The World is a Stage (28 page)

She got the shoulder back, then. Shoulder and maybe arms and legs too, but that wasn’t right because Michael had a bad knee, and carrying her would only make it worse. Minutes, possibly hours passed, and she jolted out of the pleasant sensation of doing nothing only when Molly shrieked and a million voices rose up around her, all of them murmuring the same thing.

“I’m fine,” she grumbled, flailing around until her legs and arms hit something other than air and Michael’s warm chest. It might have been a couch. It might have been the planked wooden floor, nicked with age and use. It didn’t matter. She was just going to take an eensy weensy nap before curtain call.

The papers called it her finest performance ever.

Even in a bikini, Ms. Hewitt perfectly captures Cleopatra’s haughty reserve.

It was difficult to ascertain if hatred or lust blazed stronger between the title characters.

Never before has a Shakespeare production been so full of unabashed eye candy of both the male and female varieties, leaving this viewer to wonder…is a burlesque
Romeo and Juliet
in the works for next season?

“These are incredible!” Molly cried, bursting into Rachel’s bedroom in a mountain of fluttering newspaper pages. “I can’t wait to see what Peter Bloom comes up with in next month’s
Review
. You’re going to be huge!”

“Take them away,” Rachel mumbled. Her face was buried in her pillow, her body floating somewhere a few feet above the bed. “I don’t want to talk about last night ever again.”

“But you were amazing!” Molly talked in all exclamation points, so Rachel opened one groggy eye and turned it toward her alarm clock. Six thirty. Ungodly, no matter how much Peter Bloom might have enjoyed the show.

The show. Ugh.

“What happened, anyway?” Molly asked, calming her tone and focusing her attention on arranging the papers in an artful arc on Rachel’s dresser. She cast a sly look over her shoulder. “What exactly did Michael say to you to get you off that couch and into costume? When you came in all loopy and passed out, we thought you were done for. There was even a betting pool whether or not you’d make it. And how long it would take Michael to get you fired up and ready to go.”

“I can’t believe you people had nothing better to do on opening day.” Rachel groaned and rolled over. The sun streamed through her blinds, announcing the cheerful arrival of the day no matter how much she might loathe it. “Who won? If you tell me Michael, I’m going to scream.”

Molly giggled. “Oh, he wasn’t in on the bet. Dominic was, though. He gave Michael five minutes.”

That, at least, was a triumph. It had taken him a heck of a lot longer than that.

Since Rachel rarely even allowed herself the luxury of an aspirin, she’d forgotten how strongly she reacted to painkillers of that nature—and of a dosage probably designed to tranquilize a beast of Michael’s size. She should have known better.
He
should have known better.

But if he’d felt guilty about it, he certainly didn’t show it when he barged into Dominic’s office, where she’d been quietly and delightfully resting on his overstuffed couch.

“You,” he’d announced, his voice loud and filled with cheer, “are a lightweight. And you also have about twenty minutes to get up and get ready for the show.”

“Go away.”

“I’ve been tasked to get your sorry ass up and into costume. So here. Red Bull. Drink it.”

“What’s it laced with this time?”

He laughed. “Good intentions. Now get up.”

She wasn’t sure which was worse—the pain of a body overtaxed by his idea of exercise or a body still under the influence of a few painkillers. Either way, the body was done. Her limbs felt as though they moved through a thick sludge, her depth perception so far off she might have been in outer space.

“I’m warning you…if you don’t get yourself dressed, I will do it for you.”

She closed her eyes and resumed her nap, sure he’d go away. Why did he have to be the one in here, trying to patch her up? Send Mary. Send Dominic. Send Molly. Send anyone who didn’t fill the entire room with his laughing presence, mocking and delicious and immovable.
 

She probably napped for a little while after that, because the next thing she remembered was the slide of his palm just at her waistband, where shirt met pants and a slip of stomach must have been exposed. She distinctly remembered arching her back into it for a full minute before finally realizing what was happening.

She shot up, her head following at a lag of roughly five seconds. “Hey—what do you think you’re doing?”

Michael held up a gold bikini and gave it a little shake. “I told you. Get up and get dressed. Or I do it for you.”

“You’re bluffing.”

“You think so?” he asked and reached for her. Once again, her reaction times were much too slow. His fingers tucked just under the waistband of her tight-fitting black slacks before she could do more than lift into a better sitting position. He crooked a finger, and she slid right back down, her body compelled toward his in a way that seemed wholly unbecoming.
Silly body.
It had no idea what it was doing. But Michael’s hands certainly did.

Then he reached for the buttons of her pants, expertly flipping the top one open, letting his fingers graze lower on her belly. Her entire body flooded with warmth, the rush of blood and sensation finally settling heavily between her legs.

In the back of her mind, there was a vague awareness that this was not the most effective way to get a woman in costume. She didn’t want to get dressed. She would much rather lie here, allowing him to slowly undress her, an object for him to explore and caress and enjoy.

She’d been right when she said it before—this was a man who knew what he was doing.

Wait.

“Wait!” She struggled to sit up again. This time, he let her, shifting back onto his haunches and watching her with that damnable grin taking up most of his face.

“You’re taking advantage of me, you bastard.”

“No. I’m getting you in costume. Now, do you want me to finish, or would you rather do it yourself?”

“You wouldn’t dare!” Her words might have been partially slurred, but clarity was coming back in strong bursts of mortification. Her pants were unbuttoned. She might or might not have offered to lick Michael back at the restaurant. Dear God—was the clock on the wall correct?

She tried jumping to her feet, but her head felt light. Michael was there in an instant, all strength and warm arms and deep, rumbling laughter. Did he never stop with the laughing?

