Catch a Falling Star (Second Chances Book 3) (16 page)

He’d be lying if he said the idea of landing Jo in a position where he wouldn’t have to say goodbye to her the second they were done filming didn’t appeal to him. And why was he thinking of the day this would all end anyhow?

Because whenever that end was, it was going to come too soon.

Charles continued to flip through the script. “I can put her in touch with the writers if you want, although I don’t think they’re looking to add anyone to the team. She’s not union, I assume.” He continued to scan the script.

“It’s only an idea, is all. I haven’t even talked to Jo about it.” But he would. Yvonne’s words from the other night and Jo’s easy agreement with them hadn’t left his thoughts, not for one second. It wasn’t Broadway, but he had a perfectly viable career right here, right in front of him. He had an intriguing life peeking up around him, whispering to him to come explore.

The sudden buzz of his phone in his back pocket pushed him away from those thoughts. As Charles continued to read the script, and Jo and the rest of the cast chatted in the dining room—Simon regaling them with a story that had everyone in stitches—he stepped aside to look at his phone.

His heart dropped. He swallowed and answered the call, retreating down the hall as he did.

“Hello?”

“Benjamin,” Jett and Ashton greeted him in unison on speakerphone.

“Boys. How are you?” It was easy to play it cool, far too easy, in spite of the fact that his heart thudded in his throat.

“We’re fine,” Ashton answered. “We’re more concerned about you.”

“You haven’t been getting out much this week, have you?” Jett’s voice dripped with false concern.

A deep revulsion that Ben had always ignored before swept through him. “I’ve been getting out plenty,” he replied. Whatever shit they wanted to throw at him, they could bring it on. He stepped into the heavy silence of Jo’s library, taking strength from the books.

“We heard about your little fiasco at Adam’s party last week,” Jett said.

I’m sure you did, seeing as you probably orchestrated it
.

Aloud, Ben said, “Little is right. As soon as I caught on that it was a set-up, I saw no reason to stay.”

A pause followed before Jett said, “Running away to Maine, I hear.”

“Having fun with your little television friends?” Ashton added.

Ben scowled out the window. A week ago, the taunts these two had come up with had hit home. Maybe it was the physical distance, or maybe it was the crowd of people in the other room who, by all appearances, were supporting him, but now it seemed like pointless buzz.

“If you have nothing constructive to add, I’m a bit busy at the moment.” Ben turned to the door, ready to end the call.

“Whispering sweet nothings in your new little writer friend’s ear?”

Ben froze. If either of these two vampires so much as looked funny at Jo…

“I picked up one of her books and read it over the weekend,” Ashton went on. “Very interesting stuff.”

“Very,” Jett seconded. “So interesting, in fact, that it gives us ideas.”

“Well, it’s about time you learned about the birds and the bees,” Ben fired back at them. He sounded far more casual than he felt.

“Cute,” Jett answered. “We had no idea you’d made such a talented friend. This changes everything, of course.”

Hang up. Walk away. Protect Jo
.

“Look, Jett, I haven’t got all day. Tell me what you want.” He squeezed his eyes shut, rubbing his temple.

“We want to produce your next show.”

The bomb was dropped so subtly that Ben wasn’t even sure he’d heard it. Jo laughed in the dining room, the sound echoing down the hall, into the library. It was like a hook tugging him in that direction.

“Oh, now you want to produce
Last Closing Time
,” he nearly shouted into the phone, hot with frustration. “After ruining my credibility and crushing my reputation?”

“No, no. You misunderstand,” Ashton said.

“We have no interest in producing
Last Closing Time
,” Jett said. “We have an idea for a new show.”

Ben froze. “A new show?” He should be ecstatic right about now.

“A sure-fire winner,” Jett continued. He couldn’t have sounded more like a cartoon villain if he’d tried.

“What?”

“Actually, you inspired us.” Ben sighed and began pacing. Jett was going to draw this one out. “Plays, musicals even, are based on books all the time.
The Wizard of Oz
,
Peter Pan
,
Les Misérables
.”

“So we thought, why not a play based on a romance novel?” Ashton blurted.

That was followed by a muffled thump and a whine of protest, but Ben hardly heard either. His head felt as though someone was pressing it in a vise, not to mention his chest.
Keep Jo out of this. Keep her out of it
.

“A play.” He tried to work as much distain into his tone as possible. “About a romance novel. You’re joking.”

