Disclaimer: The Twilight Saga and its characters belong to Stephenie Meyer

Any resemblance the characters of "Breaking Character" have to a certain exuberant, outrageously hot Aussie that you might know in real- or cyber-life is purely coincidental.

(But really, what are the chances she's not doing Edward? She is EVERYWHERE he is.)

On another, unrelated note, I would like to dedicate this story to Squalloogal. Squally has organized three giant teams for the Fandom Gives Back effort -- three already huge teams that get bigger every day.

She tirelessly pimps out authors all over the giant kingdom of fan fiction. She cheers us on morning, noon and night (I don't think she ever sleeps) with fabulous poetry that she comes up with at the drop of a hat, videos about…well, I'm not always sure what those are about, and just general LOVE.

Squally, you deserve some love back and who better to give it to you (pun intended) than Edward Cullen. Enjoy, love.

It was not the first day of rehearsals. It wasn't even the ninth or the tenth. They were three weeks into rehearsals of Rapunzel and Edward Cullen was ready to walk out, to scrap the time and energy he'd already invested in salvaging his bad-boy image. His leading lady -- a Hollywood ingenue named Isabella Swan -- was lovely but abysmally, wretchedly witless.

Even in the middle of tense scenes, when his focus was ordinarily the stuff of legend, he found himself distracted by her stupidity. That grin might have gotten you the lead in some damned robot movie, but it will not work off-Broadway, sweet cheeks.

Maybe her head shots weren't photos of her face….

"Eddie, you're a lovely bloke and a fine actor when your head's not up your arse. Can we try this again -- maybe with some contribution from our hero? Maybe some eye contact before the big kiss? Let's go back to, 'a shortage of perfect breasts….'"

Edward cringed at the use of "Eddie". He wasn't a child and he had no need of discipline by way of this bitchy little woman from the land of Oz. He leaned back in the bed and started again.

Edward Cullen was trying to reestablish his reputation in Hollywood after too much blow had made him an unreliable employee on too many sets to count. He jumped through all the hoops his PR company told him he needed to: public apology, sex rehab, drug and alcohol rehab, public service announcement and some gritty off-Broadway work. He even took his mother to the Oscars. He had a shoot scheduled immediately after this project wrapped but he knew they would can him if he couldn't follow this hell-on-earth through to the end.

So day after day, he trudged in and pretended to fall in love with wooden-headed Bella Swan, all the while wishing he could wrap his fingers around her white throat and find out if oxygen deprivation would even faze her brain cells. He wondered how long they'd already gone without it.

The script was fabulous.

It was a sarcastic, tragic take on a classic fairy tale, Rapunzel, penned by an Aussie dynamo -- the same Aussie dynamo currently directing the edgy fable. Holly Pattinson was outrageously protective of her baby and Edward Cullen was simply fucking it up.

That wasn't his intention. He signed on because of the hype -- which he was certain would be utter bullshit -- and found himself pleasantly surprised. The script he'd heard described as "a work of sheer poetry" by his agent turned out, for once, to be just that. Holly's Rapunzel was self-deprecating and witty while locked in the tower. The prince, Jean-Luc, was pathologically unhappy and considered her the savior in their torrid, eventful love affair.

While other writers were catering to current, slightly adolescent, tastes that leaned toward the gothic, Holly served her angst and smut neat, a sweet burn undiluted by the tinkling sparkle of the supernatural.

Her script described the hero on his first appearance to the audience as "classically beautiful, with copper-tinged brown hair windblown from riding horseback and green eyes that betrayed his mood as certainly as water reflected the skies."

Edward had no way of knowing that his resemblance to Jean-Luc was not coincidental.

Holly never dreamed that her muse would be interested in wearing the suit of armor she'd forged in his honor. She also never dreamed he'd make her want to go medieval on him and permanently blowtorch him into the damn thing. What is his malfunction? It must be true -- he's no good without some pharmaceutical assistance.

Holly wrote herself a note to see if the prop guy could discreetly score her an eight ball. The dubious morality of knocking a guy in rehab off the wagon troubled her only briefly.

She looked up from her legal pad -- covered in hostile scrawl where flowery doodles and helpful notes usually coexisted -- in time to see Jean-Luc fight back a retch as his face closed in on Rapunzel's for the climactic kiss that set off their steamy love scene.

Holly knew Bella was an idiot, only capable of doing as she was told. But, she was a beautiful, reliable idiot who usually took direction very well. It clicked for the director that Edward didn't seem to think brainless was hot -- a surprising revelation. His whoring among starlets who made their living with spoof and teen horror flicks had been tabloid fodder for years.

In fact, he'd been quoted as saying that one young lady's lack of intellect was so appealing because she compensated by using her mouth for something more interesting than discussing healthcare reform. Within moments of one another, Edward and Holly cringed separately at the same memory.

Dealing with stupidity was sobering enough for Edward. Handling it while sober was nearly impossible.

Fleetingly, he wondered how discreet one of the prop guys could be about scoring him an eight ball.

Unable to watch the carnage any longer, Holly spoke up. "Hold on. Everybody -- stay where you are. Bella, dear, that wig looks like it's killing you. Why don't you go have a rest…I'll send someone to fetch you when we're ready to pick back up."

Untroubled and perfectly happy to be doing what she was told, Bella made her way backstage. The Forrest Gump of Broadway, Holly found herself thinking.

"Edward, come here for just a moment." He did his walk of shame; every onlooker knew he was about to be eaten alive. The stories of Holly's creative, high-decibel rants preceded her.

She didn't even call him "Eddie". Or Princeward or Angstward or any of the other bastardizations of Edward she had taken to calling him.

