A Midsummer Night's Fling (Much Ado about Love #1) (14 page)

He stopped walking.

She stopped walking.

They glared at each other.

“Off to see Judith at her office?” Nicola asked. Maybe for another private “casting session” like the one at the Bore’s Head?

Max’s eye twitched, and he gritted his teeth before answering. “I’m going to see Tierney. For a fitting. How’s Lachlan?”

Nicola ticked up her chin. “Fabulous. Isn’t he doing an amazing job with Puck? So talented. I know
I’d
cast him in anything.”

Max wrinkled his nose but made no other reply. He appeared as sickened by their mutual needling as she was. She shook her head at herself, despairing.
What are you doing?
But the dark, twisted knots inside her didn’t leave any room for rational, adult behavior.

She and Max fell in step together, the crunch of gravel the only sound in the air. When they reached the costume shop, Max held the door for her. Nicola nodded politely as she passed him.

Tierney glanced up from her worktable. Her hair was now a delicate lilac shade with pale green highlights, falling in silky pastel waves around her face. She flicked a quick glance between the two of them, her still-black eyebrows scrunched with worry. “Jeez, I think the temp just dropped to freezing. What is wrong with you two?”

Nicola restrained a guilty recoil. “Rita sent me.”

“Me too,” Max said, voice flat.

Tierney tossed aside her sketching pencil. “And you two managed not to murder each other on the path? I am all astonishment.”

Max grunted.

“Be that way,” Tierney muttered. “But you two aren’t that good of actors, I got news for you.” Businesslike, Tierney twisted up her mass of purple-and-green hair and secured it with a pencil. “It’s fine. I can work with a three-hundred-pound gorilla in the room. I
love
awkward situations. I do laps in them before breakfast. Builds endurance. Let’s get to work.”

Nicola gripped her hands together, fidgety with guilt. Had she and Max been that obvious? Had they been that awful to each other all week?

Apparently so.

As Tierney bustled around, pulling the costume pieces together and depositing them in the dressing rooms, Nicola reached out to touch Max’s arm. He raised an eyebrow.

I’m sorry
, she mouthed.

A smile broke over his face, brighter than the sunrise.
Me too
, he mouthed back.

Good. Relief spread through her with bone-melting warmth. She’d spent the last week carrying around about twenty extra pounds of unnecessary angst. She thought she could hear her muscles sigh with relief now that the tension was gone. She needed to stay away from Max anyway, on principle, but still.
Good.

Tierney shepherded them toward the dressing rooms. “Nic, I put your dress in the far right. Max, you’re next door.”

Nicola skittered into the dressing room and locked the door, happy enough to shut everyone out.

Max bolted his own door beside her, and she heard the rustle of fabric against skin.

Max stripping off his clothes.

Max stripping.

Nicola leaned against the wall, her pulse thundering as her stupid brain all too happily supplied imagery to go with the sounds. Max tugging off his shirt, his arms bared, the tapered muscles of his back moving beneath his skin. His pants sliding down the round curve of that gorgeous, ripe, perfect ass of his… His hands on her, his mouth, his tongue…

She shook herself.
Stupid Max
. She yanked off her own tank and yoga pants, then tossed them to hang over the top of the door.
Stupid me
.

The sounds in the dressing room next door stopped. As if maybe Max had been arrested by the sounds of
her
changing clothes.

The wall between their dressing rooms rattled, and he grunted and swore, struggling with some difficult piece of his costume. Clearly, he was oblivious to her being less than two feet away from him, only a thin wall separating her naked body from his.

“How are you guys doing?” Tierney called.

“Uh, fine.” Nicola fisted her hands and pounded them against her own forehead.
Stop it.

“The pants are too tight,” Max grumbled.

“Can you move?” Tierney asked.

“Yes.”

“Then they’re not too tight. Come
on
you two.”

“Yes, Tierney.” Nicola turned where her outfit hung on its peg, getting her first good look at the costume.

Staring at that dress, Nicola’s whole body went shivery with anxiety. “
Crap
.” For the first time in weeks, Nicola had more pressing problems than Max.

