“Rise and shine, sleepyhead.” Kathleen’s pillow was rumbling. And furry. And…petting her? She opened her eyes to bright sunshine, Russell’s sleepy brown eyes and…ow. Her neck was stiff from resting on Russell’s chest. All night? That couldn’t be right.
The pain in her neck was telling her otherwise.
“You okay?” Russell’s expression was half amusement, half alarm.
“My neck.” Kathleen twisted her head to the side, prompting another spasm of pain. “Ow.” She sat up, her teeth clenched and eyes closed.
“Aww.” Russell’s fingers smoothed her hair over her other shoulder, exposing the side that was seized up. His fingers probed the tense muscle and Kathleen inhaled, hissing with pain.
“Not the kind of gasp I like to hear from you.” His voice was worried.
“Got to work through the pain to make it go away, though.”
“You really want me to try to undo that knot?”
“Please?” Kathleen fought to keep from whimpering as his fingertips dug in, increasing the sensation but beginning to loosen the spasm. As the sharp pain dulled to a hot ache, Kathleen rolled her head a bit. “Oh, thank you. It was going to be hard to drive home and not be able to turn my head.”
“I could have driven.” He paused the gentle working of his fingers to kiss the spot where the pain and tightness had been most acute.
“Aww. That’s sweet. My car is a temperamental shitbox, though. Best if I deal with the driving.” She turned to face him, the sheet pooled in her lap. “We really have to go back, don’t we?”
“Yeah. I have final exams to grade, you have rehearsals to go to, and if we don’t do either of these things we’d have no more money to stay here and play. Anyway, you aren’t looking forward to Alicia and Colin having us over for dinner to play an endless loop of ‘We knew it’?”
Kathleen scrubbed her face with her hands and pushed her hair up off her forehead, her fingers getting caught in tangles. “I guess I wouldn’t miss that for the world,” she said, picking at her snarled ends.
“Come on.” He tugged her hand away from her hair. “You’re just making that worse. Let’s get cleaned up, get some breakfast in you. You seem all blue all of a sudden.”
It was true. She did feel listless and low. She slid off the bed after him and let him take her hand and pull her into the bathroom. He opened the shower door, started the water, then turned to her. “Sorry my chest wasn’t as comfy a pillow as I would have wanted.”
“It isn’t that.”
“What is it? Second thoughts?” Uncertainty creased the corners of his eyes.
“No!” Something sharp and bright flared in her chest. Something like panic and certainty all rolled up into one. “Not at all. It’s just…this has been so magical. And now we’re going back to mundane old reality.”
“Hey.” He pulled her body flush with his. “This is just the first magic act. There will be more.”
“You promise?”
“I’ll try, at least. If you will.”
Kathleen’s face relaxed into a little smile. “Am I the lady who gets sawed in half?”
Russell touched his lips to hers. “No. This is a joint production. No assistants. All magicians. Everybody gets a top hat and a rabbit.”
A little burst of a laugh escaped her. “Have I told you yet that you’re adorable?”
“That’s good, right?”
“It’s very good. You might even call it…” She made an elaborate flourish with one hand. “Magical.”
“More sass, huh?” But he couldn’t contain the grin that seemed to start from his toes, coiling up through his body and ending at his mouth.
“Oh, buckle up. I haven’t even gotten started.” Kathleen’s eyes sparked hazel fire.
“Excellent.” He tested the water. “Shower’s ready if you are.”
A wicked smile curled her lips and she leaned in for a quick kiss. “Get in. I’ll be right back.”
Warmth spread through his chest as he stepped under the spray and rubbed the soap between his hands. He was spreading the lather across his chest when Kathleen returned.
“Just in case,” she said, dropping a condom packet onto the ledge next to the soap.
“Forethought duly noted.” Cupping her face in his hands, he kissed her, the slide of her breasts across his soapy chest making every nerve in his body stand to attention.
“Seems like forethought was the right call,” she said, her hand curling around his hardening length and stroking upward. Russell’s breath caught in his throat as the warm water drummed on his shoulders and cascaded around the focal point of his nervous system where her hand caressed him.
“Seems like.” His voice was tight.
Kathleen’s gaze slid around the shower stall, her expression assessing. “How do you feel about…” She shifted in his arms, releasing her grip on him and turning around so her back was to him, her body slippery with soapy water. “Doing things this way?”
His pulse speeded up. “The question is, how do you feel about it?”