He braced himself for the onslaught.

In a whisper so low that no one apart from Edward could hear, she said, "Baby, I wrote Rapunzel with a particular kind of girl in mind -- a girl who is lonely and afraid but witty and still hopeful. I'll grant you that in reality that takes a certain amount of charm and smarts. On stage, however, Bella will pull it off because she does what she's told and she feeds off her leading man. If you see her as incredibly bright, she will be that girl. She just can't manufacture it on her own.

"Can you at least pretend you're not vomiting in the back of your throat when you kiss her? It would help the scene so much."

He pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled slowly.

She's not even raising her voice. I've hit a new low. Holly Pattinson feels sorry for me. Edward wanted to die. Or walk out. Or both. Holly found herself hoping he might do that very thing.

Embarrassed enough to be truthful, he whispered, "I'm sorry. I can't see past it. Can we do a run-through with the understudy? It'll help me get some focus."

Not a bad idea. "Reggie -- send Kristen in."

"She's not here, love."

She raised an eyebrow at her usually more-than-competent assistant. "What the hell do you mean, 'She's not here'?"

"Just that. She had a cold and you said you didn't want her infected snot contaminating the--"

Snickers washed through the cast and crew within earshot. "Yeah, yeah. It's all coming back to me. Shit."

Holly thought about shuffling around some cast members or maybe having someone simply read from the script and then decided to do the scene her damned self.

No one knew the script or what the director wanted better.

"I'll be Bella. Ah, Rapunzel. Let's do this."

Knowing the entire cast was enjoying their exchange, Edward successfully kept his mouth from twitching up into a smirk at this intriguing turn of events.

He watched appreciatively as she walked away from him, back toward the stage, unsuccessful at suppressing the twitch farther south.

Five minutes into the scene, the stage was empty of everyone but Jean-Luc and Rapunzel -- Edward and Holly. The scene had taken shape perfectly.

"I was a waste of air. No amount of gold satisfied my accounts and no amount of flesh my desire. I was a cracked vessel; I had no inkling someone could repair me until I found you.

"I…I didn't even know I needed to be fixed.

"And now, the thought of losing you…I will die the moment you are made someone else's Queen. As surely as if someone put my head on the chopping block, your wedding to him will be my execution."

"I am yours…I always have been. It is only my body that is not mine to give to another -- my heart and soul have always and will always be yours."

"Until dawn, you will be, mon ange."

Holly's intention had been to cut the scene when Edward -- Jean-Luc, she corrected herself -- said he was a waste of air. She didn't see any reason to subject everyone watching to the forgettable sight of her standing in during a love scene. But, for the first time since rehearsals began, the scene became more than words on a page. More than even what she'd envisioned when she wrote the dialogue.

The line about not even knowing he needed fixing could be found on no one's script. Edward came up with it on his own. It wasn't hard to imagine his motivation -- his motivation and her character's were essentially the same by the writer's design. Edward was finally finding his groove and she didn't want to slow him down so soon.

This was the dynamic she imagined when she wrote this scene. If he could just hold on to it with Bella….

Edward's hand went to the small of her back tentatively; he was wondering if she would call the scene before the kiss. The unspoken question in his eyes was echoed on twenty-five faces looking on back stage and milling around the front of the house.

Well, they had been milling around.

Holly cocked her brow and her next line came out as a husky dare. "Who else could there be?"

No one but the director knew she had forgotten to breathe and simply couldn't manage more volume.

Edward's grasp on Holly became as possessive as the script demanded and he ran his mouth from her shoulder up the side of her neck to her earlobe. She trembled in response; an echoing tingle reverberated out to her fingertips.

She'd worked with Bella and Edward to get the choreography down and knew as well as either of them what was about to happen. She arched her neck back -- the elongated line made a better visual -- and closed her eyes. She'd instructed Bella to do the rest of the kiss by feel; that sensuality would translate to her audience's experience.

Having imagined the scene over and over -- so she could guide Bella through it -- she assumed Edward's mouth on hers would be the next sensation.

Though his face was no longer touching hers, the heat it radiated rose and clung to hers like condensation. His mouth wasn't the next thing she felt. The strong hand at the base of her back began to support her weight as she leaned back but it was not as rigid as she'd imagined it would be. Edward's thumb massaged circles there, a gesture he improvised.

Holly approved.

The arm that wound itself under hers and up her back grazed her breast on its dexterous slide to place his hand between her shoulder blades.

She recognized immediately that she would never write a kiss the same way again. She'd never dissected a kiss in the moment and she found herself noting and reacting to the slightest sensations.

She'd chopped this exchange up and put it back together so many times that it was often the last thing she saw in her mind's eye before she drifted off at night. Occasionally, she dreamed this kiss and awoke in the middle of the night to scrawl a needed change on the legal pad that lived atop her bedside table.

The pre-sectioned and pasteurized parts of the kiss melted into one seamless act. The fact that she'd stopped analyzing escaped her attention.

Until she couldn't acknowledge anything but the moment, she'd never understood all the nonsense about being "in" the moment.

She tangled both her hands in his hair and her lips parted involuntarily. A sigh floated up from them.

His mouth came down on hers with none of the worshipful tenderness she'd insisted upon in run-throughs.

Edward made an impression on her that later found its way to her over-worked legal pad. It really did deserve a promotion. Reverence is overrated. Find out if "consummate" and "consume" originate from the same root.

She'd acted in productions before. She knew better than to allow her tongue to be anything more than a silent witness to a stage kiss. So when Edward's tongue barely brushed against her lower lip, the resulting gasp broke the seal of their mouths.

