By Kirsty Dallas
Copyright © 2015 Kirsty Dallas
EBOOK EDITION
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, including electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be resold or given away to other people. While writing this book I broke out in a sweat on the odd occasion. Not an ugly man sweat with saturated pits, but a delicate perspiration on my brow. One day I even kicked my toe on the corner of my desk and it bled, causing me to cry (just a little). I wrote this book and literally gave it my very own BLOOD, SWEAT, AND TEARS, so don’t steal it . . . Quote it if you wish, tell your friends about it, create shit-hot trailers and teasers (I love those), just please, DON’T STEAL IT!!
My ‘because’ novel,
Because you asked for it.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHAPTER 1
Bradley
I stood before my full length mirror and gaped at my sorry reflection. I’d barely had more than twelve hours of sleep in the last three days; my eyes were bloodshot and weary, my jaw and chin held a healthy layer of stubble. I looked like shit . . . I felt like shit. My suit was immaculate, though it didn’t hide the worn-out, haggard man wearing it. I ran my fingers though my blond hair, pushing it back from my eyes. It needed to be cut, but over the last six months, I hadn’t had much time to do anything other than eat, shit, and work. Being the financial advisor to New York’s Mafia crime lord, Willie Bianco, was taking its toll. Stocks had taken a hit recently, which had required some major money shuffling on my part, but having my nuts threatened with dissecting was enough motivation to fix the fucking mess. I knew Willie wouldn’t actually dissect my willie . . . mostly.
I had started working for Willie when I was twenty-two-years-old, and over the last eleven years, I had earned him and his family millions. As his golden boy, I could pretty much ask him for anything I damn well wanted, which included a one way ticket to Europe. I now call London my home, though I was born and raised in America, specifically New York, and I spent my teenage years in Florida. My entire family still lived there, as well as most of my friends, but in an effort to keep them clueless about my career, I put as many miles as possible between them and my slightly felonious occupation. Mind you, everything I did was legal, even if the money I did it with had been acquired in a somewhat illegal manner. Willie had numerous legal business ventures that created income, one of which was Brutal Babes, one of the more successful pornographic production companies in the US. Even though the company was legit, the drugs they dealt were most definitely not.
At first, I had hated London. The weather was shitty; most of the time it was cold and wet, but when it was hot, the temperature climbed to such sweltering levels I feared the heat would somehow damage my precious danglies contained in my boxer briefs.
The diversity of the people was interesting, and the history in the buildings and surrounding cities was a never ending source of architectural enjoyment. My best friend, Decker, would love the buildings. I could just picture him gaping in awe and rambling on about architraves and eaves from dusk ’til dawn. Probably one of the many reasons I hadn’t encouraged him to visit; that man could bore me to death with his passion for bricks and mortar. Not to mention the fact he was a well-known porn star and would have every woman in a five mile radius dropping to their knees. Even though he had officially retired, women still recognized him, and it pissed me off. Jealous much? Fuck yeah! I had always come second where Decker was concerned, and I mean that literally and figuratively. If we were prowling for women, Decker attracted them. Whoever he left behind would finally notice me, and trust me, being second choice gets old real fast. As a typical horny, young, adult male, I couldn’t have cared less, as long as I got laid, and the fact Decker was doing all the work luring the women . . . well, I was happy to pick up the leftovers. As time went by though, I wanted to be first, just once. I’d lost track of how many times I wished a woman would turn her sultry gaze on me and ignore the porn star extraordinaire at my side.
I pressed the blinking button on my answering machine and listened to Decker’s easygoing voice once more; it held an undercurrent of humor which just pissed me off. He had left the message yesterday, and since I’d worked all night, I’d only heard it a few scant hours ago. This was payback, a reminder of the favor he had done for me when I had caught him at a drunken low point several months ago and asked him to collect my cousin, Andi, from the airport. He had bitched and moaned about that for weeks, but the fucker should be kissing my ass now, not claiming an IO fucking U. Now he was happily shacked up with Andi and living the domesticated dream, while I was working myself into an early grave while licking the wounds of a broken heart.
I shook my head in disgust as I moved around my apartment, picking up dirty clothes and trying to make it guest-worthy. No, not a broken heart, but maybe a broken dick. My eyes automatically dropped to said dick, hidden behind my eight hundred pound Hugo Boss suit. It wasn’t physically broken, just disappointed. For a moment I thought I’d found my own domesticated dream in the form of a stunning American porn star—yes, porn star. Don’t judge me; porn stars are people, too—only to discover she didn’t share my feelings. Well, that had been . . . awkward. She’d even used the infamous words, “it’s not you, it’s me”—I hated those fucking words. The entire experience had been a knock to my pride that I tried hard to ignore. Leah hadn’t been in love with me; I hadn’t been her it. I snorted at her romantic notion of finding her it. It was the one she would drop her career for, and I wasn’t the one, and call me old-fashioned, but I couldn’t stand the thought of another man fucking my woman. I knew now that Leah had been right; we hadn’t been in love, but damn, it had been some pretty fine lust.
