Chapter 15
15
Millie
If the theory that one can tell a lot about a person’s performance in the bedroom by the way they dance is true, then holy fuck. Can Ezra and I consummate our fake marriage?
Would it be so bad if we fooled around?
Shit. Yes . Ezra has made it clear he’s nothing like his father, so I can’t see him being interested in a summer fling.
But…
Would he make an exception if I were the one to initiate it? Surely he’d appreciate a birthday blowie.
“Are you ready?” he rasps against my ear.
My back is plastered against his front and has been for the past several songs. I’ve been grinding my ass into those tight black jeans like a cat in heat.
If it weren’t for the champagne, I might actually be embarrassed.
But probably not.
For once, I feel like my old self. Silly and carefree.
I turn in his arms. “Let’s go home.” His hands flex against my waist. “I mean—the apartment. Let’s go?—”
“Let’s go home, Mrs. Greer.” With a chuckle, he guides me off the dance floor.
We’re hit with a warm breeze as we stumble out of the bar, and as we cut through a narrow trail back to the apartment, our hands brush, sending tingles through my extremities. Touching Ezra is like dipping my toes into a hot bath for the first time.
At the top of the stairs, he crouches and unstraps my shoes. “You good?”
“Mm-hmm,” I hum, clasping his shoulders to steady myself. “Just thirsty.”
Once I’m barefoot, I fill glasses of water for each of us, and we collapse on the sofa. The move causes my dress to slip up my thighs, but I quickly tug it down.
“I had fun tonight.”
“Me too. It was nice to be back on stage without—” I snap my mouth shut before I say without being judged by the way I look . “It was nice to be back on stage.”
Ezra assesses me, his eyes searching for answers, but he doesn’t press. “What’s the weirdest thing you’ve had to do for an audition?”
I bark out a laugh. “Fuck a chair.”
He chokes in surprise, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “You’re kidding.”
“I swear.”
“Can I see?”
“I destroyed the evidence after I didn’t get a callback.”
“I mean…” He clears his throat. “Right now.”
I set my glass down and cross my arms. “You want me to fuck a chair? In front of you? Have you lost your damn mind?”
If he juts out that pouty lip again, I don’t think I could resist. Fortunately, he changes the subject.
“Thanks for taking me out tonight.” He pulls my feet onto his lap and rubs his thumbs along my arches .
I sink deeper into the sofa in response. God, he’s good at that.
“You’re welcome. Thanks for not fighting me on it. Everyone deserves to be celebrated on their birthday.”
“Is that so?” he asks, his fingers venturing to my calves.
Static crawls across my skin. That’s nice . The move is an unconscious one, but I soak in the sensation anyway.
I feel bad that I didn’t get him a birthday gift, so with the ounce of liquid courage I have left, I swing my leg across his lap and straddle him.
He gasps, his hands gripping my thighs.
Without giving myself a moment to chicken out, I plant a kiss on his forehead. “One.” I kiss against his temple. “Two.”
“What are you doing?”
“Kissing the birthday boy. Thirty-six kisses, is it?” I kiss his entire face, particularly enjoying the softness of his beard, and stop at the corner of his mouth. “Thirty-six,” I whisper against his skin before pressing my lips to his completely.
I’m just about to slip my tongue inside when he pulls back. “Fuck, Millie, I really want to do this. But we can’t.”
Stomach sinking, I pull back too. “Why not?”
“You’ve been drinking.” His dark eyes are fathomless inky pools full of nothing but honesty and respect.
“So? You have too. If you’re worried about whiskey dick, it’s fine. I probably won’t remember in the morning anyway.”
Ezra pulls me to his body and pivots, then tosses me onto my back and pins me with his weight, locking my arms against my sides, engulfing me in his scent—those spicy notes mixed with sweat and champagne. “Honey, when I fuck you,” he growls into my ear, “I want the memory so ingrained, you’ll never get it out of your damn mind.”
I groan, cursing the light coming through the blinds. I really miss my blackout curtains. It takes a moment to piece together why my head is pounding. I’m just coming to my senses and mentally taking note of each part of my body when something moves against my shoulder.