And brought Rapunzel and Jean-Luc spiraling back down into the atmosphere.

Bloody hell, Edward thought to himself. High school kids doing Harry Potter musicals know better than to slip someone the tongue during a stage kiss.

Even at his lowest, his womanizing, partying bullshit hadn't ever followed him to work. He was too proud to show up to a set unable to perform and his ability to act hadn't ever been as impaired in all his coke-hazed years combined as it had been in the last three weeks.

Was life really this difficult to cope with clean?

Edward pulled away when she gasped, though still holding Holly's upper body off the opulent, curtained bed. The rest of the scene would happen after Jean-Luc pulled the diaphanous curtain. Bella Swan had a nudity clause in her contract.

Holly was mortified that she'd flinched when his tongue grazed her mouth. It could've been an accident. Directing was so much easier from the director's chair.

She mumbled, "I think you have what you need to get through the rest of the scene?"

His mouth was still near her face. "Mmm. I think I might have found some motivation."

"Yes. Well…." She couldn't help but feel the pulsing energy around them. Through a series of head nods, elbow nudges and cleared throats -- the international Morse Code of interested-though-uninvolved-parties -- every person in the house but Bella Swan had watched rehearsal with bated breath.

Not a few groaned in disappointment when Edward returned his flushed director to an upright position.

Commendably, Holly was cool as a cucumber as she walked back to her little campsite at the front of the stage. Her sandy blond assistant, Reginald Norton, was waiting there with a bottle of Pellegrino. She took a gulping, unladylike swallow and let the bubbles scrub the remnants of him down her throat with mixed emotions. It bothered her that her wish to rinse the taste of him from her mouth was not undiluted.

Reggie sat down next to her. "Jesus, Holly. I need a cigarette and I don't even smoke. You okay?"

She rolled her eyes. "I wrote the damn scene. If I were going to light a cigarette over it, I would've done it months ago."

"El Senor Hot Pants ate you up and licked the plate clean…he's probably trying to find a dark corner to adjust himself before you send the second string back in." Holly rolled her eyes at her assistant's antics.

Now that his timing was back, it was impeccable. Edward's hand went to his crotch the moment Holly looked up. He chuckled at his own epic gaffe and shook his head.

Holly smiled despite herself.

"You're practically engaged now if no one's blushing and stammering over that."

"Cork it, gobshite. Go get me a latte and hit it with the butterscotch schnapps in the back pocket--"

There was the shit-kicker he'd followed half-way around the globe to work for. "I know where you keep the booze, hot bottom. I learned that on what, Day Two?"

"Your flattery has no effect on me; I'm long immune…do you really think that's what he was doing? It could've just been a scratch, you know."

"Yes, I do know…" His eyes flicked toward the fly of his pants to remind her that he wasn't actually one of the girls. "And that wasn't a scratch."

Rehearsal went better the rest of the afternoon and Holly used the time to work past her awkwardness with Edward. Opening night was in less than a month and she had no intention of stringing her discomfort along. It would just ruin all everyone's hard work.

She was also rewarded with a correct guess about Bella's performance. Her level of comfort in the scene mirrored Edward's. The third time they ran through the kiss was searingly, wickedly hot. Stage-kisses were never so hot. She'd been right in changing the mood from reverential to needy.

"Reg, have someone fix that dress. It's tough to make Bella look frumpy; that dress is a nightmare. I mean, poufy sleeves -- and a high collar? She's a princess, not a nun. I'm not feeling it. You know what I want."

"Of course, I do." He looked past Holly and spoke up to alert her that someone was approaching from behind -- a favor she'd requested from Day One. He'd written it down. Do not let people sneak up on Holly. "How are you, Edward?"

"Hey, Reggie. I'm all good…I think. Whaddya think, chief? How am I?" You sound like a wanker, Cullen. Talking to the director like a frat brother isn't going to help you resuscitate your performance.

"I think rehearsal took an upswing, but that scene is The Moment for the two of them -- capital 'T', capital 'M'. Even if it's technically correct, it won't matter if it rings hollow emotionally. And after today, I actually think you might get there."

"What's missing?"

"You know what's missing, Edward. I wish Kristen were here for you to rehearse with but I'm not letting you pash it up on the nuptial bed and get sick. She is quarantined, as far as I'm concerned, until she's no longer contagious. You have to find some way to dig in and make that love scene real.

"Why your sudden aversion to sexing up smokin' hot brunettes? I saw your last three movies and, aside from the blonde thrown in for interest in that threesome, you've been cast almost exclusively with girls who look like Bella Swan." That's why the Rapunzel in my head was a brunette.

"It's like making out with a blow-up doll, Holly. I can only give her so much to feed off of…eventually she has to make this girl hers, you know?"

"The last time was a huge improvement…."

"There was nowhere to go but up."

Reginald watched their exchange with a look of disinterest that belied his feelings. Since he'd started working for Holly in the few weeks prior to rehearsals, she'd received almost no personal calls. She'd gone out on no dates. Not a single night out with anyone who wasn't somehow connected with this production. At the ripe old age of thirty-three, Holly Pattinson's social life had shriveled up and been blown away.

Reggie was about to force a new bud.

He spoke up. "So, when can we find Mr. Cullen some rehearsal time? Do you want me to pencil him something in?"

Holly looked at her leading man. "What do you think, Edward?"

"I am avoiding every old friend and former hangout in all of Gotham. Anytime is open."

"So, the sooner, the better?" Reggie looked to Holly for confirmation.

"Sure."

