by J. J. McAvoy
“You’re coming to lunch,” he whispered, biting my neck.
“No.”
“Have it your way, then,” he growled.
He moved so quickly that I didn’t have time to blink before his belt was off and I was on my stomach. Tying it around my wrist, he attached the other end to the bedpost before grabbing my ass and kissing it.
“Damon, don’t—”
“Then wear the dress.”
“D—”
Before I could reply, his palm connected with my ass, sending shivers up and down my body. It hurt so good.
He didn’t stop there. He continued until I couldn’t handle it anymore.
“FUCK! DAMON…ah…” Rubbing my thighs together, I fought against his belt, trying to break free.
“There’s my girl,” he laughed, kissing both of my cheeks and even giving one of them a small bite. I felt the wetness slide down my thighs, my pussy throbbing with need. “Now, wear the dress.”
“Fuck you.”
SLAP!
“AH! Fuck!” he hit me so hard, I came, gasping.
“So soon, baby?” he teased.
“Go … screw yourself.”
He snickered. “I’d rather screw you—but not before you beg me to.”
He got off the bed, walking toward the bottle of champagne we had ordered with our breakfast. Lifting the bottle, he drank straight from it, watching me as I struggled and wiggled to get free, amused with himself. He reached in the ice bucket and grabbed a block of melting ice and placed it on the top of my back.
“Oh—” I shivered as it melted on my skin, the icy water slowly dripping down my spine. How could something so simple turn me on so fucking much? No matter how much I tried not to think of it, I couldn’t. The water dripped down the crack of my ass.
“Are you cold?” he questioned. I wasn’t sure if I was shivering from the situation or the ice anymore.
“Yes,” I answered, preferring the latter of my two choices.
“How about this,” he whispered, taking one of the scented candles from the bedside table.
“Damon—ahhh, fuck,” I gasped when the wax dripped onto my back and ass. There was no way to describe how it felt to go from one extreme to another. All my senses felt like they were being overloaded, and my pussy throbbed with need.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
“Blair, baby, you’re shaking.” His voice sounded even sexier, filled with the promise of relief if I gave in to him. “You want me this badly.”
Noah.
“Da—mon!” I moaned when he cupped my pussy, pinching my clit.
“I wonder what you taste like on my tongue,” he said, putting the candle to the side. He licked up my thigh to the source of my wetness. He didn’t just lick—he sucked. He latched on to my pussy and drank me in.
“That … that oh … feels so good.” I could feel his tongue as it licked the lips of my pussy before entering the folds and going deeper in me. The more I grinded into his face, the deeper he went, and just as I was about to lose it, he stopped.
“No … please,” I pleaded.
“Please what? Beg me, remember?”
“Please fuck me,” I gasped. “Please, I need you.”
“I win,” he replied, and I felt his cock press against my pussy, rubbing far too slowly for my own liking.
“Damn it!” I cried out in frustration as I tried to free my hands.
“Patience, baby,” he replied and instead of fucking me like I wanted him to—like I needed him to—he stopped so that I could say my last line as if he had entered me.
“Jesus—”
“Has no place being here,” he said, snickering and biting the tip of my ear.
“Cut.”
God fucking damn it all to hell.
I tried to control myself as he undid the ties around my wrists, and when I sat up with my back to the cameras, he put a sheet over me.
We both sat on the bed trying to breathe.
“Amelia, that’s all we need from you. Noah, we still need the shower scene.” Director Zane was the only one to speak. Nodding, I rose from the bed, taking the sheet with me.
We’d noticed during these takes that everyone was silent but the director, and I wasn’t sure if that was because the director told them to be or because they weren’t sure what to say to us after watching us “pretend” to go at it like animals. However, with each scene, Noah and I were blurring the lines between acting and reality. I had to stop myself from calling out Noah’s name instead of Damon’s more that a few times.
Chapter Ten
Amelia
When I got back to Noah’s—our—suite, Ollie was leaning against the door, his head down and arms crossed.
