by Parker, Ali
"So shallow." I winked at her and enjoyed the power I had to make her smile again.
"You're telling me that you've never struggled having to kiss someone in a movie that you weren't turned on by?" She moved her forearms up to rest on the table. Her position pressed her breasts together and lifted them even more.
My body throbbed with need as I swallowed hard. If we ever ended up naked, I'd have to see if she’d let me press myself between her pretty tits and-
"Are you still with me?" She lifted her eyebrow and smirked.
I swallowed hard and reached for my water as embarrassment rolled over me. I would normally have just told her what I was thinking, but it seemed almost too crass to speak out loud. What the fuck was wrong with me?
"Yep. Just thinking about all the times I've kissed someone on screen and had to fake the shit out of the passion." I shrugged. "When I was younger it was easier to do and still enjoy. Kissing a woman at seventeen or eighteen when you don't find her attractive is still kissing a woman. I can't remember the last time I got turned on when acting until you showed up."
She leaned back in her chair and dropped her hands to her lap. "And why were you turned on by me?"
"Are you kidding me? You look like a movie star from the early days of film. Back when women still wore enough clothing to tease a man into seduction and forced him to bed to see what was under the nightie. Now it's almost as if the action movie with one sex scene is a porn in disguise." I gave a look of disgust. "It's not at all what I would do if it were up to me."
"I'm honestly a little surprised to hear this." She picked up her wine glass and took a drink as our server poured us each a glass.
"Why's that? Just because I'm vulgar on occasion, want to get you in bed as much as I want my next check from Eon and offered you sex a few times? Psh. That's nothing. I'm still a classy guy under all that drama."
"Are you?" She tilted her head to the side, causing her hair to drape over her shoulder seductively.
"Very much so." I nodded toward the lily. "I brought you a flower tonight, right?"
"That's for Deza, remember?"
I chuckled. Cheeky little bitch. She was going to steal my heart while I was trying to steal her panties to add to my collection.
"What's this guy look like that you're unwilling to kiss?"
"That was a horrible transition."
"Yes, I'm quite aware. Tell me anyway. I don't like him already, so describe him and give me a reason to feel sorry for him." I picked up my menu and pointed to a few sushi rolls that Riley agreed on sharing with me.
"He's okay, but he's terribly thin and honestly he lacks confidence. He'd be a good-looking guy if he just squared his shoulders and lifted his chin." She jerked her shoulders back and lifted her chin.
"Mmmm... do that again for me." I sucked my bottom lip into my mouth as my body started to pulse in all the right places.
"You're corrupt." She crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head. "And here I thought maybe there was a good-guy side to you."
"Oh, there is." I smiled. "He's just the facade for the real me."
"The you that wants to have a friends with benefits relationship with your new co-star. A relationship that could potentially ruin everything between us."
"Or." I lifted my finger. "Or it could make it even better. Can you imagine if we had a kissing scene tomorrow after you let me spend the night making you wonder how in the fuck you ever survived without me pressed to the front of you?"
"I like it from behind." She shrugged and picked up her glass.
The blood drained from my face, my chest, my legs, my arms, leaving me numb. Every bit of energy I had rushed toward my cock and brought the fucker raging to life. I took a quick breath and nodded.
"Good. I like it any way you're willing to give it." I licked at my lips. "Let's get out of here."
"No. Behave." She smiled and moved back as the soup was delivered. Why we'd decided to have dinner instead of just staying at the house and having me cook for her was beyond me. I sucked like hell at cooking, but for her... for the chance to experience her... I was willing to try.
Chapter 39
Riley
The air was so damn hard to breathe as we worked our way through the rest of dinner. We moved the conversation back to my time at UCLA and talked a little about Liam too. I tried to stay away from anything that might give him the ability to flirt too much. I was already raw from reading his bio, then getting the flower and now having him watch me like an animal might its favorite prey.
My body was heated, my pulse spiked to the point of discomfort, but like any good actress, I put on a mask and made it through dinner.
"You ready?" He smiled and got up, moving around to help me out of my chair.
"Absolutely. That was fantastic." I took his hand and moved behind him out of the restaurant. It was comical how many times I heard his name whispered as we moved out the back door and back into the sand.
"We should practice your kissing scene with Mr. Less-than-Confident. That way when you go to do it, you can close your eyes and see me instead." He kept my hand tightly in his.
Indecision tore up my insides on whether to pull it from him, or just go with the flow.
"Why do you need fans when you have yourself?" I laughed and pulled him to a stop. I tugged my hand from his and reached down to undo my sandals. He snagged them from me and gripped my hand again.
"I like how confident you are... you don't like that about me?" He glanced down at me and the world seemed to stop. I was in trouble. So much trouble, not because of who he was, but the simple power he had over me.
"I like a lot of things about you," I whispered and released his hand to jog down the beach. "Come on, old man. Catch up."
"You know this should be a scene in a movie." He jogged behind me. "Except you should be running toward me, not away from me."
I laughed and let the warmth of the ocean breeze race over my skin, taking me away to a place where everything was all right. I didn't have to pretend to be or not be anyone. I could just let myself go and enjoy life for the moment.
