Muscle

by Lexi Whitlow

“I said I wanted to take my time,” he reminds me, letting his cock slide just beyond my grasp.

  He lifts up, guiding himself, finding the spot, pushing firmly in… and then deeper.

  Gates’ breath catches in his chest. I feel him move inside me, filling me up, spreading me out, his knees kicking mine apart, so he can go deeper, his hands grasping the soft fat of my ass, lifting me into him.

  He whispers. “You feel so perfect…”

  He shoves in hard until every nerve ending in my body screams with mindless ecstasy.

  He takes his time.

  This isn’t hurried or clumsy. Gates drives in slowly. His body envelopes me with shoulders pinning me down into the pillows and hips grinding me into the bed with a deliberate, paced rhythm. His body owns me. My fingers trace the outline of his shoulder and my mouth buries into his his neck. Our bodies find a concerted pace, and I know…

  His body owns me.

  “Oh Winter… come for me baby… Please.”

  He pours in deep, pacing himself, then pulls out slowly. Our rhythm is perfect.

  “Please don’t stop,” I beg, digging my fingertips into the toned, defined muscle at his shoulders.

  It takes me no time to find the groove that moves me to the edge, but I let the pressure build. I don’t want this to be over. I want to feel Gate’s body invading me, owning me, filling me up and over-powering me. Every other thought except his body locked in time with mine, slips out of my head.

  My muscles tighten, then twitch, seizing hard, gripping Gates’ cock. I feel his body tremble in response, his hips grinding down even deeper. My body’s reaction is instantly visceral; something breaks inside me, cresting out from my walls, coiling and volcanic. A seizing current snaps me with shocks of paralyzing pleasure. It flows through me and out to Gates, rolling between us until I feel tears in my eyes, until my entire body quakes.

  “Oh, fuck… fuck… oh… fuck...” Gates groans in my ear, his body tense, his hips driving my bliss.

  He breaks in that instant. I feel the swell at the base of his cock move with a shudder, then explode inside me. Gates cries out, lifting up over me so we’re face-to-face. We come together, our bodies welded, gazes locked together. Gates presses himself deep into me. His expression is intense, but softened with pleasure.

  When the rapture of our orgasm slips, fading away in the stillness and sweat of our bodies, Gates collapses on top of me. I feel his heart beating hard in time with my own, his breathing fast and short.

  My fingers comb through his damp hair, then drop, absently tracing the lines of his shoulders. A slick mist of perspiration wraps every inch of his beautiful body. He glistens. His scent pours onto my skin, soaking into me, becoming a part of me. I could lie here forever, feeling his weight on me, breathing him in, our bodies like one creature, perfection.

  For perhaps the first time in my life, I don’t feel any guilt or hesitation. We explore one another’s bodies slowly, and with attentive deliberation. With tasting and touch, with fingertips and open palms, lips and tongues discovering the sensuous turn and pleasure of skin. Gates delights in my flaws, kissing my freckles and ripples of fat on my backside, promising me that every square inch of me is perfection. His words and his touch melt my heart. No one has ever made me feel like this.

  * * *

  The drive to Laguna is mercilessly brief, thanks to light traffic. It takes just over an hour, following the I-5 South, coming in from the east on Laguna Canyon Road. Gates wanted to take the PCH, following the coastline, but I convinced him our time was better spent at our destination than sitting at traffic lights with only a few rare glimpses of the actual ocean.

  Heading out of Hollywood, I check my email and social media, and am astonished at the effectiveness of my father’s public relations savvy. Gates and Dylan are trending topics on nearly every platform. Their arm-in-arm photographs grace the headlines of every entertainment website covering the past week’s country music awards event.

  “You said nobody knows who you are,” I say, as Gates pulls his sporty Audi onto the freeway. I hold up my phone, showing him the evidence of his mistake. “Dylan Denali is famous, so now you’re famous too. Did you know you have ten thousand twitter followers, since Wednesday?”

  Gates rolls his eyes. “Turn that shit off,” he says. “I couldn’t care less. The publicists are handling my Twitter account, and everything else. If I’m famous for taking a pretty singer to a party, that’s pretty thin fame.”

  I slip my phone into my bag, trying to push the idea of sharing Gates with a beautiful and talented entertainer out of my mind.

  We chat easily on the drive down, his hand wrapped around mine, resting on my thigh.

  “Tell me about the guy you were with at the party,” he asks, his brow cocked with curiosity. “Blair?”

  “Hmmm,” I respond. “Blair is one of my father’s stooges. A favorite pet.”

  “Your father makes you go to things like that with him?”

  “He strongly encourages it,” I say. “I have to go to anything Addison sponsored, and my father likes to see couples in the press. He pairs people up by the numbers, just like he did with you and Dylan.”

  Gates nods. “Yeah. For what it’s worth, Dylan is alright. She’s a sweetheart, and she knows it’s all for show. We’re friends.”

  “Didn’t look like that when you were leaving,” I observe, teasing. “Looked like she was hanging all over you.”

  “Her feet hurt,” Gates quips defensively. “Trust me. She’s not like that. And I’m not interested either.” He squeezes my hand for emphasis. “You’re the only girl I have eyes for.”