She promptly gave him a shove, as effective as a fan against a sandstorm.

As he continued holding her up, a cold can was placed in her hand, and Rachel begrudgingly took a sip of the energy drink.

“Disgusting. It tastes like baby aspirin.”

“Which, by the way, is a much better idea the next time you need a painkiller,” Michael said.

Rachel managed to stick her tongue out. “Very funny.”

“Now—costume time.”

“I can do it.”

“No. You can’t. You can barely hold your head up. We can slap some sense into you during makeup. Right now, we need to get you dressed and out that door.”

“I don’t care how much of a mule you are, Michael O’Leary. You do not get to tell me what to do, and you most certainly do not get to do it for me. I’ll get dressed by myself.”

“Fine.” He let go, and it was only by the grace of the desk right behind her that she was able to remain standing. “Do it.”

She took another deep drink, swallowing at least half of the evil potion and setting the can down with a shudder. “Get out first.”

“No way.” He smirked. “I’ve been sent to help. So I’m helping. Arms up. I’ve been dying to see what you’ve got going on under there.”

She put her arms up, all right. One of them went up in the shape of a fist, the other still clutching the desk to keep her standing. She took advantage of the momentary burst of laughter this gave him and ran around to the other side of the desk, her legs wobbly but functioning. She gripped the wooden surface with both hands, leaning over it and glaring at Michael, who mirrored her stance.

“Go on, then. Take off your shirt.”

She picked up a tin organizer full of thumbtacks and opened her eyes wide in warning. “You are some kind of creep, you know that?”

“That’s not what you were saying this morning. Would you prefer to take your pants off first? I can handle that. But do it nice and slow and give your ass a wiggle.”

She slammed the thumbtacks on the desk and looked for something else that might be a little less damaging on the way to his face, rustling through the drawers with a kind of feverish mania she knew was getting out of hand. But oh, how she longed to do something to scratch his surface, get past the barrier of indifference and humor he wore so well.

“You can stop now. If you really want to hurt me, I’ll go to the prop department and grab my sword. Would that help?”

“It would help if you would get out of here and let me get ready for the show.”

He shrugged and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Of course. Geez, Rachel. All you had to do was ask.”

Michael picked up the bikini with a kind of reverence that made her want to melt and handed it to her, allowing his fingers to graze hers for much longer than was necessary. Her body, as if remembering his series of more intimate touches, grew suddenly hot, her stomach doing flips that thudded in a downward spiral right toward her lady parts. It wasn’t fair—that’s what it was. He knew full well what he was capable of and lorded it over her.

That was the worst part of it all.

She stood there, on fire, a combination of lust and the growing embarrassment of remembering only snippets of her behavior from before. Licking. Legs. An overwhelming sense of longing she couldn’t quite place.

And there he was, as calm as you please, master of the situation.

“I hope you choke,” she sputtered. “On stage. I hope you choke and go down like a massive bundle of flames.”

“Aw, thanks, Rachel,” he replied cheerfully, obtuse as ever. He opened the door. “Is that another one of those theater superstitions? I hope you go down in a fiery blaze too.”

Just as she was trying to get her breathing under control, the door shut, leaving her heaving and alone with her costume and an empty can of Red Bull. She threw the latter in the trash and forced herself to get dressed, her heart pounding in fury.

Only later, as she exited the room, fully capable of walking on two legs and her head clearer than it had been in a very long time, did she realize it had all been on purpose. The warm, creeping fingers she could still feel beating in her belly. The soft caresses as he coaxed her out of her painkiller coma and back to the land of the living.

He’d been trying to get a rise out of her, and it had worked—in more ways than one.

The mortification of it wasn’t any easier to bear this morning. If anything, it was worse.

“I hate you, Molly. And Michael. And everyone associated with that show. Especially Peter Bloom.”

Molly laughed and gave Rachel’s bottom a friendly pat. “Cheer up, sis. Now we know the trick to your lifelong success.”

“Oh?” Rachel rolled over. “What’s that? Hiring an imbecile to play opposite me?”

“Nope. Hiring a hot imbecile you want to have lots of hot imbecile sex with to play opposite you.”

Rachel didn’t bother with a response. She shoved her head under the pillow, determined to go back to sleep.

But sleep, the stupid, elusive thing, didn’t come. All she got was a fevered memory of the on-stage kiss they’d been forced to share the night before and the smile in Michael’s eyes when they’d pulled away, as if there was nothing acted about their interlude at all.

And they only had two months’ worth of shows left to do. Two months’ worth of on-stage kisses and face-to-face interactions and that damn, hands-all-over-his-body armor scene she’d insisted on putting back in.

She groaned. It was going to be a long two months.

“You’re a smart woman, Rachel.”

Nora sat across from her on the other side of her huge mahogany desk, which Rachel had always felt looked perfectly suited for one of those passionate moments in an inappropriate workplace setting. Her friend’s hand rested heavily on two manila envelopes, one a few inches thick, the other so fat it was practically bursting out of its seams.

Her heart sank. Eric probably had a prison record a mile long.

“Thank you,” Rachel murmured, distracted by the amount of space that envelope was taking up. She took a sip of the coffee June had pressed on her as she’d made her way into the office, telling her she had bags under her eyes bigger than a Birkin.

“But,” Nora held up one of her fingers, the nail long and bloodred. What Rachel would have given to be able to pull off that Cruella DeVille look. “Know that I say this with love—you’re also kind of a bitch.”

Rachel just managed avoiding spraying the coffee in her mouth all over the desk. Swallowing the hot, bitter liquid with a huge gulp, she set the cup down and did her best to appear unfazed.