“Moll…ee,” he croaked.
Oh God, I’ve made him speak. She pulled herself together. “Rest your throat.” She turned to the man he was with. “Sorry to interrupt. I just saw someone I’d hoped never to see again and I need to hide. I’m a friend of Flint’s. Mollie.” She held out her hand.
“Weston Davies.”
“Are you an actor?”
He laughed. “I direct actors.”
Mollie winced. “Sorry. I don’t know much about the film world.”
“Flint’s going to be in my next film.”
“Turning…Circle,” Flint croaked.
“Don’t talk,” Mollie said. “The doctor told you not to.”
Davies laughed. “Looks like she has the measure of you already. Going to do what I tell you?”
“Yes,” Mollie said and Flint nodded.
Davies smiled and held out his hand to Flint. “Looking forward to working with you.”
Flint shook his hand and when the guy moved away, he puffed out a breath.
Lysander came to their side. “What part of stay where you are didn’t you understand?” He stared at her. “Christ, you’re pale. I didn’t see any sign of him, Mollie.”
“Wasn’t Lewin that upset me,” she said. “It was Voudin.”
“The magician? What did he do?”
“It’s more what he didn’t do.” She sighed. “You know what? I don’t see why I should leave.”
Lysander frowned. “He asked you to leave?”
Flint clutched her hand. “I want to leave,” he muttered.
“I have to do something first,” she said. “You don’t need to be with me, but…be near because I might not be able to stop myself running afterward.”
She walked back across the room and homed in on Voudin. She waited until he’d finished his trick, producing a seemingly everlasting cascade of tiny plastic diamonds from an empty glass, and as if he knew she was there, he looked straight at her.
“Oh, I failed,” he said. “You didn’t disappear.”
The smile slipped from his face as she stepped in front of him.
“Don’t worry,” she said in a voice quiet enough that no one else could hear. “I won’t make a scene, providing you listen to me this time. I don’t care so much that you hurt me, but I care that you hurt my mother. I never wanted to be part of your life. The idea that I’d want your name or your money makes me feel sick. You turned your back on me before I was even born but I was brought up thinking I had a hero for a father and found I had a coward. I could have made your life hell and I didn’t. One kind word would have been enough, but you didn’t even have the decency to say you were sorry. So I’m walking away from you. I have half-brothers and sisters I’ve never met and never will. All my mother’s family are dead. I was a young kid and I had no one, that’s why I reached out to you. It was a mistake. You’re too full of hate. I feel sorry for you.”
She turned, saw Lysander and Flint right behind her, and wondered if they’d caught any of that.
“Time to go?” Lysander asked and she nodded.
Flint was exhausted. The strain of trying to follow conversations, of remembering not to speak, of having to act his fucking heart out to make sure he didn’t give himself away, plus worry about Mollie and that bastard Lewin, and now something going on with that magician—all had taken their toll.
At least the film had been okay. More than okay judging by the reaction. A couple of people he respected had mentioned the word Oscar to him. Even Weston Davies. He’d chatted about Turning Circle and Flint was going to be devastated if he couldn’t do it. He wanted that role more than any other, apart from maybe the one that had given him his break.
Jean-Paul and Aden didn’t want to leave so Max took the three of them back to the hotel. Flint spent the journey with his eyes closed but clung to Mollie’s fingers. He could feel how tense she was. Lysander stayed silent in the car, but he was surprised Mollie hadn’t said anything. When Max pulled up outside the hotel, Flint opened his eyes and saw she’d been crying. His heart rose into his throat.
“Moll…ee?”
She brushed the back of her hand across her cheeks and smiled. “Your film,” she said and he didn’t believe her.
Lysander took her hand and Flint followed them at a distance to their room. Once the door was shut and the chain was on, he sighed in relief.
“Well done,” Lysander said.
“Offered coke…ex…ecstasy…blow job,” Flint said.
Lysander laughed. “All three available in this room. Cans of Coke in the mini bar, ecstasy and blow job coming up.”
“First, Moll…ee.” Flint turned to her.
