Westside Series Box Set

by Monica Alexander

  I glared at him, mostly because he was right, as he laughed at me.

  “You’re so sensitive,” he teased.

  I sighed as I looked out at the VIP section of the club we’d decided to try. It had a good scene, and the music was decent, although I thought I might have a headache coming on. Or maybe it was just my companion annoying the shit out of me.

  “What about Sabrina?” Dillon asked me. “You hit that yet? She’s definitely more your type, and she’s been following you around like a puppy. It would probably be fairly easy to close that deal.”

  “No. Definitely not,” I told him firmly.

  “Why the hell not?”

  “Dude, she’s a fucking psychopath,” I told him as I took a sip of my seltzer and lime, which was relatively tasteless and fairly disgusting, wondering why I was even bothering.

  It was because I was used to having a drink in my hand when I was out. It felt even weirder to order nothing. And for those who didn’t know I’d started abstaining, which was pretty much everyone in the world, me not having a drink in my hand would have raised more questions. A clear sparkling drink with a lime could have been anything really, and it helped me keep up appearances even if it tasted like shit. What I really wanted was a Sprite, but ordering that would make me feel like a twelve year-old, so I took small sips of my drink and pretended it tasted better than it did.

  “She’s not that bad,” Dillon said as he typed something into his phone, his eyes glued to the screen like they had been since we’d left the hotel.

  “She’s insane,” I said vehemently. “She offered me fucking coke, and she did it because she knew how much it would set me off.”

  “Actually, she offered you lipstick,” Dillon said as a text came through on his phone. He read it and responded, and then he waited, still staring at the screen.

  “I don’t give a shit what it really was,” I hissed in anger. “She was trying to push me toward the edge, and it worked. You don’t do that to an addict. And she of all people should know that!”

  “I think you should give her a chance,” Dillon mumbled.

  I rolled my eyes at the thought. I knew I’d told Sabrina that I’d talk to her, but that was mostly so she’d get out of my dressing room. I wasn’t interested in opening up to her in the way she wanted. She annoyed the shit out of me and had been practically stalking me for the past week. I was over it.

  “I’m not going to give her a chance,” I told Dillon. “I’m going to tell Damon that I don’t want her to be my sponsor. I know they made some deal, but he can find me someone else. Anyone but her.”

  Dillon finally looked up from his phone, his aqua blue eyes that our fans went nuts over, boring into me. “Don’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you don’t exactly have a lot of room to argue with what Damon wants at this point, considering everything you’ve put the band through. You’re damn lucky he didn’t kick your ass out after you basically fell off the planet with no notice. Do you know how much damage control had to be done, how many appearances we had to reschedule, and how much extra work you caused for too many people who support us?”

  I slumped against the back of the banquette, some of the fight going out of me as he reminded me of things I didn’t want to acknowledge. “Well, forgive me for going into rehab. I don’t think I really had another option.”

  “I know, and no one’s arguing with that, but it’s like you’re still afraid to admit to anyone that you have a problem. You’re too damn prideful to take the support that’s offered to you. You’re being selfish, just like you always are.”

  I glared at him, but a part of me knew he was right. I’d lived a self-centered existence for too many years to count. Outside of spoiling Gavin and sometimes Leah, I wasn’t sure how to think of anyone but myself.

  “You need Sabrina, Phillip. I know your ego is bruised and you’re pissed that you can’t do this on your own, since I know that’s how you’ve lived most of your life, but this is different. And you know it.”

  “It is how I’ve lived my life,” I agreed.

  Hell, I’d pretty much been on my own since I hit puberty. It was what I was used to.

  “I know, and I know how guarded you are. Trust me, man, I get it all, but whether you want Sabrina around or not, I think you need her.”

  “I need someone,” I finally admitted. “But why does it have to be her?”

  “What do you find so offensive about her?” he questioned. “I sort of think she’s the perfect person for you to talk to.”

