The Final Act (18 page)

Laughing and talking to Chris, Elena walked toward where Michael stood. When she saw him in the wings, her eyes widened and she smiled. “You’re back!” She rushed toward him and threw her arms around his neck.

Michael felt a swell of warmth as he hugged her tight. This felt even more like home than his crappy apartment. This was where he belonged.

When she lifted her face, he bent to kiss her. It was the most natural thing in the world to cover her mouth with his and brush her lips with his tongue. She tasted like lipstick and the lemon juice she sipped between scenes to keep her voice clear.

Her taut, little body was hot and sweaty. She smelled of perspiration, powdery deodorant and stage make-up. He slid his hand up her back beneath the curtain of her hair. Supporting her neck, he angled his head to kiss her more deeply.

Elena’s lips parted and her tongue swirled around his. Her fingers grasped his hair, tugging him even closer. She made a small whimpering sound.

This isn’t really happening
, Michael assured himself.
We’re just acting.
Sliding his hands down her back, he cupped her ass and lifted her without breaking the kiss. She wrapped her legs around his waist. Her breasts snuggled firmly against his chest and her crotch pressed into his erection.

Michael gave a low groan of satisfaction. He squeezed her ass and pushed into her softness. Behind them someone whistled, and there was a smattering of spontaneous applause. A voice called out, “It’s about time.”

Elena broke the fierce kiss, gasping for air. Her face was only inches away and her big, brown eyes became a single Cyclops eye blinking at him.

Michael turned to see one of the tech guys walking by, grinning at them. “Niiice.” The man flashed a thumbs-up. Actors and crew members milled around in the usual post-show organized chaos. Most eyes were on them, and everyone seemed highly entertained.

Michael released his death grip on Elena’s ass and let her slide down his body until she stood on her feet again. “Sorry. Guess I got carried away.”

“Or I did. I missed you. How was the funeral?”

“Strange. Surreal. I’m glad to be back.”

“Yeah, I felt that.” She smiled.

Michael brushed a few sweat-damp curls from her forehead. He looked down into her velvety dark eyes and bent toward her again. He couldn’t remember anymore why he kept fighting his attraction to Elena.

“Oh screw it!” She reached up and pulled his head down again, attacking his mouth like she was a scuba diver and he a fresh oxygen tank.

Michael’s hands roamed up and down her back. He wanted to touch her everywhere at once, but finally settled on her round butt again. He pulled his mouth from hers and kissed her jaw and neck, nibbling down toward her collarbone, tasting salt and the chalky flavor of her base make-up.

“I’m all sweaty and gross.” She tilted her head back so he could reach her throat better. “Mmm. Let me wash up and change, and I’ll meet you after.”

“Nu-uh.” He didn’t want to stop, afraid they’d come to their senses if they took a break. “Now.”

“Where?”

Despite the size of the theater, there was no place private to go. “Come on.” He grabbed her hand, leading her away from the stage and the curious eyes and toward a staircase that led to basement set storage.

Miraculously, the prop room door was unlocked. Big area flats and set pieces representing years of productions cluttered the inside. There were light fixtures and furniture from various time periods and props of all kinds.

Elena closed the door behind them.

Michael pulled a heavy trunk in front of it since there was no interior lock, then turned and faced her. His hands clenched at his sides, his pulse raced and he felt short of breath. After all the months of touching and kissing onstage, he suddenly felt anxious about doing it for real.

Elena evidently didn’t. She launched herself at him, throwing her arms around his neck and wrapping her legs around his waist so he had to lift her in his arms. Her personality was so strong and passionate, it always surprised him how light she was. Their mouths fused together in a steaming hot kiss.

He pressed her back against the door, bracing a hand on either side of her, and thrust his erection against her, but instead of relieving his ache, the friction only made him want more. Elena’s legs grappled him to her. Her hands tugged at his hair hard enough to hurt, and her kisses were so hot he thought he’d come just from them…and from humping through layers of clothes. She pushed against his chest and pulled away from his mouth.

“Too many clothes,” she gasped.

Michael reached between them and fumbled with his fly, fighting to get his erection free of his boxers. Elena unzipped and struggled to pull her jeans down her hips far enough that he could enter her. It wasn’t working.

