Exposure

by Morgan

  “David! What was it like working with Kyle on-set while you were working on his wife off-set?”

  “Michelle! I know he’s young, but aren’t you trading down?”

  “David! What does your mother think about the fact that your new girlfriend is almost as old as she is?”

  Shaunna walked slightly ahead of them both, clearing their path. She was pulling her own bag and trying not to cringe at the ruthless verbal attack on a “relationship” she knew the fans adored. Paparazzi were considered neither media nor fans (nor human, for that matter).

  Still, David was green, and keeping one’s mouth closed in situations like this was easier said than done. It took practice and, sometimes, medication.

  He recognized the desperate nature of their questions, however. It was almost as if they knew that the only way to get celebrities to talk was to shock them into responding. This understanding made it easier for him to resist.

  Being photographed within the confines of the airport was inevitable, but if the paps got no words out of their target, then they usually felt as though an opportunity had been wasted. David was thrilled to deny them any fodder.

  Anticipating the airport frenzy, Shaunna had called her father the evening before and arranged for a car and his personal driver, Benny, to take David and Michelle to Malibu. She needed to retrieve her own car from the long-term parking lot, but hopped into the dark SUV with the duo to avoid a ride on the shuttle bus. She planned on a detour home before joining them at the beach.

  “You did very well, David,” Shaunna said once they were all safely enclosed in the vehicle. She’d been planning to offer him further reassurance, but her words were swallowed by the concern that swam into her eyes once she turned to Michelle.

  “They were unfair and vicious, and you’d better not believe one word of their crap.” Shaunna was in awe of Michelle’s self-control and poise under such intense pressure. She believed that almost anyone else would’ve started bawling if they’d been peppered with such garbage.

  “They failed.” David’s words carried the weight of a general informing his troops that the war was finally over. He looked at Michelle. “You are the best actress I’ve ever worked with…and the most beautiful fake girlfriend I’ve ever had.”

  He winked in her direction, and the car filled with giggles for a moment before the conversation turned to planning the afternoon.

  David was quite willing to enjoy Michelle’s invitation to stay with her, but insisted that he only occupy one room and be allowed to contribute to household costs.

  Shaunna and Michelle rolled their eyes simultaneously, but agreed to his terms. As they dropped Shaunna off at her car, David sprang out and ran to the trunk before Benny had even turned off the engine.

  Benny looked at David in his side view mirror and pushed the button to release the trunk with a grin and a shake of his head. The kid was just making his job easier.

  “I’m that one.” Shaunna pointed to a dark green Jaguar.

  David’s eyebrows sprang up so high that he might have interfered with air traffic. “Nice.”

  Shaunna crossed her arms. “They’ll be coming soon, David. We’ll want to be gone by then.”

  David’s eyebrows landed, even though he was more surprised than ever. “What? It’s not over?”

  “Not by a long shot,” Michelle added, popping her head out the rolled down tinted window. “Most of them will try following us through the city, but of course, they know where I live already, so we’ll find a new batch of them sitting outside the gate.”

  “Yeah, well, they don’t care about me much anymore,” Shaunna said. “And I want to keep it that way. Good luck, you two.”

  David put Shaunna’s bags in the trunk and closed it with a solid thunk. “I’ll see you this evening, then?”

  “Sooner,” she cooed.

  David drank her words like wine and climbed back into the car with a smile that quickly became a full-on dopey grin.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  SHAUNNA RETURNED TO HER HOME in Yorba Linda long enough to take a bath and change her clothes. She indulged in both bubbles and Ray Charles during her bath, but didn’t stay inside the tub for more than a few songs. Her goal was to relax and unwind before leaving for Malibu, but she found that the longer she stayed away from David, the more anxious she became.

  When she pulled up to the estate gate, there were three cars parked nearby. Men with obscenely large cameras around their necks and wrinkled pants were smoking cigarettes and ignoring her. She was glad. It meant her Texas tantrum hadn’t truly transformed her into a celebrity, and therefore, she wasn’t important enough to photograph.

  Code punched and car parked, Shaunna began walking toward the carved wooden double doors at the front of Michelle’s house. As she passed Kyle’s car, parked right where she’d left it for him, her skin crawled.

  The doors opened into a tall room dominated by columns that drew the eye up to a domed ceiling accented with snowflake-shaped skylights.

  David was standing in the middle of the champagne marble floor, waiting for her. The skylights were trapping him in bars of thin light that swept over his skin in silent brilliance.

  He’d changed his clothes. She would’ve expected for him to dress in shorts and a tee shirt, but instead, David was wearing his navy blue suit, complete with pinstriped vest. His outfit was complemented by shiny black wingtips that kicked sunlight back up at the walls when he shifted his weight.

  “Michelle asked me to tell you that she will be in her room for the rest of the night and will see you in the morning for the meeting with Mr. Harper.” David spoke with efficiency, but his eyes were wild with extra-curricular thought.

  Shaunna closed the front door, and David began walking toward her. Shaunna held up her hand, and he froze.

  “Stay there,” she instructed him while dropping her purse on a wall table. “In the light.”

