"Hey, Peaches."

My jaw slacked and my eye's widened. Any and all confidence I conjured up before walking into those callbacks was sucked away completely, leaving me empty and unsure.

"You two know each other?" The director asked while observing my sudden, odd behavior towards the impossibly handsome yet extremely blunt man I had just met hours ago.

"Just barely. We met in the lobby earlier today," the man answered back for us, his crystal eyes still locked onto mine as he spoke.

"Hmm, okay then." The director seemed to lose all interest in mine and the mans previous history as he leaned back in his chair and beckoned me into the room with a small hand gesture, releasing a long, exhausted sigh.

"Alright, so you two are going to be doing the first scene between Alice and Dan. They are in a hospital and Alice has just been hit by a taxi and Dan witnessed it."

I took a few shaky steps into the room and set my purse down next to a chair and grabbed a script from the directors table. My palms proved just how nervous I'd become in the last few seconds as they stuck to the papers of the script, now clammy with anxiety.

Focus, Lee.

Be confident. Be sexy. Be Alice.

"Now, both Alice and Dan are obviously attracted to each other right off the bat so this scene needs to be full of tension and underlying, flirtatious meaning."

"I think we can handle that," the stranger next to me quipped while sending me a sly wink my way.

The action sent a thrill of surprise through my body and straight to my stomach, which twisted into an accumulation of nerves and a strange bout of excitement to begin the scene.

"Good. Start whenever you're ready."

I took in a deep, cleansing breath through my nostrils and released it through my mouth. I focused on the excitement of this role barreling around in the pit of my stomach and latched onto it, finding that the feeling brought a soft smile to my lips, a giddy sort of feeling flushing through my body.

I began to feel lighter. I began to feel more confident. And as I straightened my back, pushed my chest out and let the freeing, exhilarating sensation wash through my body and soothe my mind, I felt like Alice.

I strolled over to the plastic chair being provided for the callbacks and sat down. The cold of the chair welcomed me and my body shivered at the frigidness of the hard plastic.

I lifted the script, taking in the first line which I already knew by heart since I had read this play hundreds of times and started the scene.

"Who cuts off your crusts?" I asked in a low, alluring voice, my eyes lifting up to train on the man's.

"Me," he replied in a deep voice, slipping into character quickly as his entire persona became that of Dan's; A quiet, intelligent, charming man.

"Did your mother cut off your crusts for you when you were a little boy?"

"I believe she did, yes."

I looked up to him, cocking my head to the side, my eyes squinting into teasing slits.

"You should eat your crusts."

"You should stop smoking," he shot back at me with a playful glint in his eyes.

I watched as he grabbed a chair from the other side of the room and walked up to me casually, placing it next to mine and dropping down into it, brushing our knees up against each other's.

"I've got a mobile, is there anyone you'd like to phone?"

I shook my head.

"I don't know anyone."

Our gazes met as I said that line and a sliver of truth seeped into my words- and he caught it. The electric blue of his eyes intensified to a point where I felt my entire body respond to his stare. Heat rose in my chest and I felt myself flush from the neck up, the space around us buzzing as his eyes tore into mine inquisitively.

Yet, if he was trying to figure out Alice or myself, I wasn't sure.

"Thank you for scraping me off the road," I said quickly, breaking our connection and forcing a small laugh to tumble off of my lips.

"My pleasure."

Daringly, I peeked up at him through my lashes and let a smirk play at my lips.

"You knight."

Then, the man leaned in closer to me. His wickedly amused eyes set on mine as he invaded my space, making me very aware of how masculine and perfectly structured his facial features were.

"You damsel."

My eyebrows perked up at his line in a challenging, yet impressed manor.

"Why didn't you look?" The man shifted himself a bit closer to me and my chair, his knee now fully pressed up against my thigh, his warmth radiating through his pants and onto my bare flesh.

Normally, I would have flinched at the movement.

But I wasn't Leah at that moment. I was Alice.

And Alice was enjoying this sinfully attractive man's touch far too much to stop it now.

"I never look where I'm going."

"I looked into your eyes and then you stepped into the road."

