Behind The Curtain (The Velvet Series Book 1) Read online

  “You good?” He asked, a small smile playing at the corner of his lips. He couldn’t have been oblivious to the tension between us. He had bee the one pushing and playing for more, and I had been the one pulling back, but I wasn’t sure that I had it in me to keep holding him at arm’s length.

  “I’m good,” I agreed, and looked down at the page for a moment to find where we were at. The words were slightly blurred on the paper in front of me and blinked a couple of times, aware of his eyes on me, aware of how they felt on my skin.

  “Okay, let’s get started,” he moved towards me a few paces and my heartrate picked up in my chest. I swallowed and looked up at him, keeping the words I had to see fresh to the front of my head.

  “Where do you get off with all of this?” He demanded, a furrow appearing in his brow, his voice raising and sending a shock of tremors through me. “What do you need from me?”

  “I don’t know,” I turned away from him – it wasn’t in the stage directions but I needed to put some space between us. “I just need you to end this. I know I can’t.”

  “And why not?” He moved towards me again, closing the distance once more. I looked up and into his eyes, forcing myself to keep my breath steady, but it was difficult.

  “You know why,” I breathed, quiet enough that I knew I would have told off any actor I worked with for speaking too quietly if they’d pulled that in our proper rehearsals. But I wasn’t talking to him in character. I was talking to him as myself. I couldn’t handle this any more. I closed my eyes and looked away from him, eyes on the ground. There was no-one here, not one single person except him. I could do anything I wanted to him, and nobody would know a thing about it. There would be no gossip, no remarks, no looks, no nothing, just him and me and finally giving over to what we both knew was between us…

  “Fuck,” He growled, his voice dropping. The line was in the script, but not like that, not as an expression of the desire that was still pulsing in the air between us. No, this scene was meant to be the end of their relationship, but I had a feeling this was just the start of something for us. I could remember, with a startling clarity, the way his hands felt all over me, the way his mouth felt against mine.

  He was so close to me, and all I could focus on was his mouth. His lips were slightly parted and his breath was coming faster than it had been before and his gaze was on my mouth too and I knew, I knew then as our scripts dropped to our sides and the distance between us closed that there was no way I could hold back from this any longer.

  “Come here,” he ordered, and he let the script slip from his hands and our mouths met for the first time since that day outside the theatre. It was as though there was a blackout moment as soon as we started kissing, as though I couldn’t quite remember who had moved towards who first or who had touched the other first, but it didn’t matter one bit. All that mattered was we were doing this again. I couldn’t resist him any longer and now I didn’t have to. Even as we were making out again, I was trying to come up with reasons in my head this was alright because it would just be once, no more than this, no more than whatever my lust-addled brain would let me away with.

  He pushed his tongue into my mouth and hitched me up on to the bed that was part of the set – I knew we would have to strip it down and clean it before tomorrow, before everyone came in and instantly figured out what the hell had been going on between us. But for now, I could wrap my arms around him and hold him close and finally, finally find some relief for what had been bubbling deep inside me for the last week or so.

  “I’ve been thinking about this for so long,” Luke breathed in my ear, pushing me down on to the bed and clambering on top of me. His hands were all over me all at once, travelling up legs, pushing them apart, cupping my pussy through my panties. I had never had anything move this quickly before and the last thing I wanted was for it to stop. I kissed him, silencing the voice in my head that was telling me this was a bad idea. I knew that. But that didn’t mean it didn’t feel damn good to give in to what I’d wanted all this time.

  I spread my legs and hooked them behind his back, grinding into him. He was already getting hard, I could feel it through his pants, and knowing that I was turning him on so much sent another burst of desire through me. I couldn’t handle this any longer – I needed some relief, something to release me from the ridiculous wall of tension that had been building deep inside of me since that first kiss between us. He moved his mouth down, to my neck, and bared his teeth against my skin, making me jump. One hand slid up my shirt and groped at my breasts roughly while the other massaged my pussy through my panties. I was already so wet, his touch muted like that wasn’t enough.

  “I want to taste you,” He murmured, and it took me a moment to realize what he was asking for. My eyes widened. I had never had a guy tell me that he actually wanted to do that before – I had had guys grudgingly go down on me when I’d asked, but none of them had seemed to desire it the way that I did. But here he was, this outrageously gorgeous movie star, lying on top of me with his hand between my legs telling me he wanted nothing more than to eat me out. I grabbed his head and kissed him again, this time the one in control – and when I was done, I guided him down, down between my legs. He grinned as he pushed up my shirt a little and brushed his mouth over my bare stomach, making me squirm desperately. My breath was coming fast and my brain had all but checked out, only able to register the waves of pleasure and need and desire that pounced over me every time he touched me.

  I was wearing a skirt that he quickly rolled up and over, exposing me completely, and then he hooked his fingers around my panties and began to inch them down my legs; before he could render me utterly bare, he leaned down and kissed me through the fabric, his warm breath explosive against my soaked pussy. I moaned and squirmed into the bed, forgetting for a moment that we were on stage and that any one of the cast or crew could have walked back in and caught us in the act. None of that mattered now. Why would it? All that mattered was knowing that he wanted to go down on me, and knowing that him going down on me was the only thing that would give me the relief I was looking for. I ran my hand over his head and he looked up at me, eyes flashing as they had when he was on stage waiting for me.

