“I really do,” I said.
“Fine,” he said, looming over me, voice low. “You are acting like a spoiled little brat. You’re rude, you’re disrespectful and scared out of your goddamn mind.”
“I’m not scared,” I said.
But he was right. He was completely right.
“This is our chance,” he said. “This is what I’ve—what we’ve—wanted to do since we were kids. Broadway. Broadway. And I want to do it with you. Because I think you’re fucking great in this role. I think you’re talented and smart and good. Just really good.” He looked at me. “But you can’t pull shit like this,” he said. “Call me in the middle of the night. Threaten to quit.”
Even his compliments couldn’t cut through my anger—couldn’t diffuse my impulse to be contrary to the point of destruction.
“Who said it was a threat?”
“For fuck’s sake, Kathleen,” he exploded. “This isn’t some fucking game!”
His anger surprised me—knocked me back—because Cal was not someone who lost his temper. I’d watched him in rehearsal, watched him cope with the daily frustrations of dealing with actors. Nothing ever seemed to faze him.
Nothing except me.
I was gratified to see some of that calm peeling away. Because as good and powerful as my own anger felt, there was something to be said for bringing someone as measured as Cal down to my messy, fucked-up level. Again.
“I know it’s not a game,” I said.
“Then why are you acting this way?” he asked. “I know this isn’t you.”
“You don’t know me, Cal,” I said.
He ran his hand through his hair and let out a groan of frustration.
“You know,” he said. “I wish I didn’t.”
Slapping me would have been just as effective.
“You need to grow the fuck up,” he said. “You’re part of a team now and you need to act like it. This isn’t just about you. About your dreams. There are other people to think about.”
That was a low blow.
“Fuck. You. Cal.”
“Is this about what happened?” he asked. “Between us? Because I have to tell you, I got over it. I’ve been over it. You should do the same.”
He reached behind me for the door, but I stopped him.
“You’re over it?” I asked. “You can’t be referring to what I think you’re referring to.”
He better fucking not be.
“You know what I’m talking about,” he said. “Don’t play dumb.”
I sucked in a breath.
“Why don’t you explain it to me.” I moved closer to him. “Because I’m certain you’re not talking about what happened all those years ago. I’m certain you’re not telling me to get over it. Don’t forget, you wanted it. You practically begged for it, Cal State.”
The old nickname got him. He leaned down, his eyes narrowed, his nostrils flaring.
“I’m certain I wasn’t the one begging,” he said.
Desire whooshed through me—hot, intense, raw. And I knew he felt it. I could feel the electricity in the air, the way it felt before a storm. Every hair on my body lifted like I was weightless.
I licked my lips and Cal watched.
“I am not having this conversation with you,” he said.
I wasn’t scared. Even with his temper flaring, he was still Cal. And I knew exactly how to handle him. Or how to set him off.
“You can show up ready to work or just don’t show up at all,” he said.
“I thought you said I couldn’t quit.”
He got close, crowding me up against the door. His eyes kept dropping down to my mouth, his chest heaving with each breath he took. I felt my heart hammering in my throat.
“You can’t,” he said. “But I can sure as fuck fire you.”
We were practically nose to nose. The smell of his cologne—of him—was overwhelming. Intoxicating. I wanted to fall into it. Wanted to lose myself in the scent of him. In him.
“You wouldn’t dare,” I said.
“Try me,” he said.
I didn’t know who moved first, but with my hand curled around the back of his neck, and his arm around my waist, our lips found each other’s like a planned collision.
CHAPTER 16
It had been a long time since I’d kissed Calvin Kirby.
All those years ago, it had been a mess. Hands, mouths, tongues. Neither of us had really learned how to use all those body parts to our best abilities and the end result had been…well, it had been what it was.
But this?
This was something completely different. Something completely new.
It was everything.
I opened to him completely, my mouth, my arms. I drew him in as if I could swallow him whole, the touch of our tongues, the heat of our breath. Each kiss was the length of a heartbeat, we parted only to meet again.
His hands were in my hair, cradling my face, and that was Cal, that gentleness beneath all else. I hadn’t appreciated it when I was young, hadn’t known how rare it was. But now I knew the beauty of tenderness and what it felt like in concert with my own wild need.
I dug my nails into his shoulders, dragged them down his chest before cupping his ass and pulling him to me.
My back hit the door, Cal pinning me there, but I needed him closer. I needed more. More. More.
His mouth found my throat and I found myself thanking whatever lovers he’d had between then and now, because this? This wasn’t a boy unsure of himself. Fumbling and awkward and too ready. Too eager.
This was a man.
This was Cal and he knew what he wanted.
Me.
I forced his mouth back to mine, needing to taste him, needing to kiss him until he understood. Until he knew.
But before I could, he was already stepping back. Already pulling away.
I pressed my hands flat against the door as he stood in front of me. He was looking down at the floor, his shoulders rising and falling with each heavy breath, hands on his hips.
The silence between us seemed to stretch out into decades.
“Fuck,” Cal said, a hand going back through his hair and then forward again, giving him a majestic, slightly ridiculous plume. “What the fuck was that?”