Reluctantly he set her on her feet and skimmed off all his clothes except his boxers. Elena did the same. Unselfconsciously, she shed her Kathleen costume, until she stood in only her bikini underwear, shivering a little in the cool room. Her arms crossed beneath her breasts, lifting the small, perky mounds higher.

Michael’s gaze riveted on them. He’d felt them pressed against him often enough, but it was something else to see the pointed, brown nipples in her small breasts. He rested his hands on the curve of her hips and bent to suck one into his mouth. Her nipple was hard, yet soft as butter as he swirled his tongue around it. He caressed her other breast, pulling on her peaked nipple and rolling it between his fingers.

Elena moaned and arched toward him. Her hands slid through his hair, holding him to her chest.

Michael let one nipple go with a wet pop and turned his attention to the other. He glanced up at her face as he drew it into his mouth. Her eyes were half-closed, watching him. Her full lips were parted and her face flushed.

The taste and feeling of her tits in his mouth was fantastic, but his dick twitched, wanting more. Michael straightened and gazed into her eyes for a moment with his hands poised at the waistband of his underwear. “You’re sure?”

“Oh yeah. I’m absolutely sure.” She reached for his boxers and tugged them past his hips. His cock sprang free, thrusting arrogantly toward her as though demanding her attention. She slid her hands down his quivering stomach toward it.

Michael held his breath as she made a loose ring of her fingers around his shaft and slowly stroked upward, ending with her thumb brushing across the head. She gripped him tighter and pumped him with her fist.

Michael gritted his teeth, fighting the growing tension in his cock. Just the sight of her small hand wrapped around it was almost enough to set him off. After all their verbal and physical foreplay, it was incredible to finally feel her touch.

“Please tell me you have a condom.”

“In my wallet.” He stooped to get his jeans.

“Men! Ever hopeful of getting laid.”

Michael pulled a foil square from his wallet. “Hey, you should be glad I’m prepared. I sure as hell didn’t come to the theater tonight with this in mind.”

He rolled the condom on and grabbed her waist again, drawing her close and kissing her deeply. He rubbed his dick against her crotch, so desperate to plunge inside it was painful. Scanning the room for a better place to screw than up against the door, he noticed a bed mixed in with the rest of the set furniture. Michael scooped Elena up in his arms, as he’d done so many times onstage, and carried her to the bed.

Dust rose from the mattress as he laid her on it. She sneezed and laughed, holding out her arms to him. “Hope you don’t have allergies.”

Michael crawled over her. Gazing down into her sparkling eyes, he thought there was no place he’d rather be than in this dirty basement on the mildewed mattress with her. He lowered his body until his chest rubbed against her erect nipples, his hairy stomach against her soft, smooth one, and his cock nudged insistently into her damp cleft.

The moment was as inevitable as the sun rising. They’d both felt it coming for so long, but to finally be here was amazing. His cock pressed inside her, stretching and filling her, and he nearly sighed in relief.

Elena inhaled sharply and he paused, afraid he’d gone too deep, too fast. But she grabbed his ass and pulled, encouraging him to plunge the rest of the way in.

Buried to the hilt, he paused, enjoying the sensation of being deep within her, then withdrew, reveling in the warm friction. He eased his cock back in. Out… And in.

Elena raised her hips to meet his thrusts. She stroked her hands down his flanks as far as she could reach, then up his back to his shoulders again. Wrapping her legs around the small of his back, she clung to him like a climbing vine.

“Ah, there,” she murmured. “Right there.”

He loved the sound of her voice, husky and lower than normal and as yearning as he felt inside. He adored the frown that furrowed her brow, and the way her lips pursed in concentration. Michael kept his eyes open because he wanted to see her like this, lost in the pleasure that he gave her.

He moved inside her, rocking gently from side to side then in and out again. Reining in his primal need to buck and plunge, he set a slow, steady pace, and beneath him, Elena’s body rose and fell. Her hair spread in a dark halo around her head on the striped mattress. Only a glint of her eyes sparkled beneath her lowered lids. Her parted lips were luscious and full. Looking at her, a new wave of lust rushed through him and he moved faster, grunting with the strength of his thrusts.