“Ollie?” I said.
He glanced up, his face tired. But he still put in an effort to smile as he kicked away from the wall and stood up straight.
“Done with your scene?” he asked.
“Yeah, they still wanted Noah, so I figured I’d take a shower and call it a night.” He never stayed for the sex scenes, and I couldn’t blame him. “Is something wrong?”
“You mind if we talk for a second?” He moved from the door to allow me to open it.
“You’re scaring me, Ollie,” I joked, swiping the key and entering the dark room. I had to feel around the wall for a second before turning on the light.
The suite had been cleaned since we had left in a rush early this morning. Ollie took a seat on the tan couch, right in front of the mahogany coffee table, waiting for me to sit down as well.
This was serious.
“Ollie—”
“I want to start off by saying you did nothing wrong, Amelia,” he sighed, sitting on the edge of his seat when I sat down across from him.
“It doesn’t feel that way,” I responded.
What is happening?
He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. His eyes shined as though he was fighting back tears.
“Ollie—”
“I remember when you first came into my office, Amelia,” he smiled wistfully, lifting his hand a little bit above his knee. “You were so small, but I swear I saw this giant in you. You didn’t even know who the hell I was, yet you smiled so wide I thought your face was going split in half. Your mother and I both knew you’d be an actress. But you were so young I thought it best to start you in commercials and ads first. You breezed through them and wanted to do everything. I remember you hated the taste of chunky peanut butter, but the moment the director said ‘action,’ all of the sudden you were shoving a spoonful into your mouth. Some kids can get away with just being cute, but not you, Amelia. You had pure talent. Everyone could see it.”
I felt my throat close as I stared at him. “Ollie, I don’t like where this is going.”
“Neither do I.” His hand covered his mouth. “I’ve been with you your whole career—hell, your whole life—and I love you as if you were my very own flesh-and-blood daughter. It’s for that reason that it’s time I retire, and it’s time you get a new manager.”
“Ollie, I don’t want a new manager!”
“Just because you don’t want it doesn’t mean you don’t need it,” he replied, and it hurt that he could just walk away. “Part of me knew this would happen when I got the script for Sinners Like Us…I had to fight with myself, Amelia. I didn’t want to give it to you. You were desperately looking for a new role. You have the talent, and I didn’t want you to take the script because I didn’t want to see the girl I saw as my daughter in those scenes. I was acting like your father and not your manager.”
“But you gave me the script. Everything is fine. At the end of day, you always do what is best for me, Ollie.”
“That’s why I’m doing this, Amelia,” he threw back at me. “You are not the same girl—woman—you were a few weeks ago. And that isn’t just because of Noah Sloan. A few days ago, I watched, in total awe, as you didn’t eat or sleep until you got justice not only for N
oah, but yourself. You did what you wanted, what you thought was best for you, without asking me or second-guessing yourself, like an adult. I’m proud of you, Amelia. You need a manager that works for you, does what you need, not what they think is best for you. You don’t need me parenting you.”
“You can’t leave now,” I whispered, trying to think of anything to keep him with me. “They moved up the movie release. There is all this press around us now because of what happened with Mallory. There is so much to do. You can’t leave me now.”
“I’d never leave you with anyone I didn’t trust, and I won’t just disappear, but you will be seeing less of me as we transition you over.”
“Ollie, please!” I pleaded.
“Amelia, what have I always told you?”
Biting my bottom lip, I looked up so I wouldn’t cry in front of him. “That you’ll always do what’s best for me even if I don’t like it.”
“Exactly. Thank you for wanting to fight me on this. I’m glad I mean as much to you as you mean to me,” he said, coughing in an attempt to hide the fact that his voice wavered.
“Of course you mean the world to me,” I said. I stood and walked around the table to hug him. “You are the closest thing I’ve ever had to a dad, Ollie.”
He patted my back softly and broke away from me.