The sensation startles me, and that’s when I notice the hand cupping my boob.
“Motherfucker.” I yank the sheets up my body, jolting upright, and instantly, my head screams at me.
“What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” Ezra asks, his voice thick and gravelly. He sits up, the sheets pooled around his waist, his perfectly tanned pecs on display.
“Worse,” I gasp. “I’m a total cliché.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s the classic one-bed-wake-up-tangled-together trope. Did you do this on purpose?”
“Of course not.” He swipes his fingers through his messy hair. “And what the fuck’s a trope?”
“Right. I bet you woke up and thought I’ll rest my monster morning cock-wood between her ass cheeks and ? — ”
“Monster morning—you’ve got to be kidding me.” Ezra laughs into his hands. Like full-on shoulders-shaking belly laugh.
“It’s not funny.” I shove him and scan the room. “Where is my pillow protection?”
“On the ground, you goof. Where you put them.” One side of his mouth curls up in a smirk. “Do you not remember?”
I shake my head.
“This is exactly why I didn’t want to have sex with you,” he mumbles.
Heart lurching, I clutch the sheets to my chest tighter. “Excuse me?”
“You wanted to have sex, and when I told you it wasn’t a good idea because you’d been drinking, you got mad, took off your clothes, threw the pillows onto the floor, and said…” He swallows thickly, a flicker of trepidation in his dark, delicious eyes. When he continues, his tone is gentle. “You said if I wasn’t going to fuck you, the least I could do was hold you.”
Heat creeps into my cheeks. I said that?
“And since we both sleep naked, well…” He motions between us. “Here we are.”
“Ugh.” I drop my head into my hand. I don’t remember any of that.
“Hey.” He nudges my shoulder. “Don’t be embarrassed.”
“I’m not embar?—”
My mind registers a trickling sensation between my legs, and I suck in a breath. Fuck . Looks like I am embarrassed after all. But not because I drunkenly destroyed the pillow wall and forced Ezra to snuggle.
“Get up.”
His brows pinch. “Huh?”
“Can you just please go in the other room so I can…” I sigh. “ Please . Just go.”
He stills, his face a mask of confusion. I can’t blame him, but I also can’t tell him I’m 99.9 percent positive I’ve started my period and 0 percent sure I haven’t leaked onto the sheets.
Clamping my eyes as tight as I can, I beg the period demons to keep their destruction to a minimum. Only when Ezra exits the room, calling out from the hall that I’m alone, do I open my eyes. The door isn’t quite shut, so I race to the bathroom.
After confirming I have indeed started my period, a cold shower sobers me up real quick.
Once I’m dried off and wrapped in a towel, I step into the bedroom and come face-to-face with a bare mattress. “Uh, excuse me?”
“Have you seen the spare linens?” Ezra asks from the hall, ignoring my panic. “Ah, never mind. Found them. ”
If I wasn’t embarrassed before, I’m mortified now. Hawaii is known for its volcanoes, right? Because I need to jump in one immediately.
“You didn’t have to do that.” I groan. “Actually, I wish you hadn’t. How bad was it?”
“It’s fine.” Ezra appears in the doorway, lifting one shoulder. “Your body’s just doing body things. It’s no big deal.”
“My body’s just doing body things ? What, are you a?—”
“Middle school teacher? Yes.” Laughing, he tosses one side of the fitted sheet across the bed. “And part of my job is to teach sex education.”
Together, we make up the bed with some of the softest linens I’ve ever felt. I want to trade my skin for these sheets.
“Thank you,” I say when we place the last of the pillows on the bed.
“You’re welcome.”
After breakfast, my cramps hit me like a wrecking ball, so I retreat to the sofa with ginger ale.
Ezra eases onto the couch beside me, his brow furrowed in concern. “You okay?”
“I will be once the ibuprofen kicks in. I’ll probably watch a movie and rest. The first two days of my period usually knock me on my ass.” I laugh, though nothing about that is funny. “You don’t have to sit here with me. I don’t want to bore you.”
“It’s cool. I have a video call with my lawyer, but it’s not until later. Then I promised Kane we’d grab a bite to eat.”