  “Somehow, I believe you,” I say.

  It’s the off-season, so Laguna isn’t as packed with gawking tourists and leather-clad bikers as it is during certain times of the year. That said, it’s still a hot mess of rental cars and East Coast visitors taking in the hills, the cliffs, and the expensive, sometimes quirky shops and eateries. But it feels beautiful because we’re here together, and this is the first real vacation I’ve taken in years.

  Gates checks us in to our AirBnB, picking up our keys at a rental office on Cliff Drive. We navigate to a tiny little house on Circle Way, finding the place tucked between two, much larger homes, all of them perched on the cliffside and overlooking the ocean. From the street parking it’s hard to tell what we’ve got, but once inside, it’s a dream. It’s small and cozy, and the view is spectacular. I feel like I can see the entirety of the Pacific Ocean, expanding before us.

  “Nice,” Gates pronounces, sliding the balcony door open, stepping out into the salt tinged, Pacific breeze. The ocean and sky horizon extend beyond our view into infinity.

  Watching him admire the view, I wonder what Gates would think of the vista from my bedroom balcony at Palos Verde. It’s grander than this one, with no neighboring buildings in sight, by design. My father’s cliffside home is at least twenty thousand square feet enclosed, not counting the indoor pool or the open air, five-car garage. But the thought of that place feels empty compared to this.

  There’s a twelve hundred square-foot servant’s quarters by the pool, and a guest wing on the south side with its own parking and private entrance.

  I know I was raised with an excess of everything, except perhaps, affection. My mother left my father when I was eleven, and she lost the custody battle without ever really fighting. I guess my father’s lawyers made hasty work of her. I haven’t seen her since the day she told me goodbye, leaving our house with a couple of tightly packed Gucci bags, telling me she’d come back for me soon.

  She never came back. I’m sure my father has prevented her having any further contact. Sometimes I wonder about her. Sometimes I think about trying to find her. Then I don’t. She left me. She left me with him. She was selfish to do that, selfish not to come back, not to fight him. At least my father kept me, provided, and made sure I had what I needed. He gave me a good education and a home. It might not have been the happiest home, but I gu
ess it was a home.

  He also crushed my nascent photography career, and he controls every aspect of my life.

  “This is epic,” Gates says, pulling me from my bleak reverie. “Come out here. Check this out!”

  The deck he’s standing on is rustic, with warped boards in dire need of sanding, sealing, or flat-out replacing. The cliff the house is perched upon drops precipitously to a sandy beach, hundreds of feet below.

  “Have you ever seen anything like this up close?” Gates asks, circling his arm around my hips, pulling me into him. “Isn’t it beautiful?

  It is beautiful, when viewed through the wonder of his gaze. I’ve taken a view like this for granted for most of my twenty-six years, but now I see it fresh. The blue-green water of the churning Pacific stretches out, turning cobalt toward the horizon. The sky above is powder blue, clear of clouds. The air is dry, with a warm wind coming in off the ocean.

  “It’s lovely,” I admit. “We lucked out. It’s the nicest vacation house I’ve ever been in.” When I say it, it feels true.

  Gates pulls me tighter, turning to face me. He slips his arms around me. “Thank you,” he says, “for coming here with me.”

  He kisses me, and it melts me into a liquid mess of affection.

  “Mmm,” Gates mumbles, breaking our kiss. “Let’s go get something to eat, fuck around a little bit in town, then find our way down to that beach. What do you say?”

  “That sounds pretty fucking good.”

  We make our way to downtown Laguna where all the most popular shops and restaurants are. Gates spies a restaurant called Sapphire that sparks his fancy.

  “Fish tacos,” he says, eyes flashing, a smile turning his lip. “You like fish tacos?”

  “I like everything, especially fish tacos,” I tell him.

  “You weren’t hungry for guacamole that first time we slept together.”

  I laugh out loud. “Yeah, that was bullshit. I was trying not to get you tangled up in the hot mess that is my life. And the incredibly hot mess that is my father.”

  “Too bad. I’m tangled, and I don’t mind it.”

  I take a look at the menu and then look it up on my phone. The place looks nice, the reviews are great, and I am hungry as all hell. “Let’s eat.”

  No sooner are we seated than I spy a familiar face twenty-feet away at another table. I try to turn away, but her eyes catch mine. Recognition instantly animates her face.

  “Winter Addison!” she calls out at volume. Luckily, it’s early and the restaurant is mostly empty.

  She gets up from her table and promptly presents herself before me, a big grin slashing her over-made face.

  “Fancy seeing you here!” she beams.

  Her name is Laura Brody. She works in accounting at Addison Productions.

  Gates fumbles with his menu, trying to go invisible.

  “Yeah,” I say, grasping for excuses. “Just a whim of a day trip. Meeting a few friends.”

  “My daughter has a place here,” Laura says, shifting her attention to Gates. “It’s good to see you out and about. Your father keeps you too busy… So… Who is your friend?”

  Gates looks up. “Just an old college friend,” he lies easily, meshing his lie with the ones I contrived earlier for my father. “Brian,” he says, offering his hand limply, like the queen of England might.