  “Why? Because we’re both celebrities who fucked up?”

  “Yes, exactly. You never connected with Frank, because you had nothing in common with him. Sabrina gets your life. She lived it. She–”

  “I was never as crazy as she was,” I defended. “I was always in control when I partied.”

  Dillon laughed, but there wasn’t any humor behind it. “Yeah, until the time you almost died. Remember that? If not, maybe you remember the time you embarrassed all of us on national television. Or maybe you’ll remember the time Van had to pull you off the balcony railing at that hotel in Dubai when you wanted to see if you could walk it like a tightrope. Dude, you weren’t as together as you’d like to believe. Half the time you were a fucking mess. You just hid it better than most people. Sabrina wasn’t so savvy, but that doesn’t make her a bad person.”

  “Are you fucking her or something?” I demanded, hating how right he was.

  He glared at me. “Don’t go there. I’m dealing with enough shit from Mere right now,” he said, waving his phone in the air. It lit up with a text from Meredith, almost as if on cue. “I don’t need you insinuating things that aren’t true.”

  “It was a joke, man,” I told him quickly, not realizing how sensitive he was. I had no idea he and Meredith were fighting. “I know you love your girlfriend.”

  “I do,” he said definitively. Then he sighed. “If only that meant something.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Nothing. We’re fine. Listen, I know you feel like Sabrina’s being pushy, but it’s only because she’s worried about you. She wants to help.”

  “Yeah, she keeps saying that, but why does she even care? She doesn’t know me.”

  Dillon sighed. “Because most people, obviously not you, care about other people as a general rule of thumb. Sabrina gets what you’re facing right now, and she feels like she can help you through it. It’s called compassion.”

  “I care about people,” I defended.

  Dillon shook his head. “You care about six people. I think you can make room for one more.”

  I groaned, hating the direction this conversation was headed. I’d have much preferred to bury my head in the sand and pretend I wasn’t dealing with something so huge. I didn’t want to have to be friends with Sabrina. I didn’t want her to need to help me. I didn’t want to need anyone at all. I just wanted to be in a place where I was settled, where I didn’t have anxiety about being in social settings stone-cold sober, and where I didn’t want to grab the drink from Dillon’s hand and chug it down in one gulp. But I knew it was never going to be that easy for me.

  “Sabrina’s not as bad as you think,” Dillon continued. “I’ve gotten to know her over the past month, and she seems like a good person. I think you should give her a chance.”

  I sighed. I was going to have to give her a chance, regardless of how much I really didn’t want to. But I wasn’t going to admit that to Dillon – not yet.

  “I’ll think about it,” I told him.

  “I think that’s a good start,” he said, as his phone started buzzing. Meredith was calling him.

  I heard him answer and tell her to hang on as he stood up, probably planning to go somewhere where there wasn’t club music bouncing off the walls.

  He looked back down at me. “You going to be good here for a few minutes?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I might take off in a few. You cool with th
at?”

  Dillon nodded. “Yeah, man. I’m cool. Jase and Logan should be here soon

  Originally we’d gone out with the intention of meeting up with Dillon’s friend, Jase and his girlfriend, Logan. I knew them in passing, since Jase was an actor who lived in Hollywood, and we sometimes ran in the same circles. He was a good guy, and he was being considered for the lead role in the movie Dillon and Cam had written. I knew Dillon wanted to talk with him about the part in more detail, and it just so happened that we were going to be in San Francisco at the same time as them. They were supposed to swing by the club, but they’d texted earlier to say they wouldn’t be there for another thirty minutes.

  I didn’t really feel like sticking around. Clubs used to be more fun, but I wasn’t sure I was a fan of them anymore. It didn’t help that my jealousy meter was on high as I looked around at all the people who got to drink and party freely. I wished I could have been one of them, someone who could keep my shit in check, but I just wasn’t. Going back to the hotel seemed like a better alternative.

  “Cool, I’ll see you tomorrow,” I told Dillon.