“No, we’re very serious,” Jett said. “It’s a perfect idea, really. As we’ve so recently found out, romance novels have it all—sex, intrigue, stakes, sex.”

“You said sex twice.”

“Because it’s all over the pages,” Ashton laughed.

“And it will be all over the stage,” Jett finished. “Picture it. If they can make a bestselling movie out of one of these trashy things, then why the fuck can’t we make a musical?”

“‘Fuck’ being the operative word,” Ashton added.

“This is the idea you want to sink all of your money into?” Ben drawled. He could hear voices down the hall as someone left. Jo was walking them out through the hall to the foyer. He turned away from the door and marched to the far corner of the library. “Okay, why do you want me involved?”

“Because you’re our go-to director,” Ashton answered.

“Because you owe us,” Jett followed, far less flippant. The campy character was gone entirely, and the shark was in its place. “We cut you down, we can build you back up. All it will take is this one little show.”

He hesitated, balancing on the balls of his feet as he debated ending the call and throwing the phone across the room. He would be a fool to do that, though. Yes, the Pollards brought him down, but they weren’t lying when they said they could build him up again.

They were offering him his life back.

“Spell this out for me.” He gave up all pretense of games in favor of getting to the bottom of things. “Last week you fitted me for a pair of proverbial concrete shoes, and this week you want me to convince a friend of mine to adapt one of her books into a Broadway play. Why? What’s in it for you?”

“Prestige,” Ashton answered. “We’d be doing something no one has ever done before. It would be the talk of the town, and we would get the credit for coming up with the idea.”

At least he was being honest.

Partially.

“What about Jo? Why her?”

“Listen to you, all protective and sweet,” Jett cooed. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you actually like this one.”

“Why Jo?” he asked again, slower. “She’s not a bestseller.”

“Not yet, at least. Don’t you want to see your special friend shoot up the charts? You saw what happened to those books they made those movies about. That was last year, and I think they’re still on all the lists.”

Ben winced, rubbing a hand across his forehead. He sucked at these sorts of situations, the ones where all the lines blurred and turned gray. He knew something wasn’t right—
knew
it—but he couldn’t put his finger on what. But if there was a chance, even a little chance, of Jo coming out on top of this situation, if he could protect her from whatever the Pollards were hiding, this might be just the thing for her.

“I’m not saying no to the idea,” he said at last on a heavy breath.

“We knew you’d like it,” Jett said with a little too much certainty.

“Of course we did,” Ashton added.

“So why don’t you figure out which of Miss Josephine Burkhart’s books would make the best lavish Broadway production, then we’ll draw up the contract and make theater history, okay?”

He hated the idea. He hated every last piece of it. But he couldn’t think of a single, concrete reason why he couldn’t at least present the idea to Jo. If he was lucky, she’d turn it down and send the Pollards—and him, if she was smart—on their way.

“All right,” he growled at last. “But I’ll be watching you.”

“Ooh, I certainly hope so,” Ashton giggled.

Ben grimaced and wiped his mouth. “Goodbye.” He hung up before Jett could add anything that would make him change his mind.

Jo was still talking in the hall. He thought he heard Adelaide and Nick’s voices out there somewhere too. Which meant she was probably supervising her brother the same way he’d looked out for her. Good. That bought him some time to think.

He paced to one of the old, stuffed chairs Charles and Moira had carried into the library before the read-through and threw his phone against the seat as hard as he dared, hissing an expletive as he did. He raked his fingers through his hair. It was so hard to resist that feeling that everything he’d worked for and had taken from him could be handed back. A week ago, he would have directed any fool play the Pollards wanted him to sign his name to and more to have them put an end to the rumors.

Now he had Jo. She trusted him. At least he assumed she did. She’d let him stay in her house, even after Yvonne decamped for a swanky hotel in Portland. She vented her frustrations with her writing to him without reservation. And in spite of every subtle hint he’d tried to give that the two of them getting physically involved again would be bad news, a few hours ago she had practically made love to him with her eyes, begging for a kiss.

Life would be so much easier if he could give in to that desperate pull and hand himself over to her, body and soul. Jett and Ashton had just given him every reason in the book not to do it.

“There you are.” Jo stepped into the library, yanking him out of his thoughts. She wore a smile that was too honest for the conversation he’d just had. Hell, it was too honest for the life he’d been living, up until a week ago. “Everyone’s gone home. Nick decided to drive Adelaide, since it’s started snowing.”

