A Midsummer Night's Fling (Stage Kiss Series Book 1) (12 page)

Max bared his teeth at Lachlan in annoyance but kept chewing.

Nicola rolled her eyes at both men. "No. Max was warning me about the bug spray."

Tierney and Lachlan both grimaced. Further proof, Nicola supposed, that Max wasn't pulling her leg. "Tell me then, what else do I have to look forward to with an outdoor theater?"

Tierney squished a grape in her teeth and leaned back, popping her chair onto two legs. "We get yellow jackets if we eat outside, which is why they make y'all pile into the green room for lunch."

"Not for the air conditioning?" Nicola asked.
 

Tierney cackled.
 

Take that as a 'no.'

"We get deer coming off the foothills eating our scenic bushes. Raccoons on occasion too." Lachlan offered Nicola the potato chip bag. "Crisp?"

She picked one chip out to be polite and crunched it, the salt prickling on her tongue. "Anything besides wildlife?"

Tierney picked through more of Lachlan's fruit as she pondered. "When it's an El Niño year, with all the rain, sometimes the stage's 'forest' floods."
 

"The dressing rooms too." Lachlan beamed as he popped a chip into his mouth.

While holding his sandwich, Max nudged Nicola with his elbow to get her attention. "Planes will fly overhead at the most dramatic moment in a play, killing the mood. The audience has been known to get entirely distracted by a lone butterfly fluttering through the theater. And I once had a bird shit on my head during
King Lear
." He finished this recital with a bite of his sandwich then grinned at her through the mouthful, cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk.
 

Nicola fluttered her eyelashes at him. "Now you're just bragging."

He choked. Then he laughed.
 

Lunch passed pleasantly after that. Nicola was even feeling so good she sent a small sideways grin Max's way, which he returned. She had a paying gig, the work – Judith's nastiness aside – was fulfilling, Nicola liked her cast-mates, and Max seemed inclined to behave himself. Now.

Maybe taking this part wasn't such a mistake, after all
.

One week later . . .
 

"All right, my darlings, I want to work on the kiss between Titania and Oberon."

Nicola blinked in shock as Rita made this announcement. Judith's antagonism aside, things had gone well Nicola's first week at rehearsal. She and Max had been able to maintain a cool but amicable distance, falling into a comfortable work routine. Things were mostly in a technical place with rehearsals anyway –
enter here, stand here, wait a beat on that line
– sort of stuff. Nicola's Max-Willpower hadn't yet been tested like it had with the audition.
 

Then she walked into rehearsal on the second day of her second week and "
Kiss
" was the first thing out of Rita's mouth.
 

Why does the universe hate me?
The day was still young, but the sun was already sharp and bright, the shaded covers over the outdoor stage insufficient against such enthusiastic, chipper new light. Nicola's skin was warmed but not yet overheated.
Only a matter of time
. A needlepoint of pain started behind her eyes.

"Uh, what kiss, Rita?" Shakespeare's actual play had no such stage direction and none of the blocking Nicola had spent the last week learning had indicated kissing Max as a possibility.
 

Rita flapped her hands, motioning Nicola to silence. "I rethought the scene where Oberon lifts the spell, mija.
Gilbert!
Ay dios . . . where is Gil? I need my Bottom!"

Nicola was so wound up she didn't even laugh at that ridiculous statement. She flipped her script to the right place and reviewed how Rita had originally blocked the scene. Nicola's heart was pounding out a sick, punishing beat inside her, but she kept her face expressionless, calm.
 

Stupid to think she would be able to get through this production without kissing Max.
I wonder if it's too late to switch parts
. Maybe Rita could have Gil play Titania instead. That would be a new and different direction for the play.

The stage manager and a few of the fairies pushed several unpainted wooden blocks together to make up Titania's bed. Nicola stretched herself out.
 

"Max
im
!" Rita's shrill cry echoed off the back rows of the theater, taking full advantage of the wonderful acoustics.
 

"I'm here. I'm here." Max jogged onto the stage and circled behind Nicola. The bed platform rocked as Max leaned his considerable bulk against it.

"Puck! Where the hell is Puck?" Rita spat out, losing patience. "And Gil! Abe, you find my Puck. Violet, find Gilbert.
Ay dios mio
. Where is everybody?" Rita stormed over to confer with the stage manager.
 

Nicola propped herself up on her elbows. Max eased himself down to sit at her feet. For a long moment she only stared at him, and he stared back, looking ridiculously worried.

"It's not the end of the world." Watching him, Nicola was provoked into a laugh. "Maybe she'll let you kiss Lachlan next."

A corner of Max's mouth tipped up, and he stared thoughtfully at the sky. "We'll be fine. It's not like we've never done this."

"No." Her heart thudded in her chest, punching against her ribs. "No. After all, we spent most of 2003 making out."

"2004 too."

"2004 was a good year."

His mouth quirked. "An immature vintage, but it had potential."

She puffed out a laugh then gazed around, feeling antsy.

"What?" he asked.

"If there's going to be kissing today I'd just as soon get it over with."

Crushing silence followed this pronouncement.

Nicola reran her words in her head and, realizing how she'd sounded, clapped a hand over her mouth. Max shot her a mock-glower, but she couldn't hold back one squeak of laughter. "Sorry, Max. You know what I mean."

"I wonder if there are any onions lying around somewhere," he said. "Garlic?"

"Don't you dare. That wasn't funny in
R&J
and it's not funny now. You're a grown man. A professional actor. Act like it."

"Where's the fun in that?"

She ought to stay something stern and grown up, something responsible, but his hair was glinting gold in the sun, a dimple flirting with her at the corner of his mouth. All she wanted was to sit in the sun beside him and laugh.

