Center Stage (Bright Lights Billionaire #2)

by Ali Parker

  "Hit my knees?" I yelped and popped him in the chest as he laughed loudly. The expression on his face stole a part of my heart and left me weak.

  "To ask me to marry you. Shit... I didn't mean." He lifted his eyebrow. "Well, that would be fucking awesome too, but-"

  I hit him again.

  "But... that's not what I meant." He reached out and slid his strong hands over my shoulders. "Ask me the question."

  "Why did you deny me the kiss at your house? Was it because you had someone else coming over for the night?" I tried to remain calm, though everything inside of me prepared for the worst. There was no good answer. Either way I looked at it, he'd slept with the pretty girl and kicked me out. Rejection stung the center of my chest like I was right back there again.

  "It was a test, right?"

  "No. It wasn't." I glanced out at the sunset. "I lied to save face. I'd not been rejected too many times in my life. It was a first and it was embarrassing. I covered it up."

  Was I really being this honest with him? Ugh. I hated myself.

  He slid his hands up my neck and cupped my face, forcing me to look at him.

  "I did it out of respect for you, and for me. Deza asked that I stay hands off with you because whatever is happening between us needs to happen for a long time. I'm horrible with relationships, so I figured it would be a respectable thing to do, but the minute I did it... I regretted it. I just knew one kiss wasn't enough."

  "Am I talking with the real Ethan Lewis?" I smiled and cupped my hands over his, finding a warmth in his embrace that I'd almost expected not to be there.

  "I'm the one and only." He brushed his thumbs over my cheeks. "Forgive me for denying us both? I'm afraid they expect me to keep doing that."

  "And it's probably smart that you do." I pulled his hands off of me as the sound of voices stole my attention.

  "Oh, shit." He put his back to me as a huge group of girls jogged down the beach toward us, all of them yelling his name. "Private doesn't exist anymore, does it?"

  "Go get 'em tiger." I popped his butt and turned to walk back up toward the drink hut.

  "You're not leaving me here. Seriously?"

  I laughed all the way to my barstool, where I sat for the next hour waiting on him. A whole host of emotions ran through me, but by the time he dropped down beside me, I was sure of one thing.

  I was also glad that he hadn't kissed me. God only knew where we would be if he had.

  Chapter 13

  Ethan

  "Oh my God! Ethan Lewis. You're my favorite actor of all time. I've loved you since I could walk!"

  The women seemed to be multiplying like gremlins as the ocean water sprayed us with a light mist. I glanced over my shoulder, praying that Riley had come back to save me, but she was long gone. Not that I blamed her. As much as I appreciated my fans for buying tickets to my movies, I wanted the relationship to have a big-ass movie screen separating their greedy fingers and my body.

  "Aww... thanks. I appreciate that more than you know." I signed a few more papers, bags and purses, and a few sets of tits before I could get away. How women knew to carry a Sharpie with them wherever they went was a mystery I wouldn't soon figure out.

  I finally wrapped up things with them, denied the free dinners and blow jobs and walked back up toward the cantina, where Riley was nursing a beer.

  "What is your definition of private? I'm thinking Frank and Deza have a completely different idea of what a private, secluded beach looks like. That, or they fucking hate me." I sat down on the bar stool beside her and ordered a Corona when the bartender stopped in front of us.

  She laughed and ran her eyes over me, leaving my attention only for her, once again.

  "Private is relative, right?" She lifted her beer to her lips and took a long drink.

  "Private honestly doesn't exist when you live in the eye of the public. I know Deza was hoping that I would mentor you a little, so consider that lesson one. Honestly. Anything you do, have done or are contemplating doing, the world will know about it, and the press will be hot on your ass to get the gory details and publish it."

  She paled a little. "Great."

  "Yeah. It sucks. Just be ready. If you have anything in your past that-"

  "I do." She turned back toward the bar and glanced down. "I have a lot of poverty, a mother that acts like a fifteen-year-old slut and a brother that was killed in a drive-by because of shitty choices. I'm sure the rags to riches story is going to be touted across the airways before we can blink twice."

