Bad Actor Read online

  “Well, I’m earning a nice salary these days and I wanted a bit of grooming while I was here.” She looks different tonight, but maybe not just tonight – maybe she’s looked different for a few weeks now, since I visited her following the break-up and told her she didn’t need Paul. Every time we’ve spoken over FaceTime or caught up over coffee in Leeds since, she’s seemed so much brighter.

  “That explains the glow,” I say chuckling, touching her lower back as we waltz between the granite pillars outside and pass through the doors of the hotel, heading across the lobby towards the bar. When she said a drink, she meant it – it wasn’t some ruse to get me upstairs and straight into bed.

  She shows her room card to the man on the door and we’re shown to a table tucked away, sitting in racing green velvet club chairs with a walnut table between us, the lighting low, the ambience perfect.

  “What will it be, madam?” she’s asked, like I’m not the priority here.

  I like how she commands a room.

  “I think we’ll have some champagne. Somebody debuted in the West End tonight as the leading man.”

  The server grins. “Something a little not too pricey?”

  “Something a little like prosecco,” she says, giving a haughty laugh.

  “Certainly.”

  I shake my head. “I shouldn’t have left that bottle and the flowers in my dressing room. Who knows if they will still be there tomorrow?”

  “Oh, they won’t be your last flowers and champers, T. Mark my words.”

  We chitter chatter before the waiter returns with a tall champagne bucket and ice, plus a nice bottle of Moët.

  “This is on the house,” we’re told, and the middle-aged waiter explains, “let me worry about it.”

  “No, no, please,” I beg, suddenly embarrassed.

  “Honestly, we’re good for it, let us pay,” she protests, seeing my discomfort.

  “Oh, no, no. I said let me worry about it. It’s good business to keep our special clientele happy.” He throws a wink in my direction.

  The waiter uses a sword of sorts to open the champagne and we’re both suitably stunned.

  “Don’t tell anyone I did that,” he says, and looking around us, we realise we’re actually sitting in an empty bar now.

  He pours champagne and asks, “Anything else? Snacks? A little charcuterie?”

  We both look at one another, shaking our heads. How do you tell the fella he’s basically just given free champagne to a pair not so long ago gorging on burgers, fries and sugar-laden drinks? He’d think us so uncultured.

  The barman’s busy polishing when she holds up her glass and looks right at me. “To lasting friendship and being lucky enough to see one another grow up.”

  “To that,” I agree, necking the champagne in one.

  She tries to do the same and hiccups, making me wriggle around in my seat in hysterics. All we’ve done tonight is giggle like children who stole the birthday cake and hid it under the stairs where we’ll convene later with two forks and devilish satisfaction.

  Almost immediately the bubbles go to my head and I feel not only giddy but like the room’s spinning too.

  “Maybe we should go up to the room,” I advise, because otherwise I may have to be carried to bed tonight.

  “We’ve only had one drink,” she pouts.

  “Fine, one more. Unless you want to take the bottle?”

  “One more,” she says, scolding me with a look.

  “You’d be tired too,” I argue, “holding the attention of an audience for two and a half hours.”

  “Yeah, suppose so.”

  We sit with refilled glasses and as I’m trying to deal with the glare of the lights, which only moments before weren’t aggravating but now are, she decides now’s a good time to bring up an entirely new topic of conversation.

  “Susan said you and she talked.” She pouts and doesn’t look at me after she’s said it.

  What the fuck has Susan said? Has she spilt every last drop of my heart’s blood? What the fuck did she think she was doing? Panicking, my heart rate soaring, my blood vessels groaning after so much adrenalin already expended today, I prepare for the worst.

  “She told me you and she had a chat…” Oh, so this is why she’s keeping me down in the bar… interrogation. “Explained you’d both come to the conclusion that her crush on you was symptomatic of you wanting the same thing her and Adam have got, that’s all.”

  I wonder if she can see how uncomfortable this conversation is for me. Then I notice her softened look… of love… mistaken love? What?

  Clever Susan. I’ll remember you in my will.

