Hate the Player: An Enemies-to-Lovers Romantic Comedy(41)

Her glaring eyes look up into mine. “I hate you.”

I shake my head again. “You need to stop lying to yourself.”

“You need to stop acting like you have any say in what I do or who I talk to.”

“But I do have a say.”

“Bullshit,” she spits, and I don’t hesitate to wrap one arm around her waist, pulling her tight to my chest and making it so that her perfect lips are only inches from mine.

“I have a say because you’re mine, Ari. And I don’t want anyone else touching what’s mine.”

“Fuck you, Cal.” Her breaths turn into erratic pants. “Just because you helped me get into this business doesn’t mean you get to control me.”

“I’m not talking about the fucking business,” I whisper back, my words a harsh lilt off my lips. “I’m talking about you being mine. My woman. In my goddamn bed. You belong with me, Ari.”

“I don’t belong with anyone!” she yells directly into my face, but her hands reach up to grip the material of my T-shirt that’s now wet against my back.

“You belong with me. Just like I belong with you,” I whisper and brush my rain-wet lips gently against hers. “I don’t want any other fucking broad. I want you, darlin’. I want your fire and your glares. I want to see that softness in your eyes, and I want to hear my name on your tongue. I just want you. Stop holding back from this, from us, and let go, Ari. Just fucking let go.”

Her hands grip my shirt even tighter, and between one breath and the next, her lips are on mine. A sweet, delicious, painful crash of our mouths.

She moans, and I deepen the kiss further, slipping my tongue into her mouth and really kissing her the way I want to fucking kiss her.

Goddamn, Birdie, you taste so good.

And she only responds in eagerness, digging her nails into my upper back before wrapping her arms around my neck to keep me there, keep us there.

I reach down and grip her perfect ass and lift her until her legs wrap around my waist, and she moans again, kissing me harder, deeper, more erratically.

Fuck me.

She tastes like honey and spice, and a fire ignites inside my veins.

Shit, Birdie. You make me crazy.

I grip her ass tighter, pulling her body against mine and—

“Cut!” a voice shouts in the distance, but it takes my mind a good five seconds to compute what it even means. “Cut!”

Oh, cut. As in, the scene.

Birdie pulls her mouth away from mine and just kind of stares at me, and I have to blink several times to fully come back to reality. Eventually, I gently release my hold on her body and help her back to her feet.

“Wow.” Howie’s voice fills my ears. “Just…wow.”

“It’s like their audition all over again,” Serena muses, and Howie chuckles.

“It’s fucking perfect.”

Birdie breaks our eye contact when Maureen from hair and makeup steps up to wrap a robe around her now wet clothes, and I just kind of stand there for a long moment, trying to get my bearings.

What was that?

One minute, I was ready to film a scene. The next, I didn’t even know where in the hell I was.

All this desire to fuck your costar is really starting to mess with your head, bro…

Jesus Christ. Tell me about it.





Birdie



I wish I could say that I absolutely hated, loathed, freaking despised kissing Andrew Watson during filming this morning, but the HR department of my fictional Mental Health Company has been giving me demerits for lying.

The truth is, I loved it.

The man has nice, full, soft lips, minty-fresh breath, and it’s well established that his dental hygiene is on point.

So what, I felt the scene so much that I got a little lost in it? Big deal. Isn’t that what an actor is supposed to do? Shouldn’t it be a good thing that I don’t completely detest the scenes that involve kissing my asshole costar? At least when his sarcastic, egotistical mouth is otherwise occupied, I can tolerate him.

And just because I obtained a teeny tiny amount of enjoyment out of kissing him during that scene doesn’t mean I’m going to do something insane like rip off my panties and ask him to sign my underwear or bang my brains out.

I might be on a year—or, holy shit, is it a year and a half?—long sex drought, but the day I have sex with that bastard is the day someone should lock me away in a padded room and make me think about what I’ve done.

I haven’t chosen a revirginization of my vagina or taken an oath of abstinence; I’ve just been super busy. Honestly, at this point in my life, being single feels like it’s slowly becoming a part of my identity. My priorities revolve around my career, my friends, my family—Billie—and the very occasional me-time. And, trust me, that keeps me busy enough.

Hell, what would I even do with a boyfriend right now? Water it? Take it for daily walks? Am I supposed to feed a boyfriend???

It doesn’t matter. What matters is that while I may have loved the kiss, I know enough to hate that I loved it. I mean, it’s possible to hate the player while still loving the game, isn’t it?

The only sex I’ll ever be having with Mr. Ego is fake, scripted sex in front of a camera, so I might as well enjoy whatever pleasure I can get from our forced interactions. I might have to consider a hot one-night stand with a handsome stranger or, at the very least, carve out more time in my schedule for masturbation to curb my enthusiasm a little, but I can give myself this little concession.