"This isn't a movie." I turned and lifted my arms to the side as I panted softly. "It's real life. It's a good life. It's the life I want."
"You're making me want it." He tossed my shoes to the side and pulled his shirt over his shoulders, tossing it too.
"Ethan. What are you doing?" I reached out to stop him from crashing into me.
"Taking what I want." His mouth covered mine as he wrapped his arms around me tightly and took me down to the sand below.
I groaned and pressed my foot into the wet sand to roll us. "No. Honestly. I won't be able to survive you."
"Is it my size?" His eyes filled with worry as he lay beneath me on the sand. The moon left the scene far too romantic.
"What? No." I leaned down and ran my fingers through the top of his hair before kissing him again.
He rolled us and pressed me to the cold earth below, licking and sucking at my mouth before moving down to press his teeth against the side of my neck.
"Come to bed with me. Let me make you feel things you could only dream of." His breath was hot against my ear, his body so big and solid against mine. I felt protected, desired, beloved. It was a lie, but I wanted to drown in it as long as I could.
"I can't," I whispered and opened my legs farther as he reached down and pulled my skirt up my legs. He shifted his hips and ground against me as we both groaned loudly.
"Yeah, you can, Riley. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm an asshole to almost everyone else, but I wouldn't do that to you. Let's try each other out and if it doesn't work, go back to Jace, but if we end up being everything I know we could be... fuck." He licked my ear and moved up to press his lips back against mine.
I tilted my head a little and opened up, letting him in deeply as he aggressively rocked against me and made love to my mouth. I'd never felt so much passion. The buildup was orgasmic alone.
"Let me in,"
he murmured against my mouth and slid his hands around my hips to grip my ass tight as he squeezed and licked at the soft skin under my ear. "I want deep inside of you, Riley. Don't deny me. You don't want to."
And I didn't. Not in the slightest.
I cried out as his fingers slipped into the bottom of my panties and brushed by my sex. I knew how sloppy wet I was, but embarrassment wouldn't come.
"So wet. I knew you wanted me too." He sucked my earlobe into his mouth and petted me softly as he grunted and rocked into me.
I would never have believed in a million years that I'd be on a beach pressed beneath Ethan Lewis had someone told me that was the future. Never. It was a dream come true, and yet nightmares played behind my eyes.
"Ethan." I panted against the salty skin of his neck. "Not here."
"No?" He moved back and pushed against the sand to sit up on his knees. "Come to my room then."
"You know this isn't going to end well."
He stood and pulled me up before picking me up. I yelped and smacked him in the chest.
"It's going to end with both of us coming like fountains. I'm thinking that's the goal in sex, right?" He kissed me again as my body purred for him.
"Yeah. That's the goal." I touched the side of his face and shifted to kiss him again.
He got us inside and set me down outside of his room. We were covered in sand and salt water, both looking like hell, and yet neither of us cared.
I slid my hands around his waist and cupped his cock, stroking him hard as I pressed my breasts against his back and my teeth into the thick meat of his back.
"I want you so goddamn bad my hands are shaking." He laughed before moaning and fumbling with the lock on the door.
"Me too. Hurry the hell up." I cupped his balls and licked up his spine as something burst open inside of me. I was giving myself to him and whatever the fallout looked like... fuck it. I would deal with it.
"There." He opened the door and turned to grab me, pulling me roughly against him as someone else grabbed me from behind.
"Hey. Sorry kids." Frank.
It was as if I'd been dunked in ice water. I yelped and moved into the room behind Ethan. My white dress was translucent at that point, and there wasn't much to hide.
"What the fuck, Frank? Get out, dude. Shit." Ethan was hot. Pissed in a way I wasn't sure I was comfortable with.
"I'm sorry. Seriously, but Riley left her cell phone here earlier. It's been going off nonstop. It's from LA. Just check it and make sure everything is okay." He handed it to Ethan and walked off.
"Here. Check it out while I run us some bath water. I wanna wash you up before I take my time getting intimate with every inch of you." He touched the side of my face and leaned down to kiss me hard once.
I breathed him in and moved back as he ducked into the bathroom.
The calls were from Charlotte. What the hell could be so important to blow up my phone over and over again?
I listened to them as each one got more frantic. I dropped down on the bed and pressed the phone to my ear as my heart beat so hard I grew faint. The last one was enough to make my food finish its trip up my chest and force me to run for the toilet to lose my dinner. I had to get home. Now.
The sound of her voice echoed in the bathroom around me as Ethan's strong hands pulled my hair from my face. He whispered words of comfort, but I couldn't seem to hear or feel anything other than her voice in my ear as the last message played over the speakerphone.
"Riley! Pick up the goddamn phone. Pick up." Crying. So much sobbing. Heart wrenching sobs. "It's your mom. She's... she's been in an accident. I'm at the hospital, Riley. I need you to get home. I don't know what to do." She sobbed a little more before the sound of muffled voices filled the line and Charlotte's soft scream bled into another round of sobs. "Oh fuck. She didn't make it. Riley. You need to come home. Your mom... your mom didn't make it."
Chapter 40
Riley
She didn't make it.