  He gave me a fist pound and then headed toward the back of the VIP room. I watched him until he disappeared, and then turned around, figuring I’d signal to Greg that I wanted to take off. He was nearby, fending off anyone who tried to come near us. Sometimes I liked people to congregate, figuring the more the merrier, but I just wasn’t feeling it that night.

  But instead of Greg, who was a few feet away, my gaze landed on a pair of bare legs. I followed them up to the bottom of a very short skirt that was worn by a blond who was looking down at me in a hazy, yet determined sort of way, her hands on her hips.

  “Can I help you?” I asked her, wondering how she’d gotten to where she was standing.

  She smiled. “Hi Phillip.”

  “Do I know you?”

  I assumed I didn’t. Most of the world knew my name, and they didn’t hesitate to use it upon meeting me, even if we’d never been introduced.

  Blondie shook her head. “Nope, but I’m hoping we can change that.”

  “Sorry, I’m not interested.”

  She laughed lightly, like that was one of the most ridiculous notions she’d ever heard. She cocked her head to the side as her hand reached out, her index finger trailing down my jawline. I reached up and grabbed her wrist.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” I asked her.

  “Seducing you,” she said simply.

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re Phillip Lawton, and you’re insanely hot.”

  Maybe it was an ego boost that I’d asked, because the answer she gave was what I usually heard when I asked that question. She wanted me, and even though I already knew that, I wanted to hear it from her bubblegum pink lips.

  “And you think I’ll just fuck you because you want me to?” I asked her as I slid my hands to her hips.

  She tilted her pelvis, that happened to be directly in line with my face, forward a few inches. “I’m hoping you’ll do a lot more than that.”

  Okay, I was turned on. She was looking down at me with hooded eyes, and I was already half-hard imagining all the things she’d probably let me do to her. Maybe that was what I needed. But I wasn’t going to just take her back to my hotel without testing out whether it was worth it or not. I didn’t do bad lays.

  “We’ll have to see,” I said as I jerked her forward so she fell onto my lap, straddling my thighs.

  She grinned at me as her hands threaded through my hair and she lowered her lips to mine. As soon as I kissed her, I tasted the tequila she’d been drinking, and I felt like groaning. Just that little taste had me sucking on her lips, devouring her mouth as I tried to get my fill. As her tongue swirled with mine, she started to grind her hips against me, slowly dry-fucking me and succeeding in driving me crazy with want. And from what I was experiencing, I knew once she was naked, she wouldn’t disappoint.

  I was about to ask her if we could take the party back to my hotel when she slid her hands between us and tried to unbutton my jeans. I pulled back from the kiss, startling her and at the same time succeeding in pushing her hands away from my fly.

  “What are you doing?” I asked her, cocking my head to the side in a coy way.

  She smiled. “Just what I promised.”

  “Right here, in the middle of a club?”

  She shrugged. “Why not?”

  “Well, for starters, I don’t fuck in public,” I said, keeping my cool and shrugging casually. “Just a little quirk of mine, I suppose, but I’m not the kind of guy who likes to have his sex life on display for anyone who might want to record it.”

  She smiled. “I respect that. Do you have another suggestion?” she asked as she started to grind against me again.

  “I have a hotel room,” I offered, chastising myself as I did, hearing Dillon’s voice in my head.

  He was right. This was what I did. I hooked up with random girls who threw themselves at me. Leah was so far from the world I hung out in that it was crazy to think she’d ever go for a guy like me. I had no willpower to turn away a hot piece of ass. Because of that, I probably needed to just let go the insane ideas that had been on my mind where she was concerned. They were never going to happen.

  The blond’s hand cupped the back of my neck as she said, “Even better. How quickly can we get there?”

  “Ten minutes,” I told her as I firmly pushed Leah from my mind.

  “Sounds perfect,” she said, and then she slid from my lap and stood.

