Quirks & Kinks (15 page)

Feelings of excited contentment bloomed in my belly, mushrooming and building on themselves until they ran out of room.

The closer we got to the makeup room (and other people), the closer the excitement got to the top of my esophagus—and started to feel a little less like excitement and more like vomit.

“Ergmaged,” I squealed, dragging my feet enough that Anderson started to laugh.

“What’s the matter with you? This is no big deal. I can assure you that you don’t need to worry about having a conversation with Shavon. She’s one of the most sexually open people I’ve ever met.”

“Um, hello?” I called, pointing to my own chest. “Sexually closed. Right here.”

His eyes positively danced. Stopping in front of the guest dressing room door, he knocked.

It was only a few seconds before a seriously attractive blond guy answered.

“Hey, Devon,” Anderson greeted.

Oh Jesus.

“Hey, Anderson.” He held out his hand to me.

“Oh, hi. Easie,” I stumbled to introduce myself.

They both smiled.

Speaking for myself like a big girl, I explained, “I was hoping I could talk to Shavon . . . and maybe you . . . about the show.”

“Oh, yeah. Cool.”

Before he could even call her over, she was there, peeking her absolutely gorgeous head around the doorjamb. Smooth, mocha skin and lush lashes surrounded a stunning set of amber brown eyes, but both of them acted primarily as servants, born to a life of highlighting her welcoming, bright smile.

“Easie!” She pulled me in for a hug, officially separating my hand from Anderson’s.

Huh. I hadn’t even realized it was still there.

“It’s so nice to meet you!”

She was bubbly in the cutest possible way. “You too, Shavon.”

“Come in, come in,” she invited easily. “Let’s talk.”

A gleam danced in her eye as she dragged me inside. Involuntarily, my eyes sought Anderson one last time in desperation.

But he was already gone.

Anderson’s eager hands formed a trail down my body, laying out a path for his lips that led to my sex. Each inch of skin felt like it was wired with extra nerves, just the way Shavon had described it.

My role and her pleasure-clouded words acted as a placebo, making my body feel like it did at the height of shark week—only . . .
good.
Aching, hypersensitive, and unbelievably turned on.

If my period got the wrong idea and tried to sync up with my role, Anderson would have hell to pay.

Responsive and eager, my womb seemed to pulse with extra fervor, a second heartbeat setting up at the apex of my thighs and bringing a new supply of blood to the layer of tissue just under my skin. His dark head looked criminally good against my skin, and when his light green eyes flicked up to meet mine, my timer popped. This turkey was done.

My inner thighs ached in anticipation, and for the first time in my entire life, being involved in a blood bath sounded like a good thing.

No. The
best
thing.

“Cut!” Howie called, bringing me down from my high on a cruelly steep downslope.

Sexual frustration was ripe, the tease of having Anderson’s hands and mouth all over me day in and day out becoming the absolute worst form of torture. Forget the waterboarding, America. Strap people down and blue ball ’em to death.

It’d be sure to turn confessions almost immediately.

“You okay?” Anderson asked right away, obviously feeling the tremor run through me.

This guy. Jesus.

Fuck him for making something so gross seem sexy. My ability to frivolously make fun of unknown, seemingly depraved things would seriously decrease now that he’d opened my eyes. I was ruined for life.

“Yeah. I just . . .” I shook my head, moved him off of me. “I need a cigarette.”

Understatement.

Scurrying off of the bed, I signaled to Howie, and he gave me a nod. I didn’t look back as I made my way down the hall, got my stuff from my dressing room, and then sought comfort and normalcy in the warm sunshine of outside.

More solace waited at the tips of my fingers, and I didn’t waste any time before lighting it up and bringing it to my eager lips. Two quick pulls gave me the hit of nicotine I needed desperately.

When Anderson came out of the door looking for me fifteen seconds later, I was glad I had gotten it already.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I just needed to smoke,” I replied, conveniently leaving out the fact that my needing to smoke
stemmed
from being slightly less than okay.

He rolled his eyes and scoffed.

Wrong move.

“Why are you so closed-minded about the smoking when you preach open-mindedness like gospel for everything else? I don’t fucking get it!”

He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and retreated into a place deep within himself—a place that definitely didn’t include me. Quiet lilts sounded from swooping birds, and wayward leaves tinkled and scraped on the concrete as they blew by.

I watched his face, tight and tense and lost in a whirlwind of emotion. The muscles of his cheeks twitched, and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes deepened and flexed perfectly in time with his breathing.

Whatever he was thinking about, he was living it. Each breath moved raggedly, and every flit of a memory was enough to make his eyes flinch.

I watched him battle, and after several moments, his face calmed with the evolution of his victory.

When he finally came back from his place of introspection, opened his eyes and met mine, his attitude had completely changed.

“You’re right.” He nodded. Adamant. “This is my issue, not yours. I won’t say anything anymore.”