“Of course.” Ben gave the answer he was supposed to with an appropriately amused grin to hide his pounding heart.

“I think the reading went really well,” Jo went on. “I can’t believe filming the whole thing will only take ten days.”

“That’s television for you,” he said, mouth jerking into a smile.

Her own smile dropped. “What’s wrong? Charles told me you were on a phone call before he left.”

“It was nothing.” The lie sprung to his lips far too fast.

He covered it by sliding into old habits. He let his shoulders relax, his hips loosen, and his eyes drop to a sultry rake of her body as he sidled closer to her. Part of him screamed in disgust, but the rest of him needed the heat, needed the closeness that followed. He needed her, in every way.

“So everybody’s gone home, you say?” He walked right up to her, sliding his arms around her and holding her close. It felt so good, so right to hold her in his arms again that his vision blurred with contentment.

“Yes.” She drew out the single syllable, circling her arms around his back, fingertips pressing. Her grin sparkled with mischief, but she was more reserved than she had been after the coffee shop. Instead of wild excitement, her eyes held the danger of knowing that she had something unpredictable in her arms.

“Hmm.” The hum rolled around his throat, dropped to his chest. It was so much easier to let this part of himself loose, to do what he was good at and seduce her. Why was he holding back again? “What are we going to do with a whole, big empty house all to ourselves?”

He answered his question by kissing her. The dam of his resolve crumbled. Her mouth was eager under his, her taste so familiar, even though it’d been days since he’d let himself off the leash. More than that, the desperation of needing something—no, needing
someone
—that he’d worked so hard to quiet came roaring back at him. He needed to feel Jo around him, needed to be inside of her. If he could bring her pleasure, make her happy, then maybe he wouldn’t be such a walking disaster.

Chapter Thirteen

Yes
. The single word swirled up Jo’s spine and spread out over her like a wave rushing the beach. It was about damn time. She hugged Ben tighter as he kissed her, pressing the two of them as close as they could get wearing thick sweaters. He certainly knew how to get the most out of a kiss. His lips were soft and demanding at the same time. His tongue searched and teased without invading. He knew how much pressure to use, how much to suck and nip and breathe through the bliss.

He knew
exactly
what he was doing. That should have scared the sunshine out of Jo and sent her running. Men like Ben learned through experience. Lots and lots of experience. And here she was, lining up to be another notch on his bedpost.

But what the hell?

“Do you want to throw me over your shoulder and carry me up to my bed?” she panted, excitement zinging through her. “Or do you want to take me up against the bookshelves over there?”

Ben’s intense concentration, and his sultry kiss, was broken by a deep laugh. His body loosened in her grasp. “Sex standing up is a lot harder than it looks.”

The vibration of his laughter echoed through Jo’s body—especially when he captured her mouth again—but she wasn’t sure she could share the ease of his humor. He would know, would he? How many times had he tried to nail a woman against the walls of his fancy apartment? Against the windows?

How was she going to pull herself together after this whole thing ended in misery?

His hand delving under the thick wool of her sweater flung that thought to the back corner of her mind. It was still there, but so was the hot joy of his fingers against her skin as they found their way under her shirt. She sucked in a breath as he raked them up to explore her breast, pulling her bra down so he could tease her nipple.

She hummed with pleasure, escaping into the character she’d created for herself after the coffee shop. That made it easier to accept the need pulsing through her, to convince herself there was nothing wrong with wanting to spread her legs right then and there. This was research, after all. She could use every second of this dance.

“What?” Ben murmured against her lips, feeling the jolt of tension that shot through her.

“Hmm?” She attempted to ignore his hesitation in favor of losing herself.

“You’re tense.”

Yeah, right about the time the idea of using him came to her mind. Her gut roiled at the fact that she could even think of using Ben. But there was an even chance that he could be using her the exact same way. Wasn’t that what sex in the modern world was all about? Two consenting adults using each other for pleasure?

“Nothing.” She lowered her head and glanced up into his eyes, doing her best hesitant virgin heroine impersonation. “I’m just…anxious. I don’t usually do things like this.” She did her level best to make it sound like an act. She was dead serious.

