BLiss
I remember his phone message from years ago. “My beautiful Liss. My Bliss. See what I did there?”
He looks down at me. “I thought that if I had you tattooed on my skin, you’d always be with me, one way or the other. Stupid, right?”
“Not stupid. Beautiful.” I palm his cheek and kiss him softly.
We just lie there and kiss for a while. The sort of deep, languorous kisses which suggest we have all the time in the world.
“Every day I was away from you,” he says, in between teasing me with his lips and tongue, “I’ve dreamed of this mouth. Every time I had to kiss Angel, I closed my eyes and imagined it was you.”
Breathless and horny, I check the clock.
6 a.m.
I’m due at rehearsal at 9 a.m.
“So,” I say, and put a hand on his chest to stop him distracting me further. “Have you put any thought into how we’re going to handle things today?”
He flops onto his back and pulls me into him. “I’ve thought about it. Haven’t really come up with a solution yet. We’ll have to break the contract. There’s no way I’m going through with this wedding. I had issues with it before I saw you again. I can’t even pretend to marry Angel now.”
“What if Angel has a problem with it?”
He closes his eyes and rubs his forehead. “She may be disappointed about not having her princess moment, but realistically, she’s a victim in this as well. Neither of us have been able to have a proper relationship since this whole thing started, and I know she really wants one. She’s lonely. She wants a man to love her for real, and as much as I think I’m a great kisser, I can feel she’s sick of pretending with me.”
“So you guys have really never . . . ?”
He shifts so he can look down at me. “No.”
“Why not? Didn’t you ever just want to make the best of a bad situation?”
He’s quiet for a moment, and then he says, “We tried. Once. It was right after the Rageheart premiere. We were both freaking out about the screaming fans and fame. I think we both figured we’d try to find comfort in each other, but . . .” He shakes his head. “I couldn’t get you out of my head. Or body. Angel tried her best to make me forget, but I couldn’t . . . uh . . . perform.”
I glance down at how tented the sheet is over his crotch. “Seriously? Because I’ve never known you to have any problems in that department.”
“Yeah, well, that’s because you’ve always made me harder than titanium. But most of the women on this planet don’t affect me like that. Not even Angel. To be honest, I don’t think she finds me attractive, either.”
I sit up on an elbow and stare at him. “Are you kidding? She has eyes and a vagina. How on earth can she not be attracted to you?”
He laughs and smiles at me. “Believe it or not, there are women on this planet who have zero interest in me.”
“Pfft. Lesbians and grandmas, maybe.”
“Actually, I’m pretty popular with grandmas.”
I smile, then snuggle back down into the crook of his arm. “I’m not going to lie. Knowing you and Angel have never jumped each other makes me happy, but I still hate that she was hurt by those pictures yesterday. We need to talk to her. Tell her the truth.”
“I agree. She’s been my only friend through this whole crazy ride, and she deserves better. Maybe when I’m out of the picture she can find a guy who appreciates her. I’ll talk to her after rehearsal today.”
“What about the fans? You can’t just come out and say, ‘Hey guys, guess what? We’ve been deceiving you for years.’ They’d lynch you.”
He strokes my hair. “Yeah, the irony is, in order to let them down easy, we’d have to lie to them more. I hate it, but I don’t see an alternative. Maybe Anthony will have some idea of what to do.”
“What if he tells you to just wait out the contract?”
I feel him tense. “No.”
“Liam—”
He pulls away and looks down at me. “No, Liss. That means another couple of months of pretending and not having you. No fucking way.”
“If you guys break up now, it could hurt the show, and you can’t do that to Marco.”
He lets go of me and swings his legs onto the floor so he can sit up. I can see the tension in his back as he leans his elbows on his knees and drops his head. “So, what? We just go about business as usual? How the hell am I supposed to hide my feelings for you?”
I kneel behind him and wrap my arms around his shoulders. “You’re an amazing actor. You’ll find a way. Just remember that I love you.”
As soon as the words have left my mouth, he turns to me, and his face goes through a spectacular range of emotions. Finally, his expression melts into one of awe.