  She closed the distance between them with deliberate steps and pulsing, open lips. David actually braced himself for her arrival into his arms.

  The first parts of their bodies to touch were their hands, and with fingers laced together, they pulled each other into a kiss.

  David found a sprinkle of sunlight on Shaunna’s neck and enthusiastically covered it with his mouth. She ran one of her hands up his strong back and rested it on his warm neck.

  “I’ve been waiting for you for so long.” Shaunna spoke the words and listened as they were returned to her by the faint echo in the room.

  “Your wait is over.”

  His eyes were locked on hers, and his breath, sweet like candy, brushed her lips. He took her by the hand, leading her to an oval-shaped staircase that sank into the right half of the room. Before they began climbing, she pulled him in another direction.

  “We have unfinished business. This way.”

  David played along. “Are you giving me the tour? Michelle only showed me the kitchen. That and my room. It’s right next to yours. By the way, I didn’t know you had your own room here.”

  “It started out as my office, but I spent so many late nights here that Michelle had a bed brought in,” Shaunna replied simply. The two women had discussed David’s living situation via several more texts during the flight, and Shaunna suggested that the exercise room would make a nice large living space for David. It even had its own bathroom and daybed.

  “I’m sorry about the treadmill,” she added after a few more steps. “We’ll move it out together tomorrow. And get you a bigger bed.”

  David laughed. Once he got her undressed, he had no intentions of letting Shaunna put her clothes back on, let alone help him move a piece of exercise equipment. Still, he listened to her plan it all out as she guided him through hallways he’d never seen. Kyle had a billiard room with a train set up where the pool table should be. He also had a library that appeared to be half-empty. The occupied half was filled with what looked like entertainment magazines. It made him want to throw his own newly begun c
ollection away.

  The house was old. The walls were constructed with thick stone squares and reminded David of a castle.

  Shaunna made one last turn, opened a heavy door, and revealed an indoor oasis.

  “No way!” David was stunned. They were on the edge of a natural-looking spring, complete with a functioning waterfall.

  “The water is a little on the cool side,” Shaunna cautioned. “But you’ll get used to it fast.”

  “No windows,” David observed.

  Shaunna had already thought heavily on the matter. “Actually, we’re safe anywhere in the house except for the upstairs rooms that open to the balcony over the driveway.” She began taking off her clothes. “But this is as private as it gets.”

  “This place is amazing!” It was clearly a product of the late eighties inside out craze that swept the decadent West Coast mansions, but he was grateful that the intimate lagoon was still available for their enjoyment.

  When his eyes settled on Shaunna again, she was completely nude. Her pert nipples were beacons to the gentle valley between her round breasts. David’s stare followed the path of least resistance all the way down to the tiny and tidy garden of brown curls that split the river of skin.

  He suddenly realized how very, very overdressed he was and fidgeted slightly as he dragged his heavy eyes back up to hers. “Allow me to reciprocate,” he murmured as he began to loosen his necktie.

  “Let me,” Shaunna offered as she stepped toward him.

  David obediently dropped his arms to his sides, allowing the naked woman to undress him.

  “This is a nice tie,” she commented as she slid it from his neck. “You had it with you in Texas?”

  David nodded his head. “I brought all my clothes with me.”

  “Of course you did,” Shaunna said as she walked around behind him and removed his jacket.

  She especially liked the way men looked in vests when their jackets were off. She admired how David’s fit figure was accented by the almost corset-like nature of his pinstriped, three-buttoned special. Shaunna appreciated him as she completed her circle.

  She then backed up to get, and give, a better view.

  “Have a seat.” Shaunna gestured to a custom rock bench near the edge of the black tiled pond. David sat, and she began removing his shoes.

  He looked down at the nude beauty working the laces and willed himself not to be ticklish for the next thirty seconds of his life. Her touch, however, was too delicate, and he was just too tender-footed. David chortled and twitched, giving himself away. To her credit, Shaunna did not take advantage of her newfound knowledge until she had removed his other shoe and both his socks. She feathered the balls of his feet with her fingers before she allowed him to stand again.

  “Don’t worry,” she assured him as she began unbuttoning his vest. “I’m ticklish too.” She opened it and then pressed her firm body up against his while she claimed another kiss.

  Shaunna began unbuttoning his shirt before she took his vest off, and when she reached the last button, her busy hands kept working down his body.

  She unbuckled his belt and unfastened his pants with care. David was pressing so tightly against his boxer briefs that she had to pull the zipper away from the bulge first. She slid his trousers and underwear down his legs in a slow, steady movement.

  Shaunna regarded his arousal. He definitely had plenty to work with, and more importantly, it was as appealing as the rest of him. He was smooth and straight and grew even harder before her eyes. She moved in to strip away his remaining clothes, and the moment his erection touched her belly, he closed his eyes and sighed.

  She smiled and glanced down. “You like that?”

  “Yes. You feel so warm.”

  She laughed. “I was going to say the same thing about you.”

  David eagerly took over removing his shirt while Shaunna gently caressed his thick shaft. She enjoyed the way it filled her hand.

  She felt mighty.

