Page 88 of The Drama King

This was it: the full dress rehearsal, our final run-through before opening night. Everything had to be perfect, professional, controlled. But as Vespera took her position across the stage, the burgundy velvet making her skin glow in the stage lights, I felt something snap inside my chest.

Want. Raw, desperate, consuming want that had been building for months and was finally threatening to destroy everything.

The masquerade scene was torture.

Wells had choreographed it as an elaborate dance, couples moving in intricate patterns while masked and disguised. The perfect metaphor for hidden desires, secret attractions, the games people played when they thought their identities were concealed.

But there was nothing concealed about what I felt when Vespera's gloved hand touched mine.

The dance required us to move in unison, bodies close, her hand in mine and my arm around her waist. Professional contact, nothing more than the blocking demanded. But every touch sent fire through my nervous system, every breath brought more of her scent, and I could feel my control slipping with each step.

"You dance divinely, my lord," she said, the line delivered with Beatrice's teasing edge.

"As do you, my lady." My voice came out rougher than intended. "Though I wonder what lies beneath your mask."

It wasn't the scripted line, but she didn't break character. If anything, her eyes sparkled with the challenge, and I caught a spike in her scent that made my Alpha instincts roar with satisfaction.

"Perhaps more than you bargain for," she improvised back, letting her fingers trail across my chest as the choreography separated us.

The touch was brief, professional, completely within the bounds of the blocking. But it left me burning, desperate for more, fighting every instinct that demanded I pull her against me and claim her mouth in front of the entire cast.

The scene continued, other couples moving around us, but all I could focus on was her. The way the corset made her breath come faster during the more energetic passages. How her eyes never left mine even when the dance spun her away. The flush in her cheeks that had nothing to do with exertion and everything to do with the tension crackling between us.

When the scene ended and we took our positions for the next act, I was practically vibrating with need. Every professional instinct screamed at me to maintain distance, to stick to the plan, to keep playing the long game. But one look at Vespera—breathing hard, lips parted, her scent thick with arousal she couldn't hide—and I knew the game had changed.

This wasn't about strategy anymore. This was about claiming what was mine before I lost my fucking mind.

The breaking point came during Act Four.

The church scene—the one we'd rehearsed dozens of times, the moment where Beatrice and Benedick finally admitted their feelings. But tonight, in costume, with opening night hours away and weeks of sexual tension reaching critical mass, it felt different.

Dangerous.

"I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest," Vespera said, the words trembling with emotion that had nothing to do with acting.

I was supposed to deliver Benedick's next line, but for a moment I couldn't speak. She was looking at me with suchraw vulnerability, such genuine feeling, that every carefully maintained barrier between character and reality crumbled.

"Say it again," I said, the words ripped from somewhere deep in my chest.

"Dorian..." Her voice was uncertain, confused, but I could smell the spike in her arousal.

"Say it again." I moved closer, close enough to see her pulse hammering in her throat. "Tell me you love me."

"I..." She glanced around, suddenly aware that we'd broken script, that the other actors were watching with confusion. "We should—"

"Tell me," I growled, my voice dropping to something dangerous, possessive.

For a heartbeat, she looked like she might. Her lips parted, her breath coming faster, her scent flooding the air with want and confusion and something that smelled achingly like submission.

Then Wells's voice cut through the moment.

"Excellent improvisation, but let's stick to the script for dress rehearsal. From 'Come, bid me do anything for thee.'"

The spell broke. Vespera stepped back, professional mask sliding into place, but I could see the tremor in her hands as she smoothed her skirts. Could smell the lingering arousal she couldn't quite suppress.

We finished the scene according to script, but the damage was done. Every look, every touch, every word felt loaded with subtext that had nothing to do with Shakespeare and everything to do with the claiming I'd been denying myself for months.

BythetimeWellscalled for intermission, I was hanging on to sanity by a thread.