Celebrity Spin Doctor

by Celia Mulder

  He laughed, unable to help himself. She smacked him on the shoulder.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Well.”

  “You have a condom stuck to your boob.”

  Lucille looked down and peeled the condom off her breast. She wasn’t surprised to see it there. “I know. That’s where I keep them.”

  “Who keeps a condom in their bra?” Brett asked, still grinning.

  She grinned back and held up the Girl Scout salute. “Always be prepared. You never know what could happen where. Girl Scout’s honor.”

  “No way were you a Girl Scout.”

  She winked at him.

  His brain processed the rest of her words. Thinking about Lucille being prepared to have sex anywhere with anyone didn’t help his feelings of inadequacy. There was no way to misinterpret her words. He remembered her being adamantly opposed to plane sex, the type of adamant that came from prior experience. He knew this wasn’t special and didn’t mean anything, but he couldn’t help feeling let down.

  Then Lucille moved her hips, grinding them against his erection. He decided to ignore those feelings for now in favor of the other, much better feelings that were going on wherever she touched him.

  How she’d gotten their underwear off, he didn’t know. It was sometime during the making out. Next thing he did know, she’d gotten the condom on and was riding him, hard and fast. He decided he liked this position—he could watch her and have easy access to her breasts and her clit. However, at the pace she’d set, he barely got his finger down to stroke her when he came, unexpected and uncontrollably. He couldn’t hold on. The sight of her above him, her head thrown back, her body all around him, had sent him over the edge without a parachute.

  Lucille collapsed against him, breathing hard, her sweat mingling with his, her legs still clenched around him. She lifted her head and kissed him before rolling off him and standing up. She walked to the ensuite bathroom, completely naked, and closed the door behind her.

  Brett lay on her bed, stunned. He felt sated but not satisfied. Had she even come? He hated to admit he didn’t know.

  That was not how he’d imagined his first time with Lucille would go. And he’d been thinking about that first time nonstop since he’d crashed into Michel’s hotel room three nights ago. Kissing? Yes. Gratuitous touching? Definitely. But in his mind it was more fun. Not a wham, bam, thank you ma’am sort of a deal. Not an embarrassing loss of control like a teenage virgin.

  He sighed and scowled at the crown molding. Then he stripped off the used condom and deposited it into the bedside trash just as the bathroom door opened.

  Lucille walked back out from bathroom and started putting her lingerie back on.

  Brett no longer felt like a boy who’d just lost his virginity. He felt like the high school girl who’d slept with the coolest boy in school only to discover he’d been using her for sex and wasn’t actually going to ask her to the prom. Which was stupid, since he’d known this was just sex from the beginning.

  He sat up and picked his boxers off the floor. “Next time, I think we should go slow,” he said, more to himself than her. He didn’t realize he’d spoken so loud until he caught sight of her face.

  Judging by the stony, unreadable look she was giving him, it was the wrong thing to say.

  Chapter Seventeen

  It hadn’t been mind-blowing sex. Yes, Brett had come fast, and she’d had to hurry to keep up. They’d both orgasmed, which was supposed to be the sign of success. If it is, why does Brett look like he’s been used, and why do I feel like I took advantage of him? When she’d escaped to the bathroom, it was to look at herself in the mirror and give herself a stern talking to about projecting emotions that weren’t there. There were facts she couldn’t ignore, such as how gentle his hand was when he ran it over her skin, how much it felt like a caress instead of a feel-up. Or how soft and delicious his lips were, like eating a fresh strawberry. Lucille hadn’t savored. She couldn’t. She hadn’t wanted his soft caress or his tasty mouth. She had wanted a quick, hard fuck to get over this sexual tension between them, and that was what they’d done. Now Brett was screwing that up with his next-time talk.

  He’d frozen after saying those words, one leg through his boxers, still naked. She didn’t want to have this conversation with him while he was naked, dammit. He looked good naked. Really good.