"Then what?" I asked seductively as I propelled myself up, my back leaving the backside of the chair so that my chest was pressed up against my legs that I brought up to cradle my arms around. But most importantly?

It brought my face that much closer to his; inches away to be more specific.

His eyes widened at my forward movement as mine dropped to his lips to see soft pink part from soft pink just enough to entice. Looking back up, I saw his spirited eyes scour over every inch of my face until they landed on my lips.

I quirked a taunting eyebrow up at him.

"You were lying on the ground, you were focused on me, and said 'Hallo, stranger,'" he continued after a second.

I barked out a stiff laugh.

"What a slut."

The man's eyes sparked with something of entertainment at my blunt line as he steered his gaze towards the floor, a soft chuckle pulling through his lips.

"And then I noticed your leg was cut." He looked back at me with bright eyes.

"Did you notice my legs?"

"In what sense?"

"In the sense of 'nice legs'?" I let my fingers run over the tops of my knees teasingly, knowing his eyes were following their every movement.

Then he reached out.

My body tensed in anticipation as I willed my mind to calm and sink even further into the character of Alice; someone who would welcome his touch with open arms.

A shock zipped through up through my legs as his fingertips made contact with the naked skin of my calf. I felt and watched, mesmerized, as he turned his hand around so that the soft skin of his knuckles ran across my knees and brushed across the tops of my thighs.

My heart was pounding wildly in my chest and was I was positive that the man could hear it.

Abruptly, my breath caught in my throat and my eyes flew to find his as he took it a step further, daring to peek the tips of his fingers underneath the end of my dress.

His stare fixed on mine as he moved his hot touch further up my legs slowly, inch by inch. He was testing my reactions, pushing my limits as Alice. My breathing was coming out in short spurts, drying out my lips with its constant wave of hot air.

My tongue slipped out to dampen my parched lips.

The strangers stare dropped to my lips with the movement. I felt the warmth of his hand promptly stop just as he reached my mid-thigh.

"Quite possibly."

Huh?

My forehead crinkled in confusion until the dreadful reality that we were still in the middle of our callback dawned on me. Terror and embarrassment ripped through my mind at the thought of getting so lost in that steamy moment with this man that I had utterly forgotten the purpose for the moment in the first place.

Thankfully, the director didn't seem to take notice as he stopped our scene.

"Holy shit. Is anyone else hot in here?"

My head whipped in the direction of the Director at the front of the room. To be honest, I had forgotten they were even there.

His face was stretched into a grin that took over every aspect of his face. His eyes were smiling at the two of us in front of him, his entire body leaning forward onto his table and engaged in the moment.

As his previously stoic face radiated in enthusiasm, I could feel myself slipping out of Alice's character and right back into my own, fragile shoes and state of mind.

And as I slid back into my own mind, I became overtly conscious of the warm, large hand still resting on my thigh.

My fear spiked through me immediately and before the stranger had any inclination of what was happening, I was out of the chair and stumbling away from him and his overwhelming presence completely.

I managed to catch a small, confused glimpse of the man's face before turning my attention to the two men sitting behind the table.

"That was... Are you sure you two have never worked together before?" The director looked at both of us expectedly.

"Nope," I said in a somewhat breathy voice, trying to contain that desperate yearning in my chest to begin contracting and constricting in anxious, uncontrollable heaves.

"Hmm." The director nodded, his eyes running back and forth between us both. "I only say that because you twos chemistry is off the charts. I would just assume that you two had worked together before or... dated or something of the sort to have that level of connectivity."

Off the charts?

My head shook automatically as I took in what he was saying.

"Either way, you both took direction exquisitely. Well done."

"Thank you," the man and I both spoke at the same time, earning a chuckle from the director and even a slight one from his assistant.

"See? It's uncanny! The chemistry is undeniable," the director joked before thanking us both for coming in and telling us both that he would be in touch within the week.

As soon as he dismissed us, I grabbed up my purse from the floor and took off towards the door. I pushed through the door with a desperate force, knowing I needed to put myself as far away from the man inside that room as quickly as possible.

