Chapter 3

3

JEM

It turned out I was going to be an uncle… if the stress didn’t kill me first.

My sister, Lina, had shown up at the theater Friday afternoon to notify me that she was pregnant, which in itself would have been amazingly wonderful news. I loved her boyfriend, Garret, like a brother, and he was one of the best things to ever happen to either of us. They were perfect for one another.

But despite being together for twelve years, she and Garret had a volatile relationship. Neither was happy unless they were embroiled in drama, so of course, Lina had decided to take this opportunity to leave her baby daddy.

Unfortunately, Lina and I had a past that made us a little needy and insecure when it came to love. My father had never been in the picture, and my mother cared about her career on the stage way more than her two children.

We’d grown up moving from place to place on my mother’s whims. She was a popular stage actress who’d followed the roles she was given. I’d pretty much grown up backstage among cast and crew from Atlanta to New York to Chicago and LA. We’d even lived in Vietnam for a time and traveled all over the world with the touring production of The King and I. It had been my dream to finally take the stage myself, and now, here I was.

Only, now here Lina was too. Putting her nose in my work affairs and jeopardizing my career.

After dropping the drama bomb Friday, my sister had stopped in at the theater no less than three times this weekend to cry and gnash her teeth about raising a baby on her own. I tried reassuring her that she and Garret always found their way back to each other, but she wouldn’t hear it. Her emotions were all over the place, which she blamed at least in part on the pregnancy hormones.

I knew she needed me, and I wanted to be there for her, but I’d begged her to keep her drama out of my workplace—if for no other reason than we’d need my income if she truly was going to be a single mother—but because Lina had standing permission to grab a friends-and-family ticket, she had fairly easy access to get into the theater and stick around after the show. Now that most of the cast and crew knew who she was, they let her backstage without any trouble.

During Friday night’s show, I’d forced myself to focus on the job, even though I’d had a hard time not worrying about my sister’s relationship. The two had had a big fight, and Garett had stormed off. There was only so much of her moodiness Garret could take. As each show came and went throughout the weekend, my focus weakened and my nerves shattered. By the time Sunday’s evening performance rolled around, I was barely keeping it together.

At this point, I was worried about being released from the cast because of my personal life interfering with work. I was stressed and exhausted.

Lina had taken herself to a long-stay hotel down in Trenton and begged me to move out to California with her to “make a new start.” She was a costume designer and had a lead on a job in LA.

I wasn’t about to quit my job. Not My Alfred was everything I’d ever hoped for in a theater career, and I loved every minute of it. But at the same time, my sister was everything to me too. Our mom had passed away three years ago of lung cancer, and since our father was long gone, we were all we had left.

Right before the show on Sunday night, I’d finally cracked. I’d hidden in a stall in the bathroom and let the tears come. Fear, guilt, anger… all of the old feelings returned from losing Mom and promising her I’d take care of Lina. To make matters worse, I hadn’t been able to get in touch with Garret.

And to top it all off, my feelings for Dawson Priest were getting more and more complicated.

When it came time during Sunday night’s performance for Dawson to kiss me, I wanted to grab onto him and bury my face in his chest, let his strong arms tighten around me and keep me from falling on my face. I was tired, confused, frustrated. And for some reason, Dawson’s familiar embrace seemed like the only comforting place to be.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t stay there. The sweet kisses he gave me were gone in an instant, and the rest of the show passed by in a flash. Instead of falling into bed back at the apartment I shared with the guys, I made my way out to New Jersey to meet up with Lina.

It took me two days to convince her to go home to New Brunswick and talk to her boyfriend. The problem? He wasn’t there. And he’d taken a good portion of his belongings with him this time. I didn’t blame him, but at the same time, I needed him to come home and handle his own shit.

I promised to go back to the city and check in with some of his friends, but when Wednesday morning rolled around, I had no luck. No one had seen or heard from him, or if they had, they weren’t talking. I left him yet another voicemail and continued to the theater for work.

That night, I was as distracted as ever and sleepwalking through the performance, so when Dawson grabbed me by the throat after Alfred hissed, “Act casual!” I blinked awake. The intensity in Dawson’s gaze was a punch to the gut. His grip on the front of my throat sent blood rocketing south to my dick.

Oh god, I’m going to spring wood onstage.

“Kiss me like you mean it,” he ground out in a low voice against my ear. Then his lips were on mine in a hungry, possessive attack. One of his thick thighs forced my own legs apart until his hip pressed hard against my dick. Without thinking, I pressed back in a desperate hump.

“Nghh.” I moaned, embarrassing myself with sudden need. His hands moved from my throat to my face, pinning me in place while he owned my mouth. The crowd was loud as usual, but I could barely hear it over the sound of the blood pounding in my ears. What was this? What… what the fuck was he doing?

When he ripped his mouth away from mine, I refused to let him. I followed him blindly, reaching out for the front of his vest and yanking him close again. We kissed for another long beat while the audience went quiet. Suddenly, Dawson pulled away, grabbed me by the shoulders, and shoved me down into my chair at the table. “Thought I saw her comin’ back in,” he said to Alfred with an exaggerated shrug and cheeky grin. “Sorry, boss, whaddya gonna do, eh?”

The audience roared.

Dawson took his seat and winked at me as my face ignited.

I was going to get fired. I wasn’t sure yet whether it would be the stage erection or the unplanned extra kiss that would be the cause of it, but it didn’t really matter. The end result was the same.