The truth of my reality played through my mind over and over as I sat in a coach seat on the quickest flight I could get back to Los Angeles. My fingers were sore from my picking at them, my fidgeting having quickly gotten out of control.
I'd barely had time to change into something more appropriate for being seen in public before racing off to find Frank with Ethan trailing behind me. He wanted to come with me, but they wouldn't let him. It was better this way. I didn't need to try and hold myself together in the face of yet another loss in my life. I would have tried with him there, but that wasn't fair to me, or my mother. No matter how many battles we had fought between the two of us, to lose her was devastating.
"Coffee miss?" A flight attendant leaned down and gave me a warm smile.
I nodded, unable to muster more than a soft murmur, "Please."
"You're shivering. Should I get you a blanket as well?" She stood back up and waited on my reply, but I wasn't quite sure why she thought I needed to cover up.
I glanced down and brushed my hands over my dark blue shirt. The translucent white dress I had on while playing in the surf with Ethan was in a heap in my room in Rio. Why the blanket?
"No, thank you though. How far are we from landing? I need to get to the hospital." I started to fidget again, ignoring the pain in my fingers as I picked at my cuticles and watched her intently.
"We're about thirty minutes out. You should rest." She patted my shoulder. "I'll get you something warm to drink and a blanket."
I nodded, not having the energy or the strength to question her. Jace or Charlotte would be at the airport to pick me up, even though it was four in the morning. The red eye flight was my only chance to get back to L.A. and try and see my mother before something horrible happened.
She didn't make it.
The nagging voice in my head continued to whisper the worlds of finality, but I ignored them. She'd been in an accident, and I would get a chance to see her while the doctors were working on her. Any other reality and I might lose myself in the darkness that hovered around me.
"Everything is fine," I whispered and glanced over toward the older gentleman sleeping next to me. "My mom's going to be okay. She's just been in an accident and they'll fix her up. She's the strongest person I know. She's the last of us. Just me and her. Darek died in a drive-by and left us. She wouldn't leave me. Plain and simple."
I yelped as someone touched my shoulder and turned to see the flight attendant watching me with sadness on her face.
"You okay?" She extended the coffee toward me.
"Of course." I tried to force a smile, but couldn't seem to get my cheeks to move.
"Here you go, dear. We'll be there in a few minutes. Just hold tight." She handed me a paper napkin and turned to walk back down the aisle.
"What's this for?" I called after her. The grumbling next to me let me know that I'd been a little bit louder than I thought with my question.
She glanced over her shoulder and tilted her head a little. "For your tears, dear."
* * *
I didn't remember getting on the plane, or flying across the ocean or getting off. I woke up with Charlotte clinging to the front of me, and Jace standing back, his face completely void of color.
"Hey. What's up?" I glanced around as I put my hands on Charlotte's shoulders and pulled away from her. "What's wrong with you?"
We were in the baggage claim area at LAX airport. The people around us weren't being subtle at all as they looked my way, their eyes wide with a morbid curiosity.
"Riley. Are you okay?" Charlotte gripped my shoulders as Jace moved closer and touched the side of my face.
"She's in shock, Char. Leave her alone." He gripped my hand and pulled me toward the turnstile as bags started to roll out of the opening a few feet from us. His arms felt good around me, his cologne familiar and delicious. "We're going to grab your stuff and take you home, all right, babe?"
"Home?" I wrapped my arms around him, which seemed to be the only available option see
ing how close he was standing to me.
"Yeah. We'll explain everything when we get there, all right?" He leaned down and kissed the side of my forehead, squeezing me tightly against his strong frame.
I closed my eyes and pressed my cheek to his chest, trying to remember what part of the last twenty-four hours had been real and which were the remnants of a nightmare. Ethan and I had finally agreed to move from being co-workers into something more like friends with benefits, but...
"There's her bag." Charlotte moved past us and pulled the bag from the turnstile as I stepped back from Jace and took a deep breath. Why was I here? Surely things would start to make sense soon.
Had I been fired from the movie? Was the filming over? No. It had only begun.
"Everything is so foggy. It's weird." I ran my hands up the sides of my face and glanced down toward the ground. "I remember being in Rio and playing in the rain with Ethan. We were heading back in and Frank grabbed me, shocking me a little."
"Come on. Let's get her to the car." Jace wrapped his arm around my shoulders and moved us through the light crowd toward the exit. "She's in shock."
"Shock about what?" I snorted and slid my arm around the back of his waist. "I'm good. I just must have fallen asleep in Rio and not really woken up yet. You know, like when you get in your car and you're stupid tired, but you still drive somewhere. Then you get there and basically wake up, and think, 'how the fuck did I get here'?"
"Shit. This is bad." Charlotte moved up on my other side and gave me a sad look. "You don't remember getting my phone call?"
"About what?" I glanced between her and Jace as my stomach started to turn. Panic raced up the center of my chest and left me a little lightheaded as we finally made it to Charlotte's car. She got in the front and after muscling my suitcase into the trunk, Jace helped me into the backseat and moved in beside me.
"About your mom, baby." Jace pulled me toward him and snuggled me like he used to when we were kids - when we thought we might actually be in love.
