Page 37 of Play With Me

People have all kinds of reactions when meeting celebrities—not that I really am one anymore, but I’m still recognizable thanks to a few billboards and a little modeling my agent had me doing last year. But the embarrassed one is the funniest to me. It scrapes at least a tiny bit off the top of my worry about Nora.

I broaden my smile. “Am I going to the party?” I supply, even though I know that’s not what she was doing to ask.

“Yes!” says the one who shushed her friend. She’s got smooth dark brown skin and long braids that swish around her as she climbs up the steps. She’s attractive. They all are. But it’s like something’s broken in me. I don’tfeelany attraction to them.

“Yes, I believe we’re headed to the same place,” I say, somehow coming back to this conversation as we round the landing. The one with the big smile looks back—she seems nice—and I give her a wink, making her eyes go buggy and her skin flush hot.

Only playing with her doesn’t make me feel anything at all. There’s only one person I want to get a reaction from right now, and that person’s probably going to ream me out when I get upstairs.

It wasn’t working forme.

I picture Nora’s eyes on mine, her lip trembling.

“Anyone ever tell you you look like the Witcher?” the one with the braids asks me as we reach the door. There’s thudding music on the other side.

“Oh my God, yes!” they all agree.

“What’s a Witcher?”

She bangs on the door. “It’s a show.”

“Should I be insulted?”

They’re still laughing at that when the door to Sasha’s flat opens, spilling raucous Christmas music out into the hallway. But it’s not bubbly Sasha at the door. It’s Nora.

Only, it’s not the Nora I know.

This Nora’s wearing this fuzzy dark green top with satin straps that pushes her chest up like her breasts are on a platter. Her camera’s slung across her chest, the strap cutting into the plush flesh of her cleavage. Along with that, she’s got on a leather miniskirt and black stockings so transparent I can see her red toenails through them. Her hair falls down her shoulders in soft waves I want to stick my hands into. Even her glasses—slightly different black-rimmed frames than she wore at home—somehow look sexy.

I never got the sexy librarian look until right this moment.

My dick just got it too.

“Hey, Nora,” I say. “I…uh…that shirt. Christmas.”

This is ridiculous. I’ve been backstage at fashion shows, on film sets; hell, once I had a heart-to-heart with this actress Eli used to have a poster of on his wall. Nobody makes Jude Kelly tongue-tied.

Yet here the fuck I am, this close to blurting outBoobs. Pretty.

Nora backs up against the door to let everyone in. “Sasha’s in the living room,” she tells them with a smile that makes my stomach flip.

I run my hand through my damp hair. I’m feeling all kinds of weird. The fuck is going on with me? This is the woman who assured me that bump on the back of my neck last summer was a pimple and not a tick bite. The woman who literally held my hair back during a truly disgusting stomach flu. The woman I’ve fallen asleep next to countless times on the couch, feeling as comfortable to be around as my favorite jeans. And now all I can picture is turning her around, pushing up that little skirt. I wonder if she’d like a little smack there? Some women do. That little tinge of pain mixed with pleasure…

“Jude, are you okay?”

No. I’m not. I’m picturing you naked and I can feel my crotch inflating. I need a drink.

“You look good,” I finish with, as the other women file in.

Nora eyes them as they giggle and wave at me and I smile back.

“You’ve made friends,” she says.

“When have I not?”

She gives me a half smile. “Cap’s at Farrah’s?”

I grit my teeth at the mention of Farrah’s name. But nod. “He’s pumped. You know he loves a sleepover.” I wave my phone. “But I’m ready in case he wants to make an escape.”

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