The One That I Want Page 17

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning that playing a role becomes a way of life. We’re aware of ourselves as characters in any given situation and at any time. Switching between parts is instinctive. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to tap into our real selves or be honest about our genuine motivations in the midst of a world of potential roles. It just takes concentration and a good reason to do it.”

  I nodded at him and took a few steps back. I was in way over my head with this guy, and I knew it. “I just realized I’m very thirsty and need a drink. Want one?”

  “Sure,” he said, but he didn’t move from his spot. He crossed his arms and trained his blue eyes on me with a half contemplative, half amused look—like the military sniper he’d played in that one indie film, Dead Man’s Will.

  “Great,” I said. “Mine’s going to have alcohol in it.” A lot of alcohol. “I can go lighter on yours, though. Since you’ll be driving…later.”

  “You’re adorable.” He flashed one of his trademark grins at me. “I won’t be driving anytime soon. Unless you kick me out.” He paused. “Are you planning to kick me out?”

  “No,” I said. “But plans can change.”

  He laughed. “Touché.” Then he walked with me into the kitchen, put his arms around my shoulders, and whispered, “Relax. I know we just did a 180. Fast enough to make us both a little lightheaded. Let’s have a drink. We can slow it down a bit.”

  I grabbed a bottle of vodka from the cabinet and orange juice from the fridge and made screwdrivers that were one part juice, three parts lighter fluid.

  Dane took a sip of his and then cough-laughed. “You reversed the proportions there, eh?” He took another sip and shook his head.

  “Maybe.” I downed about half of mine, hoping the increased quantity would made the potion take effect faster.

  Dane studied me. “Where’s your bedroom?”

  I guzzled a little more of my slightly orange-flavored vodka. “I don’t want to go in there.”

  “Okay. Where do you want to go?”

  “Almost anywhere else in the house.”

  He ventured another sip of his drink then pointed toward the Persian rug in the middle of the living room.

  I considered this. “Nice tight weave, but carpet burn is a real possibility.”

  He pointed to the top of the polished mahogany dining-room table.

  I considered this, too. “Surprisingly spacious, but clearly not a soft surface. If you have any back issues at all, well…”

  He laughed openly at that. “Any guest bedrooms? Sofa sleepers?”

  “There is a guest room, but the walls are this really nauseatingly ugly apricot color.”

  He raised his eyebrows and waited for me to continue.

  “Um…and there’s a pullout sofa bed in the house. It’s in the basement, though. There might be some stuff on it. Old blankets. Maybe a spider or two.”

  Dane set his drink down on the counter, reached for mine, and placed it deliberately in the spot next to his. Then he held out his hand to me. “Take me to it. I’m not afraid of a few spiders, but I am afraid I’ll combust if I don’t get to finally lay down beside you.”

  I put my hand in his and silently led him down a flight of stairs and to our mostly finished basement.

  Sure enough, there were a stack of ratty old blankets on one side of the sofa. A couple of Milton-Bradley board games were on the other. And though I couldn’t immediately locate any arachnids, I knew there had to be a bunch nearby.

  Dane surveyed the space. It was cluttered with bags filled with Analise’s old toys, a few boxes of Adam’s medical-school textbooks, and a handful of infrequently used houseware items.

  “Oh, that’s where I’d stashed the crock pot,” I murmured.

  “Did you want to stop everything and throw together a quick stew? We’ll probably be starving when it’s ready…in about six hours,” Dane said, smirking.

  “Watch it, or I’ll actually go back upstairs and do it.”

  “I am watching,” he said, his gaze undressing me, one article of clothing at a time.

  I swallowed and struggled to get a full breath. The odor in the basement was vaguely musty. I should have tried to air it out somehow, I supposed, but we’d never spent much time down here as a family. Right now, that was a very good thing. The place didn’t hold the jumble of bittersweet memories that the rest of the house did.

  “You okay here?” he whispered.

  I nodded.

  “Good. How about we move these things off the cushions and open up the sofa? I promise I’ll crush any rogue spiders before I throw your sexy body on the mattress.”