It wasn’t hard to fall in lust with Leah. She was a gorgeous brunette with a perfect rack, legs long enough to launch an aircraft off, and hells bells, she had perfected the art of fucking. She was every man’s dream come true. Not mine anymore, though. This man would no longer dream about porn stars; even the porn on my computer sat in an untouched folder that I practically hissed at it every time I booted the damn thing up.
This whistle was not whistling for porn stars ever again, nuh-uh, no way. Just the mention of porn pissed me off, and Decker Fucking Steele had the nerve not to ask but demand I pick up one of the female stars of Kink Harder Productions from Heathrow airport in a little under t
wo hours, and then he wanted me to put her up in my spare room for a few weeks. According to Decker, she had shit going down in America, and she needed a time-out. She needed somewhere discreet and safe to hang, so a hotel wouldn’t do. Apparently, Decker trusted me with this girl.
I growled, actually fucking growled, as I grabbed the keys from the somewhat pointless ceramic dish by my front door. I checked my reflection in the mirror one last time before leaving my penthouse suite. The attendant had pressed for an elevator before I had even reached the thing. He was the best elevator attendant I had ever come across. He was also the oldest, and each day I left my suite, I prayed I wouldn’t find him lying in a deathly puddle of old age in front of the elaborate brass doors.
“Sir,” he murmured in a croaky voice that also attested to his longevity. Shit, he had to be nearing ninety!
“I told you, Floyd, just Emerson. No mister, no sir, just Emerson.” No one here called me Bradley; it was a name reserved for family and close friends. In the industry I worked in, I preferred to keep my real name a separate entity, and I wasn’t particularly fond of the name Bradley. It felt too uptight and stiff, which as I glanced at my uptight, stiff reflection in the elevator doors, I admitted the name was highly appropriate right now.
“My apologies, Emerson,” Floyd murmured in a noncommittal tone.
I stepped into the elevator and gave the old man an honest smile. I liked him, even though when I returned home he would go right back to calling me sir. Maybe it was his memory, I pondered as the doors slid shut. He was, after all, a gazillion-years-old.
The drive to the airport was chaotic, and I wished I had called my chauffeur. I forgot I had one most days. He had only been employed to my services a year ago, and I had used his services no more than five times. Being driven around made me feel like a spoiled dick. I preferred the independence of driving myself, even if it did push me to heights of rage I never knew I had. I wasn’t an angry man by nature; I thought of myself as more of a lover than a fighter.
Where Decker was the easy going, comical joker, only too happy to blow off steam with his fists, or dick, I was the more serious, passive aggressive one, freakishly good with numbers, and borderline geeky. Is it a crime to enjoy books and Sudoku?
I had never once been in a fight; punching Decker six months ago was the first time I had ever taken a swing at anything other than the occasional fly or mosquito. It had hurt like a bitch, and I’d decided right then and there I would pay someone else to swing their fists if I needed to rough someone up. I had never had any qualms about using the heavy handed tactics of the Bianco family. If one of my friends or family were threatened, I called the Bianco’s, and they fixed it. If I wanted pizza delivered in under fifteen minutes, I simply dropped the Bianco name. If I wanted the Spanish villa cleared for my own personal use . . . well, the Bianco family made it happen. While I looked after their money, they looked after me. It was a match made in heaven.
Once I reached the airport, I realized just how difficult collecting this porn star was going to be. All I had was a name, and a weird one at that. Wiska James. Surely she traveled under her real name rather than her film pseudonym? I had no idea what she looked like, and I had no idea if she knew what I looked like. I pushed my way through a number of disgruntled passengers standing in line before a car rental desk, and grabbed the attention of a woman who had a classic case of overworked and underpaid. She was young, and if it wasn’t for the dark circles under her eyes and the frustrated look on her face, she would have been cute in that prim and proper British way. I smiled my best panty-dropping smile, and a blush filled her cheeks.
“I don’t suppose you have a piece of paper and a pen I could borrow?” There was a slight twang of English pomp in my American accent, which I knew both confused and intrigued women.
“There is a line, you know,” demanded a woman from somewhere behind me.
I ignored her and kept my attention on the woman behind the desk. She reached for the printer beside her and pulled out a sheet of paper and handed me a pen.
“Do you have a Sharpie back there?” I asked, taking the obnoxious liberty to lean over the counter and check myself. Yeah, I could be an asshole when I wanted to. I spotted the thick black pen and grabbed it. “There we go. Thanks, sweetheart,” I said with a smile as I whipped off the lid. In thick text, I wrote the name Wiska James then shoved the lid back on the pen. “Thank you, honey.” I added a wink, which earned me another blush and a shy smile, then turned my attention back to the gates where people were beginning to pour through.