She dropped onto the couch. “He’s my father.”
“Voudin?” Lysander gasped.
She gave a heavy sigh. “I wasn’t sure if you’d overheard the conversation.”
“No.” Lysander shook his head.
Flint sat one side of her and Lysander the other.
“Long story short. He and my mother were at school together. He was called Billy Sherwood in those days. They dated until he left to go to university and he started another relationship but every time he went home, he slept with my mother. Told her he loved her but she got pregnant, and he walked away from her. He married a couple of months later and his wife gave birth a month before I was born. When I was old enough to wonder why I didn’t have a daddy, my mum told me he was a soldier who’d died in the Gulf War.”
“How did you find out she’d lied?” Lysander asked.
“She’d never talk much about my father, but she told me stuff I later realized were just more lies. Stories about how he’d taken me sledging and stuff like that. I realized when we studied the Gulf War at school that the dates didn’t match up. Even if they had, forty-seven men died and none of them had the same name as my dad. So I pushed and pushed until she told me the truth, that Billy—by then he’d renamed himself Voudin—had told her he didn’t believe he was my father. He called her a whore. Mum had never slept with another guy. She died in a car crash when I was twelve and I went into local authority care.”
Her head dropped. “I thought he’d want to know. I saved up my money. It took a long time. I had to pay for a bus ticket to London and then to go to see the show he was in. I wangled my way backstage and told him who I was. Before he had me thrown out, he said he never wanted to see my ugly face ever again, that the idea I could be his daughter made him sick, that I was just a money grubbing little bitch.”
She swallowed hard. “And I looked into his face, and the worst thing of all was that I could see myself in him. His eyes, his nose. I walked out, reinvented myself, and I hadn’t seen him again until tonight, apart from the odd accidental viewing on TV. So that’s it. You know all my secrets now. Oh, apart from the time I nicked a lipstick from Boots, but because I was told I’d get beaten up if I didn’t, I forgave myself for that.”
“His loss,” Lysander said. “His fucking loss.”
He pulled Mollie toward him and kissed her head.
“Sorry to be down when tonight was so great,” she said. “The film was brilliant.”
“Especially the dog,” Flint said.
She laughed. “He did upstage you.”
Flint mock-sighed. “I know.”
Mollie tugged at his bow tie and pulled it out of its knot. Then did the same to Lysander’s.
“You okay, Mollie?” Lysander asked.
“Yep. Bit up and down today but the best bit is to come. Nothing I can do about Voudin except forget him.”
Lysander curled a lock of her hair around his finger. “Does he have anything to do with why you decided to be a teacher?”
“A bit. No more about him now. It’s not my fault he’s like he is. I don’t need approval from him. Know what I’d like to do?”
“No. Don’t care. Do anything,” Flint said.
“Er, don’t be so hasty.” Lysander reached behind Mollie and flicked his ear. “You want to have to jerk of
f against the window?”
“That comes later,” she said. “I want you to sit here and do exactly as I say.”
“Yes,” Flint said.
“Christ,” Lysander groaned. “You could have bargained.”
Mollie laughed and pushed to her feet. “Sit closer together.”
They budged up until their thighs were touching. Lysander smiled at him. Mollie walked a few paces and kept her back to them as she slithered out of her dress. When it pooled at her feet, Flint gulped. In the golden lamplight she looked like an angel. A naked, wingless angel in sparkly high heels. When she glanced at them over her shoulder, Lysander pressed his thigh more firmly against him.
“No touching,” she said as walked toward them.
“You or him?” Lysander asked.
“No touching anyone.”
“Uh,” Flint grunted. His cock twitched and began to swell.
Lysander’s hand drifted to his crotch and Mollie tsked. “Or anything. Hands off.”
