“Ethan, no …”
He takes my hand and brushes his thumb across my skin. Such a sweet, simple gesture, but I feel it everywhere.
“Look, Cassie, I get it,” he says. “I understand how you’re feeling, because I used to feel it, too. It’s easier to expect nothing, because then nothing can be taken away from you. But it doesn’t work like that. I tried to convince myself I wanted nothing from you and ended up losing everything.”
He looks into my eyes, and I think Marco is right. As much as he broke my heart, I broke his as well.
“I don’t want nothing anymore. If you kick me from the play, I’ll understand, but I’m not going to let you shut me out of your life without a fight. Are we clear?”
I can see why Marco caved. His passion is very persuasive.
He wants to fight for us? That makes a nice change.
Six Years Earlier
Westchester, New York
Diary of Cassandra Taylor
Dear Diary,
It’s the morning after “O” day—a day that will forever linger in my memory with thigh-clenching fondness.
I can’t even put into words the feelings Holt brought out in me.
It can’t be natural for one man to be so infuriatingly sexy. Maybe he’s made a pact with the devil. See, that I could understand.
He’s sold his soul to Lucifer in return for sexual powers over frustrated virgins.
It would explain a lot.
It seems Olivia feels the same. She was pretty pissed with him.
I have to wonder about their story. Or perhaps it’s best I take the old head-in-the-sand approach to dealing with intense, brooding bad boys.
What I don’t know can’t hurt me, right?
Right?
As I approach the theater, Holt’s there, waiting. I cringe when I realize how excited I am to see him.
Jeez, Cassie. Be cool. Don’t let him work his devil powers on you.
Oh, God. Too late. Look at him.
Dark jeans. Black V-neck tee tucked haphazardly into his waistband. Vintage belt buckle I want to unclasp with my teeth.
He looks up as I approach. He has two cardboard cups in his hands. I assume one’s for me, although surely he’s not offering me a Dick- achino today. Not after his expert dry-humpage.
Perhaps Starbucks makes an Orgasmalatte.
As he watches me, he stands a little taller. His chest rises and falls in a deep sigh.
Oh, yeah. He totally wants to orgasm me. He wants to orgasm the hell outta me.
Maybe he’ll use his fingers this time.
Please, God, let him use his hot-assed fingers.
I smile at him. He swallows but doesn’t smile back.
Alarm bells go off in my head.
“Hey,” I say, trying to be casual.
“Hi.” He’s no better at casual than I am.
He’s nervous. Sweating a little. He hands me a cup, and I take it.
I suspect it’s a Dickachino after all.
He puts his own cup down on the bench beside him and straightens up. His brows furrow as he says, “Listen, Taylor, about yesterday …”
Dammit, Holt. Don’t say it.
“I really shouldn’t have done … you know … that. To you.”
He’s looking anywhere else but at me.
“It was fucking stupid and wrong … and … I used you.”
“No,” I say vehemently. “You didn’t. I wanted you to—”
“Taylor,” he says, “I humped you like a fucking dog. In front of our acting teacher. What the hell is wrong with me?”
“Holt—”
“Olivia is right. I need a psych eval. Whenever I get around you, I lose my head. It’s fucking crazy, not to mention completely wrong.”
“But, we can just—”
“No, we really can’t.”
“Stop cutting me off! I’m trying to—”
“I know what you’re trying to do, but this isn’t up for negotiation! What we’re doing stops now, before either one of us gets hurt!”
I want to hit him with a witty comeback, but nothing comes to mind. I consider just hitting him instead.
His expression softens as he steps toward me. “Look, the path we’re heading down isn’t going to end well for either of us. Trust me on this. I can already feel you want things from me that I can’t give you, and if you fall for me? Well, that’d be one of the stupidest fucking things you’d ever do. There’s a whole bunch of girls who’ll attest to that.”
A flash of anger runs up my spine. “God, egotistical much? Maybe I don’t want anything from you.”
“Then tell me I’m wrong,” he says and holds out his hands. “Tell me the look on your face when you saw me a moment ago wasn’t excitement with a touch of ‘please fuck me now.’ Tell me you don’t think about me. Dream about me.”
I don’t say anything, because I can’t deny it. But I don’t understand why having those feelings is such a bad thing. With the way he’s talking, it seems like us becoming closer is tantamount to a crime.
“You want me, too,” I say.
“I’m not denying that,” he says as he steps closer. “And that’s part of the problem. You’re enough of a distraction already. If we start giving in to temptation, then … Jesus, Taylor, that’s all there’s going to be for us. Forget about us concentrating on our acting. Your virginity? Gone. My sanity? Gone. Our time here would become a blur of fucking and hormones, and I don’t want to get into that with any girl, especially you.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
He leans forward, so close I can smell his cologne. “It means fucking won’t be enough for you. You’ll want emotions and hand-holding and romantic bullshit. And you deserve all that stuff, but that’s not me. Not anymore.”
“Why not?”
He looks down and doesn’t answer.
“God, Holt, some girl really did a number on you, didn’t she? Was it that girl from yesterday?”
There’s silence, but he gives me a look that warns me to not push it.
“What did she do to you?”