Reggie pretended to leaf through a calendar of Holly's appointments. Every single block on the impeccably organized day-timer was filled with clear script.

Holly mean-mugged her crafty assistant. She didn't yet understand what he had up his sleeve but she did know that the calendar he was perusing wasn't hers.

"Tonight's open…but nothing else for about two weeks. Do you want me to drop off your dry-cleaning so you can just stay?"

The situation began to sink in to Holly's uncharacteristically thick skull. Reggie was maneuvering to get her alone with Edward.

"Reg, I don't have a princess. We'll squeeze something in once we get that detail settled. Quietly. I don't want to hurt Bella's feelings."

"Love, you're running out of options. And time is not on your side. The sooner we get Edward's head in the right place, the sooner Bella will follow suit." Did he really just say "Edward's head in the right place?"

Reginald Norton: personal assistant, pimp.

And, as much as his boss hated to admit it, he was right.

She looked at Edward.

"I'm in." His shit-eating grin made her shake her head and chuckle.

"It's a coup, then?"

"Your takeout is here. There's a full flask in your bag and a bottle of pinot noir in Bella's dressing room. She can't even say pinot noir but she thinks it makes her look sophisticated. I'll find a replacement before Monday morning."

"This is ridiculous, Reggie."

"The hell it is, woman. You and I both saw the fairly sizable donation aimed your direction. The least benefit to be reaped from this intimate soiree is a better production and an evening alone with your…man-muse? Is there a word for that?"

"How do you know what inspired Jean-Luc? Hollywood bad boys are a stock character these days. Just because he has the right hair and eye color doesn't mean he's my Jean-Luc."

"Edward Cullen's real name is Jonathan Edward Lucas. He dropped Lucas when he started acting so he could establish himself without using the family name to land a job. Cullen is his mother's maiden name.

"I may look twenty but I'm actually," he popped his collar, "twenty-two. I know stuff."

"You don't have to be so cheeky. I get it. I should've done a better job of encryption. You don't think he knows it, do you?"

"You and I saw the script before casting. Because we didn't want the Rapunzel word leaking out and scaring away the good talent, she and the prince were Isabeau and Louis. He may not know. There was a better chance of Bella thinking the part was written for her that way."

"Alright. Go. I'm all over this -- really." She winked at him as he walked out of the office.

"My girlfriend Alice picked up your dry-cleaning and she says to wear the blue silk in your office."

Holly furrowed her brow. Girlfriend?

After taking off the coffee-stained, white-button-down she'd worn all day, Holly changed into the dark blue silk sleeveless top in her office. She'd only worn it underneath a suit before. Forgoing a cardigan or jacket, she left it untucked and walked to the stage.

Edward had already opened the pinot noir for her and was eating backstage when Holly found him.

"Your food's here, too."

"I'm not really hungry yet. Maybe after a run through."

"Sure."

He slid the table out of the way and walked off to wash his hands and, from the sound of it, gargle with mouthwash.

"That's very considerate of you. You know, Clark Gable had wicked halitosis. How many starlets did he kiss over the years, I wonder?"

"You really know how to set a guy's fears to rest. Thanks."

"No. I wasn't saying--"

"It's okay. I'm just trying to joke around so that being examined by the Boss isn't so uncomfortable."

He could've knocked her over with a feather. "I'm about to read lines with a star. Your job is a cake-walk next to mine."

Edward offered her a glass. "To rising above, then."

"To rising above." She clinked her glass to his sparkling water.

"So, I guess we should get on with it."

He winked. "By all means, let's get it on."

Outwardly, she didn't even dignify his comment. It took every bit of concentration she could muster not to melt. She leaned down to take off her shoes and hide her reddened cheeks.

Edward sidled to the edge of the bed and sat down. He turned back around just in time to catch Holly bending over to unbuckle the thin straps around each of her ankles and slide her shoes off, one by one. He licked his lips and remembered their earlier rehearsal.

Her bared shoulders were not part of that visual. He considered it an upgrade.

The stirring of something other than a memory sent him scurrying for his old stand-by remedy for unwanted tent-pitching: the cat-loving woman who lived down the street where he grew up. Once, while returning one of her erstwhile charges to her home, she answered the door in a nightgown that had been washed far too many times for it to retain its opacity. The image was so jarring that he couldn't even tell the other neighborhood boys. The unspeakably horrific visual served him well but it was a secret he would take to his grave.

"…right here." He missed about thirty seconds of Holly speaking but it was a more than fair trade.

"I'm sorry, I was…getting into character, what were you saying?"

"Nothing terribly important. You've mastered the, um, mechanics of the scene. Shall we?"

Edward turned to face her on the bed -- a stage in its own right -- and cleared his throat. He locked her in his intense gaze and his eyes darkened from the pale, watery green of shallow tropical seas to the darkened jade of a shaded river in the heat of summer.

Her smoldering, tortured prince had arrived.

"I was a waste of air. No amount of gold satisfied my accounts and no amount of flesh my desire. I was a cracked vessel; I had no inkling someone could repair me until I found you.

"I…I didn't even know I needed to be fixed.

"And now, the thought of losing you…I will die the moment you are made someone else's Queen. As surely as if someone put my head on the chopping block, your wedding to him will be my execution."

"I am yours…I always have been. It is only my body that is not mine to give to another -- my heart and soul have always and will always be yours."

"Until dawn, you will be, mon ange." As he was supposed to after his whispered declarations, Edward began to transition from amorous but chaste admirer of the woman who would be someone else's Queen to the greedy man who would take salvation by force if no one would grant it to him.

The question that had tempered his movements earlier was long gone. His hand went to the small of her back possessively, without wondering if he had permission.