* * *

H
ello
, Oberon
, Max thought as he gazed in the mirror.
I can definitely deal with this
. The pants were snug, pretty much painted on his ass.
Except paint would be more comfortable
. Still, as he studied his reflection, Max had to admit Tierney knew her business. Anyway, the pants wouldn’t have been nearly so constricting if he hadn’t had to listen to Nicola changing next door. It had taken all his willpower not to climb the wall between them like a monkey and watch her getting naked.

And that was only from the power of imagining her naked. If he ever saw her in the flesh again—literally—he’d probably have heart failure.

No more naked thoughts
. He shifted his feet.
We’re trying to decrease the boners here, pal, remember?

Max refocused on his Oberon costume in pure self-defense. “This is great, Tee. I look like a badass.”

Tierney snapped the last buckle on his breastplate and gave his shoulder a hearty slap. “I know, right?”

She had given Oberon a sort of Romanesque feel, very military, with a breastplate of dark red leather with gold accents and tight, black leather leggings. She’d also delivered a kickass cape, a dark red wool she’d frayed and stained at the hem to appear as if the garment was often dragged over the forest floor. His arms were bare except for two leather gauntlets Tierney was still finishing. He felt like a king. A warrior king.

As he looked his kingly self over, Tierney stood behind him and made notes. “The cloak’s a good length, I think, but let me know if it snags or you trip on it or anything. Rita was thinking a garland for your hair, but I’m leaning toward a simple gold circlet. Match that yellow hair of yours. Anything too tight? Pinching? Too loose?”

Obediently, Max moved around, swung his arms, squatted, stretched. “Feels good.”

“Great.” Tierney jotted one last note, then glanced over her shoulder. “Nicola? Get your butt out here, fairy queen. I made your costume—I know how short a time it takes to get into it.”

Max eased back, trying to fade into the background. Tough to do in Oberon’s over-the-top outfit, but he was pretty much dying of curiosity here. He didn’t want Tierney to send him away before he’d seen Nicola.

“Tierney.” Nicola’s voice quavered through the dressing room door. “I can’t—this is—it’s beautiful but—”

Tierney stomped over to the dressing room. “The dress is fine. Everything that needs to be covered is covered.”

“
Ha!
”

Hearing this, Max took root. He wasn’t going anywhere. Clearly, this situation was bringing out the baser aspects of his personality.

“Nicola—” Tierney started, infinitely reasonable.

“Tierney, this is like…a
naked
dress!” Nicola’s voice was very shrill.

Max blinked, forcing his brain not to conjure any images to go with this alluring word picture. Nicola. Naked…
Stop
. He cleared his throat. “Should I wait outside?”

“
Yes!
” Nicola yelled.

“
No!
” Tierney flung out an arm to stop him. “I need to see how the two costumes work together. Your two looks are the jumping-off point for all the other fairy costumes. They need to mesh, to feel like they come from the same world.” Then Tierney turned and bellowed, “So I
really
need you to come out, Nic!”

A long pause followed, then the bolt on the dressing room slid back. But the door didn’t open.

Tierney sighed. “I can’t fix what I can’t see. Maybe once I see the dress on you, I’ll decide to change it.”

Another long pause, then the dressing room door swung all the way open.

Nicola stepped gracefully out from behind the door.

Max’s heart stopped.

She looked like a goddess, sensuality personified and clothed in the rosy pinks, yellows, and delicate lilacs of a beatific dawn. The gown was sleeveless, a vaguely Roman silhouette like his costume, and made of some shimmery whisper of material. The folds of the dress floated around Nicola’s body, weighty without being heavy, sheer without being vulgar. The dress had no back, swooping down on her lower back to barely stop above the curve of her bottom. Bared to the light, the graceful column of her spine and shoulder blades left his mouth dry.

And skin… Soft, perfect skin. Lovingly, expertly on display through Tierney’s skill. Two shoulder straps held the dress up, clasped with opal brooches. He imagined tracing his palm over Nicola’s shoulder, sliding those straps off, then watching the rest of the filmy dress flow down her body. His ethereal queen, this sun goddess walking barefoot on earth.

He was throbbing, painfully erect in the close-fitting Oberon pants. He tried to wet his lips, but all his spit had dried up.

Tierney positioned Nicola next to him so the costume designer could scrutinize them together. The smell of Nicola’s hair reached him—citrusy and fresh, like the very breath of spring.