“Nothing. What happened between us was my fault, and I’m not going to make the same mistake twice. I’m sure she told you to stay the fuck away from me. Take her advice.”
I feel like he’s breaking up with me, even though we’ve never actually been together.
All of a sudden, I’m really tired. I feel like I’m always fighting to be with him, while he’s fighting to push me away.
“Fine,” I say. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have feelings for you. You’re obviously not worth it.”
I hate that he looks hurt when he says, “Obviously.”
Feeling too drained to argue, I walk toward the theater door. Just before I pull it open, I turn back to him.
“Holt, there aren’t many people in the world who connect like we do, for whatever reason, and saying that we shouldn’t feel it isn’t going to make it go away. One day you might figure that out, but by then it’ll be too late.”
I turn my back on him and close the door behind me.
“Okay, Miss Taylor, let’s take it from ‘What’s here.’”
We’re rehearsing the death scene. Holt is lying in front of me, motionless. Romeo has poisoned himself.
Idiot.
As Juliet, I’m distraught, seeing the love of my life dead on the ground. Killed by his own hand because he couldn’t go on without me. He didn’t know I was just sleeping. You’d think he would have checked for a pulse, right?
I try to pull his body up and hug him, but he’s too heavy, so I’m resigned to lying across his chest. Too shocked to cry, too emotional to not. I run my hands over him as if the force of my need will bring him back to life. Save him from himself.
But there’s no saving to be done. His rash decision has killed us both, because without him in my world, I’m dead inside, even though I still have the illusion of life.
With the acceptance of death in my heart, I just need to fin
d the means.
I run my hands down his arms and discover him clutching a small vial.
“What’s here?” I say, my voice hoarse with emotion. “A cup, closed in my true love’s hand?”
Holding it under my nose, I sniff, then groan in anguish. “Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end.”
I look inside, needing just a remnant, but it’s empty. Furious, I hurl it away.
I grab Romeo’s head and scold his still, beautiful face as the tears spill over.
“O churl! Drunk all, and left no friendly drop to help me after?”
His lips are parted, and I lean over and close my streaming eyes as our foreheads touch.
“I will kiss thy lips. Haply some poison yet doth hang on them … to make me die … with a restorative.”
I gently press my lips against his. Still so soft. How can he be dead and still feel so alive?
I suck at them gently, desperate to find any trace of the poison. Holt tenses beneath me.
“Thy lips are warm.” I sigh against his mouth.
He tenses even more.
I swipe my tongue along his bottom lip, and he grunts as his body twitches.
“Stop there!” Erika calls out.
Holt sits up and glares at me.
“Well, Juliet,” Erika says. “It seems your lips have miraculous healing properties. If only Shakespeare had written Romeo’s dramatic recovery in the way Mr. Holt has just improvised, there’d be a whole lot less tragedy at the end of this play and people could go home whistling a happy tune.”
“She licked my lips,” Holt protests.
“That’s totally what Juliet would do,” I say. “She’s trying to ingest his poison. You’re lucky I didn’t stick my tongue in your mouth and swirl it around like a toilet brush.”
“Oh, because that’s what Juliet would do, right? Not you.”
“Yes.”
“Bullshit.”
“Oh, my God would you two just fuck already!” Jack Avery calls from the auditorium.
There’s a huge laugh from the rest of the cast, and Holt and I exchange embarrassed glances.
If only it were that simple, Jack.
Erika urges the cast to quiet down. “Mr. Holt, what Miss Taylor did seemed perfectly acceptable to me. Perhaps you just need to modify your reaction. You’re dead. It shouldn’t matter if she licks your entire mouth and starts on your tonsils. You don’t move. Understand?”
Holt shakes his head and laughs bitterly before turning to glare at me.
My smile couldn’t be smugger if I bought it from Smuggy Mc- Smugster at the Smug Store in Smugville.
He rolls his eyes.
“Now, Miss Taylor,” she says, looking at me, “when you grab the knife to stab yourself, I want you to straddle him.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Holt mutters.
Erika glances at him. “Mr. Holt, when Miss Taylor collapses on you, I don’t want you both looking like you’ve been gunned down in a gang war. You need to die as you’ve lived—like lovers.”
I’m taking in everything she’s saying, but my brain is fixated on two words. Straddle him.
Legs akimbo. Parts pressed against other parts.
Oh, boy.
Holt is rubbing his face and groaning.
Erika smiles at us. I think she enjoys our mutual discomfort.
“Let’s go back to the kiss, and let’s see if we can get through to the end, okay? Can I have the rest of the cast involved in the end of this scene in their places side stage please?”
There’s a bit of shuffling as people take up their positions. Holt is scowling at me.
I give him my most innocent smile.
He looks at me with an intensity that would be scary if I wasn’t enjoying his frustration so much.
“Lie down, lover,” I whisper sexily. “I have some straddling to do.”
He curses under his breath and lies down.
Methinks the gent doth protest too much.
“Okay, here we go. Thank you, Miss Taylor.”
I start the scene again. When I get to the kiss, I purposefully make it as erotic as possible. I can feel Holt breathing heavily as a small sound escapes him.
