by Ivy Oliver
Sandy glares at him.
“Maybe you want to get something off your chest?” he says, gritting his teeth at her.
“You—” she snarls, leaping out of her chair.
My new bodyguard moves so fast I can barely believe it. He very calmly pushes Sandy back down into her chair, to keep her from crawling over me, and puts a hand on Maury's shoulder, pushing him back down into the seat.
“Are you professionals?” he says, “or fucking children?” Looming over all of us, he looks at Maury. “Apologize to her.”
He mutters his apologies and Sandy gives Lucas an appreciative nod.
Nick looks at him appreciatively. He steps back and looms behind me, tree-trunk arms folded over a massively muscled chest.
“Shall we continue?”
Jim, the stuntman playing Monstrothis, leans forward. Nick continues his narration.
“Prince Grabthar's left arm breaks free, exclamation point.” He actually says exclamation point out loud, glancing over at Maury, the screenwriter. “Monstrothis turns, and—” Nick cues him with a pointed finger.
“You think you can escape?” Monstrothis roars, startling all of us. “You will never defeat me, boy! I already have your precious princess on my pleasure starship?”
“His what?” Sandy snaps.
A round of snickers and suppressed laughs busts out around the table.
“The pleasure starship represents Monstrothis' deep-seated—”
“It represents the reason why your contract has a nudity clause,” Nick says, annoyed. “Shall we go on?”
Nick, annoyed, rubs at his temples.
Sandy holds up the script. “Uh, mister director?” she says, playing up her Joisey Girl accent a little too much for her to be serious.
“Yes,” he sighs.
“One minute of script is supposed to equal a minute of screen time, right?”
“That's the rule,” Nick sighs, clearly knowing where this is going.
“We're on page thirty-seven…six-hundred and forty-three.”
“Yes,” Nick says.
“This movie is ten hours long?”
“It is a true epic,” Maury says.
“Shut up,” Nick says. “We're breaking for dinner. Come back in the morning. The morning would be before noon, Mister Laurel. You actually need to do this.”
Hurriedly, I leap out of my seat.
My security detail of one hulking hunk is on me like glue, following me out into the night air. It gets cold out here almost instantly when the sun goes down, despite the brutal, punishing summer heat, and I can see my breath.
“This whole thing going to be like that?” he says.
“I have no idea. I've never done this before. Trust me, not my idea.”
He snorts. “I believe that.”
“So, who the hell are you again?”
I stop and turn and study him. For such a big man, he's devastatingly handsome in a rugged kind of way, with a long scar running down one side of his face, dark hair, and violently gray eyes. I'd guess he's only a few years older than I am in age, but he seems older, surer.
“Security.”
“Like, Paul Blart security? Or putting-black-bags-over-people's-heads-for-the-CIA security?”
“Half a dozen of one, six of the other,” he says, smiling dangerously.
It takes a rare man to look muscular in tailored clothes, but he does. The job must pay well; he's all designer, from his Italian leather shoes to his tie tack. The leather holster under his arm is probably bespoke, too. You don't buy off the shelf for a hand cannon like that.
I start to ask him if he's packing as much heat in his pants as he is under his arm, but catch myself before the words escape.
“So this is your first movie,” he says as I start to walk.
“First implies there will be more than one. You don't need to be part of the whole Hollywood scene to see what a shitshow this is, do you?”
He shrugs his huge shoulders.
“Do I really need to explain why a ten-hour movie about Prince Grabthar, written by an accountant named Maury, is a bad idea?”
“Accountant?” he says.
“Yeah. Maury isn't a screenwriter, he's high up in an accounting firm my dad uses for his company. He's friends with my mom. He's been shopping this dumbass script around since I was in diapers.”
Lucas laughs.
“I don't care. Whatever, as long as the checks keep rolling in and don't bounce. I'm on you until this is over.”
“On me, huh?”
“Your mom says you're quite a problem child.”
I roll my eyes.
“My mom married a rich man and thinks she's rich. This isn't me.” I wave my hand around.
“Then what are you doing here?”
I shrug. “Nothing better to do. Trust me, I'm only ironically detached. I'd prefer this to where I'd be if my mom hadn't met my father.”