With a wince, I curl my feet under my bottom and rest my elbow on the sofa. I’ve never been more thankful for period panties and sweats.
Remote in hand, I regard Ezra. “I know you were away for your birthday this year, but did you get everything you wanted?”
Focus averted, he tugs at the bottom of his black athletic shorts. “Not exactly. ”
I can’t help but grin at him. “I told you I’d give you a birthday blowie.”
“What?” He scoots in closer and rests an elbow over the back of the sofa. “No you didn’t.”
“I didn’t?” I hold up a hand, smirking at the chipped pink polish. “Hmm, must have just thought it, then.”
He licks his lips, his gaze intense. “That’s not what I wanted.”
I raise a brow in question, willing my heartbeat to remain steady.
“Not that I wouldn’t want that.” He clears his throat. “Maybe we can, uh, revisit that later. No, there was this moment yesterday, right before I blew out my candles, when I looked at you and wished…” His dark eyes scan me over from chest to core, stealing my breath and all rational thought. “I wished you’d feel comfortable in your body again.”
I rear back in shock at his statement. “What? I feel?—”
Brows lowered, he pins me in place, his expression so frigid I feel like Princess Anna, forced into a standoff with Elsa.
“ Okay . Maybe I don’t. It’s just…” Inhaling past the lancing pain in my chest, I focus on the horizon over his shoulder and beyond the lanai, praying for courage from the universe.
“What happened? Who did this to you?” With my chin between his thumb and forefinger, he forces me to look at him. “I’m not trying to push you, Millie, but you can trust me.”
I scan his face for any sign of insincerity but come up empty.
“I promise.”
It’s wild, how safe I feel with him when we really don’t know each other well at all. So with a deep breath, I begin. “You know how I was on tour for Mamma Mia ?”
He nods.
“The director was awful.” I grimace. “It was grueling work, and he demanded long hours of rehearsal with minimum breaks. It was probably illegal, now that I think about it. Anyway, I was under so much pressure as the lead. I was stressed and wasn’t taking very good care of my body. I slept like crap and ate like it too. I didn’t realize how bad I let it get until my costumes were too tight. Ugh.” My voice cracks. “Why couldn’t I have channeled my stress into running instead?” I wipe my tears, forcing myself to meet his eye. “The director noticed and threatened to give my part to my understudy if I didn’t get my shit together and lose the rolls .”
His eyes widen and his jaw drops in horror. “He said that?”
I wring my fingers in my lap. “Among other things.”
“Son of a bitch. What did you do?”
“I tried to suck it up. The theater is my world. My life. My everything. But I couldn’t get my weight down. And then I stopped trying. It wasn’t hard to get out of my contract—the director didn’t want a fat actress . So I handed over my costumes to my understudy and flew home. I’ve sort of been hiding out in my closet recording for LULU since.”
I’m shocked I just spilled it all to Ezra, but damn, it feels good to finally get the whole truth out. The theater is supposed to be my safe, happy place, and that prick of a director ruined it.
“Fuck. I’m so sorry.” He balls his hands into fists on his thighs. “I could kill that man.”
“Easy tiger,” I laugh. “Don’t go all morally gray on me. That’s only hot in romance novels.”
He doesn’t react to my joke, but after a moment, his pinched expression relaxes. “Do you know why I chose that song last night?”
“So we could beat that other couple?”
He shakes his head and inches closer. “Because it’s how I feel about you. You’re beautiful just the way you are. And it kills me that you don’t know it.”
My nose stings, and tears flood my eyes. With a deep breath in, I fight back the emotion. I’m used to finding ways to make myself cry on stage—not the other way around.
Ezra lays a hand across my stomach, the sensation making me flinch.
“Don’t do that,” he commands. “I love your body.”
“Yeah, right.” I sniffle. “My old one, maybe.” The one that carried me through every audition, that fit into every costume. I’m sure he wishes he could see that body again. I do too.
“No.” His voice is gruff. “This one. Right fucking here. Right now. I love this body.” He gently squeezes my thigh, sending an unexpected bolt of electricity shooting straight to my core. “I will tell you every damn day until you believe it, even if I have to remind you every day for the rest of your… for the rest of this trip.”