  I felt myself smiling, remembering something I’d seen when I was seventeen. “Like the way you threw Kendra Leigh down on the sofa bed in the frat house in Dorm Daze?”

  He looked fleetingly amused. “Maybe. Maybe not.” He paused. “Did you know she hated me? I mean really hated. She told me that I was the worst actor she’d ever worked with on a film. During the press junket, she insisted that we always had to have someone else from the cast sitting between us or she wouldn’t do any of the interviews.”

  “What?” I had to admit, I was stunned. “I remember how all the tabloids were full of speculation about you two, and how you were secretly a hot real-life couple, and—”

  “I loathed her.” He ran his thumb down the side of my face, his expression totally serious. “Julia, I’m an actor,” he said once again.

  “Are you acting now?”

  “No.” And he moved in to kiss me.

  I had that levitation feeling again. It happened every time our lips met. I pulled away and gasped for some air and, perhaps, a little sanity.

  “Are you sure?” I asked him.

  “Am I sure of what?”

  “That you’re not acting now. Because, unlike stupid Kendra Leigh, I know you’re not a terrible actor. I mean, in addition to your award-worthy performance as Johannes of Stockholm today, you got an actual Oscar nomination for your portrayal of that mountain hiker, and you won two Golden Globes for your work in—”

  “What are you, Ms. Wikipedia?” He stared at me.

  “I read your IMDb page, Dane. Memorized it, in fact. And you said yourself that acting wasn’t just a profession, it was a way of being. So how could you honestly stop playing a part just because you’re not currently being filmed?”

  He pulled back abruptly and shot a sudden nervous glance around the room. “Are you sure we’re not being filmed? For all I know, you might’ve been contacted by TMZ or Access Hollywood or another show.” He snaked around the sofa, eyeing the bookshelves and the storage cabinets. “Did you set up a few hidden cameras down here? Promise the producers they’d get ‘Dane Tyler’s Scandalous Suburban Sex Tapes’ or something? One clip like that and it would go viral in minutes.”

  I gaped at him, thinking he had to be kidding at first. But then I realized in horror that he looked more serious than I’d ever seen him. “You can’t possibly think I’d—”

  He angrily shoved the blankets and games from the sofa and tossed one cushion on the floor, then lifted up the second one and scrutinized it. “Spiders, huh? Are you sure you don’t mean bugs of another kind? Testing one, two, three,” he said into the corner of the cushion.

  “C’mon, Dane, I would never, ever…I can’t even believe you’d suggest I’d do something like that.”

  “I know you wouldn’t,” he roared, tossing the second cushion on the floor, throwing the third one on top of the other two, and yanking open the sofa bed with one infuriated motion.

  “Well, then why—” I began.

  He stopped all movement, rolled his eyes at me, and broke into a sly grin. “Now, see? That was acting. I’m trained to do it on command.” He marched back over to me, lifted me up, and plunked me down onto the middle of the mattress. “And that was me being just a wee bit dramatic.” Then he laid down next to me and kissed me. Kissed me until I was floating again and had forgotten my ori
ginal question. “And that,” he said gently, “was real. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I whispered.

  “First time, right?” he asked. “Since your husband…?”

  I reached for him and unbuttoned the entire row of buttons down the front of his dress shirt before I answered. “Yeah.”

  He shrugged out of his shirt and then pulled mine off in a well-practiced maneuver. I shot him a questioning look.

  “It’s been a little over six months since my last time. With Emily. And, between you and me, I can tell you that it was more often lousy than not.”

  “Sorry,” I told him, although I didn’t mean it. I’d never liked Emily Brennan. Or her movies. Or the thought of her touching Dane.

  He shrugged.

  “Well, look on the bright side,” I added. “At least she didn’t die by crashing her sports car into a street light on an icy highway.”

  “True,” he said. “There’s a decided absence of ice in southern California and, also, she lacked the sports car. She always prefers being chauffeured in a white Caddy.”