  Lucille chose her words carefully. She didn’t want to hurt him—he didn’t deserve that. “You do understand the concept of a one-time thing, right?”

  Brett finished putting on his boxers. “Of course I do,” he grumbled.

  “Good.” She thought about asking if they were good, but she didn’t need to. Michel was no longer her client, so there was no reason for her to see Brett again. Her stomach churned.

  “I just figured... Never mind.” Brett didn’t look at her.

  “What?”

  “I said, never mind.”

  Lucille growled and put her hands on her bare hips. “Brett Jacobs. I may have only known you for a few days, but I’ve never known you to hold back your opinion. So let’s hear it.”

  Brett stood up. He was watching her now, and she couldn’t stand it. His gaze made the hair on her arms stand up and a flush travel over her body, warming her from the inside out. She stared at the wall with its stupid, gilded landscape painting.

  Brett sighed. “I don’t think that was satisfying for either of us.”

  She turned to glare at him at that. “What the fuck? Was it my imagination that you came? Because I certainly did.”

  “Great, yeah, no, it was great. But I think we, this, could be amazing, you know? If we gave it a chance, a real chance,” Brett’s words came out in a rush. He rambled, saying things that Lucille didn’t want to hear. As he spoke, he walked closer to her, reaching out his good arm. When he was right in front of her, he tucked her hair behind her ear with that arm, allowing his hand to linger on her cheek.

  Lucille scoffed. “That sounds like a bad R&B song.”

  “You make me feel like a bad R&B song.”

  She didn’t know what to say to that. There wasn’t room to say anything because he leaned down and kissed her softly on the lips. Softly with those succulent strawberry lips. When she was a kid, she used to love finding wild strawberries in the woods behind her grandparents’ house, the mansion in the country that had been passed down to her mother on their death and that had sat empty ever since. The strawberries had arrived with her in the early summer, hidden between the overgrown bushes at the edge of the manicured lawn. When the adults were distracted with cocktails and cards, she’d sneak out to those woods, alone and fearless. When she’d found her prize, she’d always follow the same little ritual. She’d pick the berry off the vine, blow on it, whisper a wish, close her eyes tightly, bite into it, and fall to the ground in a dramatic swoon, the juice running down her lips and onto the ground around her. This routine could be repeated twenty or more times in an evening, depending on the availability of the berries and the time before her grandma called her to dinner. After each swoon, she’d wait on the ground until her fantasy prince came and kissed her back to life. And since he was fantasy, he always came.

  Lucille had bitten the strawberry and felt her body go lax, leaning into the arms of the fantasy prince. He tasted so real, so alive this time, in a way he never had when she was a girl. She nibbled the strawberry, her teeth nipping at it. Brett’s moan in response brought her back to reality, back to his arms, back to kissing him. She pushed him away.

  “No,” she said.

  Brett looked startled, but he recovered and tried to cross his arms over his bare chest, forgetting about the injured one. “Why not?”

  “A, I don’t date celebrities, even D-listers like yourself. B, I don’t date, period. C, I think you’d be better off finding some nice girl who’ll be your muse and help you kick your drinking problem and who wants to get married and have babies and all that shit.” Lucille was still breathing heavily. She was aro
used and annoyed, and, judging by the less than concealing coverage of his boxers, Brett was the same.

  “What if I don’t want any of that stuff?” Brett looked really pissed now.

  “You do, I know you do. Look at how you showed up to help Michel even though he hadn’t talked to you in years.” Lucille was scrambling for reasons and hated how flustered she felt.

  “I showed up to kick his ass. The only reason I helped him at all was because I honestly had nothing better to do.” Brett scowled. “At least at first. Now I’m around because I want to see you. Only you quit, so I don’t really know what the point is anymore.”

  It was the least romantic thing anyone had ever said to her, and her heart warmed. “I’m not a nice girl.”

  Brett’s scowl deepened. “I know. I don’t care.”

