnay, then pulled the dog-eared book from the shelf and sank down into her soft couch, pulling a red chenille throw over her legs. The Artful Doger hopped onto the sofa and curled up next to her. She opened the book and turned to her favorite page. “Tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther…And one fine morning—So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

Was it kismet that he adored this line too?

A sign, maybe?

She ran her index finger over the line, letting the memories of this afternoon flash past. Reeve and his kiss. Reeve and the way he caught her on the steps. Reeve and his words “I’m always happy to catch you.” Then, there was the picture he sent her after they’d said goodbye. She placed the book on the couch and reached for her phone on the coffee table, scrolling back to his text. He’d taken a picture of the steps leading into the library, the exact spot where he’d kissed her in such a way it seemed as if time had stopped and that the world had begun spinning around them. The moment she came undone for him.

There was only one word with the photo. One word and one punctuation mark: Encore?

She ran her fingertip lazily across that message, as if the word itself made her feel all these tingles, even though it was the memory of Reeve’s lips.

Encore. He was asking for an encore. Not of what she’d done to him in the stacks, though she was sure he wouldn’t mind another one of those, thank you very much.

But an encore of a show-stopping kiss.

She didn’t answer his question. She wouldn’t admit how very much she wanted another one. But she did allow herself a reply: “I am reading your favorite book right now.” She let her finger hover over the send button. If she sent this, she was choosing to engage. She was pressing beyond the physical and acting on the emotional. She would be getting to know him in a deeper way. She hit send.

Moments later a reply arrived. “Tell me one of your favorite lines…”

She flipped through the book, easily finding another one. “You won’t like it, because it’s about her.”

“Try me,” he wrote back.

Sutton tapped out another quote, one that tugged at her heart. “There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams--not through her own fault but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion.”

She took a sip of her wine, and soon Reeve’s name reappeared, but it wasn’t a text. He was calling. Sutton froze. Should she answer it? He knew she was around. Would he think she was ignoring him if she didn’t pick up? But she couldn’t fake her way out of this one.

“Hello there,” she said in her best sparkly voice. She was never aware of her own British accent, but she’d been told occasionally that it made her sound both smart and aloof. Those were traits that might serve her well right now.

“I love that line too.”

“Oh you do?”

“Yes. I think it’s about the ways we have these ideals of different things and people. Don’t you? I mean, why do you love the line?”

She loved it because it was passionate, because it was big, because it was epic. But she wasn’t prepared to say that, so she turned the question around. “Do you, Reeve? Have ideals about things and people?”

He paused before answering, and she wondered where he was. She heard music in the background, but the kind from a stereo or iPod, not a club. He must be at home. “Yeah. Of course. I mean, I’m sure I have this ideal about acting and theater and the craft, right? I kind of have to.”

“Why? Why do you have to?”

“I just think you can’t do this as a career if there’s anything else you remotely can see yourself doing.”

She nodded. “I believe that. I believe that about any type of art. Writer, painter, actor. It has to be the only thing for you.”

“Right. And it’s like that quote. It goes beyond her, beyond everything. It becomes everything.”

Everything. She let that word resonate in the air around her. Actors loved acting first, best and only. If she let her heart too far out of her chest then she’d have no one but herself to blame. Reeve might sound alluringly interested in this lovely getting-to-know-you phase right now, but that’s because he was throwing himself into this role—the role of the boyfriend—in the only way he knew how. Wholeheartedly, and with a creative passion.

They were just that. A creation.

It wasn’t kismet. It wasn’t a sign.

This was yet another scene in the script of their relationship. And that was totally fine, right? She didn’t really feel anything for him. It’s not as if she was longing for this thing to extend beyond a week anyway. At least, that’s what she told herself.

She yawned, big and long and exaggerated. He might have been able to tell it was a fake yawn. But she needed an out, and it was the best she could do. “I’m sleepy. I better go. I’ll see you tomorrow for a dress rehearsal, so to speak.”

“See you tomorrow, Sutton,” he said, then paused. “I can’t wait.”