I want her
. Wanted to peel that dress off and touch her and taste her. Wanted to plunge into her softness and heat until he forgot his name. Until she forgot hers. Until they were utterly spent in each other. Aching. Sweaty. Exhausted. Sated.

Complete.

He fisted his hands against his sides. Damn Tierney. And damn that dress too.

T
ierney was frustratingly
unsympathetic to Nicola’s embarrassment about The Dress.

Max didn’t help any. Not by being there to witness Nicola’s embarrassment, and certainly not by wearing his sexy-as-hell Oberon costume. Just peeking at Max made Nicola’s whole lower half seem to say,
Lachlan who?

Tierney circled the two of them, grinning like an idiot. “You guys look
good
.” She paused on her circuit. “Oh shit. Nic, stand here a sec.” She grabbed Nicola’s wrist and towed her directly under the light.

The costume designer stared at Nicola’s breasts.

Okaaaay
… Nicola glanced down too, weirded out, then gasped with horror. The shadow of her nipples could be seen through the sheer fabric. Pretty clearly too. “Oh no.”

“What’s wrong?” Max asked, alarmed by her tone.

“Nipples,” Tierney replied, brisk and businesslike.

Embarrassment burned Nicola’s cheeks to lavalike levels of hot.

At the word “nipples,” Max blinked once, faintly, then he froze and fastened his gaze on the ceiling.

“So, Nicola,” Tierney said. “Do you want pasties for your nipples? Or Band-Aids?”

“I’ll settle for the rest of the dress, please.”

Tierney
tsk
ed. “Nicola.”

Nicola panicked. Wearing
this
? Outside? Onstage? In front of anyone,
ever
?

Tierney scrutinized Nicola’s face. “I think if you blush any harder, your hair’s going to turn red.” She sighed. “Fine. I can line the dress. Make it less see-through.”

Nicola let out her breath in relief. “No pasties?”

“No pasties.”

“
No pasties?
” Max said, wailing in mock-disappointment.

“Shut up.” Nicola soft-punched him in the gut. He caught her hand and had her palm halfway to his mouth for a kiss before he remembered himself.

A second passed before Nicola pulled her hand out of his hold. Her skin tingled where he’d touched her, and a low heat was building in her stomach, between her legs.

“Let’s show Rita.” Tierney started for the door.

“Tierney! Nipples!” Alarmed, Nicola folded her arms, trying to hide the anatomy in question.

“
Actors
.” Tierney rolled her eyes, projecting a put-upon air. “I’ll ask Rita to come up here.” She dialed the director’s cell, but Rita didn’t answer. Not surprising—Rita rarely touched her phone during rehearsals. Tierney tried the stage manager’s cell with identical results. “Damn.”

“You could send one of the interns for Rita,” Max said.

Tierney waved that away, her foot tapping with impatience. “Finding one of those teenyboppers will take as long as running to the main stage myself.” She sighed. “I’m going. You two, don’t touch anything. Don’t take anything off.” She pointed her finger in a particularly insistent way at Nicola.

Nicola lifted her hands in surrender. “We will wait.”

“Patiently,” Max put in.

Satisfied, Tierney trotted off, her long strides devouring the distance out the door. Her steps in the hallway echoed for a minute before the costume shop door swung closed.

As soon as the door to the shop clicked shut, Max unclasped his weighty red cloak.

“What are you doing?” Nicola asked.

“It’s going to take Tee at least ten minutes to get to the stage and back. And that’s
if
Rita will leave whatever she’s working on. What do you think the odds of that are?”

“Good point. We’re in for a bit of a wait?”

“I’d say so.” Max hung the Oberon cloak, then turned toward Nicola. He had his eyes downcast, and his voice was uncharacteristically shy as he said, “Would you mind helping me with the breastplate? Tierney had to help me get it on. The buckles are kind of tricky one-handed.”

Nicola swallowed but gamely stepped over to help her fellow actor.

Wow, he smells good
. As she stepped close to him, the delicious Max scent, mixed with the hint of sunshine on skin, filled her nose.

He crossed his arm over his chest to get its bulk out of her way, and she had a lovely close view of the warm, dense flesh of his bicep. An irrational urge grew inside her to lick the line of his muscles, tracing her tongue up to his shoulder. Her fingers fumbled with the buckles only slightly. The armor fell from Max like a broken turtle’s shell, and he set it aside to stand bare-chested beside her.