  I tucked the information away to dissect that and simply nodded and pressed my forearms to the bar in front of me. I’d never have guessed that she had such a fucked up family life. That had to be where some of her high emotion came from during our scenes. "Unfortunately it is. My situation with my folks has been aired enough times that the media refer to me as the star with no beginning." I snorted. "As if I popped up from an underwater aquifer and started living the life of a movie star."

  She glanced over at me as a smile tugged at the side of her perfect mouth. "It's funny because I've been watching you grow up on screen most of my life, and I honestly can't remember a mention of your mom and dad."

  "That's because we keep them in the closet with the rest of the skeletons." I winked at her and lifted my beer to my lips. "You know, I wonder..."

  She turned, brushing her knee by my thigh as she put her full attention on me. I enjoyed the weight of it almost too much. My body hardened, but it was nothing new around her.

  "Tell me what you wonder."

  "Those girls down there..." I glanced over my shoulder praying they hadn't crept up the beach like something out of a horror film. "Some of them had me sign their breasts. Do you think guys ask female actors to sign their dicks or do they just use paper?"

  "That is an interesting thought. I'll let you know whenever it happens. I'd assume it's probably their chests or paper, right?" Her cheeks turned a light shade of pink, though she seemed unaffected otherwise. "Speaking of dicks..."

  "Man, I'm falling in love with you. What other chick has a conversation starter that most men would die to hear the rest of?" I laughed as she chuckled and swatted at my chest. She was beyond beautiful. It took everything inside of me not to reach out and drag her in for a long, hard kiss. My patience was running thin on having her in my bed and it hadn't been more than a few weeks since we'd met. If I were playing the good guy part that Deza wanted me to play, that moment would never come, nor would I.

  "Did you tell Deza that you wanted to have a friends with benefits relationship with me?"

  It felt like ice water got tossed in my face. It was like being in the throes of talking dirty with a woman and she mentioned having babies together. My happy, rock-solid boner dropped like the stock market during the Great Depression.

  "No." I gave her a silly look like she was the idiot. "I mean, I might have mentioned that I was joking with you about sleeping with me if you needed a good, long, hard-"

  "Okay. I get it." She narrowed her eyes in a way that had my dick rising back to attention. The woman was going to give my crotch pneumonia. Up and down. Up and down. "She doesn't seem like the type to twist the truth."

  "She's not, but... she is a girl." I licked at my lips and took another drink of my beer. "You guys have been known to skew the truth in your favor, bend words to get your way and twist thoughts of the most unsuspecting males to end up where you wanted to."

  "No way. Guys are way worse than women at all of that." She wagged her eyebrows.

  "Nope. That takes far too much effort for a dude. We just tell it like it is and take cover under the nearest bomb shelter. Life's too short to pussy-foot around, right?"

  "True. So you did mention it to her."

  "Kinda, not really." I shrugged. "In all honesty, I might have laid the idea before her just in case she flew off the handle and didn't like it. I was teasing you when I mentioned it, but after thinking it through, I really liked the idea."

  "Becau
se you want to protect each other." She was leading me down a dark path and looked like Goldilocks doing it. Sweet, innocent, hot as fucking sin. Women like her were the reason most men thought they were going to end up at the pearly gates only to drop down into the smoking section. Trickery had to be her calling card, but regardless... I was in it to win it. At least for a night.

  "Absolutely. You don't want crotch-rot, do you? I hear sexually transmitted diseases are a bitch. Or how about someone starting a fan club and talking about what a piece of shit you are?" I finished off my beer and tried not to dive too deep into my own horror show that played in my head. If I had any piece of advice that I could back up with loads of painful personal experience, it was not to sleep with strangers. It never turned out well.

  "Maybe I'm the kind of girl who doesn't need sex, Ethan. Just because you seem to thrive on it doesn't mean the rest of us do."