  I stifle a laugh at his impression.

  We’re left in peace for the rest of our meal, but the encounter unsettles me. It’s going to be nearly impossible to keep this thing under wraps, and I know how my father is going to react when he inevitably gets wind of it.

  “Let’s just roll with it as it comes,” Gates says, trying to cool my concerns. “One day at a time. Right now, we’ve got a few days to ourselves. Let’s just enjoy it.”

  We check out several art galleries and a bookstore in town, and I manage to find a bikini that fits, along with a few other items of clothing to get me through the weekend. A couple hours later, Gates and I are arm-in-arm, walking the beach, playing in the icy cold surf, acting like a couple kids.

  I forget myself and all my worries when I’m alone with Gates. While we share the beach with countless others out enjoying the day, we don’t even see them. We spend the afternoon in a bubble of our own creation where nothing can touch us.

  * * *

  The unmistakable scent of frying bacon pulls me from a dreamless, restful sleep. I open my eyes, trying to place my situation… the house in Laguna… Gates… I fell asleep in his arms.

  I hear the banging of pans and dishes coming from the tiny kitchen, just steps from this small bedroom. Putting bare feet to the floor, wearing only a t-shirt and panties, I make my way toward the noise and that compelling scent that’s making my stomach growl.

  I find Gates working in the kitchen, wearing nothing but jeans. His back is to me, so I have a stunning view of his broad shoulders and muscled back, the pair of dimples at the base of his spine, just above his ass. He’s as ideal a specimen of male perfection as any sculptor of classical beauty ever contrived. And he’s mine.

  Gates turns around with a pan in his hand. He sees me and smiles. “Good morning,” he says, beaming. “I hope you like pancakes and bacon.”

  I pull up a stool at the bar, where he’s set out plates for our meal. He plops two giant pancakes on my plate, motioning toward the butter and syrup.

  I woke up with a smile on my face this morning. I think its fixed in place. I can’t shake it. Gates makes me smile. He makes me happy. It’s a feeling I’m not used to, but certainly could become accustomed to if given half a chance.

  “I woke up at sunrise,” Gates says, forking a pile of pancakes. “I went for a short jog on the beach, then found a market. When I got back you were still sleeping like a baby.”

  I’m not a morning person.

  “I could watch you sleep forever. You’re beautiful.”

  I blush.

  After breakfast I do what I usually do before I even crawl out of bed. I find my phone and check my apps to see what I’ve missed.

  To my horror, I realize I’ve missed too much.

  TMZ, that awful paparazzi rag dedicated to invasion of privacy, has Gates—and me—on page one, with the headline: “New heartthrob for Bill Addison’s Hearthfires star? What does Dylan know?”

  The photograph, obviously taken with a long lens from a distance, is slightly blurry. But it’s unmistakably Gates on the beach, with his arms wrapped around a red head in a blue bikini. Luckily my face isn’t recognizable due to the angle and big sunglasses. Nevertheless, the idea that Gates was seen with and photographed embracing someone who isn’t Dylan Denali, is going to send my father into the stratosphere.

  “We’re so screwed,” I mumble, staring at the picture which has gone viral. “Fucking hell.”

  Chapter 12

  Gates

  Fame, like modeling, isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Social media is vile a form of self-reinforcing, evil that’s worse than RPG-armed terrorists. You can’t kill it. You can’t shut it up. And you can’t escape it. It just keeps coming at you over and again, with ever increasing vitriol.

  Winter insisted we head back to LA as soon as she saw that first TMZ photograph. She knew better than I did what it meant. She said we had to cool it. Go back to playing our parts. She was frantic, less so for herself than for me. She said her father would crush me if he found out she and I are together.

  I’m not worried about Bill Addison crushing me. It would take a lot more than him to accomplish that. But I am concerned about Winter. Her father has a power over her that I don’t entirely understand. If putting some space between us puts her mind at ease, I’m willing to do it as much as I hate it—but only temporarily.

  It’s Monday morning. The sun isn’t up yet. I’m due on set in an hour. Addison called me last night; his message was brief, his tone terse.

  “We need to talk about the red head, and your contractual obligations,” he said. “Perhaps you haven’t unders
tood the details. I want to make them crystal clear.”

  He’s waiting for me when I arrive at the studio, looking tanned from his weekend of golfing at Pebble Beach. He also looks pissed.

  I’m supposed to be in make-up by six-thirty, but Addison has other plans.

  “Your trailer,” he snaps, pointing toward it. “We need to talk.”

  We’re not even a week into filming. He could fire me and recast the role without losing much time or money. That would suck, especially if he decides to file a breach of contract against me. I already spent a lot of the upfront money I’ve been paid.

  And there are a lot of debts still to be paid. Fuck.

  I drop onto the couch in the back of the trailer, waiting for the melt-down and ear-chewing I’ve been anticipating. According to Winter, my agent, and my publicist, Bill Addison’s explosive temper is legendary. I’m surprised when he calmly takes a seat across from me, lifts his phone from the breast pocket of his jacket, and shows me the TMZ picture.