I let him touch me...

I knew it was while I was immersed within the character of Alice but still. I had never had any man besides Zach touch me so intimately, so teasingly.

Of all the roles I held before auditioning for this one, none of them even compared to the apparent heat that came with this roles territory. Zach never bothered to see any of my plays anyways so even if I had a small, peck kiss with another character on stage it wasn't a big deal and I'd dealt with it well before in the past. When I was truly in character, nothing that would faze Leah would faze me while I was on stage. On stage is where I was free of all my fears, flaws, and crippling anxiety.

But this, this type of heat and intimacy was a very big deal for me.

I knew that if I was fully delved into the mind of the character that I could push through it, but what if this was too much? What if my dream role would remain just that? A dream- unobtainable and unrealistic.

I forced the morbid thought out of my mind as I tore through the lobby, determined to make it outside without being stopped by anybody along the way.

Unfortunately, fate wasn't on my side that day it seemed.

"Hey! Wait up!" I knew exactly who that voice belonged to, my steps to quicken that much more.

My veins were rushing with adrenaline as the exit came into my vision, my chest thrumming in anticipation.

Yet, just as I reached my hand out to place it on the door handle, my ears perked as I heard footsteps pound behind me and a sudden hand shot out and grabbed the handle of the door just a millisecond before I could.

My muscles tensed as the dreadful sensation of being entrapped flooded through my body and I felt the sudden need to lash out.

"Damn, Peaches. If I didn't know any better I would say you A, have a massive hearing problem or B, were ignoring me."

"Sorry, I just have somewhere to be," I mumbled out as I kept my stare cast towards the ground.

Please just let me go.

"That's too bad. I was gonna see if you wanted to swing by my work and grab a drink or two with me," he said as he turned his hand on the door knob and swung the door open, holding it open.

At the sight of the familiar streets and the smell of the fresh air hitting and invading my senses, my instincts told me to run. Run as far away as I could from this man that insisted he talk to me every chance he got.

But the thing that kept me rooted to my spot, was the very man holding the door open but had yet to walk through yet.

Cautiously, I peered up at him through only to see that his stare was already waiting for mine. His radiant eyes were shining down at me briefly until they flickered with perplexity.

"Are you going?"

With a slight slight nod of my head, I stepped out of the door, being sure to keep our body contact to a maximum distance.

"So, I take that as a no to the drink then?" I heard from behind me as I stepped out onto the cold sidewalk, the dark of night slowly but steadily closing in on us.

I turned back to face him, shaking my head. "Sorry. I have to go."

Silence followed my answer. His eyes locked onto mine, his stare unwavering as he thought until he seemingly came to a conclusion and took a step closer to me.

"That's alright, next time,."

"I don't think so," I replied quietly.

"Peaches," he called, his voice having dropped dangerously low as he took another step towards me, forcing my head to crane up as he towered over me. My body froze. My breathing halted and even my mind flipped its switch as his tall, broad frame came closer to mine.

He stopped just before our bodies made contact.

"Didn't you hear? We have undeniable chemistry. There is bound to be a next time for us."

His words and smooth voice caressed my ears as I felt myself become almost heady with his proximity. Which beyond terrified me.

I need to leave.

His words, his presence were dangerous.

He's dangerous.

"I've gotta go," I muttered out as I dragged myself away from his raw magnetism, not even bothering to throw a goodbye his way as I practically ran down the street. I made it just to the end of the increasingly darkening street when I heard him call out to me.

"I'm Kaleb by the way."

My feet stopped immediately and by some inconceivable notion of my own, I actually turned back around to face him.

His domineering figure came into my view and I could barely make out the curious smile planted on his lips as he waited for my retort.

"Leah."

I witnessed as his distant smile lifted into a victorious grin and he stuffed his hands into his front pants pockets and began to turn on his heel.

"Until next time, Leah."

And with that, he spun in the other direction and walked into the night.

I released a breath I didn't even realize I was holding as my shoulders slumped. I began walking again and rounded the corner, headed to my car, lost in one thought and one thought only.

Please don't let there be a next time.