by Maggie Marr
Amanda was the best thing that had happened to me since rehab. She grounded me, she made me laugh, she turned me on, and I was following the rules that everyone else had imposed. My gaze locked with hers through the passenger door window. I opened the car door.
They were wrong. Being with Amanda wasn’t going to hurt me—it was being without her that could bring me down.
*
A club was a dangerous proposition for me. Prickles raised on my arms. Ballou was located on a tiny side street in Hollywood. You wouldn’t know this place existed unless a member invited you. An elite clientele frequented the place and not long ago, Ballou had been a pit stop for me on my nightly trip into the abyss of booze.
The club was located in a small gray building with no windows in front. It had a door that looked unused, and no one was standing outside. Actually, the front door didn’t open. In the back alley a guy in jeans and a T-shirt hung in the shadows. He could be any guy, simply hanging out, smoking a cigarette, but he was actually the guy who was meant to watch the door. Amanda stopped the car beside the back entrance.
“You sure you want to do this?”
“No,” I said. “I have absolutely no desire to go in there.”
“Then let’s leave.” She moved her hand to put the car back into drive.
“Webber has a director I need to meet for the next film.”
A sigh escaped Amanda’s mouth and she rolled her gaze upward. “This industry … can’t you meet this director at a normal business meeting and not in some secret private club with booze and blow?”
I rolled my head across the headrest and cocked my eyebrow.
“You don’t have to answer,” she said. “I’ve been around this business longer than you.”
Rev, the door guy, emerged from the shadows. He opened Amanda’s driver side door and she slid from behind the wheel. I turned toward Amanda.
A tremble from the base of my spine pulsed upward through my body. How could one woman look that hot?
She walked toward me. Long lean legs under a short dress and capped with high heels. A deep possession hardened in my belly. I wouldn’t be the only man who noticed Amanda tonight, nor the only man who wanted her. There wasn’t a man alive who didn’t want Amanda.
And she wasn’t mine.
I didn’t own her. I hadn’t marked her and yet there was this deep insistence in my gut that Amanda was meant to be with me. I couldn’t act on my desires, and while I realized it was unfair of me to ask Amanda to stop her life and wait for me to get enough days under me so that I could have her, it was exactly what I wanted to do. I loved the look of her tonight with that short dress that hugged her curves. Curves that I wanted to explore with my hands, my lips. I wanted to taste and suck and lick every inch of her body.
She stood beside me and pulled her fingers through her mane of black hair. She smiled. Her eyes stared into mine, and the impulse to grab her and take her back to the car or, at the very least, throw a giant coat over her crashed through me.
“Ready?” she asked. Her voice was tentative as though she were worried.
Of course she was worried. She was to be my sober companion at a private club with hot girls and booze and drugs. Formerly, my three favorite vices.
“Yeah,” I said. I scraped my hand across my jaw and let the fingers of my other hand curl around the tips of hers.
“Hey, Ryan,” said the guy who held the back door open. He was Mikey or Mick or some such fuckin’ name. I couldn’t remember. I’d never walked through this door a sober man.
“Hey!” I said and gave him a hand slap. His eyes looked me over and he squinted.
“I heard you were clean, but man I didn’t fuckin’ believe it until now.”
“Clean and sober man, that’s me.”
“You are lookin’ good.” His eyes flicked to Amanda and I saw him try, try like hell not to ogle her, not to let his eyes roam over her body and eat her alive. Some credit was due to him for at least trying, but he couldn’t pull it off, his jaw dropped open as his eyes devoured Amanda.
“Miss Legend,” he said and nodded.
“Hey Mick,” she said. Amanda grasped his arm and gave it a squeeze.
“Haven’t seen you in a long time,” he said.
“No, it’s been a while.”
I put my arm around Amanda’s waist and Mick’s eyes regarded me. He nodded and his eyebrows twitched with the tiniest hint of appreciation at what I’d just claimed as mine. A guy knew. Guys knew when someone had something that was beyond value, something beautiful and sweet and more fucking precious than money or diamonds or gold. This was beauty. This was pure beauty and purity under my arm. There was nothing more valuable than a woman like Amanda Legend. And I was so unworthy of her. I hadn’t earned the right to call Amanda mine, but I wanted to change that, in time. If she’d let me, I would fight to make her mine.