I joined the line of chauffeurs, once again wishing I had used my own. After twenty minutes, the people coming through the arrival gates had thinned, as had my temper. The last thing I wanted to do was stand around a fucking airport all day long; I was a busy man, and although I had worked until after midnight, I needed to go back into the office today.
When a tiny blonde bombshell strode through the gate, my heart stuttered and my cock jumped with undisguised interest. She was gorgeous: her hair so blonde it was almost white; her skin creamy; her face angelic and perfect; her nose tilted upwards slightly; her lips full. I couldn’t make out the color of her eyes from where I stood, but I’d bet on them being blue. She wore jeans that may have been sprayed on and a t-shirt that clung to her curves and accentuated her breasts, which were a damn good size for such a small woman. Her feet were slipped into a pair of leopard print heels that no doubt added a sway to her hips. A few men followed her out, their eyes glued to what I knew would be a perfect ass. When those color-undetermined eyes looked my way, they lit up, and her pace quickened as she strode towards me.
“Fuck no,” I murmured, and when she kept sauntering in my direction, I groaned. Decker Steele had gone too far.
“Bradley?” she asked, her voice as silky and smooth as her skin.
Blue, light blue with a darker blue ring around the edge, the most flawless eyes I had ever gazed into. Decker . . . was . . . dead.
“Emerson,” I corrected her.
A furrow found its way to her perfect face, right between her perfectly arched brows. “Oh, you’re the driver?” she asked, somewhat confused.
“I’ll be driving,” I answered as my eyes slowly ate up her petite body. She looked like a prima ballerina, not a goddamn porn star!
An oddly high pitched squeal from somewhere behind Wiska caught my attention, and I dragged my gaze from her body of perfect curves. What I saw had my jaw drop open and my head begin a slow shake. Disbelief had struck me silent and immobile. Fuck me, Decker was a dead man walking. I was putting a hit on him the moment I got home. The familiar person in front of me bounced with delirious excitement, his hands doing a ridiculous silent hand clap. When he eventually calmed down, his hand reached out and gripped my chin, forcing my mouth closed.
“While I don’t ordinarily object to a man standing in front of me with his mouth wide open,” Casey winked, “we are in a public place.”
Someone cleared their throat from behind us. Lionel stood there scowling, uncomfortably loaded down with two lavender suitcases and a matching carry-on.
“And you’re taken,” he growled.
“And I’m taken, you lucky devil you,” Casey purred in an attempt to pacify his unimpressed boyfriend.
Decker had not only sent a gorgeous porn star, but Andi’s loud and proud gay neighbors, Casey and Lionel, too. I knew them well enough to know that Decker was going down, and for once, not in a good way.
“What the fuck is going on?” I asked, my tone far too brisk. Casey, Lionel, nor Wiska seemed to notice, though, or if they did, they ignored my sharp tongue.
“What do you mean?” Casey asked, sounding genuinely confused.
“What are you two doing here?” I tried again.
“You didn’t expect Wiska to travel all that way by herself, did you, Bradley?” Casey scoffed.
“Emerson,” I said through gritted teeth.
Casey waved me off. “You’ll always be Bradle
y to me. Wiska had never been on a plane before; we couldn’t let her go through that alone. Decker and Andi said you had plenty of room and wouldn’t mind putting us up, too.”
I groaned; this nightmare was morphing into a real life fucking horror story. “For how long?” I somehow managed to force out between gritted teeth.
Casey shrugged. “Until Wiska is settled in.”
Lionel struggled with the suitcases, and I noticed Casey carried nothing.
“And you brought Lionel to carry your luggage?” I wondered out loud.
Casey grinned and winked before spinning around to divest Lionel of one of the suitcases. “Of course not. I brought Lionel to give me orgasms.”
I tried not to smile, but Casey’s crass humor and blunt personality made it difficult to stay serious.
In the meantime, Wiska seemed completely oblivious to the conversation that had transpired between Casey and me, her eyes wide and innocent as she took in her surroundings. She seemed so young, so vibrant, as if the ugliness in life had yet to reach out and touch her. My cock twitched in agreement, finding its own attraction to her obvious beauty. Back the fuck down, boy. I grimaced. She’s far from innocent; she’s a fucking porn star for god’s sake, and I’m not whistling that tune ever again.
I reached for her suitcase.
“So, you’re the famous Bradley?” she asked with a gorgeous smile.
“I prefer to be called Emerson,” I explained, though hearing Bradley roll off her tongue hadn’t been all that horrible.
“Emerson? Andi told me your name was Bradley.” She looked confused again.
Was it so hard for the woman to call me Emerson?
“My name is Bradley Emerson, but only close friends and family call me Bradley. Everyone here calls me Emerson, and I would prefer it if you called me Emerson,” I practically ordered.
“Of course she will, Bradley,” Casey purred, and for a split second, I wanted to slap the man.
Slap him? Like a fucking girl? I needed someone to slap me. I wanted to wake up from this ridiculous dream.
Bradley's Whistle (P.ornstars of Romance #2) Page 1