Acting Brave (Fenbrook Academy #3) (33 page)

I couldn’t speak, which was probably for the best. I nodded, instead. I was painfully aware of what a mess I was. Sweating and half-crying, my hair in a tangled mess, badly dressed...it was the opposite of how she normally saw me.

“That’s why you’re scared?” she asked gently. “Because normally it’s just one-night stands?”

Like the rest of my friends, she thought I had a lot more of those than I really did. I nodded. It wasn’t
completely
a lie. I hadn’t done anything romantic since I left Chicago. I’d specifically avoided that kind of stuff. I wasn’t sure I remembered how to date.

“You’ll be fine,” she said gently. And she gave me a huge hug, right there in the street, even though I was a sweaty mess. I relaxed for a second, squeezing her.

She slowly pulled back and looked me in the eye. “Jasmine,” she said, “is there something else?” She looked at me very seriously. “I can tell when something’s bothering you.” She glanced across the street. “There’s a coffee place over there. Do you want to go and talk?”

My breath caught in my throat. I thought about my friends not really knowing me. I thought about not being able to explain about Ryan or ask properly for advice. All I had to do was come clean. I didn’t even have to wrench it out of myself—at this point, all I had to do was say
yes
and Clarissa would march me over to the coffee shop and damn well yank it out of me, even if it took hours. Just one word and it would be over.

But then the memories rose up inside me, an oily wave of nausea. I’d have to tell her about my dad, and the bar...and the woods.

I shook my head and forced a smile onto my face. “No,” I said. “You nailed it. That’s exactly what it was. I just like him, and I don’t want it to be just another one night stand, and it’s been a while since I was...romantic.”

Clarissa looked doubtful for a second, but I grinned and rode it out and, eventually, she smiled as well. “You’ll be fine,” she said again. “Just take it slow. Maybe leave the full Jasmine experience until the third date.” She didn’t add
for once,
but we were both thinking it.

And, as we walked back to her apartment to change, I felt a little better. Maybe I
could
do this. Maybe, if I made sure to keep Emma hidden away, we had a shot at this. As Clarissa had said, I’d just take it really, really slow.

***

By the time I got home, I was wishing I’d opened up to Clarissa. I’d been so close...and I knew that, now, it would take a long time to build up to it again...if I ever could. I’d only even considered telling her the truth because I’d been at such a low point. It had been the same as when I’d let Karen see the real me, that night she intercepted me in the posh hotel as I was about to meet my first client as an escort.

Ironically, the more I stabilized, the more I built back up the shell that was Jasmine, the harder it would be to open up to Clarissa...or anyone. Maybe I’d already missed my chance.

Nick didn’t answer when I called him from the hallway so I assumed he was out. I walked into the living room and jumped back in shock when I saw him stretched out on the couch, dead to the world. I prodded him, but he barely stirred. Probably, he’d rolled in from his bar job in the early hours and would sleep until noon.

I still didn’t know where Nick worked...or, in fact, much about his life in New York at all. But, given how secretive I’d been recently, I didn’t feel I could begrudge him a little privacy. I figured he’d relax and get chattier eventually. I hadn’t seen him for two years—it was going to take a while to get used to being around each other again. I was still beating myself up for taking so long to find him. How could I have shut him out of my life for so long, just because of his links to my dad?

And how could I have been alone for so many years, trapped by my past? My life in New York had felt okay until that moment on the roof. Lonely, sure. Agonizing, at times, but I was surviving. Now, though, now that I knew what I’d been missing out on...surviving wasn’t enough.

I walked through to my room and sat down on my bed, staring at my phone. I knew what I had to do.

Chapter 37

Ryan

I’d pulled over and was eating a sandwich in the car when my phone rang. Jasmine. Immediately, my heart felt like it was going to hammer its way out of my chest.

I took a deep breath before I answered. I already knew she was nervous, that it had taken a lot for her to admit how she felt. What if she said the kiss on the roof had been a mistake? That she wanted to go back to just friends again?

“Hi,” I said cautiously.

“Hi.” She sounded hesitant, too. The normal Jasmine flirtiness wasn’t there. This confident, gorgeous, sexy woman, the one who could turn any man to mush, was scared. Something about the way we’d connected, the way she’d started to open up to me, had shaken her. “Um….”

I waited. I had to dig my nails into my palms to keep from butting in and asking whether we were together or not, but I waited. I let her take her time. I didn’t want to spook her. If she said it had all been a mistake then...well, I’d have to deal with that.

“...I wondered if you wanted to come over, tonight,” she said at last.

I let out a huge sigh of relief. I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath. “Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, I’d love to.” Then, “To run lines?”

Silence for a second. I could imagine her twisting her long, auburn hair around her fingers, lips pressed tight together in debate. “No,” she said at last. “Not to run lines.”

I nodded, forgetting she couldn’t see me. “I’d really really like that,” I said.

“I can’t cook,” she said suddenly. “And Nick will be out.”

“I’ll bring takeout,” I said. “What do you like?” I was trying to keep my voice calm. It was difficult because I could barely breathe.

“Anything. Anything at all.”

“Eight?” I asked.

“Eight.” It sounded like she was frantically trying to end the call before one of us messed this up.

“See you at eight.” And, very carefully, I touched the End Call button.

Only then did I yell in victory and pump my fist in the air. I forgot I was in the patrol car and managed to punch the roof so hard that my fist went numb. But I didn’t care. After three years, I finally had a date with Jasmine.

Chapter 38

Jasmine

I couldn’t decide what to wear. And by
couldn’t decide,
I mean I literally had my entire wardrobe spread across my bed.
That
was too flouncy,
that
was too sexy,
that
wasn’t sexy enough.