“You two have a good night,” Mick said and pulled open the door.
Amanda
We walked into Ballou. A dark cold fear consumed me. Ryan’s palm pressed against the base of my spine and steadied me. It was weird. I was meant to be his rock and yet fear clutched me. I was afraid that by coming here, even for business, Ryan would lose his sobriety and topple back into the abyss.
“Yo, Ry!”
Webber stood on the far side of the bar, in a tucked away spot, beside a tufted leather booth. Michael Franz lounged with a blond bimbette attached to his side. We walked through the club. Ryan’s hand moved from my back and a chill raced up my spine. He brushed past me and grasped Webber’s hand. I stood back and watched the male bravado as Webber introduced Ryan to Michael, the current hot new director who would be the next to direct Dillon MacAvoy.
The waitress skipped over and bent forward, her breasts nearly spilling into Ryan’s face. Of course. Heat churned through me.
“I’ll have a Coke,” Ryan said. His gaze flicked to me and I held up two fingers. “Make it two Cokes,” Ryan said.
Michael’s eyes were on me. Before I’d been merely background, scenery, like all the other girls in the club. But now with Ryan’s acknowledgement I had a presence, perhaps even a name?
“You’re Amanda Legend,” Michael said. His accent was Aussie, one of my favorites. He was big and well-built. “I’m a huge fan of your dad’s.”
I smiled. Most directors were huge fans of my dad’s until they worked with him. Sure there were a few who still loved him after surviving the on-set Legend experience. They definitely loved what he did for their box office numbers, which, in turn, raised their quote on their next deal, but they didn’t always love how demanding Daddy could be on set.
“Stunning. Just stunning. I met your mum once, at Banzai beach, I wasn’t much older than seventeen.”
I was surprised. People in Hollywood didn’t often speak about Mom. Some unwritten rule—no one ever discussed her death.
“You look a lot like her,” Michael continued.
“Yes,” I said. “People say that both Sterling and I favor her.”
“She was at my Dad’s resort for a couple weeks. I remember she liked Mai Tais, if I’ve got it right.”
I nodded and my smile reached my eyes. “Yes, my mother did like a good Mai Tai.”
“Sit?” Michael asked and patted the seat beside him.
Ryan nodded. His lips still held his smile, but a harder look had entered his eyes. If I hadn’t known better, if I hadn’t known that we had both decided that we had to only be friends, I’d think that perhaps Ryan was jealous.
Two hours later Michael and Webber ditched me and Ryan to head to a hotter late-night club. Ryan and I sat in the booth alone. He nursed his second Coke and watched the crowd. Our tiny nook wasn’t the center of the club but off to the side, in the shadows, where you could actually do business and still scan the scene.
The horseshoe-shaped booth was made for six but Ryan pressed close to me. Beneath the table he grasped my fingers. I wanted to turn my head and kiss him, to feel his lips o
n mine.
“That went well,” I said. “Michael liked you.”
Ryan’s eyebrow twitched up. “I don’t think it was me that he really liked.”
“You’ll get the part.”
“Maybe. Probably.” He turned toward me. “Would you go out with him if he called you?”
My heart careened through my chest. Heat flashed up my neck. Would I? “No,” I said. I slipped my hand from his and brushed my hair over my shoulder. The tense lines in Ryan’s face relaxed with my answer. “How are you feeling?”
“I wouldn’t want to do this every night,” Ryan said. “But, right now, I’m okay.” His gaze contained a certainty, a confidence that he looked okay and that he felt okay. Beneath the table, he pressed his palm onto my leg. His fingertip traced around the curve of my leg to the softer inside of my thigh.
Breath hissed over my lips.
