Falling From Grace

by Alexx Andria

  “Are you finished?” he asked calmly. “If so, you know where the door is.”

  “Raina…I’ll call you later,” Dani said, trying to placate the woman but Miles wasn’t going to let that woman influence Dani while he was trying to fix what was broken.

  “Nope. No calls either. You’re going cold turkey on everything and everyone I feel is standing in your way of treatment.”

  “So that’s it? And you’re okay with this?” Raina pressed, her stare boring into Dani. “Are you sure?” At Dani’s imperceptible nod, Raina barked a short, incredulous laugh as if she were watching a freak show and then she shrugged, saying, “Whatever. It’s your funeral, not mine. Don’t come crying to me when no one takes your calls any more.” Raina slow walked backward to the door, adding an extra dose of venom. “That’s the thing about this town babe…if you can’t be seen, you can’t be seen. You know?”

  Miles opened the door and the minute Raina stepped over the threshold, he slammed the door behind her and locked it.

  Miles closed the door and locked it, meeting Dani’s look of open distress as he decided right that moment, “We’re not staying here. Pack your bags.”

  “What?”

  “I said pack your bags. You’re coming back to St. John with me. After that display, it’s very clear to me that this place — and that woman — is toxic. There’s no way you’re going to escape the influence of these parasites around you unless you leave for a while. So…pack light. It’s very humid in St. John.”

  “I can’t just pack up and split L.A.,” she protested. “I have a job here.”

  “No, what you have is a deteriorating reputation and if people like Raina have their way, you’ll have nothing but porn directors looking your way when it’s all said and done. If you come with me, clean up, and get your head on straight, you’ll actually have a shot at landing that part in Falling From Grace, and honey, that’s the real prize — not some chance meeting with a lecherous director who probably uses the casting couch to pick his actresses. You feeling me?”

  Dani bit her lip and her eyes welled but she nodded. He’d never seen her so fragile, so unlike herself. What had this place done to her? “Okay,” she murmured, still not quite sure of what to do or say in the situation. She was so turned around and backwards, she didn’t know which way was up anymore but he’d help set her straight. No one deserved to feel so lost.

  Not even Dani.

  -4-

  Dani, packed and already boarding the plane, was a bit dazed that this was all happening so fast. Two days ago, if someone had told her she’d be boarding a plane to the Caribbean with Miles Lassiter she would’ve laughed in their face and told them to sell that shit to someone who’s buying. And yet, here she was, settling into the seat beside him, inadvertently catching a whiff of his cologne and shuddering with private awareness of every soft and tender part in her body. How was this possible? Did she care? Well, a little bit, if she were being honest. A part of her was so grateful for Miles’ intervention even though she could never admit that out loud. There were so many things she’d like to say to Miles, maybe even to explain how everything had gone sidewise so quickly, but then she worried that he didn’t care any longer to hear her reasons. That was the part that hurt the most — the indifference. Maybe he’d been The One. Heaven knew that when she’d been with him, she’d never been happier. Of course, she hadn’t actually known that what she craved had been in her grasp all along. No, she’d been too hungry for fame. And who was she kidding? She still hungered for that elusive high, which was why her stomach was unsettled and her nerves were jangled at the realization that she was leaving Los Angeles. You had to be around to be seen, as Raina reminded her. She looked to Miles. “How long is this little vacation?” she asked.

  “At least a week. Possibly two.”

  She swallowed the anxiety in her throat. “Two weeks? I can’t take that much time away from the scene.”

  “Sure you can.”

  “Miles…you don’t understand, Hollywood has a terribly short memory. I have to be around in people’s faces so that they don’t forget who I am.”

  “That’s bullshit. Nobody forgets about Meryl Streep and as far as I know she’s not out clubbing every night in the hopes of catching attention she doesn’t need.”

  Her cheeks burned. “Well, I’m not exactly Meryl Streep.”

  “Not yet.”