His hand met bare skin where her top floated away from her waist. The contact surprised them both but she didn't balk.

Holly stumbled on the lines again. "Who else could there be?"

His thumb began to make circles at the base of her back and she leaned her head back, arching her back as well as her neck this time.

God, how many women would kill to do this once….

The stubble that had accumulated since early in the day tickled as the satiny warmth of his mouth trailed behind it. Holly had to fight to catch her breath. She almost succeeded in stifling a moan.

His other hand went to support her back, caressing the skin between her shoulder blades through the thin silk. He leaned her back toward the bed -- taking about twice as long to do so as he had that morning.

A knot formed in the pit of Holly's stomach from the change of pace. This was not quite the way she'd written or even re-written this scene. Her train had a new engineer.

Did he just whisper "Cat Lady"?

She didn't have long to decide. His mouth found hers and obliterated every thought but one.

Edward.

Nothing else could get through: not why his mouth was on hers, not where else that mouth had been (something she would give a great deal of concern to later), not even greedily wondering when she would feel it again.

She traced his top lip with her tongue and heard him hiss in response. She felt the sharp, cold intake of breath across her own mouth as well.

Her hands wound in his hair and she could feel his breathing against her own chest, he held her so tightly. He leaned her back against the mattress and paused, looking from her right eye to her left and back again. She met his gaze evenly, without leaving the impression she was looking for a break in the scene.

Without breaking eye contact with her, he pulled the thin curtain at the foot of the bed.

The next few seconds were a series of actions Holly had daydreamed about dozens of times -- a distillation of years of imagining herself with Hollywood's hottest rebel. Her one shot, if she were ever given one.

The irony didn't even occur to her until she was safely in her own bed later. Much later.

The monstrous stage bed was positioned diagonally just to the right of center stage. Holly leaned forward onto her knees while Edward took his sweet time closing the curtains. He turned back to her and they kneeled, facing one another. His left hand around her waist, right hand free to roam. They stage kissed for a few moments more. Holly tried very hard not to repeat the tongue-grazing.

No matter how much she wanted to.

Edward Cullen was entering some dubious territory.

After-hours "rehearsals" with his flavor-of-the-month costar were not foreign to him. Even the most nervous, fresh-off-the-farm little actress was less timid the next day.

This was not that situation.

He was the actor with the problem in this situation. And while Holly wasn't exactly the solution -- though he could certainly think of a problem she could solve single-handedly -- she was going above and beyond to help him. He reminded himself that she should set the tone for this.

They came together at the center of the bed and carried on with the rest of the scene.

The script called for Jean-Luc to lift Rapunzel's night gown over her head. Edward mimed the action, his fingers sliding from the side of Holly's knees, over her waist, her ribs and, finally, up the undersides of her extended arms. She shivered as his fingernails grazed the underside of her wrists.

She had to look away when they lightly raked over her palms.

Jean-Luc would not be denied his love's eyes and she felt a hand beneath her chin, righting the problem.

Rapunzel's hands descended to rest at her sides and her prince held them out, wondering at her now exposed flesh. As Edward traced Holly's collarbone with his mouth, he found himself wondering how her gasps sent an almost-crippling wave of lust through him when much more graphic love scenes had done nothing for him.

She was poetry.

Perfectly on cue, she did exactly as instructed in the script:

Rapunzel takes the combs from her now-shortened hair. She shakes it loose and it barely descends to the tops of her breasts. Now, she truly feels exposed and hunches her shoulders in an effort to cover herself. Realizing that the most effective protection is kneeling in front of her, she pulls Jean-Luc close to her by the waist of his pants.

She unbuttons his shirt slowly so that she may consider the consequences of consummating her forbidden union with the Crown Prince of an enemy land.

When she realizes the alternative -- only allowing the fat-fingered German to take her to his bed -- she begins to devour Jean-Luc like the last meal that he is.

She unlaces his breeches and pushes his shirt back from the plane of his chest. He moans as the flat of her hand runs up his chest, fingers tangling in the dark twists and fine curls above his heart.

He brings his hand to rest on her left breast and then replaces it with his mouth. When his lips settle into place on the unexplored flesh there, she arches her back and whimpers. Her hands go to his breeches and she sits astride his lap.

They begin to rock rhythmically. At first, her hands remain fisted in his hair. After a few moments, she leans back far enough that her hair lays on the bed beneath her.

Together, they shudder and slow.

He gathers her to his chest.

The curtains on the bed billow in the breeze.

Fade to black.

Holly rested her ear just above Edward's hammering heart. Straddling his lap, her wrap skirt shoved aside and shimmied up so carelessly as to be unrecognizable, she noticed that each thump caused a corresponding tremor beneath her.

Cat Lady had never failed him before this.

A rumble from the same general direction as the thumping made Holly giggle. The second growl -- more of an aftershock, really -- lingered to make sure its captor recalled that she'd delayed her supper. She felt Edward shake, but no sound came out. When she got the nerve to look at his face, it was almost purple from trying to hold back his laughter.

He lost it when they made eye contact.

Holly lifted herself off his lap, carefully not riling up the beast anymore.

She winked at him. "I guess both our bodies have gone rogue, huh?"

"I--"

"Don't apologize. Give me something to be proud of this evening." She gestured to her stomach. "I guess that means I should eat something."

Holly was almost finished eating when Edward, desperate to make some conversation, informed her casually, "My real name is Jonathan Edward Lucas."

When that produced almost no reaction from Holly, he clarified. "John Lucas…Jean-Luc…I thought that was interesting. The funny part to me is someone told Bella that Isabeau is a form of her name to convince her you wrote the part for her. As it turns out, I'm the inspiring one, huh?"

