Page 92 of Broken Romeo
A Holden whose parents weren’t in the spotlight twenty-four-seven. A Holden whose ex-girlfriends weren’t dragged through the mud for a sensationalized headline or a smear campaign during an election year.
“Alternate universe Holden,” I repeated.
But she was already gone. Across the stage on her mark, waiting for me to begin.
Closing my eyes, I inhaled a deep breath and when I opened them, my gaze landed on her—across the stage. She wasn’t looking at me yet, just as she had been instructed to do. Instead, she leaned into Parker, her elbow brushing his.
Even though I knew it wasn’t real, jealousy spread through my limbs, burning and numbing me, at the sight of Parker’s hand brushing against her lower back.
But at least it wasn’t Nate’s fucking hands. In this show, he played her cousin. Which only made me grin wider.
I tore my gaze from her and spun to leave—stomping so quickly away that I was already halfway off the stage in the wings when her laugh stopped me. It literally halted me mid-step.
Her laugh. It wasn’t quite her real laugh—the one I’d heard that night at the party. This time, it was a little more forced but no less beautiful.
God, I loved her laugh.
Heat coiled down my spine at the sound, knowing that with that laugh, she’d also be smiling. Her eyes bore into my back, and I knew even before turning around that she was looking at me.
I spun slowly to face her once more, connecting with her gaze. This was normally the point where I’d force myself to look away from a girl as gorgeous and sweet as Kate. I’d shove my gaze down and bury it in my phone, sexting someone I cared nothing about as a distraction.
But here, there was no consequence to staring. I was supposed to stare. And I was supposed to like it.
Maybe acting wasn’t so bad after all. Something in me shifted. A buzzing intensity took hold of my body and mind. With each step that propelled me forward, I was drawn to her, incapable of stopping myself… which while I was playing the part of Remy, I didn’t have to stop myself.
Somewhere in the distance, I registered lines being read by the other actors. Something about me being a Montague.
And then, she was in front of me, her scent so potently surrounding me, that I might as well have been standing in a rose garden.
Kate looked up at me, blinking slowly—only, she wasn’t Kate. I couldn’t quite describe the feeling of staring at someone who both was and wasn’t who you knew them to be. She was standing differently—taller, shoulders rolled back, with a stronger, quieter confidence.
She giggled, a real laugh this time. A glimpse of Kate, not Julie. She bit her lip, squeezing her eyes shut. But it was too late. I chuckled too, clenching my hand around the back of my neck and giving it a good crack.
Our laughs subsided quickly, thank God, and I was grateful that Keith and McCay didn’t stop the scene to yell at us. This was hard enough as it was. We both managed to pull it together before Kate looked over each shoulder and said her first line. “You’re staring.”
“Can you blame me?” I whispered, not needing to look at my script. Suddenly every poetic line I had didn’t feel so cheesy anymore. It was like, as Remy, I got to say everything I’d ever wanted to say to Kate since the moment we met.
And I got to kiss her. I got to kiss her over and over again as long as I was on this stage.
I lifted her hand in mine, dragging my football calloused fingers over the soft silk of her skin.
She stared at me with a mix of wary adoration and lust as I recited the rest of my lines. I scooped my hand into her mess of blonde hair tumbling in careless waves, brushing it back from her face. Her high cheekbones flushed pink beneath my touch, and she parted her delicate lips.
She took my hand, removing it gently from her face, and pressed her palm to mine.
“You’re pretty harsh on these hands of yours,” she said, her voice breathy. “Anyway, isn’t holding hands sort of like a kiss… of the palms.”
Everything about her was cool and confident—except the tremble of her hand against mine—and a fierce shiver of electricity coursed through me as I closed my hand around hers and gave her a tug, pulling her body against mine. Each breath she took pulsed her against me; each inhale brushed her sweet nipples to my chest, and I felt the low vibration as she groaned quietly.
I lowered my lips to a hover just above hers and she teased me, pulling her chin back a fraction of an inch. Her smile was playful; delight sparked in her eyes. The irony of our role reversal wasn’t lost on me. Just the other night, she was the one begging for my kiss—and now here I was, doing the same. And I wasn’t allowed to stop until I accomplished the objective of kissing her.
My heart raced as she finally allowed me to brush my lips against hers. In my head, I’d planned for that kiss to be chaste.
We barely pulled back for a breath. Just long enough for me to say my line, “Dear God, give me my sin again.”
Our mouths parted into each other’s, and we sighed against the final, sweet release of tension, my hands curling around her lower back and lifting her against my body.
Her fingers tangled into my hair, tugging in a sharp movement that left me growling into her mouth.