I wanted to understand, to delve deeper. I wanted an invitation to the place he’d gone so I could know
why
this was his issue,
what
made him this way. His intentions behind coming out here had been so pure, so kind-hearted, but with the help of one bad habit, it had all rolled straight into the gutter.

Before I could ask, he was gone, the sound of the door clicking closed behind him the only sign that he had ever been.

So complicated were his ups and downs, I was starting to fear that Anderson was
too good
an actor. All of his defining lines blurred and curved, completely disguising the shape of his personality and turning it into one, huge, soul-sucking mystery. I could lose myself in him for hours trying to figure out the differences in real and fake, and somehow, at the end of my exploration, all I found were more questions.

BY THE TIME WE
wrapped filming for the day, Anderson and I were back in a routine of pithy comments and reactions. Ironically, we’d both been nominated for Oscars for our performance in
Let’s Pretend That Didn’t Happen.

Small film. Limited circulation.

Hah.

“So . . . our first episode airs tonight,” I said, hoping to take our olive branch and turn it into a real relationship. Bouncing around one another was exhausting, and when I’d come back inside from our tête-à-tête, just the sight of him made me realize enough was enough.

Our dance wasn’t satisfying me anymore. Our relationship was either going to orgasm or it wasn’t, but whatever the outcome, it’d be better to find out now.

“So . . . I know,” he teased, tilting his head and settling his thumbs into his front pockets.

“Do you think it’s cute to mock me?”

“Yes.”

“It’s not.”

“Maybe the mocking isn’t cute,” he conceded, “but your reaction is.”

“My reaction?” I shook my head and scrunched my face. “You mean me being annoyed?”

He smiled and popped his eyebrows.

“You like that, huh?” I asked. “Well, then you should love this!” I yelled, reaching out to swat him on the arm.

He ducked and weaved, laughing as his feet shuffled back a couple of steps.

“Alright, alright. Relax.”

“Me relax? You fucking relax!”

His laughter only loudened, echoing off the walls and concealing the sound of Larry’s entry.

“Guys,” Larry called, startling me into a running trip. My toe caught on the carpet, pealing the front of my flip flop away from my toes and sending me into a head first journey to the ground.

Anderson stepped forward just in time, scooping me up with two hands in the divots of my armpits.

“Easy there, Easie,” Larry teased, practically choking on his self-induced laughter.

“Fucking hilarious,” I grumbled as Anderson placed me safely on my feet.

“First episode airs tonight,” Larry said as I moved to stand on my own. Anderson’s hands loitered.

“Yeah, you’re about two minutes too late,” I replied, just before Anderson explained, “We already had this conversation.”

“Great. Then you won’t be surprised when I tell you that we’re having a meeting tomorrow, just as soon as the rating statistics come in.”

I elbowed Anderson in the ribs playfully before asking Larry, “Planning on firing us?”

“Not if viewers like you,” he deadpanned, looking each of us in the eye individually.

I knew the public could turn on me in an instant, but at least they’d liked me before. There was some comfort in that knowledge. As for Anderson . . . yeah, I was pretty sure he was impossible not to like.

Larry headed for the door, scooting out it with one final nod in our direction.

As soon as he cleared it, Anderson whispered conspiratorially in my ear. “I don’t think Larry likes you very much.”

“Thank you!” I nearly screamed, excited that someone else could finally fucking see it.

Laughter shook my shoulders, but it wasn’t my own, as Anderson’s jovial arms came around me, wrapping me up in a vibrating hug and squeezing. Everything started to tingle, and after only a few seconds, the pleasure overwhelmed me, forcing my eyes to close.

“Don’t invite me over tonight,” he whispered into the curve of my neck, the soft silk of his lips skimming my skin as he did.

My eyes popped open, and my body went stiff.

“I know that’s where you were going before, the direction our conversation was headed, but I’m begging you,
don’t
ask me.”

Tightening throat threatening to completely choke my only connection to air, I tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let me.

“Easie,” he murmured into my skin, squeezing me even tighter as he did. “I don’t want you to ask because I don’t want to tell you no.” He chuckled softly to himself, groaned, and then whispered nearly silently. I wasn’t even sure I actually heard the words I thought I did, but it sounded like, “I’m not sure that I could.”

“Okay,” I agreed, dumbfounded and completely vulnerable, promising, “I won’t ask,” as my head tried to talk louder than my wildly beating heart.

His arms tightened just slightly, lingering and making me long for things I shouldn’t. Just as I started to settle into it again, he pulled away, leaving me swaying in the breeze of his exit and floundering in the wake of his embrace.

For us, a pattern had started to form.

The more he pushed, the more I pulled, nearly guaranteeing myself an ending that could only be agony.

“Anderson looks good, huh?” Ashley asked as the intro of the show played on our TV. She was in charge of getting the show turned on. I was in charge of getting snacks.