  And then, finally, he finished pulling off my underwear and pushed my thighs apart and back. He groaned softly as he looked between my legs, at my glistening pussy, and I rocked my hips back and forth, eyes closed, as I waited for him to begin. The smell of his aftershave was still hot and present all over my body, and I needed more right this instant or I felt as though I would explode. All that flirting, all those touches, all those looks that we’d shared over the past week or so had been leading to this moment, and it couldn’t get here quickly enough. And then, at last, he leaned forward and pressed his mouth against my pussy, and everything else dropped away from my brain at once.

  “Fuck,” I groaned, teeth clenched as I felt his lips deftly seal around my clit as he began to suck lightly. I had heard it before, from female friends of mine, that hot guys never felt the need to be that good in bed as they thought their hotness would be enough to carry them through. But they must have been lying if Luke was anything to go by. He tucked his hands beneath my ass and pulled me on to him, stroking up and down my clit in long, slow motions that made my legs tremble. I closed my eyes and then opened them again, returning myself to the moment, knowing that if I let myself vanish inside my own head I would find some way to talk myself out of what was happening. And, if it had gotten this far…

  “Ah,” I reached down and clutched his head, holding it in place, and watched him as he ate me out like he hadn’t had a meal in weeks. He pulled back a little, going slower, brushing his mouth across my lips and slowly circling his tongue around my sensitive nub. I couldn’t get over how surreal this was, watching the guy who until only a few weeks ago had been nothing more than some distant star burning too impossibly bright for me to approach, now between my l
egs and eating me out like I was a delicacy he couldn’t get enough of.

  He moaned softly, the vibrations sending waves all the way up through my body. It felt as though every nerve ending in my body was ready to explode, at the edge of giving out every time I took a breath. The bright lights above me were burning my eyes but I didn’t give a damn. All that I could focus on, all that mattered, was the feeling of him between my legs, how sweet and hot and desperate he was to have me. He tugged me closer to him, hands tilting me upwards so he could taste even more of me, and my lips pressed together and my stomach clenched and I could tell I was close, so close, so very, very-

  “Fuck!” I cried out all of a sudden, the word echoing like a gunshot around the theatre. When my orgasm hit, it hit like a tidal wave, washing away everything around it all at once and rendering me all but speechless. I reached out for him, down to him, running my hands over his body and his face and his head as though they were the only things keeping me on planet Earth. He pulled back, his breath still warm on my overly-sensitized clit, and looked up at me. His mouth was glistening with my wetness and, as the pleasure waned and dropped once more, the reality of what had just happened began to settle in. I felt a panicked wash of guilt take me over as he climbed back on top of me, and when he kissed me again, I could taste the two of us on his tongue, my muskiness mixing with his idiosyncratic flavour. This was wrong. Now that the haze of my arousal had begun to clear, I could see just how wrong this was.

  Suddenly, I heard a noise behind us – the two of us sprang apart at once, and I pulled the covers over myself in the hope of covering my indiscretion. I heard someone walk in and finally dared myself to look around and see who it was.

  “Hey,” Luke was on his feet, fingers running through his hair, as cool as he could be given what we had just done. My heart was hammering so fast I was sure that whoever it was would be able to hear it, even through the thick covers that I had laid over the top of me.

  “Hey,” I heard a voice reply. I didn’t recognise it. It sounded like a woman – maybe Irina, one of the cast members?

  “I left my water bottle here, I didn’t want to leave it overnight in case it got tossed,” she remarked as she strolled in to the room.

  “Right, yeah,” Luke agreed, and I wondered if he looked as flustered as he sounded. I was surprised she hadn’t noticed anything weird about him.

  “Hey, where’s Holly?” She asked suddenly, and my heart stopped for a split second. But Luke dived in quickly to cover for me, not missing a beat. I was sure this wasn’t the first time he’d been caught somewhat in the act.

  “She just went to the bathroom, I think,” Luke replied, sounding remarkably pulled together considering what we had just been caught in the middle of. “We were just running lines.”

  “Oh, right, yeah,” she replied, as though she had just forgotten. “Sorry to interrupt. I’ll catch you guys later.”

  “Bye,” he replied, sounding relieved that she was finally out of here. But now that I had had a moment to think about this, to consider what we were doing, I knew we needed to bring it to a stop right now, before things went any further than they already had. As soon as the door fell shut behind her, leaving us alone again, he pulled the covers away and dived on top of me once more. The feel of him there, the weight of his warm body on top of mine, was almost enough to get me to forget the resolution I’d just come up with in my head. But I closed my eyes and forced myself to imagine it, what it would be like if anyone knew that we had hooked up. And that was all I needed to muster to get this to stop.

  “No,” I pushed him away, off of me, and to my relief he responded at once, rolling off the top of me and on to the bed. I pushed myself up and looked down, trying to adjust myself as best I could. I pulled on my panties where he had tossed them on to the floor and rolled down my skirt, running my fingers through my hair. How obvious was it that I had just come? I glanced at the mirror that sat on the dressing table on this set, and frowned when I saw my flushed face and messy hair. It was pretty fucking obvious, if I was being real with myself.