  "Thrive on it?" I laughed. "Let’s be honest here. I haven't had a proper fucking in the last two to three years."

  "Really? Why is that?" She got up and motioned for me to join her.

  Had I really opened up the conversation to talk about the one thing that left me feeling inadequate as a male altogether? My brother could joke about it all day long, and I understood quite well how fucking stupid it sounded when I spoke it out loud, but my dick was too big. In a way that left me without any measure of pleasure far more often than not.

  We walked to the edge of the water in silence and sat down in the sand as the moonlight bathed the shore in its ethereal light.

  "Well? Tell me." She slid her hand behind her and tilted her head toward me. The position jutted out her breasts.

  My mouth grew dry and nervousness raced through the center of my chest. What the hell was it with this woman? She shouldn't have had the power to intimidate me, but she did. It was a turn on nevertheless, so I was willing to put up with it to the point of being uncomfortable.

  "You tell me that Jace is your boyfriend that you're in love with and would never cheat on first, and I'll explain a little bit of my shit to you." I ran my hand through my hair and glanced back at the ocean. The sound of the waves crashing on the shore brought a balm to my soul that I didn't realize I needed. Maybe the trip would do me some good.

  "How are you feeling? Your stomach okay?" She turned her attention back to the water and looked up at the sky.

  "What? You're so horrible at transitions when deflecting. We need to work on this. You gotta treat it like a scene in a movie. So, like, if I didn't want to answer the question about Jace, I would have said, boyfriends are a difficult topic. They sometimes make you feel like a million bucks, and sometimes make you feel like barfing up your guts. Hey... speaking of barfing up your guts." I glanced over at her. "How are you feeling from earlier? Your stomach okay?"

  She laughed and pressed her shoulder to mine. "I don't care if the transition is horrible. The end result is the same. He's none of your business."

  "I agree, but I'm just asking about the relationship. Anyone could ask that. Fuck, they will. I promise. I'm just trying to see if you're locked into something good and solid with the guy."

  "And if I am?" Her eyes moved across my face slowly.

  She might be with him, but she wasn't with him. There was no way. She was far too much woman for the playboy-looking jock.

  "Then I'll leave you alone about being fuck-buddies." I shrugged and turned back toward the water. "I think we'd be quite compatible in the bedroom."

  "Do you now?" She moved up to her hands and knees and pulled something from the sand. A seashell. "And you really think I can do something with that monster you're packing?" Her smile was contagious, but her words drove deep into the center of me.

  "Monster. Right." I got up and stretched, trying not to let the moment drown in my own issues, and yet failing miserably. "I'm going to grab some crackers and head back to my room. This was fun. I'll see you in the morning for rehearsal."

  "What?" She looked up with a tense expression. "Why are you going?"

  "I'm tired." I turned and walked toward the condo as anger swirled in the pit of my stomach. I was quite proud of myself for not barking out some nasty comment about having to pet the monster alone.

  A friends with benefits relationship with Riley would have been the perfect answer to both of our problems, but until I figured out how to shrink my shit and she stopped pretending that the thing between her and Channing Tatum's twin was anything more than an occasional romp in the sheets, it wasn't happening.

  Funny enough, the worst part of realizing that was coming to terms with the fact that Deza was getting her way without even trying. I growled low in my chest as I walked into the cool air of the house and paused.

  I was in Rio and we weren't on a private beach at all. I wasn't going to bed like a little old man. Nursing my wounded ego would feel much better. All I needed was a six pack of beer and a hot woman. Both couldn't be too hard to find.

  Chapter 14

  Riley

  I laid in bed half the night trying to figure out what I'd done to offend Ethan. I'd gone through the denial stages first, as if surely I hadn't done anything and he was being an overly sensitive tit. So I didn't want to talk about Jace, and I didn't want to dive into a relationship with him that would leave me heartbroken by the morning.