He leaned closer, his lips next to my ear. I swallowed. Heat pulsed through me and my tongue chased over my bottom lip. He drew figure eights on the inside of my thigh. With each trace his fingers grew closer to the space between my legs. A spot that pulsed with heat and desire for his to touch.
“Amanda,” he whispered, “don’t mistake my attempt at strength as disinterest. Watching Franz’s eyes all over you tonight made me sick. I want you to be mine. I want to make you mine now.” His hand clasped my jaw. The desire in his eyes heated me. Neither of us could hide this want.
“I want you, Amanda Legend.” His fingertips traced up my thigh and pressed the front of my panties.
A shudder broke through me.
“But we agreed,” I said.
His finger traced the lace trim. My hips tilted forward. I pressed my hands flat onto the table and fought the urge to climb onto his lap and press myself against him. Heat clutched my belly.
“Every guy in here wants you,” he whispered. He slipped his finger under the fabric and pressed my slick nub. My legs opened beneath the table. “You feel how wet you get when we’re together. Your pussy wants me, doesn’t it, Amanda? You want me. Don’t you?”
My tongue flicked over my lips. My chest tightened and I couldn’t catch my breath. “Yes,” I whispered. “I want you.”
My sex clenched. My gaze remained locked onto Ryan’s eyes.
He leaned closer. His lips grazed my ear. “I’m going to make you come, Amanda. Right here in front of all these people.”
My hips pressed into his hand. And his fingertip danced across my sex. His fingers slipped into my entrance. My body tightened. Heat claimed my neck. Tight pants of breath came from my mouth. I bit my bottom lip and my sex squeezed tight around his fingers. My head pressed against the padded cushion of the booth. I didn’t care who saw. I wanted this release. I wanted Ryan.
“Ryan,” I whispered.
“I have to be good with everything else, Amanda. I can’t drink. I can’t get high. I’m not even supposed to fuck you, the one girl in this place that I want to fuck. But I can’t be good about everything, Amanda, it’s not in me. I’m not strong enough. So if I can’t drink and I can’t get high you know what I’m going to be bad about?” He pressed harder against my clit. My chest tightened and heat in my belly cascaded into my pussy.
He leaned closer. He whispered into my ear, “I’m going to break every rule when it comes to you.” He pulsed his finger against my clit. “I am going to sit here and make you come right now in front of all these people. And then, then I am going to take you home and I’m going to fuck you. I’m going to fuck you all night and all of tomorrow and I am going to fuck you so long and so hard that there is no doubt in your mind that you are mine. That I have claimed you and that you are no one else’s, not now and not ever. Not if you leave me, not if I leave you. It doesn’t matter, Amanda. Do you understand?”
I nodded. My eyes closed. His fingers were insistent against my clit and I wanted to fracture. I wanted to come apart at the seams. I wanted the release that his touch could give me right here, right now. My gaze skipped over the crowd. No one was paying any attention to us. Their eyes glanced over one in a while, but did anyone know what Ryan was doing to me under this table? Did anyone guess how close I was to screaming his name and clawing his body? Did anyone know that I was so fucking wet as his fingers pressed and rolled against me?
“You feel that, Baby?” he purred into my ear. “You’re so fucking wet.”
I turned to him and pressed my chin into his shoulder. I nodded. I couldn’t speak and I wanted to hide. I wanted to be somewhere private away from everyone.
“You’re tight and you’re wet and you’re mine. Do you understand, Amanda, you are fucking mine. I don’t want anyone or anything else.”
“Yes,” I gasped out into his shoulder. His fingers pulsed harder into me.
“Say it, Amanda, say it to me.”
“I’m yours,” I gasped out. His fingers pulsed faster. I slipped down the seat, giving his entire hand access to me. He’d pulled my panties down my thighs and he played with me in a way that was blatant and incredibly sexy. I pressed my hand to the bulge in his pants. I needed something to hold, something to suck, something to fill that hole inside me that raged with want and need and desire.
“You feel something that you want,” he whispered into my ear. I grew wetter and tightened around his fingers with his words. The heat of his breath on my neck. My exposure. The people standing only a few yards away.
