by Jackson Kane
It’s Only Acting
A Secret Billionaire Romance
Bestselling Author
Jackson Kane
Copyright © 2017 Jackson Kane
All rights reserved.
It’s Only Acting is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. They are not to be construed in any way. Resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Cover design by Sara Eirew
Edited by Kim Byrd, Alice Ann Evans and Julie Ahern
Special thanks:
To my beautiful PA- Harlow Kane. The longer I write these books I realize how much more I depend on you every day. Thanks for being not only an amazing PA but also a great friend.
To Pepper, Red, Tre and the rest of my sexy Sugar Kanes.
And to my kick ass Kandy Kanes.
Craving more?
Billionaire Takes All
Bigger and Badder
My Holiday Secret
Mr. Lucky
Breaking Autumn
Billion Dollar Urge
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Preview: a taste of It’s Only Acting.
Olivia
“Tell me what you want,” Bastien demanded.
I've wanted this for so long, but...
Tell him? Out loud? Everything moved so quickly and felt so taboo. What if I was caught with him?
Part of me knew that the danger made it even hotter.
I had sobered up a lot from the nap and the water, but I was still a little buzzed. I wasn't going to blame that though. I did want him. I've wanted to feel him inside me for as long as I could remember. I felt the reigns on the life I've created slip through my fingers. The word came out as a sigh, “Everything.”
Bastien stopped kissing my neck and collarbone. That signature look of mischief washed over him and suddenly I was terrified.
Did I just sign a contract with the devil?
Bastien said nothing. He just took a deep breath and plunged beneath the bubbling water. I was confused at first, then I felt my panties get ripped off, literally torn from my body. I gasped. It was the sexiest thing to ever happen to me.
He wasn't going to do what I thought he was, was he?
Bastien's tongue dove into my pussy, with reckless abandon. Waves of pleasure pulsed from my clit, the sensation was only heightened by where we were, who was going down on me and how he was doing it.
He carved circles into my clit then sucked it. I lurched forward several times on the cusp of coming. It was Bastien eating me out. It was like tumbling into your favorite book. It was impossible, but also everything that I secretly wanted to happen.
The real world faded away and everything finally made sense.
When his tongue pushed into my pussy and began to curl, that was it; I was finished. I climaxed immediately. I'd never felt anything more amazing in my life. I moaned his name over and over, not caring if he was right or not about us being truly alone.
A second later Bastien resurfaced, and we were both gasping for air.
“Even underwater, you taste as good as I thought you would.” He kissed me and I wondered if I'd taste myself on his tongue. That thought got me even hotter.
“You were down there so long.” My body was still quaking from the aftershocks.
“I couldn't think of a better way to die, than with the taste of your pussy in my mouth.”
Chapter 1
Olivia
“Olivia!”
“Olivia, is it true that your family is under attack?”
“Olivia, can I get a quote from you about your father's condition? Olivia?”
“Olivia, do you think this is a retaliatory attack for your relationship with Samantha?”
Hotel security clears a path for me as I push through the throng of questions and camera flashes. The ravenous press howled all around me like a pack of hungry wolves. The hotel doors closed and I let out a quick sigh of relief.
Olivia. It was amazing how much I’d come to loathe my own first name. Had I ever liked it? The people who shouted it at me were either awestruck or wanted something from me.
Or, in the case of my father, perpetually disappointed.
The urge to text Samantha when I was safely in the lobby popped into my head automatically. I quickly cleared her from my mind. That was definitely over. It’d been weeks, and the hardest part of the breakup so far was just the loneliness.
I didn’t have anyone to share my concerns, fears, or just vent to and not feel judged.
Ever since I was a little girl it was always hard for me to make real friends and, now that I had ended things with Samantha, I didn’t have anyone to go through this scary time with. I was all alone in a sea of flashing lights.
I texted my stepmother, Trish, to let her know I was on my way up. She gave me the scoop about my father early this morning over the phone. I had no interest in visiting, but no. My presence was requested; Trish said that my father insisted.
My father was alright of course, he's too mean and bitter to die.
We weren’t close. This visit was just a formality; appearances for the press. “We are what the public perceives we are,” he'd always remind me. And that perception was that we were the first family of film. We were an 'acting dynasty, the Ward Legacy,' he'd say.
Granted since word got out about my relationship with Samantha he didn’t throw words like family and dynasty around much anymore.
Even still, he was my father. I couldn’t just turn my back on him, especially not after someone had tried to kill him!
“Olivia!” I froze for a moment, then hustled to the elevator without turning back. In here, like most of the high-end places we stayed, I was Miss Ward, not simply Olivia.
“Olivia!” The man behind me hollered. “Just a few words for the Observing Enquirer! What can you tell us about the attack? Are the rumors true about your father owing money to The Mafia?” It was no surprise a reporter from that magazine made it inside. Of all the press I'd ever dealt with, they were by far the most aggressive.