The doorbell went at ten to eight.
Shit!
I was standing there in my bra, panties and stockings. Not the impression I wanted to give.

I pulled on a robe and hurried to the door, then opened it just a crack, craning my head around so that he could only see my face.

Ryan was in jeans and a faded blue t-shirt, its soft fabric outlining his chest. He was carrying a pizza box. “Hi,” he said. “Sorry. I know I’m early. I would have walked around the block a few times, but the pizza would have gotten cold.”

I nodded frantically. “Right. Okay. No problem. Wait there.” And I closed the door in his face and ran for the bedroom. I grabbed a bottle-green dress and black heels and put them on, checking myself in the mirror. How was that? Enough? Too much? Should I lose the stockings? I always go for stockings on a date because men go nuts for them, way out of all proportion. Show a man a glimpse of stocking top and his brain stops working for fully three minutes. But this was Ryan. Did I want Ryan going nuts over me?

A deep, hot throb went through my body, finishing between my legs. Yes, I did. I kept the stockings on and ran back to the door, flinging it wide. “Hi!”

He stepped inside and closed the door behind him and then, suddenly, he was very close. Kissing distance. All the tension that had built up between us over the previous weeks was back, as if someone had thrown a switch. I sort of gulped as I looked up at him—God, I’d forgotten how tall he was, even with me in my heels. And I wasn’t trying to pretend that we were just friends anymore, I could just,—We could just—

I’m not sure which one of us moved first, him or me. All I know is, we both went very quiet, and our heads were moving together, our eyes closing….

We both hesitated just as our lips touched. I could feel both of us breathing, the air tickling my lips in soft little gasps. And then we were pressing together, tentatively at first but gradually getting bolder and bolder. I let out a little moan as our lips opened and our tongues touched, pressing myself against him. I could feel the heat of him through his t-shirt and through the thin fabric of my dress, spreading into my skin and waking every cell, making me tingle and throb. I felt as if I was falling, as if both of us were tumbling end over end through space, and I clung onto his arms with both of mine. We were falling, and I didn’t want it to ever stop.

When we finally broke the kiss, I was wide-eyed and breathing hard. He was staring down at me with such intensity that I wanted to melt right through the floor. It wasn’t just the burning gaze of lust...it was
need,
on a whole other level. He needed me. He’d needed me for a long time, and now he’d finally got me.

My hands were still gripping his arms, my fingers digging into the hard muscle at the bottom of his biceps. I had to do something, or I was going to start tearing his clothes off and I didn’t want that, yet. I wanted, for once, to just be with a guy, before the sex. I looked up helplessly into his eyes.

He seemed to understand. Maybe he felt the same way. He said, “I brought beer.” And he hefted a clinking pack of frosty bottles. “Would you like one?”
Or would you like to just go straight to the sex?

I nodded and plucked one from the pack. “I would
very much
like a beer,” I said, and grabbed a bottle opener and opened one for him, too, and showed him over to the couch.

Sex has always been easy, for me. Easy, like,
it’s no big deal.
It’s just bodies, doing things. That had always made me feel like the mature one, in a way, giving Karen sex tips when she was ready to finally lose her virginity. I was Jasmine, the sex guru, and I liked that.

With Ryan, though, it was different. I wanted him more than I’d wanted any guy. But I didn’t want to have sex with him, at least not right away. It felt as if it would crush the tiny, fragile thing we had building between us, the slender thread that had the potential to grow to be so much more if we could only let it. I’d never had that with anyone before.

It felt as if everything was turned up to eleven. Maybe because I was trying to avoid sex, everything was super-sexy. The way he sat on the couch, turned to me, the muscles in his shoulders bunched as if he was ready to pounce. The way his hair curled just above his ear. Those clear blue eyes. God, everything about him. And he was watching me in the same way I was watching him. I’d make the tiniest movement with my leg and his eyes would snap to my silken-covered thigh. I’d brush my hair back from my eyes and he’d stare at my auburn curls. I could feel the heat building and building between us, ready to sweep over us both.

I gulped and took a long pull of my beer. Not an elegant, feminine thing to do, drinking beer from a bottle, but I could feel him staring at my throat, my breasts. God, even drinking beer was turning sexy.

You know that phrase
couldn’t keep their hands off each other?
That was invented for that time on the couch with Ryan. I wanted to sit on my hands to keep from grabbing him.

“Let’s eat the pizza,” I said in a very serious, very determined voice. And he nodded. God, we were like nervous teenagers on a first date. How was that possible? How come I felt like a bumbling virgin again? Because that’s exactly how it felt—it felt as if I’d never had sex, as if, if I did it with Ryan, it was going to be my first time.

And I wanted that first time to be special. To be perfect.

So we ate the pizza and, gradually, we began to talk. About how he’d become a cop, following in the footsteps of his dad and his dad before that. “He’s still alive?” I asked, surprised. I’d been on my own so long that I guess any idea of family seemed alien to me.

Ryan nodded. “Lives in Brooklyn. I see him every couple of weeks.”

There was a tiny pause, just long enough for me to offer my own story if I wanted to. Nick had let it slip that I was from Chicago, and I’d lied and told him that both my parents were dead, so he already knew that much. I glanced up at him and gave a little shake of my head and he nodded soberly.

“Why did you become an actress?” he asked.

I was used to answering that. I got asked it all the time, because it’s like the third question actresses get asked (after
have you been in anything I’d have seen
and
what’s it like to kiss some guy you don’t know
?). I opened my mouth, ready to tell him how I’d been inspired by screen sirens of the 50s and how I wanted to create something with a team and all that bullshit—