Uh uh uh. Play dead please, hot corpse.
He exhales and stays still.
Good boy.
There are voices offstage, and I look toward them. Juliet is running out of time.
“Yea, noise?” I say, panic coloring my voice as I look around in desperation. “Then I’ll be brief.”
I spot the knife, and after throwing one knee over his middle, I straddle Holt’s groin as I grab the prop dagger he has strapped to his hip
“O happy dagger,” I say as I pull it from the scabbard and bring it up to my chest, “this is thy sheath.”
I push the collapsible blade into the center of my chest and cry out, face contorting in pain. To the audience, it looks like I’ve just fatally wounded myself.
“There … rust.” I groan and fling the knife onto the floor as I clutch my chest. I fist Holt’s shirt and tenderly kiss my Romeo once more before whispering, “And … let me … die.”
I collapse onto Holt. My face presses into his neck, one hand on his chest, the other in his hair. If someone took a snapshot of us, we’d look like a young couple sleeping in an intimate embrace.
Other characters rush onto the stage and continue the scene, lamenting our deaths and breaking down the series of events that led to them. I can feel Holt tense beneath me, trying to control his breathing. His groin is pressed hard against me, and I feel it getting gradually harder. I try to ignore it. My vagina has other ideas. I try to explain to her she’s dead and therefore has no further need for Romeo’s impressive erection, but she’s finding it difficult to suspend her disbelief.
I slow my breathing and listen to the scene playing out around me. The archaic language and its rhythm has a sedating effect. Soon I’m concentrating on Holt’s heartbeat beneath my ear. It’s hypnotic, so strong and steady. As my muscles soften and my heart rate slows, my body sinks into him, and I have a brief moment of thinking I must be very heavy, before his smell and warmth lulls me into a half daze.
Before I know what’s happening, a hand is shaking my shoulder. I open my eyes to see Jack standing over us with several other cast members behind him.
“Wow. Glad to see you guys so excited by our performances,” he says with a smirk. “Maybe next time you could try not to snore.”
I sit up quickly and look down at Holt. He’s bleary-eyed and confused. His eyes come into focus when he registers me on top of him. I take the hint and climb off, but my muscles are loose and weak.
Jeez, who knew straddling cuts off so much circulation?
Jack grabs me around the waist and helps me upright. There’s laughter as my legs give out again, making me stumble against him.
“Whoa! Steady there, Cassie. You’ve been dead for a while now. You’d better take it easy.”
I steady myself as Holt gets to his feet. He glances at Avery’s arms around me before looking away.
“Mr. Holt, Miss Taylor,” Erika says as she climbs the steps to the stage, “can I assume your final positions were comfortable?”
I step away from Jack and smooth down my hair, trying to distract myself from my rising blush.
“It was okay.”
People laugh under their breath. I’m beyond embarrassed. I’ve kissed Holt in front of these people. Hell, I’ve had fake sex with him. But what I just did? Snuggled him? Melted into him and fallen asleep? That’s more intimate than anything else I’ve done.
We sit on the stage as Erika gives us notes, but generally she seems pleased with our progress. Jack’s sitting next to Holt, whispering and snickering. Holt grabs the front of Jack’s shirt and hisses something in his face. Jack goes pale and shuts up immediately. When Holt releases him, Jack moves away while muttering under his breath. Holt runs his hand through his hair before glancing over at me.
He looks furious.
> When Erika calls an end to rehearsal, conversations fill the air as everyone packs up the stage and props. Miranda and Aiyah invite me to go to dinner with them, but I’m not in the mood. I thank them for the offer and hug them good-bye. The rest of the theater slowly empties as I pick up the dagger and take it over to Holt. He still looks angry as he takes it from me.
“You okay?” I ask as he unclasps the scabbard from his belt.
“Fine.”
“What was with you and Avery?” I ask.
“He’s an asshole.” He shoves the dagger into the scabbard.
“Why?”
“He kept asking if I was fucking you.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I didn’t answer.”
“And?”
“And he assumed I wasn’t.”
“Which is true.”
“Yeah, but then he thought it was okay to tell me how much he’d like to fuck you.”
“And what did you say to that?” I ask and take a step forward.
His gaze runs the length of my body before he says, “I told him if he went anywhere near you, I’d cut off his balls and feed them to my Rottweiler.”
“You have a Rottweiler?”
“No, but he doesn’t know that.”
I touch his belt buckle. It’s a rectangle with what looks like some sort of crucifix. Strange that he’d be wearing God’s symbol when he’s in league with the devil.
“So, let me get this straight,” I say while running my fingers over the cool metal. “You don’t want to be with me, but you also don’t want other guys to be with me?”
“He’s not other guys. He’s Avery. If you slept with him, your IQ would automatically drop forty points.”
“Have you stopped to analyze why you’re so jealous?”
“I’m not jealous. I just don’t want that fucking mouth-breather touching you. That’s just common sense.”
“What about Connor? Am I allowed to sleep with him?”
His expression turns stormy. “Do you want to sleep with him?”
I curl my fingers into his T-shirt and resist tearing it off. “If I did, would that be okay with you?”
He looks feral. “Fuck, no. Too vanilla.”