Ben watched her, his smile gone. His hand moved from her breast to her back, still flush against her skin. The wave of emotion that rolled off of him was so intense that for a moment, Jo’s throat tightened with tears. The reaction made no sense, but she didn’t have time to dissect it.

Ben pressed her close and kissed her again, and this kiss took her breath away. It was more than technical perfection, more than the right balance of pressure and motion and tongue depth. It was pure, vivid emotion. It was that kiss from the beach. She responded more intensely than she ever could have if she was pretending. She moved her hand from his back to brush along the side of his face, fingers reaching for his hair, eager to pull him closer. Elation and desperation warred in her frantically beating heart.

“I want to make love to you,” he whispered against her lips, eyes lowered to shield the intensity of his desire. “Right now.”

“Yes,” she answered without hesitation.

He responded by kissing her again. Not ripping her clothes off, not freeing himself from his jeans—by kissing her. The intensity of desire radiating from him went far beyond that playful first time into totally uncharted territories. And still his arms merely held her tight against him instead of reaching and probing. His entire concentration was in the ferocity of his kiss.

A deep trembling started in Jo’s core and worked its way up to her heart and limbs. Something was going on. Something had changed in him. She was five steps behind and drowning in desire. It was almost a relief when Ben broke their kiss, panting, to rest his forehead against hers. She’d never seen his eyes so filled with darkness and desire.

“Upstairs.” It was both a question and a command. A shiver shot down Jo’s spine. All that uncomfortable erotica suddenly made sense with the force of that one word. Her trembling intensified at the knowledge that she would do
anything
he asked her to do.

Lucky for her, anything turned out to be taking his hand and letting him rush her out of the library, down the hall, and up the stairs. She caught sight of thick blankets of white falling out of the sky as they passed the living room. It was already dark, but the light from the house reflected on the snow. Its power of silence seemed to enclose the house in a cocoon of unreality.

Ben led her into the guest room instead of her room, shutting the door behind them. Then he tugged her back into his arms, his dark eyes still blazing, to kiss her. Inch by inch, Jo melted as his tongue traced the line of her lips, his mouth teased hers. Her trembling increased, highlighting the ache in her core, an ache that threatened to drive her crazy if she didn’t do something about it. It matched the intensity of the twinge in her heart that warned her not to trust a man with a reputation.

He broke the kiss long enough to breathe heavily against her cheek. He slipped his hands under her sweater to bring it and her shirt up over her overheated body. She raised her arms, lowered her eyelids, and let him undress her as if she were in some sort of dream. Or novel, right? This was research, clinical, role-playing.

The soft thud of her sweater dropping to the floor was quickly followed by her bra snapping loose. She let him remove it, then gasped as he covered her breasts with his hands, thumbs stroking her taut nipples. It wasn’t enough. Everything he had might never be enough.

She channeled the shock of her need into reaching for him and helping him to strip out of his shirt and sweater. They didn’t stop there. Without words, they finished undressing each other. There was nothing cute or playful about it. Every movement was dead serious, every touch deliberate. The one time Jo dared to catch Ben’s eyes, the emotional intensity within him was so potent that the mystery behind his gaze left her knees weak.

As soon as they were both naked, he pulled her into his arms for another endless kiss. This time the burning heat of his body flush against hers, the brush of the hair on his chest against her breasts, and the insistent thickness of his penis grinding against her hip, blasted all thought from her mind. Nothing else mattered but that he was hers and hers alone in that moment. He lost his fingers in her hair, spread his other hand down across her backside, teasing against the cleft of her butt.

With a swift movement, he lifted her, turned, and lay her across the neatly-made bed. She met his eyes again, and sucked in a breath at the troubled need she saw there. Instinct told her that look wasn’t ordinary. Something was wrong.

Seconds later, his mouth was on her breast, and she bucked against him, analysis forgotten. His free hand stroked down her side, then back up to cradle the breast he was suckling, tongue flickering over her nipple, sending jolts of pleasure straight to her core. She dug her fingertips into his back, not wanting to hurt him with her nails, but needing desperately to tell him how much she loved every second of this. Words, even sounds, wouldn’t be enough. He needed something more, deeper.

He
needed
it.

The realization crashed through Jo, squeezing her breath to desperate pants. She drew her hands around his shoulders, holding the sides of his face and urging him to look up at her. He did, eyes glazed with desire.

“Ben.” She whispered his name. “I need you inside of me.”