  His quiet confidence warmed her insides with unexpected joy and she smothered the irrational fear making her edgy. There was truth to his statement. Since hanging with Raina in the hopes of catching the right people, she’d done nothing but push the right people away. When she’d started this journey, she’d been so sure of how to shape her career but since her fame exploded, she’d been unsure of what the right move was and had leaned heavily on Raina and her crew for guidance. Maybe that’d been a mistake. “What did you think of Raina?” she asked, more for confirmation of her own misgivings than a true curiosity.

  “She’s a parasite. Where’d you meet her?”

  “At a club called Crimson,” she answered, glancing out the small window. “At first she seemed so much fun and for awhile, it was a lot of crazy fun but lately…I don’t know…I’m not sure Raina is good for me.”

  “Let me erase all doubt – she’s not. She doesn’t care about you or your work. You’re a meal ticket. There’s a reason people who become wildly famous stick to their original base of friends — because they can’t trust anyone else. I can almost guarantee that your ‘friend’ Raina has her own interests at heart, not yours.”

  Dani nodded, feeling like an idiot for letting someone like Raina run her life for the past six months. “After Judgment, things went haywire and everyone wanted a piece of me. I didn’t know how to handle it all. Raina seemed to have all the answers.”

  He grunted with a shake of his head. “Yeah, well, it’s what you wanted, right? Everyone wanting a piece of you? I seem to recall that was your biggest dream — total fame. I guess it’s true when they say, be careful what you wish for.”

  She shot Miles a reproachful look. “That’s not fair…everyone has dreams. It’s not nice to beat me up over mine. Besides, I didn’t know what I was truly getting into.” Or what I would lose. “Not everyone has everything in their head figured out.”

  “You’re right,” he agreed, adding with a shrug, “but somethings just come with the territory you’ve pegged as your destination. It’s up to you to keep your head straight when the world is turning.”

  Wasn’t that basically the same advice her dad had once given her? Thank God, her dad passed away two years ago, he would’ve been mortified to read the tabloids about her. Some of it was true, some of it was pure lies but no one ever took the time to sort it out. “How long is the flight?” she asked, fighting a yawn.

  “Long enough for you to take a nap if you want,” he said.

  “Do you mind if I use your shoulder?”

  “No,” he said, his gaze darkening ever so slightly, causing her breath to hitch. But he looked away before she could say anything aside from a murmured word of gratitude. She settled her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes, loving how secure she felt snuggled against him like old times. There was just something about Miles that’d always felt safe…like home.

  #

  It was going to be a long flight, Miles realized the minute Dani’s head touched his shoulder. Within moments, she was sleeping like a baby. Risking a stupid move, he bent to inhale the unique scent of her crown, closing his eyes against the wash of memories that threatened to drown him. Why did this feel perfect? No woman had ever fit him so well, as if they were two puzzle pieces interlocking together. So cliché, he wanted to groan but the truth was hard to shake and the memory of their first night together was even harder to stop.

  “Nice place,” Dani had offered, checking out his luxury apartment, openly appraising his pad, her fingers trailing along the marble countertop in the kitchen. “Doctors still make bank?
”

  “I do well enough,” he said, grinning. “Nothing compared to actors, of course.”

  “Well, I’m still in the starving artist category so this still counts as impressive. My last job paid me exactly $450, which didn’t even cover my half of the rent for my crappy apartment. My roommate had to spot me a few hundred and she was not happy about it. I’m good for it, but it just means I have to take on a few more day player gigs, which sucks because aside from the craft services — which I totally raid — there’s not much opportunity for advancement and it eats up my audition time.”

  “Tough business,” he said, handing her a glass of wine. “White okay? I’m all out of red.”

  “It’s all the same to me. I’m not exactly a wine aficionado,” she said, taking a short sip. “So tell me, Dr. Lassiter…how’s a guy like you still single?”

  “I could ask you the same.”

  She averted her gaze with a sly smile but didn’t answer, and instead took a place on his sofa, patting the seat beside her. “Pretty lonely over here,” she said, smiling when his brow climbed in playful suggestion. She tucked her bottom lip under her front teeth and he nearly busted out of his pants. Damn, she was sexy. She took another sip before asking, “So, you have me here…what are you going to do with me?”