“Cheer up. I’ll still be in your life, no matter how badly it annoys that playboy you call a boyfriend. Now get some rest. You can’t put any more stress on the director, got it?”
“Got it,” I nodded.
He patted my shoulder, smiling at me one more time, and then headed to the door. I wanted to tell him not to go. I felt like the moment he stepped out, he would never come back. I didn’t say a word, just stood there watching as he offered me one last look and closed the door behind him.
“Uhh,” I let out the sob I’d been holding. Why? Why? Couldn’t people just stay around? If it weren’t for him, God only knows where I’d been now. Every time the world shifted under my feet, Ollie held me steady.
Knock.
Knock.
“Ollie?” I rushed to the door, not bothering to look through the peephole, and I wished to God I had. Because it wasn’t Ollie—it was my real-life mother, dressed in a vintage-style black-and-white cocktail dress with pearls on her ears, wrist, and neck.
“Hello, sweetie.” She invited herself in, heels clicking on the ground as she glanced around the suite with fake curiosity.
“Mother, what are you doing here?”
“Well, you see, something just isn’t right,” she said in tone much colder than usual. “My daughter was brutally attacked mere days ago, and she didn’t bother returning any of my calls…”
“I’m sorr—”
“Then I find out that my other two daughters spent the whole day with her, and not once did anyone think of me. Did I die and everyone forgot to tell me?” she questioned, still not facing me.
“Mother—”
“And that,” she spun on her heel, pointing her red polished nail at me. “In the twenty-five years you have been alive, not once have you ever called me Mother, Amelia.”
Panic.
Fear.
It came over me like waves when I looked into her cold, dead eyes. She didn’t look anything like the woman I knew.
“He told you, didn’t he?” she guessed. Her eyes narrowed in on me. “How much, though? The fact that I forced his low-life self to break up with you?”
Run, Amelia, my mind screamed. But I couldn’t move under her gaze.
“No,” she said. “Then you would be pissed, not scared. So…” She took a step closer to me, and I took a step back. At that, she glared. “Skylar DeGray.”
I clenched my fist.
“Yep, you know,” she said as if it were no big deal. “But than again, even at that, I’m still your mother. You still called me ‘Mom’ right up until your debacle with Ray Mallory. So I’m guessing, and tell me if I’m wrong, you figured out what happened there as well?”
“You had him attack me!” I finally said it. Finally, I confronted her, and she just waved her finger at me.
“Not at all,” she replied, casually moving over to stare at the oil painting of fruits hung on the wall. “I set up the pieces, but it isn’t my fault if someone else knocks them down. Did I know Ray Mallory had a thing for young women? Yes, but every man does. To my credit, I did keep you away from him when you were younger. He was infatuated with you. But then again, far too many grown men were. And yes, I knew the moment you saw those damn butterflies you’d go up to see them. Why? I had no idea, but I knew you would. Then there is the last piece, Noah Sloan. That boy couldn’t stand to be more than ten feet away from you since the day you both met. I figured he would come to find you before anything happened. I’m not heartless.”
“You’re not heartless,” I repeated, laughing bitterly even though the tears dropped freely from my eyes. “What if he hadn’t come? What if—”
“I would have stepped in. Don’t blame me, because it’s his fault for pushing me this far!” she screamed, raising her voice at me for the first time since I was a child. “I. Warned. Him. To. Stay. Away. I warned him ten years ago, and I warned him recently. He ignored me! So I figured maybe a few days in jail, getting kicked off the movie, destroying whatever was left of his lousy career would be enough. But I have to hand it to you, sweetie—somehow you turned it around in just two days. And here I thought you were just a naïve little girl, unaware of all the bad things that happen in this world because I kept them from you. ME!”
She grabbed a vase, throwing it to the ground, where it shattered on impact.
“Everything you have,” she said, grabbing the painting from the wall and flinging it at me so quickly I barely had time to duck, “everything you are, is because of me!” She pushed everything off one of the tables.