  David watched as she first looked at and then bent down to lick him. She was initially timid, tasting, sampling, but soon was swallowing with greedy grace. She knelt down on his jacket and swirled her tongue around his vivid pink tip until it was as shiny as his discarded shoes.

  She paused briefly to admire her handiwork. Then she resumed pleasing him with her mouth. She took breaks often to allow David to watch her stroke him while she took in the results of her effective technique.

  “We’re going to get the first one out of the way, if you don’t mind,” Shaunna informed him matter-of-factly.

  “Okay.” David sounded like he was accepting an offer to help him out of a barn fire.

  “Good.” She turned her mind and her mouth back to her task, and David gulped before he sighed her name.

  She liked the way he sank his hands carefully into her hair and called her name repeatedly as he spilled over. She adored the pulsing rush released in her mouth and milked all she could from him before he was allowed to withdraw.

  “Now, let’s finish that swim we started in Texas.” Shaunna walked to the water, and he watched her round rear disappear into a reflection of itself.

  “And then?” he asked somewhat breathlessly as he followed her.

  “And then…you’ll be allowed to reciprocate.”

  David caught up to her behind the waterfall. His hard, wet arms surrounded her, and she instantly felt like she was protected from the world. “Technically,” he began in a low, determined voice, “to reciprocate would require no recovery time on my part.”

  There was a flat but worn rock ledge that sat just above the waterline, and he lifted her up onto it before she could protest.

  Then, with his face at her knees, he asked permission. “Can I kiss you?”

  His hands crept languidly along her calves, but waited for her command.

  Shaunna arched her back. She then opened her legs to him and awaited the touch of his mouth on her soft flesh.

  David moved his hands up and down her thighs as he delivered tiny kisses to the warm, pink skin she offered him. When he began to thoroughly explore her satin creases with his tongue, Shaunna moaned softly.

  David clearly loved to kiss and suckle and flick and swirl. It was the satisfied grunts and moans emitting from his own throat that made her mercury rise.

  He put his hands on her inner thighs and opened her legs farther as he immersed himself in her scent and her honey taste.

  She wondered what David was thinking about as he worked so hard for her, bringing her closer and closer to what was going to be a frighteningly strong climax.

  David was thinking about how much he truly wanted to satisfy her, body and soul.

  Shaunna restrained herself for as long as she could. It was already the best any man had ever done for her in that regard, and she wished to savor the memory, but her orgasm was like a steamship: even if she wanted to stop it, its momentum would propel her into oblivion in mere moments.

  Shaunna came with such force that she was still gasping for breath a minute later. David gingerly lifted her back into the refreshing water with him, holding her in his arms until she recovered her senses. They listened to the thundering waterfall nearby, and Shaunna thought it was probably the only thing that kept him from hearing her heartbeat.

  She reluctantly left his embrace with a promise of a swift return. She swam away, and when she stepped out of the man-made pond, he observed beads of water racing down her round bottom. She fetched towels from a tucked-away cubby hole and held his out to him while diamonds of clear liquid clung to the bottoms of her breasts.

  “Now we can go upstairs,” she told him.

  He left their oasis and took his towel. To Shaunna’s pleasant surprise, he immediately began to dry her off with it. She wrapped her hair in her towel as he lovingly patted her down with his. Once he was satisfied with his efforts, Shaunna turned and produced two bathrobes, both pale green in color and very fluffy.

  They gathered their clothes and carried them
upstairs to Shaunna’s room, which had a California King bed and an ocean view. David opened the sliding glass door, and a warm breeze plucked at the robe around his legs.

  “If those photographers get themselves a helicopter, we could be in trouble,” he wryly observed as he watched the outermost waves develop.

  Shaunna pulled the thin white curtains in front of the open door. They billowed out, but blurred the horizon. “There. Now they need a helicopter and scissors.”

  David spun her around and pulled the towel from her hair. He then dropped his own robe to the floor, and they walked hand in hand to bed.

  They lay on their sides and placed their foreheads together.

  “I was in such a rush before, but now I just want this to last all night. I want to savor you.” David spoke earnestly, his gaze locked firmly onto hers.

  They kissed for a long time, learning one another’s bodies with tongues and hands that moved leisurely over cool skin. After a while, David turned Shaunna over on her stomach and began rubbing her back and shoulders.

  His caressing hands were wonderful, and she could have easily let him massage her to sleep, but she wasn’t about to let this opportunity pass her by. When she was fully relaxed, Shaunna turned over and placed her feet sole to sole. Her knees were spread wide, and she looked at him with longing.

  “I want you inside me, David.”

  “I’ll be gentle,” he promised her, his expression showing both his passion and his reverence.

  “Not too gentle, I hope,” she responded suggestively.

  David laughed, but she saw concentration occupy his beautiful face for a moment. Then, as she felt his warm girth enter her, his face softened into bliss.

  He felt so right inside her, and she wrapped her legs around the backs of his thighs to hold him firmly in place. She loved the sensation of him, plunging as deep inside her as anyone could go.

  Soon, he began moving with determination, and Shaunna was certain that she was going to climax quickly. David was watching her soft body rock, and she liked that. He was also slowly losing control, and she liked that even more.