She reached for the buttons of Flint’s shirt and opened them from the top down, tugging his shirt out of his pants to get at the last one. When she trailed her nail from his throat to the waistband of his pants, he let out a choked cry. When she stopped touching him, he groaned. He watched as she repeated the action with Lysander, who never shifted his gaze from her face. Mollie knelt in front of them on the floor and leaned to press her mouth against Flint’s erection, breathing through the material until his cock was so hard it tented his pants. While she did the same to Lysander, she used her thumb to stroke Flint’s dick, dragging her nail down his length until his buttocks clenched.
“Hurry,” he blurted.
She flipped open the button on Flint’s pants while she continued to tease Lysander. Ironic that his dick was desperate for more room, but once it had it, it would be desperate to be enclosed somewhere tight.
“Jesus,” Lysander gasped, and Flint felt his arm creep around his shoulder to caress his ear.
Mollie had unbuttoned and unzipped Lysander. She had his beautiful thick cock in her hand, letting it slide in her grasp, and as Flint watched the silken skin move up and down over the rounded head, he wondered how long she was going to make him wait.
He couldn’t wait, not if he was going to save his tux. He flipped open his button. He yanked down his zip and he pulled her hand inside, pushing her fingers through the gap in his shorts and onto his cock. Flint groaned with the sheer bliss of it, the heat of her hand, and he felt himself unfurl against her palm.
“Sorry,” he said.
Mollie laughed. “No you’re not.”
“No.” He grinned.
She caressed them both, licking from one cock head to the other.
“Fuck, fuck,” Lysander gasped.
“Move your shirts out of the way,” she said.
He could do that. Not much else, but that he could do. Flint groaned as she wrapped her lips around him. His balls lay on top of his shorts, held up by the elastic, constrained by it. Every time she licked him, he clenched his butt. The moment he began to buck into her hand, she pressed down on his root and switched her attention to Lysander.
When she took Lysander’s balls in her mouth, a pearl of pre-cum grew on the tip of Flint’s dick, kept growing until it grew too large to maintain its shape and slipped down his shaft onto her fingers. Mollie lifted her mouth from Lysander and licked her hand.
“See who can last the longest,” she said.
“Could we have a race to see who’s fastest?” Lysander asked.
Flint laughed.
“You can touch my face now,” she said and dropped her mouth over Flint’s shaft.
When she lapped him with her tongue it was as if he’d been electrocuted, fiery sparks tickling his brain. He gripped her hair and Lysander spread his hand on her cheek. Why does this feel so good? He’d had plenty of blow jobs. Sometimes from two women at the same time. Once from three. But this felt different. Mollie’s tongue glided over and around his cock head, teasing him with the tip of her tongue, then stroking him with the flat.
She took a deep breath and enveloped so much of him in one go, he let out a whimper. Then the tight warmth of her had gone and she was sucking Lysander. Flint rubbed his thumb over the bulge in her cheek, Lysander’s breath hitched and he shot him a glance. One of Lysander’s hands was still threaded in her hair, the other stayed clenched at his side.
“Mollie,” Lysander whispered. “Sweetheart.”
She lifted her mouth from his to say one word to Flint. “Wait.” Then she was back on Lysander.
Flint knew he’d confess to anything, agree to anything as long as she made him come. Soon.
Hard fast pumps at Lysander’s dick, followed by short fast sucks, and Lysander’s trembling grew more pronounced, his breathing more ragged. His head went back, his spine arched and he let out a long groan as he came, a gasp accompanying each wrench of his body. Until he’d slumped limp on the couch, she didn’t let him out of her mouth.
“My turn,” Flint said, his thighs fidgeting.
Her mouth was warmer, wetter, still coated with Lysander’s cum, and he knew he’d not last long. His eyes drifted shut and he snapped them open. She smiled at him around a mouthful of cock and his hand slid to the back of her head, stroking the soft hair at her nape. His hips jerked as she sucked hard and when he felt his cock head hit the back of her throat and she swallowed against him, he held his breath. There was a roaring in his ears as orgasm built inside him. He could hear and feel his heart pounding. Her mouth turned scalding hot. Then she pulled off him, and he opened his mouth to protest but she kissed the tip of his cock and he came. Orgasm tore though his body, and he shook, strung tight.