He kissed her, a low moan rumbling through him. His large body covered hers, fitting between her legs. The full weight of him above her, the burning heat of his cock inches from her entrance, shot wild wanting through her. She lifted her hips to grind against him, urging him to thrust into her.

Instead he stood, visibly shaken, and jumped off the bed. Jo was ready to cry foul, until she saw him lunge for his suitcase and throw it open. He thrust his hand into one of the pockets and pulled out a strip of condoms. The relief of knowing that he wasn’t going to stop coupled with the flash of pride at how responsible he was left Jo giddy with passion. She stretched and writhed on the bed as he turned back to her, ripping open a condom without bothering to detach it from the strip, and rolling it on.

His eyes told all the story she needed to hear as he crawled back on top of her. She expected him to make some sexy comment about how she looked spread out for him like that or how he was going to enjoy fucking her. Instead, he kissed her with that same, searing intensity, grinding his cock against her. No words.

The kiss was incredible. He managed to hit the right spot with his grinding, brushing her clit with enough friction to bring her close to the edge. But it was the way he stroked her sides and hips—with such tenderness—that left her quivering with urgency. She nearly lost it when, in one commanding motion, he lifted her legs up and to the sides, folding her until her ankles were somewhere near his shoulders, then sliding into her with a force that was both powerful and controlled.

He let out a breath on a series of groans as he pushed into her, again and again. The newness of the pinned, folded posture added to the deep angle of penetration caught hold of her imagination and sent her spiraling. The sounds she made as his thrusts intensified were not rehearsed. She meant every moan and sigh as he thrust faster and deeper. And when she came with surprise intensity, she surprised herself by calling out, “Ben, Ben.”

He echoed with a wordless cry of his own and tensed with his orgasm. It must have been powerful, because he kept rocking and panting, even as it ebbed. When at last he pulled out and let her legs go, Jo didn’t know whether to wince with the discomfort of being twisted like a pretzel or to sigh and stretch with contentment.

She opted for the latter, reaching for Ben after he rolled to the side to discard his condom. Part of her was surprised when he not only accepted her open arms, but surged into her, nestling his head against the crook of her neck.

She wanted to make a joke, say that she’d never tried that position before, that it would go in her next novel. She waited to hear him whisper something clever and meaningless against her ear. Her whole body tensed with anticipation over the return to the illusion that none of this meant anything, that they were just pretending.

His hand brushed against her belly, teasing down toward the curls between her legs. Her abdomen fluttered and her hips twitched, and yes, he closed his hand around her mound, fingers resting near her wet entrance, but not to stroke or tease or elicit pleasure. He held her there, protectively.

It felt so good that warmth began to spread through her again. Not only sexual warmth either.

“Well, that was nice,” she said at last, unable to stand the silence for another moment.

Only when he breathed out a laugh against her shoulder did she realize how tense he’d been.

“It was.” His voice was languid, sleepy. He shifted their position to spoon her, in spite of the sweaty, post-coital heat. His hand remained firmly between her legs, fingers playing absently.

She raised an arm and curled it up and behind her to find his head and rake her fingers through his hair. The movement stretched her torso, which felt good, and he responded by lifting her leg to rest over his, then returning to playing with her, which felt very good.

He didn’t say anything else. Maybe because his lips were busy nibbling her shoulder. His breathing had slowed to long, deep sighs. She couldn’t see, but she was willing to bet his eyes were closed. Everything but his hand seemed half asleep. His fingers had zeroed in on her clit, and she was well on her way to a second orgasm…which felt out of place considering how sated the rest of her was.

Still he didn’t talk. Worry cut through the pleasure he was giving her. “Ben, is everything all right?”

He didn’t answer right away. Her worry grew. It began to eclipse the throbbing in her core.

“Ben?”

“Shh.” He dipped his fingers lower, slipping two of them inside of her. She gasped, and could feel his smile against her shoulder. He withdrew his fingers and returned to stroking her clit, trying to make her come again.

“Please tell me if something is wrong,” she whispered.

Still no answer. Her body trembled—both from the pleasure he was causing and from the emotional maelstrom he’d started in her. Here they were, naked in bed together, minutes after having mind-blowing sex, still wrapped around each other, with his hand doing delicious things to her, and they were further apart than they’d ever been. She could feel the wall he’d brought down as intensely as she could feel his fingers stroking her. Why?