She hung up, took a long swallow of wine, placed the drained glass on her coffee table, then made room for her main man, who curled up by her knees. She closed the novel and reached for her files, reminding herself that actors were part of her job, not part of her heart.

Even though she couldn’t wait to see him either.

The dinner was tomorrow. There was one more night of this pretend relationship, and Reeve wanted to have all his lines down cold. He didn’t want there to be any fuck-ups. But then, with what she’d done to him in the library and what he’d done to her in the theater, he couldn’t imagine anyone would think they weren’t a real couple. Fact was, they had chemistry in spades. There was something combustible between the two of them. It was as if he’d been given the keys to her body, and the same for her with him. The next day as he walked to her apartment on the Upper East Side, he was still thinking about the way they connected—but not just physically, because he liked talking to her too.

More than he’d expected.

Matter of fact, he’d never thought he’d be so into this arrangement. That he’d want more.

He rang the buzzer.

“Be right down,” she said, and he waited on the steps of her brownstone.

He looked up and down her street. It was one of those quiet blocks in the seventies, not far from the park. There were trees and pretty stoops, and brick buildings and lots of families pushing strollers or holding hands with young children. It was a far cry from where he lived down in the East Village in a tiny shoebox of an apartment that he’d snagged on a sublease when an actor buddy got a touring role in the German production of Book of Mormon.

But Sutton did well for herself, so it was no surprise she could handle a block like this. He leaned against the stone railing that led to her building, watching the street. A few fallen leaves blew past him, courtesy of the crisp autumn that had landed in Manhattan. He wore jeans, combat boots, and a tee-shirt—this one with the words Unplug Electric Vampires in a cool white typewriter font. He had on his scratched-up leather jacket, and his jawline was speckled with a bit of stubble. He ran a hand through his hair, and turned when he heard Sutton say, “Hey you.”

There was something sweet in her voice, something almost romantic. He’d never heard her talk that way before. He turned to watch her walk down the steps with her dog—a tiny little brown and tan mix with a cute face, and a worn, blue fleece jacket. But Sutton looked even better. He’d only seem her dressed up and now he was getting a glimpse of the after-hours gal—she had on skinny jeans that showed off every gorgeous curve, short boots and a jacket.

Then, as if she’d remembered that she didn’t talk in sweet, love-y voices, she cleared her throat and returned to her business-like tone. “Hi there, Reeve. So glad you can join The Artful Dodger and me for a jaunt through the neighborhood.”

But he liked it better when Sutton let down her guard, and he was curious about the softer side of this sharp and smart woman, so he tried to draw her back. “Your dog is kind of insanely cute,” he said, and then kneeled down to pet the soft little guy.

“Thank you,” she said, and there was that sweetness again, but as he rose to give her a kiss on the cheek—just in case anyone was watching, he reasoned—she was steely once more. Maybe she was the actress. Because he couldn’t read her anymore. She had this mask on—as if she felt she needed to be friendly, smiling, witty Sutton. Not the sweet one who melted under his touch. He wondered where that Sutton had gone. But he didn’t know what to say or how to ask, so he simply gestured to the sidewalk and off they went, The Artful Dodger at the end of his leather leash, nose to the ground, sniffing and leading the way.

“Quite a fall we’re having, isn’t it?” she remarked.

“Um, yeah. It’s definitely fall.”

“So crisp. And the leaves are changing.”

“Yep. They are definitely changing.”

This was what they were talking about? The weather?

“And soon winter will be here.”

“That’s usually how it goes. One follows the next,” Reeve said, not bothering to mask the sarcasm.

She gave him a sharp stare.

“And then spring, and then summer,” he continued. “I studied the seasons in school.” But he wasn’t being playful. He was annoyed that she was being so…clinical…so cool.

“What a great school. And how was your day?” She wasn’t going to indulge in letting him in. It pissed him off.

“It was whatever. I went for a run with Jill. Helped her get ready for her big audition next week.”

“Oh, Jill. You helped her, did you?” Reeve smiled privately when he heard the note of jealousy in her voice. She couldn’t hide it, and he was glad.