  “What’s wrong?” Luke asked, getting to his feet. He wasn’t looking at me, as though he knew that if he did he wouldn’t be able to control himself any longer. I closed my eyes. Part of me was screaming out to stay, to finish what we had started, but I knew I had to get the hell out of here before this went any further than it already had.

  “I’m sorry,” I moved away from him, picking up the script where I didn’t remember dropping it earlier. “We can’t do this. It’s not right. I’d…”

  I tried to come up with a good reason to stop what had just been going on, but my overheated brain wasn’t throwing up anything too convincing. I took a deep breath, forcing myself to think about this logically. If we hooked up now, there’s was no way Luke would be able to keep his mouth shut about it for the rest of the time we were working together. Everyone would know. And that was the last thing I needed, especially with Ardew coming to visit the set soon enough.

  “I need to go,” I shook my head and walked off the stage, leaving him standing there alone. I glanced up at him, and caught sight of the furrow in his brow. He looked pissed, confused. I didn’t blame him. I sort of felt the same way and I was the one walking away from this.

  “I’ll see you later,” I muttered, not daring to turn around again. I was already flushed with embarrassment as I headed for the door. How could I have let that happen? I had promised myself, over and over, that I wasn’t going to let this happen with him. But as soon as the opportunity presented itself, I had gone to pieces in front of him and given myself over to what was between us. I was so weak. I needed to be better, to do better – and as the door clicked shut behind me, and I inhaled a deep lungful of air, I felt as though I was cleansing myself of what had just happened. Leaving it behind me. Even though all I wanted to do right now was turn around and finish what we had started.

  Chapter Five

  I would have been lying if I said that I had actually moved on from what had happened between us. Lying through my teeth. And he knew it as well as I did.

  The way he looked at me sometimes, when I was doing something else or talking to someone other than him, made my stomach feel as though it was curling up inside of me. He knew the effect he had on me. Only three day before, he had cashed in that effect to get between my legs and lead me to this insane orgasm. But it couldn’t happen again. I was too embarrassed, hardly able to look him in the eye, and that wasn’t going to work considering that he was my leading man. I needed to be able to address him like a professional, and none of that included letting him get between my legs once more.

  I had managed to keep ahold of my somewhat professional demeanour since the almost hook-up we’d had while rehearsing together a few days before, but it had been a serious challenge. He seemed to have focused every jot of his apparently boundless energy on me and getting me to accept what was between us. It was hard, I had to admit, when he would let his hand linger on the small of my back when he was brushing past me, or when he would let his eyes trace the shape of my body when we were talking, or when he would kiss Michelle for a scene and then shoot a glance over to me as if to remind me that I could have that too any time I wanted. But I had kept myself in line, always making sure that we weren’t left alone together for long enough to let something happen.

  And I was confident that I could hold myself together. The shame after what I had let go down – literally – between us was still fresh in my mind. I expected better of myself than that, no matter how amazing it had been. And I honestly believe that I would have been able to stick to my resolve had it not been for our stupid fucking financer pulling the plug on our play.

  “What the fuck?” I demanded, when I was pulled aside by the manager of the theatre so she could deliver the news to me. She looked frazzled, like she’d been up all night trying to figure out away around this and had come up squarely blank.


  “You have to be kidding me, right?” I went on. “If he pulls out-”

  “Then we have to shut down production or find someone else to pick up the slack,” she finished up for me. “I know that, Holly. And we’re looking for other people who might be interested in covering for us but for the time being we need to hold up on production.”

  “Are you kidding me?” I shook my head. “We’re short enough on time as it is. If we hold out now-”

  “If you don’t stop, then you’ll be asking all the cast and crew to work for free,” she reminded me. “I’m sorry, I don’t want to slow this down either, but we don’t have any choice. We haven’t got the money to fund this all by ourselves. We need to find someone else to step up and take over the cash side of this, or…”

  She trailed off, but she didn’t need to finish off what she was saying for me to catch the gist of it. The production would have to come to a halt entirely. The thought of that made my stomach squirm with distaste. I had worked so hard on this so far, and the thought of it getting shut down, the thought of someone else somewhere else stepping in to take over what had been my singular vision for this piece, made me feel sick.

  “Tell me who you’ve found,” I asked firmly. “I’ll go to them myself. Take them out for dinner or something, I don’t know, actually do some schmoozing for once in my life.”

  “I’ll send you over the list,” The manager nodded. “And Holly?”

  “Yeah?” I replied, lifting my gaze to meet hers. She looked worried, more worried than I’d seen her in a long time.

  “Good luck with this,” she nodded, but I had a feeling there was something else she wanted to say to me that she was sitting on for the time being. I nodded, and turned to make my way back down to the staging area so I could explain the situation to everyone and send them home for the day. If I got moving with this, I could have someone new stepping in to take over financing of this play in a few days. It would just be a short break for everyone, that was all. Nothing to worry about.