Half-naked, in black leggings that lovingly hugged every line of his powerful thighs and delectable ass, Max looked more god-like than ever.

“I…I think you should ask Tierney to make you a shirt or something for under the armor. It was scraping your skin.” Whirling away, Nicola drew up a stool to sit at Tierney’s cutting table with her back to Max. She was happy to discover her skimpy dress allowed her to sit without flashing her butt crack.

“Thanks,” Max said.

The silence between them crept on. Nicola’s thoughts became consumed with the gleaming body behind her, the warm honey of his skin, the slim line of his hips, the breadth of his shoulders. Awareness of Max pushed on her as insistently as if his big, beautiful body was actually pressed against her and not clear across the room.

He’s probably thinking of his grocery list
. Or Judith.

The tension inside her constricted, closing up her throat, until she thought she might suffocate. “I’m sorry for the other night,” she blurted out. “At the pub. I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”

“It’s all right.” Max’s voice was low, gruff. “There’s still…stuff between us. It was naïve to think we could ignore it.”

“It was naïve to think we could be
friends
.” In this cool, quiet room, with the two of them almost physically naked, vulnerable, it was easier to be emotionally bare as well.

A long pause followed, and she wondered if he’d heard her.

His feet clicked against the tile floor, and his finger tickled against her shoulder. It was a bare whisper of a touch, and yet her body prickled as if he’d grabbed her.

She braced herself against the table, then turned to face him and stared into his kind, worried, clear blue eyes.

“We
are
friends, Nicci.”

Trembling, feeling reckless, she laid her palm flat against the bare skin of his chest. “No. We’re not.”

He leaned forward, resting his hands on the table to bracket her body between his arms. “Are you sleeping with Lachlan?”

“No. We left the pub together, but Cassie drove us to her apartment. And then Lachlan went to bed with Cassie. Are
you
sleeping with Judith?” She wet her lips, and the blood throbbing in her temples went from a simple beat to a roar.

“No, I’m not,” he whispered. “I wouldn’t.”

As if they shared one body, one thought, they each held their breath for a long, endless moment of time, staring into the other’s eyes.

Then Max lurched forward and kissed her mouth. Hard.

No hesitation now, no mixed feelings. Only desperation and the tender lash of need, which had Nicola opening for him, sweeping her tongue into his mouth and moaning as his kiss bent her backward over the table.

He eased away and combed his teeth over the line of her neck. “Nicci.” His arms were still braced, hands flat on the table.

He should be touching me, he should be
ravishing
me
, her body screamed.

“Hmm?” She traced a tendon on his forearm, curled her fingers around his wrist to feel his pulse hammer. Warmth poured from his body, decadent and molten, and she shivered and rocked against him, the fabric of her dress a tantalizingly thin barrier between their bodies.

“Nicci.” He cupped her jaw, his thumb tracing the swell of her lower lip. His eyes looked heavy-lidded, as drugged with lust as hers felt.

Good
.

“Are we really doing this?” He was frowning, still worried.

In answer, she pulled away and ducked under the barrier of his arm. She crossed to the door and glanced at him over her shoulder. Max swallowed, dropping his head, his shoulders slumping in disappointment.

Laughing, giddy, Nicola turned the bolt on the door, locking them in together, locking everyone else out.

Max’s head snapped up, and his eyes were wild, like dark, storm-tossed seas.

Nicola swallowed, watching him, and trembled. And wanted. “Is there anywhere we can find a condom in here?”

His jaw compressed, a line of granite beneath the skin. He crossed to the dressing rooms and fished in his abandoned pants. Drawing out his wallet, he pulled a condom free, then displayed it between his pointer and middle finger, like the coin in a magic trick. His eyes were still watchful, blazing with a terrible hope. “Nicci…”

She crossed the room, hurrying to him, and pushed her body against his. “I need you to touch me now.”

“I know.” He fisted his hand in her hair, pulling her head back as he kissed her roughly on the mouth. She groaned and arched against him, gripping his shoulders, pulling him as close as she could, wanting him inside her, wanting him to crush her with that firm, gorgeous body of his.