Holly choked and spewed most of her mouthful of wine.

She felt like a fourteen-year-old writing fan fiction instead of a playwright with a reputation for emotional grit.

Edward felt like an idiot. Your real name happened to be John. What are the odds? And, now she's laughing at your genius commentary on her script.

He handed her a napkin quickly. "So I'm that not inspiring, huh?"

"No. That's not it…." Just tell him. It's not a big deal.

"You really are a great deal of Jean-Luc…I wasn't sure if telling you that would change your performance, the way you look at the character, so I sat on it."

"How much of him is…me?"

"I'd toyed with the idea of a twisted fairy tale for a long time. You were the catalyst, a tortured prince. Someone did an interview with you at a low point…something I'm sure you'd rather forget…that first put the thought in my mind And then I helped a friend with the script on the last big movie you did right before, you know…before."

"That's not a flattering snapshot of my life."

"I didn't think you were as irredeemable as you seemed to. You were never unkind to people on the set, I couldn't understand why someone so otherwise generous of spirit felt the need to be strung out all the time. I wondered why you were so unhappy being alone with yourself.

"My curiosity wouldn't go away, so I made a back story and wrote it out as a kind of…purging. It ballooned into this." She gestured towards the stage…her eyes rested on the bed a moment too long for her comfort.

Edward looked towards the stage, the bed looming large now, and began to wonder how much of Jean-Luc was Holly's version of himself. Before casting, was his face the one she pictured closing in on Rapunzel's? Did she see his hands skimming over Rapunzel's ribs as he lifted her gown? Imagining her writing the scene they were rehearsing caused his thoughts to disintegrate into images and impressions; they were almost, but not quite, incoherent.

In his mind, Holly's hair was wound atop her head, held in place by a pencil. Without ceremony, the images alternated between her furious typing as she chewed and sucked on her bottom lip, their sweat-covered torsos against a lightening night sky, the strap of her shoe, his mouth on the skin just inside her hipbone.

He shifted his weight in his chair, trying to redistribute the suddenly inadequate amount of fabric of his flat-front Prada trousers.

Pleated-front were so much more forgiving. And, in this particular case, Edward had much to atone for.

Holly saw the enlightenment in Edward's face, and then something else, something surprising. She sucked in a breath at his darkening expression.

He leaned across the little table on his elbows. "Are we going to work some more on my…motivation?"

I am so screwed. I can't do that scene again…I will combust.

"Sure?"

Edward moved his hand to wipe a drop of red wine from her mouth. His hand, however, had an agenda of its own. It moved past her face and cemented itself at the nape of her neck, causing Holly suck in a shallow breath. Without a thumb to wipe the wine from her lip, he had to improvise.

Red wine makes notoriously stubborn stains…I'll just….

She never knew about the wine. Had she known, and were she able to find an address to mail such a thing to, she would have sent the little dribble an earnestly written thank-you card.

He took her bottom lip into his mouth and sucked it gently, laving his tongue across it for good measure. She tastes like currants…or cherries…. He dove back in to get a second opinion.

Cursing the table between them, he pulled her forward. He pushed the table aside and the task of situating her on his lap was accomplished without an intelligible word. He continued plying her mouth with his own but it was evident that his attention was drifting farther south.

He fought hard to keep them balanced on the tiny folding chair while she straddled his lap and for ten or fifteen minutes they made out like teenagers, swaying precariously on the abused metal chair, Holly grinding on his lap.

Her musings were wandering as well and she fantasized about being the witch to his broomstick all night.

Her breath came in tiny pants and breathy gasps; the sound was driving him mad. One tiny whimper in particular sounded like a plea to him.

Well, from someone else it might have. But he was off his game with Holly. She was running the show, literally, and he was suddenly unsure of himself.

This is either going to end up as the best sex I've had in ages or the worst blue balls ever.

Holly began sliding the silk top over her head.

His odds began to swing away from the blue balls.

The contrast of the black lace bra against her pale skin warranted a worshipful moment, but the two of them were too engaged for her to allow him idle gazing.

She practically dared him to take them. "I'd like you to do more than look at those."

As if just looking were an option…. "Your wish, my command."

He skimmed a thumb over the delicate lace of one cup, teasing a nipple through the barely-there impediment.

Holly bit down on her lower lip and arched into him.

She fumbled when she encountered his belt. "Hhmmph. Your belt…help me." The thought entered Holly's mind that he might want to consider some growing room the next time he purchased slacks; Edward was practically bound.

She needed no help with the hook-and-eye or the zipper. Edward wondered at her one-handed talent and recalled his crass "single-handed" sarcasm from earlier.

If their lust-clouded brains could've worked out some way to get his trousers off without making Holly relinquish her position of honor atop his throbbing erection, they would've gone with that plan of action. However, it was obvious she was going to have to move temporarily. He stood with Holly wrapped tightly around his waist and set her on the table like an entrée to be devoured, intending to leave her there just long enough to kick off his pants and shoes.

The quick peek up her skirt as he pulled off one shoe was too much to resist.

He could see her long legs disappear into shadow as they neared the top of her skirt.

Holly could just catch the burnished tips of his hair as his head dipped beneath the black fabric. She grabbed a handful and whimpered as the mouth she couldn't see made a warm, wet trail up the inside of one thigh to its apex. The contrasting graze of his teeth sent molten heat to the spot of his teasing bite.

The heat from his mouth went straight through her panties and she ached for them to be out of the way, unconsciously angling her hips into his face.