  “It’s passed, Lily. I assure you. Whatever it was, whatever those feelings were, they’ve passed.” That’s all she needs to worry about. And I’m not lying. The feelings I had before are gone, replaced by new ones… still for Lily, but different altogether. Now it feels like she’s real, now it feels scarier… more to lose than ever.

  “Come on then.”

  We neck the dregs in our glasses and she carries the bottle away.

  “Goodnight Morris,” she yells, “your tip is under the flowerpot.”

  I didn’t see her do that and before he can get there quick enough to resist her trying to give him a tip (likely what we should have paid for the champers, naughty girl) she urges me to run into the lift and we’re inside in no time.

  I feel incredibly woozy under more lights, combined with the pressure of sailing upwards in the lift.

  We spill out into the corridor upstairs and I follow her into a nice room, with a dainty little seating area, big bed and floral touches.

  “Just need the bathroom,” she says.

  I turn all the lights down low, throw my jacket onto one of the chairs and kick my shoes off. I’ll test out the bed and see how it feels… but the cushions feel like heaven…

  Chapter Eight

  The next morning I wake with stinging eyes and a sore throat. How long have I slept for? Feels like days. I turn my head and see her at the other side of the room, reading the papers and eating breakfast, her hair in a turban, her body clothed in little more than a white hotel robe and a pair of freebie slippers.

  The sight is one I thought I would never see and yet, what the bloody hell happened?

  I look down at myself and realise I’m under the covers. Then it returns to me… I woke dazed in the middle of the night, used the loo to pee and got into bed in my boxers and t-shirt. Lily was passed out on the other side of the bed and I passed out again as soon as my head hit the pillow once more. Nothing happened between us except sleeping in the same bed, something we haven’t done before. We’ve almost done it many times but I’ve always been a gent and either left her flat or sloped off to the sofa where I could wank in peace. Talking of that, we do have a situation brewing down there and I do need the toilet again, but would somehow prefer to walk to the loo without her noticing I’m suffering morning wood. Let’s see if it goes down.

  She hasn’t noticed I’m awake yet and so I spend the time staring at her long legs peeking out from her hotel robe. She smiles to herself as she’s reading and stuffing pancakes in her mouth at the same time.

  Suddenly she looks up and sees me looking at her. She flushes bright red and giggles, “You’re awake.”

  “Barely. What time is it?”

  “Elevenish, I don’t know. I got you breakfast. It’s cloched but you may wanna crack on before it gets cold.”

  “I’ll just… and yeah. What time is check-out?”

  “I got late check-out with the room. One p.m.,” she hollers as I make it into the bathroom without her seeing my predicament. God, fuck… it doesn’t help she’s had a bath and it smells heavenly in here… plus the thought of her naked…

  I try to pee but it’s not easy and I end up bending and doing it at an angle. Then I wrap a freezing flannel around it which only serves to cause pain, not deflation.

  My bowels start gurgling and so I can’t even… I mean…
what kind of a man doesn’t fuck a girl but uses her for a bed, somewhere to shit and evidently grows useless hard-ons?

  I turn on the shower masking the noise, let everything pass down the loo and climb in under the spray, turning the dial to absolutely fucking freezing. Within moments everything is back under control.

  I leave the bathroom and head for the food. She ordered me the full English and I don’t even have time for a fork – led by my eyes to dive right in. I take a whole sausage and start hand feeding myself at the same time as chucking a full class of juice down my neck. Next is the coffee pot, still as I’m chewing on a sausage. Even in my own head, I can’t get away from the euphemisms!

  “Wow, someone is hungry,” she says, watching as I finally take a knife and fork to the meal which I’m currently balancing on my lap.

  “Absofuckingstarving, gonna need to get a roast dinner in today, I think. I know this nice place in Camden if you want.”

  “I can’t,” she whispers, “my train is at two. I pre-booked and if I get any other ticket, it’ll be extortionate.”

  “That’s fine.” I feel rejected, hurt… silly, actually.

  “What about next week?” she asks. “What are you doing next weekend?”