Elena responded with soft moans of encouragement. Her fingernails dug into his back and her mewls of pleasure grew louder as she bucked against him.

“Oh, yeah. Yesss,” she hissed. Her words were an aphrodisiac, spurring his desire.

“More,” she murmured then gave a wordless groan. “Unh.”

That primitive, needy sound put him over the edge. He needed her, wanted her, craved her with every cell. His cock pulsed and he let out a curse as he came, followed by an exhalation of her name.

“Fuck. Elena.”

She arched beneath him and cried out loudly. Her legs gripped his hips like the jaws of a steel trap and her fingers dug into his shoulders, nails almost breaking his skin. The strength of her orgasm and the utter abandon with which she surrendered to it were so unlike Elena. Michael thought of her as a woman who liked control and knowing what to expect, but when he considered it, she gave herself to her acting with an equal passion, uninhibited and fully committed to her craft. Elena was a complicated and intense woman, who challenged him like no one he’d ever known.

Breathing hard, he buried his face in her hair, breathing in her scent mingled with the mildewed mattress. Strands of her hair tickled his nose and he blew them away. For several moments they lay, gasping and utterly relaxed.

Elena wiggled beneath him. “God, you’re a lug.”

He smiled, and moved off her. “Better?”

“Yeah. But don’t go too far.” She turned to face him, resting her head on the crook of her arm and smiling at him. He smiled back, more satisfied than he remembered feeling in a long time.

But it kind of scared him that he felt this good and that being with Elena mattered so much to him. Better to keep it light.

“This mattress reeks,” he commented, wrinkling his nose at the musty odor.

“Or maybe you’re a spoiled little rich boy who can’t take roughing it,” she teased.

Michael reached out and tweaked her nipple sharply in reply.

She yelped and returned the favor, giving him a nipple twist that made him gasp. Then she leaned in and licked where she’d pinched, swirling her tongue around his areola and up his chest. Her tongue dipped in the hollow of his throat and he twisted away from the tickling sensation.

Elena retreated to lie with her head on her arm once more.

Michael ran his hand idly down the length of her arm from shoulder to wrist, enjoying the smooth satin of her skin. “We should probably get moving before we get locked in the building for the night.”

He took her hand in his, lacing their fingers together. “Do you want to come back to my room?”

“Logan will never keep his mouth shut. Everyone will know what’s going on.”

He brought their joined hands to his mouth and kissed the back of her hand. “I don’t think we can keep it a secret for long anyway. Everyone saw us kissing and they’ll jump to conclusions anyway. Do you not want people to know?”

“It’s not that,” she said quickly. “I don’t want to make it a secret, but until
we
know what’s going on between us, I’d rather not have everyone else discussing it.”

“They’ll gossip either way.” He set her hand down. “But if you don’t want to come back with me…”

“I do.” Elena grabbed his hand and held it again. “I want more and I want it tonight. I just wish people wouldn’t talk.”

“Me, too.” He yawned and stretched, exhausted from the long week in Connecticut and the flight. He removed the used condom, and climbed off the creaky bed to retrieve their clothes.

They dressed, and he pulled Elena into his arms for a last kiss before they made their way back upstairs. Almost everyone was gone except for a few crew members working on the lighting.

After Elena had changed from her costume, they headed for the exit. The guy who’d given them a thumbs-up earlier, waved and grinned.

“Are you hungry?” Michael asked when they reached the street. “We could stop somewhere first.”

“Starving, but let’s order in.”

They held hands in the taxi, as comfortable and familiar as a long-time couple. Including all the onstage romance, Michael calculated they’d been dating almost six months. He wrapped his arm around her and she leaned against him.

“How’s your mom doing?” she asked.

He smiled tightly. “She’ll be fine as long as she can live in the style she’s used to. She’s very resilient.”

“How about you?”

He shrugged. “Still feeling blank, actually.”

Elena squeezed his hand and changed the topic. “While you were gone, there was some drama. Gretchen and Jake almost missed a Sunday matinee, and later that evening Jake got a DUI. No one’s supposed to know, but of course everyone does. Also, Denny’s upset because Tom’s acting weird. He won’t talk about it, which is unusual for Denny. I had to pry it out of him.”