His tongue massaged hers, thrusting to mimic the instinctual motion of his hips. He plumped her breast in his palm, teasing her nipple through the fabric. Everything within her felt over-sensitized to the highest pitch of desperation, a howling keen in her blood.
Max
. She nipped at his lower lip and wished they had a bedroom, a stronger door, a sturdier lock. “How long do you think we have left?” This kiss felt like a bite of eternity, as necessary as air. But they might have only minutes until Tierney returned.

Somehow this didn’t make Nicola want to
stop
.

Max bent his head toward her. She left her eyes open and watched him kiss her, watched serenity spread over his face, watched him hold her like a benediction, and her heart hurt. She closed her eyes and kissed him back.

But when she wrapped her arms around his neck, he gently disengaged her. His broad palms swept over her shoulders and pushed away the straps of the dress. The fabric whispered off her body. Max caught the dress before it could hit the floor, and Nicola stepped out of it. Her blood thundered through her body, in her ears, her temples, a particularly insistent pulse between her legs. She twitched her bare shoulders, the cool air and bright fluorescent lights making her feel raw, exposed. Max hadn’t seen her naked in five years, and she’d never had the greatest body. Small breasts, nice ass, good face, but her
hips
. And she was
so
short and he was
Max
. Sexiest man she’d ever met. Her breasts pebbled from the cool air, and she had a strong urge to cover up.
What am I doing?

Max laid the dress out on the cutting table, then turned back and stopped, staring at her. He pressed his palm against her breast, then trailed his hand down her body. “You’re beautiful. Most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.” He sounded almost pained as he said it, and his eyes were reverent, worshipping, as he caressed her with his gaze and kindled her with his touch.

She reached for him. “
Max
.”

He grabbed her around the waist and lifted her, kissing her all the while. Her heart swooped, thrilling at his strength, and she twined her legs around his hips, pressing her core to the ridge of his cock. He kept kissing her as he carried her into the storage room where rack upon rack of old costumes hung—and where they would not be immediately visible to anyone who might walk into the costume shop.

The chance of being caught added a naughty, decadent thrill to kissing him, to being nearly naked in his arms. And this interlude was already thrilling enough. She was kissing Max. Touching
Max
.

He leaned against a wall, rubbing and pressing into her with his cock, thick and perfect beneath the fabric of his Oberon leggings. Just when everything seemed too perfect, too hot to handle, Max shifted and accidentally knocked her head against the wall.

“Ow,” she said conversationally.

He pulled away, a flush staining his cheeks, and cradled the back of her head. “
Shit
. Are you all right?”

“We never can seem to do this backstage without you braining me on a wall.”

He grinned. “Just like old times.”

Laughing, she kissed him, and a sweet pain twisted her heart. She traced her fingers over his brow, along his jaw, across his lips. He kissed her fingertips and grinned against them. “Max,” she whispered, the breath of a prayer, and kissed him again.

He moaned into her throat, rocking against her. Keeping one hand braced on the wall, he moved her panties aside to trace his fingers over her clit, slicking one finger back and forth. She shuddered and dropped her head to his shoulder, waves of pleasure pounding over her. “Now,” she whispered. “Please now.” The emptiness of her ached, and she was wet and warm, pulsing with need for him.

Peppering kisses along her cheekbone and neck, Max set her on the ground. Her legs quivered but held her up somehow. He slid his hand around and inside her panties, cupping her bottom and squeezing. Max moaned and licked into her mouth. “Your ass is perfection, you know that?” And then he was tugging her panties off.

For her part, she yanked the leggings down his legs to the knees. His cock sprang free, stiff and heavy and long. Wetting her lips, she plucked the condom out of his hand, tore the packet open with her teeth, and had the rubber covering his length in under ten seconds.

She stepped out of her panties, and he grabbed her waist and boosted her up again.

“Fair warning,” he said between kisses. “This probably won’t take too long.”

“That’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“It’s been five years since I touched you. That’s a lot of tension to build up.”

The way he said
you
, the way he watched her, everything was just as she remembered. Max still gazed at her, touched her, as if she were some essential part of himself long sought and painfully missed, and now, joyfully, reunited.

She trailed her hands along the corded lines of his shoulders as his cock nudged her. His tip pressed against her, and it felt so good, so right, she groaned and raked her nails down his back. He rocked into her, filling her all the way, then he paused and dropped his head to her shoulder, pressing a kiss to her collarbone. “Fuck, Nicci.”