  “Oh, more rehearsals and tweaking, then that show on Saturday.”

  “So, we could go to dinner after and…?”

  She wants me to ask her, doesn’t she? She wants me to…

  Doesn’t she?

  This is weird. We’ve always been so honest with one another (yeah, apart from that) but now it’s all… got an undertone.

  “You wanna see my place?”

  “Yeah,” she says. “I’d love to.”

  “Okay, next weekend.”

  I barely chew my food and almost make myself ill. Is it my desperation to get dressed and get out of here, or my inability to actually chew because she’s right here, next to me? I mean… nerves are sizzled and burnt, but I think I am just very hungry.

  My new place is much nicer than the old one and Mum even agreed to give me some money this time while I’m waiting for the big cheques to start pouring in. Still, I’ll need to sort a few things out… maybe paint a cupboard or two… get some nicer sheets.

  I’m thinking about that a little longer than I should… her between my sheets.

  I look over when she removes the turban and lets her damp hair fall freely over her shoulders. She starts teasing it, all while picking at bits of fruit off her breakfast plate, the pancakes demolished but the little things left… she enjoys savouring, it seems, like with the gherkin last night.

  I mean, is she doing this on purpose? My urge is to push back her robe, reveal her body, then push back her hair over her shoulders and expose her breasts. She looks sexier than ever with damp, wayward hair, so dark when it’s like this, her perfect honeyed skin begging me to lick between all the crevices, kiss the bumps and curves, fuck the creases and grab hold of the longest legs I’ve ever seen.

  Are we going to be those friends who can’t get past that barrier? Who want each other – always have, probably – but for some reason, it just feels awkward or like a massive hurdle? Are we always going to wonder if it’s better to remain friends? Or are we one day going to end up doing it, like we always should have been, and saying to one another, “Why didn’t we do this much sooner?”

  I’ve imagined this moment so many times… how we’d make love the first time. Most scenarios involve me making her come at least six times before I deign to fill her up. Most times I’m this cocksure lover (this is in my head, remember) and she’s putty in my hand. She might ride me to another finish or vice versa.

  Then she shifts in her seat and I catch the briefest, most wicked flash of her trimmed, neat little bush. She pulls the robe over quickly and seems to imagine I haven’t seen because I now have one of the Sunday newspaper supplements in my hand, pretending to read it.

  Fuck, no. Fuck… no. Now I’ve got a full-on fucking rager between my thighs.

  She wants me to see her, doesn’t she? She wants this… or else she’d have got dressed already. She might even have gone and left me to be woken by the room attendant. How do I do this while seeming to remain her dutiful friend, her understanding gentleman… her trustworthy companion? How do I appear suave and smooth when I have so many internal dialogues riding on this one moment, where we join and never look back?

  But that bush… that gorgeous bit of her… female anatomy. The space between her legs. I can’t get the image out of my mind. Can’t stop thinking about it.

  “Lily, will you pass me that magazine over there?” I point to what I mean, just on the other side of the coffee table. She looks over, tempted to tell me to get it myself, I can tell. Then she decides to play the game, licking her lips and getting off her chair.

  She leans over to get the magazine and looks at me as she’s doing so. Her robe follows gravity and I see her full cleavage bowing to the same force, heavy yet supple, mine to behold. She walks slowly to me, her cheeks colouring, holding out the magazine. I take it and throw it to the floor, grab her nearest wrist and yank her down and towards me, making her fall fast and hard into my lap, her knees sinking into the cushions of the armchair I’m slouched in.

  My heart’s pounding and every inch of my skin is burning with lust. The moment I touch her cheek she shakes, her eyes fluttering shut. She inches a little closer, sliding further onto my lap. Even through the layers of towelling robe, I feel the heat of her core as she shifts towards me.

  I sit up and pull her in closer, wrapping one arm around her backside and pulling her right into me, our naked skin only separated by cotton. She still has her eyes closed, unable to open them, though her mouth’s slightly parted and she’s breathing heavily, her neck is patchy with sweat and redness – and her hands are shaking as she rests them on the arms of the chair, steadying herself.