“It was me who carried your ungrateful self for nine months as you destroyed my career and body! Me who fed you and clothed you with the finest sheets of silk and cotton! Me who listened to you whine and cry when someone didn’t think you were pretty. Amelia London? Who the fuck would she be if it weren’t for Esther London?” She pulled at a lamp, the cord ripping from the wall, and swung at my head like it was bat.
“Mom, stop!” I said, falling back onto the couch and dashing to the other side when she swung for a second time.
“’Mom?’ No ‘mom!’ You, you ungrateful little bitch, have no right. For everything I have done for you, you don’t deserve to have me as a mother!” She threw the lamp and tried to get away, but she tripped on the corner of the table, falling at my knees.
The moment I turned back, she grabbed my neck, glaring down at me. “Having you was the worst thing that ever happened to me, but I made the best of it. Now you want abandon me for that boy?”
“M—om,” I gasped. I couldn’t breathe. She was going to choke me to death. One of my hands went up to hers on my neck. The other searched the ground until I grabbed a large shard of the broken vase, not caring that it cut my palm. I stabbed it into her arm.
“Agh!” she shouted, releasing me. I got up, my whole body shaking with rage.
“I hate you!” I said to her, lifting my arm and stabbing her again, and again. I couldn’t think. I just wanted her gone. I needed her gone!
It was only when she stumbled back to the couch and I could see the blood everywhere that I dropped the shard in my hand.
She laughed. Looking like a broken and bloody Audrey Hepburn doll, she laughed at me.
“Now you’re just like me … murderer … murderer … mur… der…er …” her voice trailed off.
Oh, my God! Oh my God!
I fell back on my knees beside her. She didn’t move. She didn’t speak. Her blue eyes just kept staring at me.
“Mom ... Mom.” I smacked her foot. She didn’t move.
Shit!
Pushing myself from the ground, I ran toward my purse, digging through it until I pulled out my phone. I pushed t
he first two numbers. 9 … 1 …
No!
I couldn’t. Shit. I couldn’t call them, so I called the one person I knew would always be in my corner no matter what, and on the first ring, he answered.
“Amelia, I was just about to call—”
“Come back to our suite! Right now. Come back, and come alone!”
“Amelia, what’s wrong?”
“Noah, come back!”
“I’ll be there in there in three minutes.”
It was the longest three minutes of my life. Hugging the phone to my chest, I slowly tiptoed back around the couch, hoping it was a nightmare and that she wouldn’t be there, but she was. My legs gave out again. I found myself unable to look away.
What did I do? Dear God, what did I just do?
“Amelia! Amelia!” The door slammed when he rushed in, and I turned back. He dropped beside me. “Amelia, what happened?”
He couldn’t tell?
Numb, I faced him and whispered, “I killed her.”
He finally looked away from me and to the body that once belonged to my mother laying less than a foot away from me.
“What do I do, Noah? What do I do? I didn’t mean to. She confessed. She did it all. What do I do?”
He stepped between me and her, blocking her body from my view and cupping the sides of my face.
“You are going to get up and strip down. Everything—your underwear and your jewelry, I want you to throw it on the ground. Then you will go into the bathroom and touch nothing but the shower knob. I’ll fix this.”
“How?”
He looked me dead in the eyes and shook his head as he took off his coat. “Amelia, don’t argue, just listen to me, okay?”
Nodding, I got up off the ground, stripping like he said, everything falling off me and into a pile by my feet. When I was completely naked, he used his coat and wiped my hands as best he could and then bent down to wipe the blood off my foot. It was only then that I realized I had tripped and lost one shoe. My left foot was covered in blood.
“Go. Remember, don’t touch anything,” he said. Nodding, I did as he instructed as he dialed on the phone.
When I got into the bathroom, I didn’t want to see myself, but I looked anyway. The thing I noticed the most were my blue eyes staring back at me, just like she did.