  Across from me, I could see Greg watching me with a smirk on his face. I cocked my head in question, but he just shrugged. I had a feeling he’d scouted this girl out, most likely knowing that I needed to get laid. He was good at finding the easy ones.

  “You want to call for the car?” I asked him.

  “I already did. It’s waiting whenever you’re ready.”

  “I’m ready.”

  Blondie kept her hands to herself as we made our way downstairs and out the back entrance of the club, but as soon as we were in the limo, she was all over me.

  “You need to sign this,” Greg said, thrusting his iPad at her when she came up for air.

  She turned to look at him. “Do you have a pen?”

  He handed her the stylus he had with him, and she signed her name without even blinking. Then her hand was on my dick, massaging me as she started to ease down onto her knees.

  “Hang on a second,” I said, interrupting her little teasing game.

  She looked up at me with eyes full of lust and blinked a few times. “Something wrong?”

  “You realize you just signed a legal document without reading it, right?”

  She shrugged. “Yeah. So.”

  “So, don’t you want to know what it says?”

  “I can guess, and I don’t really care as long as I get to fuck you.”

  I shrugged. “Okay, so you’re cool with the fact that you just signed your car over to me?”

  She grinned, as if she was onto my game. “I don’t have a car.”

  I nodded. “Then you agreed to give me half of what’s in your bank account. You’re cool with that?”

  She smirked at me. “If you want half of the two hundred dollars I have until I get paid again, you can take it.”

  Well that was a little sad and pathetic. I wondered how she’d managed to score her way into the VIP room in the first place. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

  “Look, Phillip, this isn’t my first time with someone famous,” she said with all the confidence in the world. “I know what an NDA is. I get it.”

  I guess she figured that was it, since she proceeded to unbutton my jeans and unzip my fly. I put my hand over hers, and she sighed in frustration.

  “What?” she demanded.

  “Listen, sweetie, this might be a commonplace situation for you, but before we go any further, I need you to understand my rules.”

  She sighed. “Okay, what are they?”
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  “No pictures, and no video. You don’t breathe a word of this to anyone. We use protection, even when you’re giving me head, and you leave when we’re done. No sleepovers. You got it?”

  She made a face. “But I hate the taste of latex,” she grumbled.

  “Not my problem,” I told her flat out. “No one’s mouth goes near me bare. That’s my rule. You want to fuck me, take it or leave it.”

  “I’ll take it,” she mumbled. “Do you have a condom?”

  “Why don’t we wait until we’re back at the hotel,” I told her. “We’re only a few blocks away.”

  She looked confused, so I continued, gesturing to Greg. “Greg’s a good friend of mine, and as much as he likes to pretend he’s a shadow, he’s not. I’m sure the last thing he wants to see is me getting sucked off by you.”

  “He could join us,” she suggested, shrugging slightly.

  “No,” Greg and I said in unison.

  “Well, that’s no fun,” she said, rising enough so she could take the seat beside me.

  “I promise we’ll have lots of fun in other ways,” I told her as I leaned over and sucked on her ear.

  She smiled. “I can’t wait.”

  “Me either, sweetie.”

  “You keep calling me that. Don’t you want to know my name?” she asked as I trailed kisses down her neck and shoulder.

  “I didn’t think that sort of thing would really matter to you,” I said as I nipped at her shoulder with my teeth.

  “It’s Melissa,” she said.

  “Great name,” I said, already having forgotten it. Her name didn’t matter to me. She’d be out of my life in two hours, and that was fine by me.

  “I’m going to make sure you never forget it,” she crooned.

  “Oh, I’m counting on that,” I told her, figuring what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

  I didn’t mean to be a dick, but I honestly didn’t know any other way to be. Not with girls like her. They came and went in my life, and that was fine by me. They served a unique purpose, and I supposed I did the same for them. I was one more celebrity they could say they fucked. It was a mutually beneficial situation, and it worked for me, especially on nights when I wanted to check out of my life and just forget for a few hours.