  Taking one of her hands I kiss her palm and then hold it against my cheek, allowing just the sensation of our skin touching to sweep over me, like a wave of pure love, covering me in a blanket, sheltering me despite the nakedness… We have cover, together.

  She wraps her arms around my head and tips her head back, begging me to kiss her neck. She trembles when I tease her robe away a little, just enough so I can kiss the base of her throat.

  When I kiss her body, she moans loudly and squeezes her legs around me. I take my time, slowly kissing the thin skin of her chest until following the line of her robe, easing the material apart, just enough so I can keep going until I reach the valley of her breasts.

  Lily’s hands tighten in my hair and she arches back, her mouth giving out signals in wails and moans. I kiss between her breasts, inhaling her scent, licking her velvet skin, her beautiful body. I wrap my arms around her bottom and push my nose into her robe opening, digging in until the material gives, her full nipple pouring into my mouth and immediately puckering. My hair is bunched in her hands and she’s tugging it. I look up at her, so tall and elegant, so beautiful, her face strained, lips pressed together. I tug her other nipple into my mouth until the soft flesh tightens and hardens, her bud pushing between my teeth.

  “THEO!” she yells, holding on tight to my hair as she shakes violently, her legs trembling wildly against the outsides of mine.

  “Lily, did you just…?”

  “Umm,” she nods, pressing her lips together, eyes still closed.

  Wow, she’s really… she’s mine. She’s… wow.

  I’m starting to pour with sweat, my skin on fire, prickly heat all over. The tension in my thighs, abdomen and buttocks is unreal, my heart’s hammering and my cock aches for her.

  I take hold of her buttocks and hold her against the bulge buried beneath our robes, rocking her over me. She’s shaking with desire, reacting just how I’ve always dreamed, and yet a smidgen of fear could be detrimental here. What if she’s imagining I’m Paul? What if I’m a rebound? What if this isn’t love?

  Lust trumps everything in this moment. I want to s
ee her breasts fully naked, kiss and hold them, worship them how I’ve always wanted to. Untying the belt of her robe, I loosen her clothes just enough so that I can get her shoulders bare, then her breasts. She’s absolutely beautiful, her big nipples ravishing, her shoulders immaculate, her stomach feminine and tapered.

  I know I can’t help myself anymore. I’m lost and I believe, so is she.

  She looks down on me and takes a shaky breath, her eyes pinned on mine. Her hands are still making a mess of my hair, her fingers constantly tugging the longer strands. She looks at me with both her breasts pushed against my throat and whispers, “I love you so much.”

  “How do you know?” My voice almost breaks.

  “I just came when you sucked my nipple. I KNOW, okay? I know I love you. You’re the one… I just couldn’t see past my blind pain, but now I can. Now I can. Our kiss last night… I can still feel it on my lips. I’ve never wanted anything more than I want you. I love you. I love you. I love you, Theo.”

  “I love you, Lily,” I tell her with a lump in my throat, “you’re my one.”

  She squeezes her eyes shut and bites her lip, holding me against her chest.

  I lick one nipple, then the other, and she groans loudly, tossing her head back again.

  I get the belt fully open and push the robe away to reveal her long, slender torso. Soon enough her robe is on the floor and my belt is loosened.

  I let my hands roam her fucking soft-as-silk back, her round bottom, her silky arms and breasts and stomach, my mouth touching anywhere I can reach. My thumb finds her dripping-wet clit and her swollen nubbin responds to my touch, another orgasm ripping through her, so hard I can feel how much she’s contracting as her clit beats like a heart against my digit.

  “Fucking hell… Lily.”

  “Oh, god, I need you,” she groans.

  She’s breathless and dazed when she lifts her head and moves in closer, ready to straddle me. She decides to get my belt fully open and see her prize.

  “Theo, you’re—” She gulps.

  “What? What?” I panic.

  “Oh my god, wrap a ribbon around this for birthdays and Christmas and I’m set for life. You’re ginormous.”