Cocking her chin sideways, she slid him a saucy glance. “It’s a nice, roomy shower. I feel fine about it.”
“I thought you had problems with orgasms standing up.”
“I think you’ll catch me. Besides…” she bent forward and placed her hands on the shower wall, her bottom tilting up toward him. “I have this nice sturdy surface to lean against.”
The hot water now seemed positively cool compared to the fiery arousal zinging through him. Russell grabbed the condom packet and ripped it open, sheathing himself and pushing into her with a low, satisfied moan. Kathleen’s back arched, allowing him deeper and he began to move, hands gripping her hips, keeping the motion slow and steady even as pleasure crashed over him, urging him to go faster, harder.
One of Kathleen’s hands came off the wall and reached between her legs. “Safety first,” he said. “Both hands on the wall. I’ve got you.”
He felt, rather than heard, her low chuckle as she splayed her palm on the glass again and he reached around her hip to find her clit, rubbing in time to his thrusts. Her hoarse gasp told him he had the right touch, the right rhythm. She squeezed around him and broke apart with a small cry and he hooked his other hand under her belly, afraid her knees might give out. She trembled, but remained standing and Russell resumed his movement, pumping into her until he also cried out and shook with the force of his pleasure.
“I’m suffocating!” Kathleen laughed and batted at the towel Russell was using to pat her face dry.
“Actresses. So dramatic.” Russell’s dimple deepened as he passed the towel across her breasts and belly, his eyes avid.
“Men. So fixated on specific parts of anatomy,” Kathleen said, pulling the towel out of his hands and wrapping it around her torso, tucking in the end to create a terrycloth sarong.
“We’re discerning.” His index finger traced the edge of the towel, loosening it.
Kathleen tried to make her face prim as she pressed the towel edge to her chest, but knew she was fighting a losing battle. “Sure,” she said, trying to keep her mouth from tugging up.
“Well, some of us are.”
Nearly laughing out loud, Kathleen pressed her body to his, wrapping her hand around the back of his head, his closely-trimmed hair soft against her fingertips. “Oh, really?”
“I’m serious,” he said, his eyes glimmering with humor.
“Fine.” She moved away from him to let the towel fall and then leaned into his body, the warmth that he radiated suffusing her chest and belly and…unbelievably…still having the power to warm her further down.
His mouth found hers, teasing tenderly, knowingly. They had learned so much of each other. And there was so much more to learn. Kathleen’s body hummed with the promise of it, her nerves zinging with what the future could bring, what they could become.
Russell broke the kiss, leaning back, his eyes lazily scanning her face. “I had no idea anything like this could happen to me.”
Kathleen assessed his face, so satisfied, so pleased, his brown eyes gleaming with pleasure. “What do you mean?”
His mouth quirked to the side. “Do you really want to know?”
Her pulse picked up, hammering hard, her face heating. “Yeah.”
“This. The speed of it.”
“Is the speed good or bad?”
“There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.”
An involuntary laugh huffed from Kathleen and she tightened her arms around his neck, her eyes widening as her brain caught up with the conversation. “You just quoted Hamlet.”
His eyes slid sideways. “I’m not a complete illiterate.”
“But…you said Colin had to drag you to the Folger. That you weren’t a Shakespeare guy.”
“At first. I’m learning.”
A bubble of pure joy was trapped in Kathleen’s chest. It was almost painful. “And now you’re quoting the Bard.”
Russell traced her cheekbone with a gentle thumb. “I may have been envious of a friend of mine. I might have studied up. I might have been even luckier than he was.”
“You are the damndest thing, you know that?”
“What do you mean?”
“Just…so controlled and yet so giving. So together and also so open to new experiences.”
“New experiences with you are some of my favorite things right now.”
Kathleen eyed him sideways. “You just keep up that sweet talking and we’ll do just fine.”
They dressed and packed quietly, exchanging sly smiles and lingering touches as they moved past each other. Russell went into the bathroom to retrieve his toiletries and noticed Kathleen was biting her lips together as if to keep from laughing when he returned to the bedroom.
“What are you up to?”
She shook her head. “Not a thing.”
He narrowed his eyes and gave her his best professorial I-see-you-texting-under-the-table-during-my-lecture look. Nothing. Her face was the picture of innocence.
Well, she was an actress. He jammed his Dopp kit into his bag and zipped it, picking up the phone to get a porter. He’d already proven more than once that he could handle that monster suitcase of hers.