In truth, they made me very nervous.
I hustled away faster, my heels clicking loudly off the immaculate marble flooring. There were shouts from security, but they sounded even farther away. A well-dressed concierge in a red vest held the elevator door open for me. I just needed to get there to escape.
I shouldn't have worn these damn heels!
A hand grabbed my arm and jerked me around. I saw the microphone before I saw the man holding it, as it was almost shoved into my mouth. An exhalation of cigarette breath and wafting cheap cologne hit me like a slap. “Just a few words, Olivia. Your father’s debt. Was that what the attack—”
As quickly as the scent hit me, it was gone. It was replaced by the smell of a memory just out of my mind’s grasp. The reporter was violently thrown up against a nearby stone column. My first thought was that security finally caught up, but the guy who had the reporter pinned didn't look like any hotel employee I'd ever seen.
I could only see my savior's broad, muscular back. He wore a black baseball cap over short-cropped black hair, and a button-down shirt that was left open, untucked, with the sleeves rolled up. Both his chiseled arms were covered in tattoos, and his jeans had non-designer oil and paint stains. Definitely not a security guard, at least not for this place.
&
nbsp; The man was a mass of muscle and action that made my heart race. He had to be some sort of athlete that just happened to be staying here, a football player or something. I caught myself smiling despite the rush of adrenaline. It made me think of a boy I used to know, a boy who had stolen my heart then abandoned me.
“She doesn't seem to want to talk to you, pal,” the athlete wrenched the man's arm over with the skill and ease of a professional fighter. The reporter was flipped onto his back like a sack of old produce. At first he whined with threats, now it was just pain he whined with. “Now leave before you lose the use of your legs.”
That voice, though... Where did I know that voice from? It was driving me crazy! The athlete released the man into the care of the building's actual security. When he stood and turned to face me, all the color seemed to drain from the room.
“Hey, Olive.” His mischievous smirk held hints of danger. I would never forget those fierce brown eyes, but it was the way he looked at me that was unmistakable. It was confident and careless, yet intense. “Long time.”
Olive? Suddenly I was seventeen all over again. It was like the last six years never happened.
“Bastien?” I asked, in a daze.
Bastien Kontos was a dream given form. He had moved to our high school at the beginning of senior year. He was mysterious and oh-so-gorgeous, every girl fell at his feet. But it was me that he spent most of that year with. It was impossible to look at him and not think of our incredible prom night together. It was nearly overwhelming.
God, he looked so different now. He was so...manly!
My wonderment was quickly replaced by the flash of heat from old wounds; the kind that only came after a severe burn. I didn't know if Bastien expected a hug, but he sure as hell didn't expect to be slapped across the face.
Chapter 2
Bastien
Past
“That looks like it hurt. You alright?” I extend a hand to the quarterback that I just laid out with a monster tackle. The poor kid is splayed out on his back like a stoned turtle, too dazed to even grab my hand.
“That's how it's done, bitch!” Lenny, our team's tight end, collided with me in celebration. That was their last down, we just won. “Shit, Bastien, you're a monster! What is that like nine sacks? Bro...”
He kept talking, but I tuned it out. I focused on catching my breath. I closed my eyes. The late fall wind chilled the sweat and heat that radiated off of me. When I opened them, I found myself staring at half full stands. My eyes were drawn to one girl in particular, a girl I’d seen every day since school started.
She had brown hair with bangs that covered half her face, porcelain skin that could use a day at the beach, and despite how much she tried to cover it with loose dark clothing, I could tell she had a bangin' body.
She lived down the road from me and walked past my house to get to school every morning. I hadn't met her yet; she kept to herself mostly and didn't seem to have many friends. She wasn't the type I usually hung around with, but I'd been thinking about her a lot lately, usually while I was fucking around with some other girl.
Was it just because this girl was forbidden fruit?
She didn't look like a girl that was into sports. But there she was, hoodie pulled tight, trying to disappear into the bleachers. She seemed to wilt whenever I looked directly at her. Something about her timidity really turned me on. My mind started drifting to what it'd be like to peel her bulky layers off one by one. I had to adjust my jock to hide my hardening cock. Did she come to the game just for me?
I sure as hell hoped so.
“Lenny.” I cut short his insults to the other team. “What do you know about that girl up there. Bleachers, top left.”
Lenny whirled around and smiled. He pointed at the row of girls that hadn't taken their eyes off me the whole game. “Her?” he lets the word linger, then grunts like he just tasted the world's sweetest pie. “I'll forgive you because you're new. That piece of heavenly ass is the future prom queen, and every senior's wet dream.”
What? That didn't sound right at all. The girl I was looking at was cute, but I could tell right away that a wallflower like her wasn't going to be a prom queen.
“Stacy is the hottest, most popular girl in school. I think her mom's a senator or something.”
