Dom dropped his script, gripped my neck and pulled me forward into a kiss.
Shocked, I pushed against him with my free hand, but he kept going, not realizing that it was me protesting, not Blanche. I pushed and writhed, but he was too strong, and his lips were pressed against mine so hard that I couldn’t say anything to make him stop. I was gearing up for my final move of protest, a swift knee to the junk, when Dom was ripped off of me.
I gulped in air, and saw Garrick, who was seething, release one of Dom’s arms that he’d had twisted back at an odd angle.
“Where exactly in this script did you see that particular stage direction, Dominic?” Garrick asked, his tone deadly quiet.
I wasn’t wasting time with the logical questions. I flew at Dom, shoving him backward.
“What the hell was that, Dom? The rape scene occurs offstage, you asshole!”
He grabbed my wrists as I went to push him again.
“Hey, I was trying to connect. I was improvising. That’s what actors do!”
Garrick’s hand came down on Dom’s arm, and he squeezed a little harder than was probably appropriate. Dom let go of my wrists immediately, and I backed away.
“Be that as it may,” Garrick began. “Actors also respect each other. Unless you’d like to be accused of assault, you okay something like that with your partner before hand.” I could see Garrick’s calm fa?ade cracking. “Now go. You’re dismissed.”
I could tell Dom was pissed. He gave me a scathing look, and pushed open the door so hard that it banged against the wall outside. I just could not catch a break this week. Was the world dropping shit on everyone else or just me?
There was a feather light touch on my arm, and then Garrick was in front of me, cradling my arm in his hands. A bruise was already forming where Dom had grabbed me during the scene. Garrick ran a hand over his face, and then looked at me. He said, “I probably could have handled that better.”
I didn’t realize how much my head was still pounding until I laughed, and the movement sent pain ricocheting through my head. I closed my eyes on instinct. Garrick’s fingers brushed along my jaw, sending an earthquake of shivers across my skin from where we touched. I kept my eyes closed, because as long as they were closed, I wasn’t doing anything wrong, right? But if opened them, and I looked at his gorgeous face and I saw those lips… I’d be crossing into a completely different territory that was most definitely wrong, wrong, wrong.
A whispered, “Bliss…” was all the warning I had before his lips were on mine.
Chapter Eleven
I thought of how bad an idea the kiss was for exactly three seconds before I stopped thinking all together. His tongue swept into my mouth, searching and furious and demanding. It was passion in its rawest form. I’d always pretended to understand chemistry when directors talked about actors having it together on stage, but now I got it. Whatever happened when he touched me was like a chemical reaction—molecules changing, shifting, giving off heat.
God, there was so much heat.
Loud laughter that I recognized as Kelsey’s sliced through the haze in my mind, and I tore myself away from Garrick. There were other students outside waiting to come in. How long had I been in here alone with him?
He took a step forward to follow me, and I held up a hand.
“Stop! Stop it! You can’t just do that! We said we were forgetting about it! You said that, actually! You can’t say that and then do this!
“I’m sorry.”
He didn’t look sorry. He looked like he wanted to do it again.
I shook my head, and shifted toward the door.
“Wait, Bliss, I am sorry. It won’t happen again, okay?”
“Okay.” That’s what I said, but this felt anything besides okay. He acted like I didn’t want that kiss as badly as he did, but hello! He had just as much to lose here as I did! Why was I the only one thinking about the consequences?
I exited to hear Dom mouthing off to a couple of the guys that had gathered close to the doors.
“The guy’s a complete dick. He acted like I was trying to rape her or something. It was just a kiss. Not like we haven’t done that before.”
I rolled my eyes. “And somehow it was even worse this time than it was before. Aren’t you supposed to get better with time, Dom?” His friends were laughing, but I still heard Dom call me a bitch.
I kept walking. I had just enough time to buy the biggest cup of coffee I could find before my next class.