  Lucille sighed. She wanted to wring his neck and fuck him. Like choke sex, her mind offered.

  “Here’s the way I see it. You’ve been lonely and bored for a long time now. You wanted an adventure, but it didn’t turn out to be the adventure you thought it would be, so you’re mad. You wanted a boy toy, but I didn’t turn out to be what you thought either, and that scares you. You’re scared and mad and lonely and sick of being everyone’s fucking life vest.”

  If she could bristle any more, she did. “None of that’s true.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “I love my job.”

  “You’ve been ignoring your phone ever since you got on that plane.”

  “So?”

  Brett was angry.

  Was she? It was hard to keep track.

  “I think you want something more. I think you want something real. I’m real and I’m here and I’ve never pretended to be anything I’m not.”

  She scoffed. “Well, that’s true.”

  Brett’s eyes narrowed. “When life finally bites you in the ass, sweetie, I am not going to be the one applying the ointment.”

  “Fine.”

  “Fine.”

  They stood there, both breathing heavily, both still aroused, Brett obviously so. Lucille didn’t know who moved first, but the next moment, they were in each other’s arms, kissing as though their lives depended on it. Brett grabbed her with his good hand and ground his hips into hers, making her gasp into his persistent mouth. When he brought his tongue into play, she went weak in the knees, grabbing his hair and digging her nails into his back to help her stay upright. Brett moaned again, but this time she didn’t stop. She couldn’t stop, not when they were so far gone.

  Brett turned them and pushed her onto the bed, landing on top of her, gracelessly and heavy.

  “Oof.”

  “Sorry,” he whispered, also grimacing. He must have landed on his injured arm. “I keep forgetting about this thing.”

  “Probably just needs a little attention,” Lucille whispered back, feeling wicked. She pushed down his boxers with her feet and reached between them to grasp him, running her hand up and down his length.

  “That’s not what I meant and you know it,” Brett growled, working hard to speak between groans of pleasure.

  She took her hand away.

  “Don’t stop,” he begged, looking down at her with wide eyes.

  She giggled, actually giggled, as she pulled him down to kiss, her hand continuing its exploration.

  Brett pulled back a few moments later. “Too many clothes.”

  “What?”

  “You’re wearing too many clothes,” he said, rolling them over so she was straddling him. He undid her bra, pulling it off slowly, meeting her eyes the whole time.

  Lucille shivered from the intimacy. She almost stopped it right then and there. Then he put his mouth on one of her nipples, and all the reasons to stop escaped her as she arched into his caress.

  Her underwear soon met the same fate as the bra, thrown to the side in the haste of needing to feel skin against skin.

  “You don’t by chance have another condom hidden in these?” he asked, fondling her breasts to make sure.

  She laughed. “I have one in the bed stand.”

  He reached awkwardly for the drawer with his working arm, his chest rubbing against her. If she bent over, she could lick him. She did. He tasted sweaty in a sexy, manly way. She ground her hips against his to speed up his search.

  He returned, foil-wrapped packet in his good hand. “That’s not playing fair.”

  Lucille was about to apologize but got distracted by him putting on the condom, kissing her, lifting her hips, and then entering her all in quick succession. They took it slow, moving together to hit those spots that had them both gasping. When he angled her above him so he could reach between them to touch her, she came with a small cry, his name on her lips. He followed soon after, pulling her against him and calling out her name.

  Afterward, they lay in the bed, gasping, limbs and sheets tangled, a comatose pair of sexually satisfied bodies. Lucille lay her head on Brett’s chest, feeling him try to catch his breath, his heart pounding away beside her ear. For a few blissful seconds, her brain stayed in its post-orgasmic daze.

  Then it started thinking again. She sat up and looked down into Brett’s face, frowning.

  Brett frowned back at her. “It’s time to start arguing again, isn’t it?”