“What?” Stacy? That wasn't right; she didn't look like a Stacy. The blonde girl that Lenny was talking about winked and blew a kiss at me. “Nah, man. The one on the far left.”
Lenny squinted at the seats. “Who? Olivia?”
That name somehow sounded more appropriate. Olivia was only a row or two over from Stacy, but the fact that Lenny had trouble finding her was a testament to how easily the girl blended in. She liked to hide, even when she was out in the open.
I nodded.
“She's nobody.” Lenny made a dismissing noise. “But her dad's Delvin Ward.”
“The famous actor?”
“I shit you not. Look, man, that apple fell pretty far from the tree. Forget her. She'll just hurt your rep.” Lenny threw an arm over my shoulder and spread his other arm wide toward the girls that were watching me play. “'Sides, it looks like you got your own fan club already.” He pulled away laughing and slapped me on the back. “You goin' up for varsity wrestling too?”
“Depends.” I said. All the girls up there were waving and making eyes at us, but I looked past them all to the girl with the hood pulled tight. I could just barely make out her oval, porcelain face and her piercing, icy blue eyes. She had the eyes of a celebrity that you'd hang on your wall.
I thought about getting in her way tomorrow morning during her walk to school, but I decided against it. My dad moved us around so often with the Marines that getting attached to someone wasn't an option. I got maybe a year here and then we'll be somewhere else.
Olivia was weird and different. That's what made her so damned dangerous. I couldn't fall for a girl like her. It'd only hurt that much more when I had to abandon her. I knew who and what I was. I turned away from the stands, and away from Olivia.
“That the sport that gets the most pussy around here?” I asked Lenny. I was the bad guy that didn't give a shit about anybody. It was easier that way.
Present
“My new what?” Olivia's face fell at hearing the news, then lifted with the tone of her own outrage. “I don't need him, and I sure as hell don’t want him.”
It always got me hard when she got fired up like this; it was something in the way her light skin flared with redness.
Does she get red like that when she comes too?
I pushed the dangerous thought out of my head. I'm here to keep her safe until the threats stop, that's it. Six damn years should've killed all these cravings.
It's amazing that this was the same timid, flustered girl from high school. Gone were the bangs that covered half her face and the loose-fitting layers of clothes that made her invisible to the popular kids.
The Olivia Ward that stood before me was a very different woman. She had to be. After all, she was Hollywood's go-to actor for young-adult, adventure romance. Looking at her now, I could see why. She'd transformed into the jerk off material for every popular guy in high school that never gave her a second look at the time.
Her brown hair was now dyed a dirty blond that was long, layered, and confidently brushed out of her face. She still dressed modestly, but no longer hid behind her clothes. Today she wore a knee length white cotton dress, belted at the waist with a full sleeved lace jacket thing over it.
Olivia's piercing blue eyes were the same. Not even fame could dim or tarnish those.
Of all her movies, I'd only seen her first major one, and even then, I didn't make it all the way through. I couldn't sit there and watch her fall in love with some wimpy, scrub co-star.
I wasn't out of the theater for ten minutes before I found a fist fight to vent some steam.
“You are getting a bodyguard, Olivia, we all are. At least until the threats stop coming.” Her father, th
e legendary hack Delvin Ward, dismissed Olivia like she was a five year old. Then, with barely a pause, he rapped his ring against his empty scotch glass. Delvin looked at his wife. “Trisha, be a dear?”
One look at Delvin and you knew that he had to be a famous actor. With his square jaw, handsomely rugged, yet completely refined body type and Madison Avenue fashion sense, he just looked the part. He wore a light, graying beard and perfectly styled hair at all times, which often meant a personal stylist traveled with him almost everywhere he went.
Aside from leaving Olivia behind, the thing that frustrated me the most was that Trish never left Delvin. I knew why, of course. She was a devout Catholic and didn't believe in divorce. There was also the vicarious fame and wealth that came with the red-carpet lifestyle. It was extremely seductive, especially coming from such humble roots as a school teacher. Trish wasn’t a vain or greedy woman; I knew first hand that she foolishly fell in love with Delvin once.
Ever since then she’d always been too blinded to see who he really was, despite my warnings.
Trish got up and made her way across the room to the plush armchair before I stopped her. “Allow me, Trish.” I winked at her and took the glass from Delvin's expectant hand. “I am, after all, a humble employee of the Ward family.”
He shot me the glance of someone who expected poison to be slipped into their drink. And here I was, all out of poison.
“I'm twenty-three years old. I can hire my own bodyguard,” Olivia protested, trying not to look at me. It reminded me of the furtive glances she used to give me when she thought I couldn't see her.
She could hide from everyone else, but she could never hide from me.
“No. You can’t afford it.” Delvin snorted indignantly at Olivia. “I’ve frozen your accounts.”
“You did what?” Olivia’s face dropped as she started to protest. “You can’t do that! That’s my money! I earned that!”