My body tightened. A wicked gleam entered his eyes. “I am going to fuck you so hard. I am going to put my cock into every part of you. You are one fucking bad girl. You don’t even know how bad yet.”
With his words something in me jolted awake. A tiny moan came over my lips and he pressed my clit harder. My orgasm rolled through me hard and fast and soared through my body.
“That’s it Amanda, that’s it, come for me, come for me right here, in front of everyone in town. Come for me so that I know that you’re mine.”
And I did. I came wave after wave after wave. I came and I came and I came.
Chapter 20
Ryan
Her body was pressed tight against my side. She was heavy-lidded and limp. I’d made her this way with the pulsing of my fingers against her clit. Tonight took every bit of restraint. I’d wanted to place her on my cock and shove myself into her. But now she was nestled by my side and her head rested on my shoulder. She peered up at me with a wide-eyed look of submission.
She was mine.
Amanda would always be mine. She had a freshly fucked look on her face. My hand rested on her thigh under the table. I’d slipped her panties back up over her legs and straightened the hem of her dress. My lips pressed against the crown of her head. I could be good about a lot of things, but Amanda wasn’t one of them. I needed her. I needed her close to me and I needed to know that she was mine. I gave up the booze and the drugs and the lifestyle, but giving up this opportunity to be with Amanda? That would be one thing too much for me. Amanda had become a non-negotiable.
“Hi Ryan.”
My eyes peered through the dark to the source of the soft purr. Amanda’s body shifted beside me. Her head turned.
Lola.
Lola had been in my bed on a semi-permanent schedule before I got sober. She looked good, amazing. All curvy with dark skin and big brown eyes. She was a sometime actress who liked to fuck. I appreciated her beauty, but I didn’t want her.
“Lola,” I said.
Her gaze flicked from me to Amanda. Gone was the kitten of a girl curled up against me. That soft compliant woman had been replaced by someone who was sitting up straight with a determined edge to her jaw. Amanda cocked her head to the side and met Lola’s gaze full on.
“Hi, Amanda,” Lola said. “Surprised to see you two here.” She flipped her long hair over her shoulder. “And together?” The question in her voice was accented by the look on her face. She had a frown between her brows. Her look went from Amanda to me, and back to Amanda. Lola was too savvy not to notice the flush on Amanda’s skin
, the tousle of her hair, the stiffening of her body as though she’d done something horribly wrong.
A sly smile crept over Lola’s face. Her gaze rested on me. “Haven’t given up all your old tricks, I see.”
I felt a sharp inhale as Amanda responded to Lola’s words.
“Good to see you, Lola,” I said. My face was solid and a bit of temper underlined my words to her. I hoped she understood that I was telling her, without being rude, to move on. I placed my arm around Amanda while I stared at Lola. Her lips twitched at seeing that possessive move on my part. She turned to Amanda.
“I saw Kiley earlier. She’s hosting a party at the house,” Lola said. “You should drop by.”
A smile crept across Amanda’s face. A smile that anyone who didn’t really know her would believe was genuine and meaningful. “We were just leaving,” Amanda said. “Ryan has an early call time tomorrow.”
Amanda tossed Lola a wave and a smile as Lola retreated toward the far side of the club. Amanda slid from my side and unfolded her body from the booth. Her eyes met mine and there was a pain and a hardness there. I got up from the booth and followed her to the exit. She wove through the crowd, a little ahead of me. I saw her go through the side door and then, just like that, Lola was standing in front of me.
She was closer than I wanted. Her body nearly touched mine.
“What do you think you’re doing with Amanda Legend?” she said. Her eyebrow perked upward. A coy smile curled over her lips. There was a want in her eyes, her body was close and I could feel her, next to me, trying to entice me. “She’s not your usual speed,” Lola said.
No. I knew what my usual speed had been before rehab. My usual speed had been fast and furious. My usual speed had nearly gotten me killed.
“I’m a reformed man,” I said. I moved to squeeze past Lola, but instead she angled her body and pressed closer to me.