  “Ah.”

  “I realize our situations aren’t the same, Julia. I just wanted you to know that it’s been a while for me, too. I’m not the manwhore that the media and my publicists at the studio like to portray.”

  “I didn’t think you were.” Although, if I were being truthful with myself, I’d have to confess that I’d only just realized it. For all of our talking, there was still so much I didn’t know about him.

  He glanced between his still-clothed lower body and mine, and said, “Your move.”

  I could have stopped here, if I’d wanted to. Dane was making that clear. But unless he’d been not only acting but blatantly lying about his desires, he didn’t want us to stop any more than I did. It may have taken my mind a few minutes to catch up, but it had quickly come to realize what my body had already decided.

  I reached for his belt and unfastened it. I undid the top button of his jeans and unzipped them.

  He studied me for a long moment before rolling onto his back, kicking off his shoes, and sliding the denim off his legs and onto the floor. He rolled back—only in his boxers and socks now—and smiled at me. It was like when he’d undressed in his suite last Sunday. Only, this time, neither of us had to go anywhere.

  In my bra and black yoga pants, I shivered beside him despite the summer’s heat. He was so beautiful. I ran my fingertips underneath the waistband of his boxers and pulled myself closer. There was a small tattoo on his hip that read, “CATS.” I traced it with my index finger as he watched, his eyes darkening. I’d ask him about that later.

  “Your move,” I whispered.

  He drew me completely into his arms, bringing my body flush up against his, with only a few thin slips of fabric between us. He unlatched my bra and removed it. Then he kissed his way down from my lips to my neck to my collarbone to each of my nipples. And that was where he stayed until I began to moan and arch against him.

  I could feel his lips curve into a smile as he kissed further down—to my belly. Then, with a fluid but unrushed motion, he slid my stretchy yoga slacks, along with my panties beneath them, off of my body. He slipped his head in between my knees, kissing the soft skin of my upper thighs. First the left side, then the right.

  “Um, Dane?”

  “Mmm.” He began to do something very swirly with his tongue, suckling his way to the juncture of my legs. And I, like a spider’s unsuspecting prey—one that had been immobilized by the clever arachnid’s special venom—was paralyzed on that sofa bed. Caught up in the silken web that was Dane Tyler and the profound hold he had on me.

  “I want to touch you,” I finally managed to say.

  “You’ll get to. Soon.”

  But it wasn’t that soon. He didn’t stop his delicious torture until I was panting and crying out his name. Only then, did he finally raise his head up, look me in the eye, and grin with an expression that was nothing short of triumphant.

  He pointed at me. “Don’t move.” Then he sprang off the mattress, dug through his jeans, and opened his wallet.

  I did as he instructed, although, truth was, I couldn’t have moved if I’d wanted to. My bones had dissolved and I was just a heap of warm flesh and pounding blood. But he retrieved the foil packet, ditched his boxers, and put the condom on before covering my body with his like a quilt. He entered me—hard, fast, and completely—and I was quickly proven wrong about being unable to move.

  As it turned out, Dane was quite capable of making me move. And gasp. And scream his name all over again. But I could touch him now. And I did. Until I heard him groan. Until I felt him come apart in my arms.

  I’d loved Adam. I would forever. But I wasn’t delusional, and there was nothing wrong with my memory. Adam had been a kind, loving, and devoted man. He’d been good in bed.

  But Dane…he was stellar. Making love with him was in a different category. At least for me. Maybe this kind of intensity was commonplace for him, though—his experience with Emily Brennan notwithstanding. The mere thought flooded me with unexpected insecurity. Maybe this was what he was used to. What he expected. Maybe, for him, this was just an average hour of screwing.

  The fact that I didn’t know what he was thinking bothered me more than I wanted to admit. So I tried to ask. “Was it, uh…I mean, when you’re with someone new, are you typically, um…”

  “What are you getting at, Julia? Are you asking whether it was good for me, too? If so, short answer—yes. Or are you wondering if it meant anything to me?” He gestured in the space between us. “Or if I thought this was just a hook up?”