  “This”—she indicated their naked, sweaty, intertwined bodies—“was not part of the plan.” She pushed herself off the bed and put her bra back on. Who knew what had happened to her underwear. That and her dress was still downstairs. She grabbed a pair of clean undies and jeans from her dresser and shimmied into them, all the while aware of Brett watching her but refusing to meet his gaze.

  Brett sat up. “But it could be, you know?” He got up, trashing the condom, and replaced his boxers. “We don’t have to be serious. We could be, you know, fuck buddies.”

  Lucille cringed at the idea but didn’t know why. All she had were fuck buddies. “I don’t think that would work.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know! Just someday you’ll want more and I won’t be able to give you more and then you’ll be heartbroken and I’ll feel bad for breaking your heart.”

  “Christ, that sounds terrible.”

  “I know. Which is why we shouldn’t do it.”

  Brett looked thoughtful. “Or, alternative scenario, what if we were fuck buddies and I didn’t want more ever and we went on like this?”

  “Uh huh, right. And how many successful FB relationships have you seen?”

  “Well...okay, but why is it me who starts to feel more? Why wouldn’t it be you? How I see it is you have just as much chance of falling in love with me as I do with you.”

  Lucille didn’t get to tell him how ridiculous that was because she’d had many successful hookups. The front door opened and closed. They froze, their eyes wide, staring at each other.

  Before they could heroically try to save each other, Simon’s voice called, “Lucy, why the hell is your front door unlocked? Anyone could have walked in. Like I just did.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  A moment later: “And who the hell’s pants are these? Do you have company?”

  There was the sound of footsteps on the stairs, and Simon walked into her bedroom before they could even start breathing again. He stopped in the doorway and took in the scene before him. Lucille pictured it through his eyes as he stood there in his skinny jeans and black leather jacket, still wearing his aviator sunglasses. Her ugly room with its gilded landscape paintings and hardwood furniture, the four-poster bed taking up most of the floor space. And in the middle of it, her, wearing jeans but no shirt, with sex hair and no makeup; Brett standing in front of her in only his boxers, his hair no neater than hers; both of them startled and looking more than a little bit guilty.

  Simon pulled off his glasses slowly and raised an eyebrow at them. “Huh,” he said after a long silence.

  “What?” Lucille hid her embarrassment behind a scowl. It wasn’t hard, considering how much she’d been scowling at Brett
. It was starting to feel natural to her muscles now. “Whatever you’re thinking, just say it and get it over with.”

  “I did not see that coming.”

  Brett was also scowling, his arms awkwardly folded across his chest. “What didn’t you see coming? That your darling niece would have an affair with someone like me?”

  “God, no. Lucy’s banged way worse.”

  She snorted. “You’re one to talk.”

  “Face it, my dear, we’re a family of sluts.”

  “Truer words were never spoken.” She stopped scowling. She wasn’t mad at Simon, not really. A little bit for abandoning her for eight years and for the stuff earlier on the plane, but not about this. She needed to keep her annoyance focused on where it belonged: the mostly naked guy standing next to her who she still wanted to fuck and punch at the same time. That would make an interesting sport. Or reality TV show—Fuck Punch.

  Brett was still caught up on the semantics. “Then what do you mean by what you said?”

  Simon shrugged. “I’d thought you were gay and that you had a huge gay crush on Michel.”

  Brett’s face turned red. “I’m not gay.”

  Lucille could have told him that. Simon, not Brett. Brett already knew he wasn’t gay. She tried not to smile, knowing it would make Brett madder. But then she remembered she wanted to make him mad. She smiled.

  “Bi?”

  “No.”

  Simon shrugged. “Oh well. I just assumed, given the strop you were in about him never being around and what not, and how willing you were to put yourself in harm’s way for him, that there was at least a little something going on.”

  “I am not willing to put myself in harm’s way for him.”

  “Then how do you explain the arm? And the bomb?”

  Brett’s face was bright red, borderline purple. “I didn’t want to get my shoulder dislocated! I wasn’t the one who screwed up and got the wrong guy! And you’re the one who set off the bomb!”