Instead of putting her out of her miserable ecstasy there on the table, he nibbled his way out. He lavished attention on the insides of her thighs and planted one last kiss on the inside of her knee before he looked up at Holly and smirked.

He was a sexy son of a bitch standing there in only his boxers and unbuttoned shirt.

There's no way in hell he doesn't already know that.

She grabbed two greedy hands' worth of his shirt and pulled him flush, sealing him in with her thighs and resting her crossed ankles above his bottom. Her hands skimmed the planes of his chest and he was thankful for the action movie he was about to do. The producers had sent him a trainer weeks ago.

He was no longer unsure about his footing where Holly was concerned. This evening was not about Holly as a Director or Writer. He was about to remind her that she was as sexy as she was gifted, as beautiful as she was driven.

They were moving before she could protest.

Edward was headed for the giant bed taunting him from center stage. Cliched jokes about stage fright and performance anxiety ran through his head. Maybe the bed isn't such a fabulous idea….

Holly wouldn't get her face out of his face so Edward was navigating strictly by feel. He preferred her nimble lips to being able to see where he was going so they made slow progress towards the bed.

Thick velvet grazed Holly's shoulders and she realized they had stumbled into the stage curtain. It weighs a ton…it can handle a little tug.

She fisted both hands over her head in the heavy fabric and used the leverage pull him to her, making some friction between the thin layers that separated them.

When she felt his reaction between her legs, she rolled her hips again. As her mouth moved over his, she could think of no better way to let him know exactly how much she wanted him without removing it.

"Fuck, Holly," he mumbled into her ear as she ran her mouth along the outside of his ear. She nipped lightly at the lobe in response and then leaned back to smile wickedly at him, her arms stretched overhead for support.

Edward would never see a clip of the Cirque du Soleil again without this memorable lap dance momentarily derailing his train of thought and diverting a great deal of the blood coursing through his body to his cock.

The satisfying friction and Edward's obvious enthusiasm convinced Holly to spend some time grinding against him, molding her heated body to his.

She eclipsed that surprising talent by releasing one hand from the curtain to pull a condom out of her bra. She held it up as if he'd won a prize. He was fairly certain a second one remained tucked away and he eyed her questioningly.

It is true…women know before the night starts if we have a chance in hell.

She narrowed her eyes dangerously and muttered, "Don't ask…later."

The theatre's acoustics were excellent; his laugh filled the hall instantly.

She looked at the wrapper as if she'd never really seen it before. "And, well, it is a rather large condom. I'd considered waiting around the pharmacy until someone stopped to buy them…"

More laughter rang through the auditorium. The poor bed remained unused but at its post.

She smiled wickedly and arched one eyebrow in a very "come hither" way; he bit his lip in response. His hands slid from cradling her thighs to farther up her bottom so that he could hook his thumbs in her underwear. He pulled straight out and the lace gave way with a satisfying rip before falling to the floor.

Holly shook her head. "That will earn you a proper spanking later…what am I supposed to wear home?"

His ravenous, wolfish grin and a shrug was all the response she got. He offered nothing as the option and his intent wasn't lost on her.

She looked down to roll the condom on and realized they would have that in common.

"Where did they go? You just had boxers on."

"I kicked them somewhere towards the table…I really don't care where they went."

She laughed wickedly and turned her attention back to the condom in her hand.

He wanted to do it himself but he'd already invested too much in not setting her down. It was now a point of manly pride to keep her aloft until she said uncle. Or "EdwardEdwardohGodEdward". He didn't care which. Between that and the fact that his neanderthal brain kept repeating that she was his, he wasn't about to let go of her.

Lust-drunk, possessive Edward didn't realize that Holly didn't want him to put her down. She didn't want to be laid nicely across a fluffy bed just yet. She wanted him right there. And her body couldn't have been any more honest about that fact. Her back arched into him. Her hands kept forgetting that their hold on the curtains was helping to keep her up; they reached for him at every opportunity. His every touch left a trail of tingling gooseflesh.

Edward braced her as she quickly let go of the curtain long enough to position the condom. She rolled it down the rest of the way with one hand.

He exhaled with a hiss as her warm fingers made quick work of it. Without giving him a moment to recover, she dug her heels in for leverage and pulled up with her arms.

Edward thought he was about to be teased more. He wasn't sure how much more he could take.

The only woman I've been inside since rehab was while sight-seeing when I first got to New York…the Statue of Liberty.

Holly had no intention of making him wait. Unwilling to wait a second longer herself, she circled her hips to line herself up with the concealed weapon he was pointing at her and claimed him in one smooth descent. She wasn't demurely allowing him entrance to her sanctum, he was being forcibly pressed into her service. Immediately.

Edward's only attempted response was unintelligible. What he thought he'd said was, "That is so fucking hot."

But Holly already knew that.

Angling towards him, she continued to fight for leverage, panting as he helped her along. With every pull on the stage curtain, she braced herself for the thing to come down. How much longer can this ancient curtain take being pulled on?

The stage curtain had been witness to nude monologues, expletive-laden fighting and graphic depictions of the work of a serial killer, among other unmentionables. It had never been part of the action.

And what action it was. Holly clung desperately to the dense fabric when she wasn't distracted by Edward -- his tongue on hers, his teeth grazing her nipples, his mouth whispering and moaning in her ears.

Both times he accidentally grazed her nipple with his teeth, she threw her head back and said his name. The third time, it wasn't an accident. He lightly set his teeth on top of it and rolled his tongue underneath it.

With her neck arched like that, Holly couldn't see what was causing the explosive feeling but she could feel the effect unmistakably.