  “Did you?”

  “Think it was a hook up? No. Think it meant something?” He paused. “That depends. What do you want it to mean?”

  “Look, Dane, I’m not an actor. I don’t want to play games—”

  “I’m not asking because I’m playing a game. I need to know what you want it to mean. Maybe you’re just looking for some fun out of real time, fulfilling an adolescent fantasy that’s bound to be disappointing once you get to know the real me a little better. I’ve been trying to show you who I really am—unmasked, unwrapped, uncensored. I’m not saying that’s a great gift or anything, just one that not a lot of people have gotten to see.”

  He reached down to the floor, snatched up his boxers, and pulled them on.

  I watched him, still unsure how to answer his question. What did I want this to mean?

  He sighed. “Julia, we just slept together for the first time, and I have no idea why you wanted me beyond sheer chemistry. Were you trying to rid your mind of your late husband’s memory? Have sex with your first movie star? Do something more aerobic than Wii Fit?”

  His expression was solemn. Was he acting or was he genuine? I couldn’t be positive, of course, but his words rang true. “Are those my only choices?” I asked.

  He smiled slightly and shook his head. “There may be a few other possibilities out there.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “My mind is still trying to wrap its head around the fact that I even know you, let alone—” I motioned in the space between us. “This.”

  “You know, I’m just a normal guy in a lot of ways, trying to have some decent after-sex talk with a woman I really like and figure out if, maybe, she likes me, too, and wants to see me again.”

  “Is this like Notting Hill? When Julia Roberts’s character says to Hugh Grant’s character that she’s just a girl asking a boy to love her, or something like that?”

  “Kinda. But I wasn’t in that film.”

  “Hmm. You seem a little defensive about it, though,” I teased. “Bad audition?”

  He cleared his throat and leveled an incisive look at me. “Am I understanding this right—that you’re making fun of me now? That you’re actually mocking me?”

  I tried to smother a laugh. I was unsuccessful. “Maybe.”

  The corners of his mouth twitched upward. “You know what else I wasn’t cast in? Fifty Sh
ades of Grey. But I read the script, and there’s a punishment for people like you.”

  I was sort of snickering until he grabbed me, effectively trapping my arms against his broad chest. He wrapped his right leg around both of mine, so I couldn’t move any of my limbs. Then he pulled me half on top of him, cackled wickedly in my ear, and gave me a playful spank.

  I squealed, and he swatted me again.

  “Dane!” I cried out, laughing and squirming in his arms, though it didn’t even sting. “There’s no Red Room of Pain anywhere in this house.”

  “No,” he said, feigning a serious and slightly regretful tone. “Apparently, there’s just an Apricot Guest Room of Ugliness.”

  He laid me back down on the mattress and rose above me, gazing into my eyes and waiting for me to stop laughing. When I did, his brushed his lips against mine, kissing me so tenderly that it hurt. Drawing me so deeply into the enchanting wonder of him that I questioned everything I was feeling all over again.

  What was I getting myself into? I’d been falling for this guy for half of my life. How could any of these emotions be anything but a fairy tale, even if they felt real in this moment?

  No. It had to just be some kind of powerful infatuation—on both our parts.

  I searched his face for a response to something I hadn’t asked him, but I couldn’t decipher what I most wanted to know. Finally, I just came out with it. “So, what’s it feel like for you to be with a regular, non-famous, Midwestern suburban woman?”

  He smiled. “To, at long last, get to sleep with The Girl Next Door, you mean?”

  I nodded.

  He exhaled slowly. “It feels like coming home.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “You slept with him?” Shar cried on the phone. “Oh, my God, Julia. I’d been wondering. That’s…massive news. It changes everything!”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  Only, I couldn’t bring myself to tell her how much I wished we hadn’t done it, wonderful as it was. How there was no stuffing back into a box the emotions Dane had dredged out of me. How I no longer had the tight grip on reality that I’d worked so hard to accept, and I’d lost the comfort of the fantasy, too.