  “I’ll do whatever you want me to do to you,” he answered with complete honesty. “But the question is…what do you want?”

  “I’m down for whatever.”

  “Are you always this accommodating?”

  “No,” she answered, placing her glass on the coffee table and reaching for his. “But there’s something about you that I can’t quite get out of my head.”

  “Same here.”

  She climbed into his lap and settled right over his already straining-to-be-free cock. His hands went straight to her plump ass, cupping her firmly. She smiled with approval and slowly pulled off her top. Her breasts, two mounds of soft, squeezable flesh, pushed the limits of her dainty bra and the spit dried in his mouth. “Like what you see?” she’d purred and all he could do was nod. “Good. Now tell me what you want. Don’t be shy. Chances are I want what you want, too.”

  “I want to fuck you,” he barely got the words out and God, he sounded like a horny teenager but she didn’t seem to mind. In fact, she liked it.

  “Tell me more.” Her smile deepened with dark pleasure and she rocked her hips, rubbing herself on his cock. “I like it when you talk dirty.”

  “From the first moment we met I wanted to bury my cock inside your hot pussy. Is that what you want to know?”

  She answered by unhooking her bra and tossing it to the floor. His eyes widened at the sweet, pink nipples pearling under his hungry gaze and he was certain he’d never seen such perfect, natural tits. Without hesitating, his hands left her ass to fill with her beautiful, full breasts. She shuddered as he squeezed, teasing the nipples between thumb and forefinger and she fell forward to seal her mouth to his, grinding her hips against the seam of his jeans, riding the cock beneath until he was desperate to shuck the offending material keeping him from those hot folds. “God, you’re so gorgeous,” he said, moving his mouth in a voracious path down the column of her neck.

  “Tell me how you wanted to fuck me,” she encouraged breathlessly. “Tell me what you wanted to do to me.”

  He closed his eyes and recalled his dirty thoughts from earlier. It’d been hard to play the gentleman when nothing but filth had been saturating his mind. “I wanted to bend you over the craft services table and fuck you while everyone else watched. I wanted them all to see what they couldn’t have…what was all mine.”

  “You want my pussy, baby?” she crooned, then gasped when his finger slowly entered her, pushing between the slick tender folds, while his thumb found the hard ridge of her clitoris and gently caressed the responsive button until she squirmed, breathless. “Then show me what you want!”

  He didn’t waste time. His thoughts were on fire and his body, taut with need. He’d never been so consumed with crazy lust to fuck a woman. Within seconds, he had her on her back, skirt around her hips, his jeans on the floor beside her bra, pushing her into the sofa, legs thrown over his shoulders, pussy lips dewed and ready. Holy shit…this was insane, he thought, desperate to guide his aching cock into her willing heat. No protection, no forethought, hardly any foreplay…and yet, she was grabbing at him, nearly mindless herself with the desire to be fucked. Sweat beaded their bodies as he pushed himself in, burying his cock to the base, going balls deep, sinking into that hungry orifice as it sucked and clenched his flesh like a beast trying to eat him alive. His eyes rolled up into his head as intense pleasure whited out his brain.

  Nothing seemed out of range between them. He fucked her raw but she was insatiable and when he came and she hadn’t yet, he didn’t hesitate to bury his face in her well-fucked pussy to suck and lick her clitoris to a crashing end. Hearing Dani break apart had been an insane turn-on and his softening cock had roused with near lightening speed, a feat he’d never in his life accomplished without more recovery time. But there was no denying, he couldn’t get enough of her and within seconds, he was bending her over the sofa to plunge into her soft, yielding flesh again and again. And when that wasn’t enough, he banged her against the wall, knocking down pictures — including one of the orphaned kids in Africa he’d helped give polio vaccinations to during one of his Doctors Without Borders stints — but he didn’t care about anything but that hot pussy gripping him from the inside, wrenching out an even bigger orgasm than the previous, melting him from a place of total abandon.