Oh fuck. That word. I want to say it. I want to say it.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Lysander drew Flint and Mollie while they slept entwined on the bed. He wished he had his paints but he’d only at the last minute thought about bringing his sketch pad and pencils. He couldn’t believe how much his life had changed in such a short period of time, how lucky he was, how Mollie had made his world turn again. She and Flint were his future. He knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but what they had was worth fighting for. They’d make it work.
The bang on the door startled him. Flint opened his eyes and Lysander put his finger to his lips. He slipped on his shorts and looked through the spy hole. Ryker.
“Open the fucking door,” Ryker snapped.
Lysander pulled it open and Ryker strode in holding a bunch of newspapers. He tossed them onto the bed. Mollie stirred and curled up closer to Flint when she saw who it was.
“They like the film?” Flint chose one of the papers and handed it to Mollie.
“They loved it. All of them. Even that bitch Louise Gill who never fucking likes anything.”
Ryker picked up Lysander’s sketch pad, flipped through the drawings and tossed it down again.
“Why do you look so upset?” Mollie asked.
“Because we have a problem. These papers are the good news but there’s bad to come. There’s a story set to run this weekend that’s not full of love. Melanie Johnson from Gossip called me this morning. She has someone telling her Mollie targeted Flint, that she has always had a crush on him, had pictures of him stuck all over the walls of her room, she went to see his films ten or more times, she told her friends she was going to marry him and when she found out he’d gone to stay in Yorkshire, she dumped her fiancé and her job and stalked him.”
“That’s complete crap.” Mollie bunched the sheets in her fists. “Who told her that? If I’d wanted to marry Flint, why would I have been engaged to someone else? I wasn’t engaged to him anyway.”
Flint wrapped a hand around one of hers and let out a strangled sob. “Don’t want to marry me?”
She sagged against him, but she was laughing.
“There can’t be proof of any of that,” Lysander said. “Particularly the last point. How would she have found out where Flint had gone
to live?”
“There’s more,” Ryker said. “This time about you. About your wife killing herself after you and Flint refused to end your relationship. That your wife was pregnant with another man’s baby.”
“Fucking Nikki.” Lysander slumped onto a chair. He glanced at Flint and Mollie. “I think she overheard us in the garden.”
“But you didn’t know about the baby then,” Mollie said. “And it wasn’t you-know-who’s.”
“Dirk Steward,” Ryker said.
“Shit.” Lysander sank deeper into the chair. “It was my baby but Steward’s wife believed otherwise.”
“Melanie’s been on the phone to his ex-wife. You’re right that Nikki is a source, but she’s not the only one. Someone called Isla?”
“Fuck,” Lysander muttered.
“And I only got those names because I promised to fucking castrate her if she didn’t tell me.”
Lysander had no doubt in his mind that Ryker could easily castrate a female.
“Apparently you’re a sexual pervert who regularly shares a bed with several partners of both sexes,” Ryker snapped. “Your lodgers are chosen on the basis of whether you want them in your bed. Your housemates pimp for you.”
“Nikki and Isla are getting their own back for me throwing them out,” Lysander said. “Marcie is out for revenge because her husband made my wife pregnant—except he didn’t.” He looked up at Ryker. “It’s not as it sounds. Housemates were selected because I wanted to paint them, not fuck them.” He hoped he could keep quiet about the bed sharing. “We did not have orgies. Jean-Paul and Aden can vouch for that.” Sort of.
Ryker sighed. “One person’s word against another’s.”
“Yeah, but I could say I’d been fucked by a member of the royal family and it would be my word against theirs,” Lysander spat. “Gossip surely can’t be considering printing this crap.”
“And then there’s the golden boy.” Ryker turned to Flint. “Who apparently likes to be tied up and whipped by a Domme. I think the words used were—pain slut.”
“Oh fuck,” Flint mumbled. “Didn’t like.”
Lysander felt as if he was standing on a beautifully built sandcastle that the sea was washing away bit by bit. Any moment he’d come sliding down.
Talking Trouble Page 29