Heat gathered in a knot at the base of her stomach and tension that only knew one way to unwind continued to build. Holly increased the tempo and tightened her grip on both the stage curtain and Edward's hips. She rocked against him and pulled away over and over with every bit of strength in her body.

This was why Edward would never be satisfied with a dumb girl. No fuckhot imagination. No sexy-as-hell initiative. And no amount of flexibility could replace this kind of passion.

She turned my clumsy stumble into a stage curtain into the hottest sex I've ever had.

Holly was already wondering greedily how she was going to do this the next time. She was having a hard time narrowing down the options to a number that would fit on one hand. She did, after all, have an entire prop room at her disposal and a giant bed at center stage practically audible in its begging to be christened in unchaste ways.

She arched her back and tugged hard on the old velvet curtain, her trembling, spent thighs tightening down on Edward's torso in one last, shattering effort. His name was a coarse whisper on her lips, though it was becoming increasingly familiar to them.

The shuddering tightness pulled Edward along with her.

Edward wrapped her arms around him and walked the eight steps to the bed at center stage. If nothing else, they could rest there.

"Don't get too proud of yourself, superstud, but I don't think I will be able to walk tomorrow."

Exhausted, he croaked out, "Why wouldn't I be proud of myself?"

Holly's greedy musings while she hung from the curtain were too potent to suppress for long. She began running her fingers along Edward's shoulders when she couldn't stand to keep her hands off of him another moment. She raised her head from its place of honor on his chest and said, "We could try the scene again. Maybe that would give you something to think about the next time you're here with what's-her-bucket."

His face lit up though he was too spent to laugh yet.

"And, maybe we could take our clothes off this time. My skirt is wadded up beyond recognition."

"Sex with nothing on? That's so predictable, Miss Pattinson."

"Not 'nothing'. We can leave the stage lights on."

Edward was already feeling up to round two.

Edward and Holly ran through the love scene again. For the sake of artistic integrity, Holly borrowed the nightgown Rapunzel would be wearing for the scene. They turned the house lights down and the stage lights up and took the stage like a real dress rehearsal.

Their version was flawless and needy and desperately sensual.

When Holly said her last line before Jean-Luc drew the curtains of the bed, her every nerve began to hum in anticipation. "I am yours…I always have been. It is only my body that is not mine to give to another -- my heart and soul have always and will always be yours."

"Until dawn, you will be, mon ange. Every morsel of you will be."

When Edward drew the gown up and over her head, Holly felt nervous about what his reaction would be to her naked flesh. She was glad that the stage direction let her hide, even just a little bit.

Edward was thrilled that he was finally getting the opportunity to appreciate Holly without any clothes on. While she seemed suddenly shy, a surprising turn of events, she didn't have many sources of camouflage or misdirection at her disposal once the filmy gown was lifted from her form. She leaned into Edward and he used the vantage she offered to examine the long, sexy curve of her back as it dove to meet the less subtle swell of her bottom. He began a slow assault of her neck, kissing up and down her collarbone, in the hollow of her throat, then nibbling around her pulse until she threw her head back.

He had licked and teased the self-consciousness right out of her so that, right on cue, she arched back and allowed him to lay a fiery trail of kisses from the base of her throat to below her navel.

Reggie informed the janitor, Emmett, that rehearsal had been extended past six, and that he should just take care of the front of the house and the bathrooms. The older gentleman was, after twenty-eight years of caring for the old theater, no stranger to the idiosyncrasies of "thespian-types". As instructed, he steered clear of the backstage area and simply checked the doors into the main theater before leaving for the night. As he moved to close the doors, the performance on stage caught his attention.

Poor old Emmett had never been impressed with arty off-Broadway productions before; he preferred classy musicals and comedies.

As he walked past the open double doors leading into the theatre, he stood open-mouthed at the sight. He might have to make an exception for this production, whatever it was called.

It impressed him that gritty productions like this one seemed to prefer curves achieved without silicone.

Had he stayed, he could've watched three slightly different performances of that scene before midnight.

"Rapunzel" was an unqualified success. The two big names headlining brought in quite an audience. The show itself backed up the speculation.

Holly and Edward had agreed that a hands-off policy was a good idea until the curtain closed on the final show. Sex into the wee hours of the night was distracting and exhausting; doing it with no hands was damned-near impossible.

By the time they wrapped, Holly had thighs of steel.

A few months later, Holly lounged, semi-clothed, in a rather handsome actor's bed. He'd just wrapped an action film about soldiers searching for treasure in the jungles of South America so he was ripped and very bronze. She was reviewing a script and making casting notes for her upcoming movie.

The naked torso on her left was not helping her concentration.

"I was thinking of calling Bella Swan to read for this part. Do you think she could handle it? She's such a lovely girl."

"Who is the bloke opposite her?"

"Mmm. Hunky kid from Texas…Jasper Whitlock, I think. Dimples, sexy drawl and a smile like he knows what you look like naked."

Edward clenched his carved marble jaw. "I am going to use my executive veto on this one, love. I will not gamble my jungle cat in the sack on Bella Swan's ability to nail a scene."

Holly purred and moved to the next name on the list.

A/N: JustDuckie did beta duty for me. Her work was definitely cut out for her and I would pledge my devotion to her if I hadn't done so already. I love you, Clementine. You rocked my socks and I can't wait to do it again.

I am psyched to think that I gave my lemon cherry to Squally on behalf of FGB.

Your favorite authors are probably auctioning off goodies of some sort. Find out and jump in to help out this fantastic cause.

p.s. I am perfectly okay with love notes to Holl- uh, Squally, instead of reviews.