This time he’d leave the job to the professionals.
It seemed to take no time at all to get them checked out, load the luggage in Kathleen’s little hatchback, and watch Kathleen start the car as he buckled his seat belt. A strange apprehension threaded through him as the car moved out onto the road: as if despite the plans they had made they were leaving their nascent relationship behind them at the hotel.
“You okay over there?” Kathleen’s eyes were on the road, but a little crease had appeared between her brows, worry marking her face.
“Fine. Just…”
“The real world?”
He turned and looked at her full on. “How did you guess?”
The corner of her mouth quirked up as she checked over her shoulder for an opening and merged onto the highway. “I guess I’m thinking about the same thing. What we had was so…it’s corny to say it, but—well, hell. You said it, so I’m going to also. It was magical.”
“No, that’s it exactly. But just because not everything is going to be a vacation idyll doesn’t mean it can’t be great.”
“True.”
He rested his hand on her knee and squeezed. “And I think we have great possibilities anyway.”
“Have you thought about our schedules? Remember what I said about theater happening at night?”
“Well, being a professor isn’t exactly nine to five. I do evening classes sometimes and a lot of my days are flexible. We’ll figure it out.”
Some of the tension left her face and she leaned back against the seat, eyes still on the road. He let her concentrate on driving for a few minutes before asking, “So when can I see you again?”
“I have rehearsal tomorrow from ten to three.”
“So three fifteen?”
She laughed outright at that. “Well, there goes my fear that you were really having hidden second thoughts.”
He rubbed his hand along her leg. “Not even a little. Tell me about the new play.”
She told him about the play, her role, and some of the other actors in the cast she already knew. She asked him about his class and he somehow managed to make her laugh at his description of the tedium of grading exams. Before he knew it, he was giving her directions to his condo and they pulled up in front of the building. Kathleen double-parked and got out with him.
“Very nice,” she said, looking up the front of the brick building.
“I’d love to ask you in, but it would probably take a full hour to find a parking spot in my neighborhood.”
“I can visit some other time. Take Metro.”
“And spend the night?”
“I wouldn’t miss it.” Her hazel eyes lit with mischief and Russell felt the now-familiar speeding of his pulse.
“Excellent. Now I really have something to look forward to.” He liked the idea of Kathleen in his condo, the mellow light from the south-facing windows picking up all the red highlights in her hair.
She kissed him and pulled away to get back in her car, a little regretful moue pursing her lips, but her eyes still glittered with mischief. Her fingers fluttered goodbye as she pulled away and Russell shouldered his suitcase strap, picking up his guitar case and his garment bag. He got his mail and walked up to his condo, unlocking the door and setting the guitar down with a sigh in the hallway. His place suddenly seemed very empty.
“Just unpack and get settled back in,” he grumbled into the silent air.
Slinging his suitcase onto his bed in the spacious master suite, he couldn’t help but hum with happiness at the thought of seeing Kathleen again tomorrow. Preoccupied with sorting through ideas of what they might do, he almost missed the dark scrap of fabric that fluttered out of a suit jacket as he shook it out. Bending over, he saw it was a bit of lace. A slow grin spread over his face as he picked it up.
It was her navy thong.
“You had a good time?” Wendy’s voice floated out from the phone Kathleen had placed on her bedside table and set on speaker to chat with her friend as she unpacked.
“Very. Staying an extra day was definitely the right call, even if I’m going to have to work late tonight to get ready for rehearsal tomorrow. I had planned on re-reading the script this afternoon, but that sure didn’t happen.”
“I’m sure your time was far better spent,” Wendy said, her voice dry.
Kathleen heard Kent in the background. “What does himself have to say?”
Wendy laughed. “He says to leave you alone and stop teasing.”
“As if your teasing could ever be hurtful.” Wendy was the sweetest person Kathleen had ever met, nurturing and warm, taking care of both her and Alicia when they had shared a dressing room.
Kathleen’s phone chimed with an incoming text and she rounded the bed to pick up her phone. Looking at the screen, she laughed.
“What’s going on over there? Did he follow you home or something?”
“No, kind of the opposite. I…left him a present in his suitcase. He just texted me to let me know he got it.” The message was simply a selfie: Russell’s fingers twined with obvious possession around the navy blue lace held up next to his face. Another message followed.
I’m keeping these forever.
Kathleen pressed her lips together and typed. Good.