Page 86 of Best Supporting Actor
Jay lifted his brows, his grey eyes darkening delightfully. “God, Ineed an early night tonight.”
“Yeah?” Tag batted his lashes outrageously. “I think that can be arranged, though sleep might have to wait a bit.”
Jay grinned, the tension dissolving from his face as their eyes met and held. Quietly, fervently, Jay said, “Thank God for you.” And Tag’s heart did another of those telling, playful somersaults.
They spent the next hour moving from group to group, chatting and laughing on demand, managing to get round most of the room while somehow never ending up in a group with Austin Coburn. Tag wondered once or twice whether Jay was deliberately avoiding Austin, but didn’t have much time to muse over that, too busy meeting new people and trying to remember names. It was tiring being ‘on’ all the time, sparkling and attentive. Everyone was being tactful about the play, not mentioning Jay’s involvement, though Tag suspected they all knew. The very fact that no one asked who was playing Sassoon made that much plain. All Tag could do was settle into his own role, ‘Tag O’Rourke, star of the show’, which he played with dutiful enthusiasm, giving everyone the performance they expected on that front, while Jay caught up with the people he knew, and charmed the ones he didn’t.
A social performance, Dame Cordelia had called it, and Tag understood now what she meant. It occurred to him, watching Jay, that Jay had been giving this particular performance for almost his whole life. For so long, in fact, that it might be difficult for even Jay to tell where the performance ended and his real self began. What, Tag wondered, had that done to his personal boundaries?
Finally, Jay led Tag over to Dame Cordelia to say their goodbyes. She protested, but acquiesced when Henry stepped in to remind her that he needed his cast well-rested for the demanding week ahead.
“In fact,” Henry added, looking across the orangery to where Rafe was standing with Austin Coburn, “I think I’d better have a word with our understudy about just that.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Dame Cordelia said. She grabbed Jay, bussing him on both cheeks. “In which case I’ll see you on Tuesday, darling, after the show. Break a leg! You too, Tag.”
Jay just nodded, lips pursed, saying nothing, and Tag couldn’t help recalling Austin’s warning. Was it possible that Jay’s tension was about more than the social strain of his mother’s party?
They grabbed an Uber back to the flat and rode in silence most of the way. Jay seemed preoccupied, or perhaps he was just tired. Probably he was aware of the driver sitting right there. Tag hadn’t quite fully absorbed yet that, for someone as famous as Jay, any conversation in front of a stranger could be a tweet thirty seconds later. But he was learning that silence was often safest.
So it wasn’t until they were back in the privacy of Jay’s cosy studio flat that Tag finally said, “God, that felt like a long evening.”
Jay dropped onto the bed, arms out crucifix-style. “They always do.” His eyes were closed, face drawn. “Mother means well, but sometimes…” He sighed. “I wasn’t really in the mood tonight, I’m afraid.”
“No, I sensed that,” Tag said, kicking off his shoes and sitting on the bed next to Jay. Looking down at him—dark hair stark against the fluffy white duvet, shirt collar open to reveal the hollow at the base of his throat, skin golden against the navy fabric—Tag felt a complex rush of feelings: attraction, affection, concern, uneasiness. Pulling up one knee, he turned to sit sideways and set his hand on Jay’s thigh. “Listen,” he said carefully, “I spoke to Austin Coburn earlier…”
Jay’s eyes flew open. “What?Why?”
Tag’s brows drew together. “For publicity, why else? It was your mother’s idea.”
“Ugh.” Jay made a face.
“Anyway, Austin said—”
“I don’t want to hear what he said,” Jay snapped, then softened his words by setting his hand on Tag’s where it rested on his leg. “Sorry. I just—I don’t want to think about him, or any of it, tonight. I just want…” Jay’s gaze was painfully vulnerable, even as he moved Tag’s hand up his leg towards his groin. “I just want you to...”
Tag’s heart pinched at the longing in Jay’s eyes; he was impossible to resist. “Yeah?” he said, squeezing lightly at Jay’s stiffening prick through the soft material of his trousers. “You want me to take care of you, is that it?”
Jay nodded. “I do, yeah. I… I want you to fuck me until I can’t think anymore.”
Jesus. Tag’s own cock was filling fast, desire overtaking reason and thought. Hedidwant to talk to Jay about what Austin had said, but not now. Not when Jay so clearly needed something else. Something to take him out of his head and give him release.
Moving to straddle him, Tag leaned forward, braced on his arms, their cocks straining together through the fabric of their clothes, teasing and delicious. “I can do that. You know I love taking care of you,” he said, smiling into Jay’s storm cloud eyes. Lowering himself, he took Jay’s mouth in a hungry kiss, delighting at the feel of Jay’s arms closing around him, tugging him down, as warm and eager as his lips.
And then they were kissing, and wrestling, and pulling off clothes, and all talk, all concerns, were forgotten, as they got lost in the depths of each other.
CHAPTERTWENTY-TWO
Jay
On Sunday morning, Jay woke early, groggy after a restless night.
Given how relaxed he’d felt in the aftermath of last night’s sex, it was disheartening to find himself awake before seven, his stomach already knotted with anxiety, his mind full of jumbled, circular thoughts.
He turned his head to look at Tag, who was lying on his side, facing him, hair bed-tousled, lips gently parted, the dark crescents of his eyelashes kissing his cheekbones. He looked content and untroubled and everything that Jay was not.
Jay gazed at him in silence, heart squeezing almost painfully. He was probably the hottest—and kindest—man Jay had ever been with. The most self-possessed too. He had an innate confidence that Jay suspected came from all the stuff he did thatwasn’tacting. All those different jobs, in retail and hospitality and construction. All that real-world stuff that Jay had never done. Tag might be five years younger, and have only a fraction of Jay’s professional acting experience, but he was sure of himself in ways Jay suspected he would never be. Calm and laid back and easy-going in ways Jay envied.
Lying there, Jay thought back to his behaviour of the night before. Falling apart at the party, snapping at Tag when he’d tried to talk about his conversation with Austin, then all but begging Tag to fuck him so he could forget about it all.Christ. He gave a low groan at the memory. Seb had been right: Jay was too fucking needy. How long would it be before Tag grew tired of him?