  They both collapsed to the floor, sweaty and breathing hard and Miles knew there was something special between them even if he didn’t know how to put it to words — or maybe he was just afraid to voice what was in his head for fear of sounding like a clingy asshole who didn’t know the meaning of a good time fuck. So imagine his surprise when Dani turned to him with wonder in her dazzling green eyes and admitted with a dazed grin, “I think we’re soulmates.” And his heart had answered before his mouth could catch up, sealing whatever fate had been scripted for them.

  “Yeah, me too.”

  Ahhh…fuck. The sound of his own voice echoing that misguided sentiment rang in his mind and he let out a tight breath as he roused himself from the memory and wiped the sweat from his brow. He glanced down at Dani as she slept, completely unaware that his trip down Memory Lane had left him with a raging erection and no way to settle it down. She was like a drug, clouding his judgment and making him do and say things he’d regret in the morning. Why else would he possibly think bringing her to his sanctuary was a good idea? He rubbed at his forehead with his free hand and Dani nuzzled his shoulder in her sleep, murmuring his name in her dreams. He stilled. What kind of memories was she replaying in her mental theater? Did she dream of his touch? Did she remember how good they’d been together? Epic wasn’t the word and even he could admit that what they’d shared sexually was out of this world. He hadn’t been able to find another partner who’d rivaled what he’d felt or experienced with Dani. He’d always told himself it was unrealistic to hope for the same connection with someone else but now he had to wonder…was the reason he and Dani connected so perfectly something far more deep than just sexual chemistry? Had Dani been…The One?

  No. Don’t go there. You’re here to clean her up and send her on her way. This was for Lindy. Not to rekindle a broken love affair that never should’ve started in the first place. A sigh built upon endless layers of frustration and confusion rattled from his mouth and he closed his own eyes, determined to quiet his brain…and the memories.

  Stay focused, Dr. Lassiter. Stay focused.

  #

  Dani knew it was a dream but she seemed stuck in a loop nonetheless. Richard, the spineless prick who’d somehow managed to convince her that he was a good guy, was holding up that cursed, homegrown DVD with a smug grin, wagging it at her like a weapon because that’s what it was – a lethal weapon against her
career.

  “It’s fun to play the good girl, isn’t it?” Richard grinned wider. “But I know for a fact, you like being the bad girl even more.”

  “Give it to me,” she demanded, her palms actually sweating as her nerves screamed in panic at the idea of that wretched moment in her life landing in the wrong hands. “Richard, I swear to God, if you—“

  “If I what? This DVD is my property and it’s going to stay in my hot little hand until you see reason.”

  “Reason? What the fuck is wrong with you? I’ve met someone else and I’m leaving you. Don’t you get it?”

  Richard’s grin faded and his gaze hardened into twin points of black granite. “No, bitch, you don’t get it. I’m not through with you, which means you don’t get to call the shots around here. I made you! Without me, you’d still be in Miner’s Edge, waitressing down at The Tasty Cup, begging for tips to make rent. You hear me? I pulled you out of obscurity and put you in touch with the right people so you could shake that scrawny ass in front of people who fucking matter. So, don’t go trying to say, just because you think you’re hot shit that you’re done with me ‘cause that ain’t happening. And just in case you think that’s the way it’s going down, I have this little insurance policy right here to keep you home where you belong.”

  Dani swallowed the sickening ball of fear and disgust in her throat. “Are you blackmailing me?”

  “I like to think of it as protecting my marriage — and investments — at all costs,” he said.

  “I don’t love you anymore,” she said, hoping to appeal to some sense of decency in the man but she should’ve known any shred that might’ve clung to the edges of his miserable soul had long since been flushed. “Please, Richard…that DVD…if it got out could ruin me.”

  “And why would I care about that if you’re leaving me?” he countered with a hard look. “If you’re leaving, what the fuck do I care what happens to your career? Now, let’s say, we’re still together, then that changes things doesn’t it? Suddenly, I have a reason to care about the welfare of your career, right?”