Max
. Her heart had forgotten what it felt like to know someone like this, to be able to read his expressions, to predict what he'd say, to be pleased simply by his nearness. This was the sweet comfort of affection – not only wanting the person you were with, or loving them, but liking them too. Over the years, she'd forced herself to forget how much she simply
liked
Max.

It wasn't a comforting thing to recognize now.
 

Especially what with the imminent kissing.
 

Max studied her face, his eyes narrowed. He opened his mouth to say something.
 

"Sorry, sorry." Gil Dodgson thumped onstage and threw himself onto the platform next to her, nearly kicking Max. Gil yawned, his hair and clothes appearing sleep-rumpled. Her Bottom settled in front of her – the small spoon to her big spoon, cutting Nicola off from Max.
 

Lachlan appeared, smelling of cigarette smoke as he stood behind her against the platform.
 

"What line are we starting from, Rita?" Max asked.
 

Nicola felt seasick, her gut writhing as Max and Lachlan kept knocking into the flimsy platform. Their jarring movements were minor, hardly anything, but her body was already unsettled, her insides flailing in anticipation.
 

It was worse having kissed him so recently because she didn't have to think back across years to remember how good he was, how he tasted, how his arms felt . . .

She rolled her weight over, trying to find a position on the rough wooden platform that didn't hurt. She counted lines in her head, trying to figure out where Rita would put the kiss.
You're a professional. Suck it up. It doesn't mean anything. You can kiss Max.

Every day. Sometimes twice a day for the matinee performances. All summer.

The thought was far more horrifying and far more exciting than it should be.
 

Rita stopped the Oberon and Puck dialogue and began flipping script pages. "All right, Maxim, you keep all the business the same, but on your line, 'wake you, my sweet queen' we have a kiss."

Max cleared his throat, and his weight thudded against the flimsy platform. "A small kiss or . . . "

"You hold the kiss for three seconds, I think," Rita said. "Your wife has just been with her lover. You are trying to make an impression. Reclaim your wife. We try it,
mijo
. Yes?"

Oh good. I'm being 'claimed.'
Nicola lay down on the platform, making sure her body was cheated out so the audience could see her face and so that –
sigh
– Max would have easy access for the kissing.
 

He delivered his line and bent toward her. "Sorry, Nic," he whispered. His breath stirred against her face, but his lips barely brushed hers even as he held for the required three seconds. She fought every instinct, every bit of lingering muscle memory which told her to open her mouth against his and deepen that kiss.

Still, when he pulled back she couldn't help but feel . . . unsatisfied.

A breathless moment passed, her body tingling with heat.
 

"It's your line, darling," Lachlan said above her, his rich voice vibrating with laughter.
 

Nicola blinked her eyes open. "What?"

The stage manager cued her in a flat monotone, "'My Oberon. What visions have I seen.'"

"Right." The scene went on even after Max kissed her. The world went on – even after such a flat, lifeless kiss as that. "Sorry." Nicola turned to Max, making her voice go breathless with wonder, "'My Oberon! What visions have I seen! Methought I was enamour'd of an ass.'"

"'Silence awhile – '"

"Hold, Maxim." Rita lifted a hand, staring at her script. "We add another kiss there, I think. Yes. Make a note, everyone."

Casting Nicola a dry glance, Max pulled his pencil out his pants' pocket, and made a quick note in his script. She was pretty sure she knew what his look meant; s
he
wasn't going to forget they were supposed to kiss. The fact Max felt at least as awkward as she did with this whole thing wasn't much comfort. But it helped.
 

"All right, we run the scene again," Rita declared. "And, Maxim-
mijo
, can you put some enthusiasm into the kiss this time? Some fire, eh?"

"Sure, Rita."

I'm in hell
. Nicola flattened herself against the bed platform and waited, defenseless, for her ex-boyfriend to kiss her.
 

This next time, his lips had barely brushed hers before Rita charged onto the stage, swearing in Spanish and then, "Nonono
no
. Ugh." The director's bracelets set up a clinking racket as she flung her arms in the air with exasperation. Rita was a little breathless after her rant. Violet the stage manager started for her but Rita waved the woman off. "Why did I cast you two if I am going to get such lifeless kisses? I want deep. Long.
Claim
her, Maxim."

Max blinked, looking stunned.

Lachlan chuckled.

Nicola wet her lips and reclined on the box. She squeezed her eyes closed. "Just do it, Max. It's fine."

The other actors reset.
 

The scene began again.

"'Wake you, my sweet queen.'" Max's voice rumbled above her, the resonance of it causing flutters in her belly. Minty breath stirred on her face, and she smelled him, felt his bulk and heat. She shifted on the platform, rising toward his nearness.
 

He kissed her.

No tentative kiss this time, his mouth pressed hard against hers. She slid her fingers along the chord of his neck into the softness of his hair. Opening for him, her arousal blossomed and shattered like a rose until the tingling heat was everywhere, until her veins seemed to flow with it.
Yes
.
 

Max groaned low in his throat, and deepened the kiss. His tongue swept into her mouth, and he nipped playfully at her lower lip, ravaging her mouth, tasting her.

Yes. Yes
. It was a song in her heart, a joyful, skipping cry.
Yes
.
 

When he moved away it was like a part of herself tearing lose, and she actually whimpered. She blinked her eyes open, staring into his handsome face. His eyes sparked in the sunlight, half-lidded with lust.

"'My Oberon,'" she breathed out, not focused on anything but his face so close to hers, his mouth plump and a little roughened from that kiss. "'What visions have I seen.'"

The rest of the cast tittered behind them, breaking the scene, and Rita called a halt.