  Deza slipped out of the room just after the sun rose, and I found myself still staring at the window, wide awake. I needed to figure out what I'd done and apologize for it, though I hated to. It would seem Ethan was nothing more than an immature ass and I would have to be the bigger person throughout our time together.

  Outside of all that drama, I still couldn't believe that I was getting ready to shoot a movie with Ethan Lewis. He was America's crush. Butterflies danced around in my chest as I rolled onto my back and closed my eyes. It would be so nice if he was the strong personality in real life that he was in his Bond films. The demanding, get-in-my-bed-and-let-me-fuck-you-senseless kind of man we all imagined him to be, and maybe he was, but he was going about it all wrong.

  Offering me a contract-like agreement to be fuck-buddies? Why not just take me to bed and explain that it's just physical before we did the dirty? I laughed at the thought. There really was no good way around it. He wanted what Jace and I had, and a huge part of me didn't want to deny him. We were in very different places. I was a complete stranger that had moved onto his side of the street, and he was someone I'd been watching forever.

  Damn I loved watching him. His dark brown hair and sexy brown eyes. The thickness of his bottom lip and his perfectly regal nose.

  A tendril of pleasure shot through my stomach as I groaned in the early morning light. Need pumped through me, and I lifted my head, listening to make sure Deza had actually left and not come back in the middle of my internal ramblings.

  I closed my eyes and exhaled softly before sliding my hands down my stomach and pushing my panties over my hips. I hadn't taken care of myself in forever, but with a wicked hot fantasy playing in my head, and Ethan being center stage to it, I needed to.

  His hands were firm on the sides of my neck and he glanced down the long length of our bodies and smiled. "Fuck, you look good. So beautiful and soft. I wanna hear you scream."

  I groaned and ran my hands down his side as he pressed me to the bed and hovered above me, looking like a god in the early morning light.

  "Then make me." I lifted my head as he swooped down and licked at my mouth. I wrapped my hands around the back of his head and held him in place as he worked his tongue deep into my mouth and rolled his hips enough to settle the thick head of his cock between my legs.

  "You sure you can handle me?" He brushed his lips by mine and moved to press his elbows into the bed just beside my head.

  Every cell in my body was lit up with desire for the man above me. He didn't seem at all uncomfortable or unsure of himself. He was every hot fantasy I'd had over the years.

  "I'm more than capable of handling you." There was no fear or worry
about him not fitting. We'd make it work. I wanted to. I coveted his size and wanted to be the woman he found relief and pleasure with.

  My hips arched forward as I brushed my fingers through the wet folds of my skin and groaned. Chill bumps broke out on my skin, leaving me panting before I got too far. It’d been too long. Jace and I hadn't had time to fuck the week before after the opening celebration for Down Low, though I needed to something terrible.

  "Why do I believe that?" He pressed into me a little and smiled. "Spread your legs wider, Riley. Open up like a good girl for me."

  I groaned and spread my thighs farther as I slid my hands over his thick shoulders and pressed up to take more of him.

  The pleasure that spread across his face as he laid down and pressed me firmly to the mattress was bliss, beautiful.

  "So tight, baby. So deliciously tight and wet." He licked the side of my throat and rocked his hips, forcing me to take more and more of him. The pressure was overwhelming, and left me breathless.

  I cried out as I sunk two fingers into myself and arched my back to get the best position for working my body over the edge as fast as I could. The idea of taking him deep inside was unbelievably appetizing, almost like a fetish. I enjoyed bigger men, but had never in my life seen anything like what Ethan was sporting. Monster was an understatement.

  I worked harder and faster, slipping in another finger and giving myself over to the depravity of a hard fuck in my head as I pressed more aggression than I normally would have into my movement. I buckled in the bed as bright lights exploded at the edge of my vision. I rolled onto my side and continued to massage my soft skin as the high rolled into a warmth I yearned for.

  Panting softly in the dark, I couldn't help but wonder if he went to bed the night before and did the same. After our conversation and him getting upset, I couldn't fathom a different ending for him.