Liam leans down and holds his mouth just above Angel’s. Everyone in the room holds their breath.
Angel battles with her composure for a few more seconds before she stands on her toes to kiss him. Liam moans and releases her hands as he kisses her back.
My face flames when they move against each other, kissing and grasping. My feelings vacillate between extreme arousal and violent jealousy. It’s not pleasant.
Then Angel breaks away and slaps Liam, hard. “That I’ll try.”
He smiles in triumph. She goes to hit him again but he grabs her arms roughly. “I swear I’ll cuff you, if you strike again.” His tone is dark but promises more pleasure than pain. Angel looks even more turned on than he does.
“Yes, good, Liam,” Marco says beside me. “Now, cross downstage left, and take her with you. Don’t be gentle. Remember, the more forceful you are with her, the more it arouses her. She likes to be dominated.”
Liam glances at me, and I avert my gaze to my script. I take in a shaky breath and write down the stage directions.
When Liam ends the scene by throwing Angel over his shoulder and soundly smacking her butt, Marco says, “Okay, stop there. Excellent work! That’s coming along nicely. This scene needs just the right balance of lust and violence to set up the first BDSM interpretation this show has ever received. I can’t believe no one has ever explored the possibility that the reason Kate provokes Petruchio so much is that she’s desperate for a good spanking. Or that Petruchio morphs from a jovial hood into an alpha male because he’s at last met someone who wants to be dominated by him. It seems so obvious.”
Now I really need to fan myself.
I’m concerned that Liam playing a dom may make my body spontaneously combust.
The camera crews have left, and the cast is packing up at the end of the day when I notice Liam throwing me nervous glances. Angel is chatting to Marco about her costumes, so when Liam gives me a pointed look before he heads out the door, I wait a minute, then follow.
On a hunch, I find him in the conference room.
“Thanks for saving my ass today,” he whispers. “I never want to be in that situation again.”
“Ditto. Although I can’t take the credit for anything. You’re the one with the super-fast memorization skills.”
“Yeah, well, that happens when scripts are useless.” He looks at the door, then down to his hands. “Listen, I know it’s a lot to ask, but could you . . . I mean, could I ask you to help me learn my scenes, just until David gets back?”
“I . . .” A big part of me is dying to say yes, because it means I’d get to spend more time with him, but the logical part knows spending more time with him is the worst idea ever. “Liam . . . I just—”
“Look, I know you have a lot on your plate, but I don’t trust anyone else. You’d just need to run lines with me for an hour or so each night until I get the scenes down for the next day. David should be back by next week. Please. I can’t do this without you.”
“Where would we go?”
“My apartment is right around the corner.”
“Won’t Angel get wise that something’s up if we’re running lines in front of her?”
He blinks a few times. “Uh . . . well, we aren’t sharing an apartment while we’re in New York. She has her own place.”
I frown. “Isn’t that weird? You guys are engaged. I kind of thought living together came with the territory.”
“Not for us,” he says. “Working and living together is stressful. Plus, she drives me insane with her messiness, and she hates my compulsive cleaning. It’s just easier if we have our own space. She’s just one floor down, though, so we’re still close.”
From all my cyber-stalking, I thought I knew the ins and outs of their relationship, but apparently not.
“Do you not hang out after rehearsals?”
“Sometimes, but most nights she locks herself away to work on her lines. Another reason I don’t want her involved in this. She has enough pressure without me adding to it.”
“Okay, fine. Your place. I’ll get there as soon as I can after I finish up here.”
“Great,” he says, and gives me a knee-buckling smile. “You’re amazing. Thank you.”
“Liam?” Angel calls. “Where are you?”
Liam pushes me behind the door and holds a finger to my lips. When the door swings open, he catches it right before it smashes into my nose.
“Hey,” he says to Angel.
“What are you doing?”
“Just grabbing some water for the ride home. Ready to go?”
“God, yes. There’s a bottle of low-carb wine at home with my name on it. Want to come over for a drink?”
“Ah, not tonight. I have to learn some lines.”
“Me, too. It’s never-ending. My brain hurts.”
“So just a small ache, then?”
She groans. “You’re not funny.”
“Yeah, I am.”
After they leave, I head back into the rehearsal room and clean the production desk in a semi-haze.
I’m finishing up when Josh and Denise come over. “Drinks at Lacey’s?” Josh asks.