Method Acting: An opposites attract, found family romance (Center Stage Book 2) by Adele Buck (web based ebook reader txt) 📕

Colin trailed after Alicia as she continued down the path, feeling weak with relief. He wasn’t really paying attention to where they were going, so he was startled by a replica of the entry to a Paris Métro station standing in front of a glassed-in café. Glancing from the elaborate Art Nouveau railings and overhead sign to the café, he realized why he hadn’t noticed the station-entry-as-art-installation as they approached. The ironwork holding the panes of glass in place for the café echoed the sinuous, organic curves of the Métro piece. The art had literally blended with the outer wall of the restaurant until he was almost on top of it all.

“This is beautiful,” he said, his voice reverent. The interior of the railing, instead of leading to a staircase down to an underground train, housed a level seating area. The ironwork seemed strange, divorced from its original purpose, but it was still a masterwork of natural shapes, organic tendrils reaching up to support light fixtures and a sign proclaiming “Métropolitain” in distinctive Art Nouveau script.

“I thought you’d like it.” Alicia’s voice came from behind him, and he turned to look at her. She seemed calmer, but still…off. Something he couldn’t put his finger on.

“Is something still wrong?” He tilted his head, considering her stiff posture, the way she was still fidgeting, one thumb rubbing a finger.

Alicia’s chin lifted, and Colin turned more fully to her. “What is it?” he asked.

Her mouth worked. “I’m sorry.”

Colin looked at her, baffled. “For what?”

Her eyelids fluttered briefly, blinking, looking somewhere to the right of his hip. “The imitation of you. It wasn’t fair.”

Ah. The jab of pain he had felt at how she had reached back into his past and showed it as his possible future—or maybe worse, present—poked him again.

She went on, jamming her hands into her pockets. “It was…I shouldn’t have done it. I’m sorry."

Colin frowned. “Are you apologizing twice?”

Alicia’s jaw clenched, but her eyes finally met his. “Maybe. Did I hurt you?”

He thought about it. Yes, it had hurt. But the pain had come from the fact that he had recognized a kernel of truth in her impersonation. “Yes. But you weren’t necessarily wrong in what you saw.”

“I was wrong to…do that, though. It was cheap.”

Colin rubbed his chin. “It was effective.”

Her brows came together. “How? What do you mean?”

“I heard my late grandfather loud and clear. And you never met the man. So, the Oscar goes to Miss Alicia Johnson. Best performance of a dead man.”

Alicia bit her lip. “Are you okay?”

Colin extended a hand. After a slight hesitation, Alicia took her fist out of her pocket and slid her palm into his. He pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her, feeling her breathe deeply. “We’re okay, I think.”

Chapter 12

Colin didn’t complain or opine as Alicia led him around the rest of the garden. He looked thoughtfully at a Chagall mosaic, laughed when Alicia made up a little story about the giant, circular Oldenberg typewriter eraser being about to roll right out of the garden on a quest to enact literal “cancel culture” in D.C., and blinked without comment at various abstract shapes in metal and stone.

When he wasn’t aggravating or arousing her, Alicia realized, Colin was quite a restful person to be around.

“Care to get some lunch?” he asked as they made a circuit of the central fountain.

“Sure. What were you thinking?” she asked.

Taking her hand, he pulled her back toward the National Gallery.

“We’re going to eat seventeenth century Italian painting?”

“No,” he said.

“Well, if it’s Greek sculpture, warn me. I left my dentures in my other shorts.”

“Smart-arse.”

“Yeah, but it sounds so cultured the way you say it,” she said, gratified to see his eyes crinkle when they stopped for traffic at the curb.

“No more comments about the way I speak. You’ll make me self-conscious,” he said as they crossed Seventh Street.

Alicia felt a brief wave of guilt for her earlier behavior, but he glanced at her and worried the hand he held. “Joke,” he said. “You’re not the only one who can make them.”

The air-conditioned, stone building seemed to freeze the film of perspiration on Alicia’s skin as they entered, and she shivered.

“You all right?”

“Sure,” she said. “Just a bit chilly from the contrast.”

His eyes flicked down, and he suppressed a smile. “I see.”

Alicia folded her arms across her chest. “Thanks. Now who feels self-conscious?”

He leaned over, and she shivered again as his breath tickled her ear. “I was just wondering if we should skip lunch. I could bring you home and have you for dessert.”

Heat traveled from the crown of her head down to pool in her belly and settle between her legs. “Well that fixes the chill, but not the…self-consciousness,” she said, and he laughed as they began to walk.

Alicia tightened her arms across her chest and tried to ignore the throb between her legs and the memory of his tongue against her. Walking through galleries filled with Colonial-era furniture, she found the more she tried not to think about his tongue, his hands, the…rest of him, the more images flowed through her brain and the more aroused she became. By the time they reached the little café in the middle of the building and were seated, she was flushed and jittery. Her teeth gritted as she looked at him, fantasies of doing things that would make him helpless taking shape in her brain.

An attractive blush had spread across Alicia’s cheeks at Colin’s teasing, and he noticed it hadn’t abated during the walk to the café. He lifted his eyebrows at her, and she gave him a mild glare as they were seated.

Colin smiled. If it was revenge she was after, he was looking forward to it.

The process of ordering temporarily distracted Colin from more carnal thoughts. After he handed the menus back to the waitress and faced Alicia, he saw she was regarding the play of water in a nearby fountain, her features composed again.

“Tell me about acting,” he said, putting