Sure enough, as soon as the curtain closed, the stage manager informed the two of us to report to the office ASAP. It was late, which meant the only possible scenario was immediate firing. I only hoped I could convince them to leave Dawson out of it since it was clearly my fault. He’d just been trying to help.

“Come on in, guys.” The person who greeted us in the office wasn’t the director at all but the woman in charge of publicity. “I know it’s late, and you’re probably ready to get home, but with all of the recent buzz about you two, we’ve decided to take advantage of it and book you in for some interviews. The first one is early tomorrow morning with a radio show, and then you’ll head over to one of the morning shows. There will be a little break, enough time for coffee and a muffin maybe, and you’ll meet a theater reporter here in the office before getting into costume for tomorrow’s matinee. Friday morning, I’ve booked you in for a magazine photo shoot.”

I stared at her. None of this made any sense.

“Sounds good,” Dawson said, maintaining his usual professionalism.

“Uh, what?” I added. “What buzz?”

She laughed as if I was making a joke. Instead of clarifying, she handed each of us a printout with the schedule and details we needed for the interviews and wished us well before walking us out of the office. When Dawson reached for it, I noticed the same large, veined hand that had been on my throat earlier. The memory of his touch shouldn’t have affected me so strongly, but it did. After all this time of feeling his hands on me, I was still as sensitive as ever to it.

I followed Dawson back to the dressing rooms backstage with my mind reeling. We were no strangers to media events and interviews, but I’d never been asked to do any on my own. Sending just the two of us didn’t make sense to me.

“Why the two of us?” I asked Dawson’s back. The cut of his suit vest showed off his broad shoulders, narrow waist, and delectable ass. Rolled-up shirtsleeves revealed his muscular forearms as he slid his hands into his pockets.

“The kiss,” he said gruffly. “Media’s going nuts over it.”

I almost stumbled over my toes. “Our kiss?” I asked breathlessly. “The stage kiss, I mean?”

Of course the stage kiss. What other kiss was there?

“Mm.”

Dawson Priest was a man of few words, something that annoyed the hell out of me. Worse, he was only that way around me. Around everyone else, he seemed like a damned chatterbox.

“Could you expand on that ‘mm,’ please?” I snapped.

He glanced at me over his shoulder. Even his profile was sexy as hell. The fucker.

“The crowd is going nuts over the fact our kiss is different every night. Apparently that makes for return visits by the same audience members. It’s been written up in some articles.”

“You’re kidding. How did you know?”

He crossed the threshold into the dressing room he always used. I’d always made a point to use a different one. Seeing him half-dressed before going onstage in front of several hundred people would have not been a good plan for my dick.

“I pay attention,” he murmured.

I stared after him. The words “Me too” balanced on the tip of my tongue before I realized I hadn’t been paying much attention to anything for the past several days. Instead of saying anything, I exhaled and walked on by.

But not before accidentally glimpsing him rucking up his shirt and revealing the lean, corded lines of his back. The image branded itself on the back of my eyeballs. I raced through my own undressing before hauling ass out into the frigid night air.

The cold temperature didn’t do anything to douse the heat in my groin from imagining the rest of Dawson’s disrobing. By the time I got to the privacy of my tiny bedroom, I was on fire from thoughts of a naked Dawson.

I forced myself not to jack off to thoughts of him in the shower. Then I forced myself not to jack off to thoughts of him when I slid between the cool sheets of my bed.

But an hour later, when I still couldn’t sleep because of an unrelenting throb in my dick, I finally succumbed.

I grabbed frantically for the lube on my bedside table and pumped it into my hand. Sweet, blessed Jesus, that felt good.

I groaned and squeezed my eyes closed. Images of Dawson’s hot ass, his thick thighs, and his washboard abs filled my vision. He was the sexiest man I’d ever known, and when my brain helpfully reminded me of all the times I’d had his mouth on mine, I sucked in a breath.

“Fuck,” I hissed, sliding my warm fingers around the head of my dick just the way I liked it. “Fucking fuck.”

I imagined one of our kisses morphing into a slow striptease. Dawson would undo one button at a time on my shirt, dropping kisses down my chest until he landed on his knees in front of me. He’d look up at me with half-lidded eyes full of promising heat.

“Do it,” I whispered into the tiny room. Thankfully, my roommates each had noisy box fans to block out the city sounds in their rooms because apparently I couldn’t keep from verbalizing my humiliating obsession with my castmate.

Fantasy Dawson yanked open my belt, teased down my zipper, and leaned forward to inhale the front of my boxer briefs. I groaned and pulled at my balls. It felt so good to finally let go and allow myself to imagine it. Dawson Priest on his knees for me.

His mouth was hot and wet, talented and hungry. My heart hammered as I frantically tried to determine how quickly this was going to end. “Fucking fuck,” I shouted before banging my fist against the headboard.

“Come for me,” imaginary Dawson grumbled. “Come down my throat. Gag me. Choke me with your cock.”

“Ahh!” I threw my head back with a wail as my balls finally called it quits and released. Oxygen sawed in and out of my lungs as I struggled to breathe through the long orgasm.

Fucking Christ. If simply imagining sex with Dawson Priest made me come harder than ever, I couldn’t imagine what the real thing would be like.

And I’d never find out.

Because Dawson Priest could barely look at me. And tomorrow’s interviews were going to be a disaster.