“Where's that?”
“Oakland,” I shrug.
“You grew up on the poor side?”
I eye him. “Mom was…well, she was a stripper. She's friends with Sandy, if you can believe that. So we had more than most. Less than some. You?”
He rolls his big shoulders.
“I grew up one of six in a farmhouse in Buck's County with two air conditioners for seven rooms, leaky roofs, pest problems, and four brothers and a sister constantly at each other's throats. I got out when I could and didn't look back.”
He looks into the distance, darkly.
“Where the hell is Buck's County?”
“Pennsylvania.”
“Where the hell is Pennsylvania?”
He shoots me an annoyed look, suppressing a smirk.
“So, what now? You escort me? Are we sleeping in the same trailer?”
I almost stumble over the double entendre. The flirtatious edge to my question seems to catch him off guard. This doesn't strike me as a guy who startles easy, but he takes just a little longer to answer than I expected.
“Your mom didn't deign to tell me about my sleeping arrangements. I'll have to ask her about that.”
“If you're smart, you'll make sure you ask for your checks. She has a tendency to forget to pay people.”
“Don't worry about that,” he says. “Boss takes care of it. What now?”
“Chow,” I say. “Follow me.”
I drop by my trailer to grab a sweater first and head over to the caterers. They've set up under a canopy, serving from a food truck.
“Mom wouldn't skimp out on this,” I tell Lucas as we get in line.
Everyone is huddled around the tables. Those big gas heaters that look like giant floor lamps raise the temperature a few degrees, while citronella candles burn away the bugs under the tent.
I go and sit with Sandy.
Lucas sits down next to me, creaking the metal bench at the folding picnic table with his weight.
She glances at me and says nothing. Now wrapped in a cardigan, she looks even more librarianish. She pokes listlessly at her beef wellington with a fork.
Yes, my mom had the caterers prepare beef wellington out here.
“You look a little glum,” I say.
She looks up at me, then back down at her food.
“You try being the butt of every joke for a while.”
“You handled yourself well,” Lucas says. “You'd do better in a squad of Marines than they would, trust me.”
We both look at him. Sandy smiles gratefully.
“I can't believe I'm doing this,” she mutters.
“Join the club,” I say.
Lucas says nothing. He didn't take a slice of the beef, but grabbed a saran-wrapped turkey club.
“How'd you end up doing this?” he says, after a few bites.
She looks at him and laughs.
“My career isn't going anywhere.”
“It's not?” I say.
“I've met a lot of your fans. Marines love you,” Lucas says.
“Yea
h, but so what? They gonna pay me to do a USO show?”
Lucas laughs. “You'd be more popular than some washed up stand-up comedian.”
“I'm forty-six years old,” she says.
“I'd have said thirty,” Lucas grunts.
She looks at him, trying to assess whether she's being played or not.
“I can't even eat this shit,” she mutters, shoving the plate away. “You know how hard it is to maintain twelve percent body fat and have a big ass?”
“I can't say I do,” Lucas says.
Sandy cranes back in her seat and looks at Lucas's ass.
“You sure?” she snorts. “Anyway, I've burned too many bridges in the biz. Didn't save enough, spent too much on…doesn't matter. Most girls by the time they hit my age are producers now. Plus, the industry isn't what it was. Everyone watches on those stupid tube sites. They don't pay us.”
“Yeah,” I say.
“I'm not expecting to be Meryl Streep, you know? I know I'm never going to be taken seriously. I just need to get into something before I'm totally washed up, even if it's something as dumb as this. If you don't mind my saying.”
“Don't tell my mom,” I say.
She smirks at me. “You're adorable.”
I put a hand on her shoulder. “I think you're worried too much. You're perfect for MILF stuff.”
She laughs. “Honey, I've been a MILF since you were in diapers. MILF one day, teen the next.”
Grabbing her plate, she rises. “I'll be in my trailer. Might as well enjoy being able to say that while it lasts.”
As she leaves, I shift into her seat to face Lucas, who watches after her.
“She live up to all your fantasies?”
He shakes his head. “Never had any interest.”
“Too blonde, or too…” I make a motion in front of my chest.
He smiles at some secret and chows down on his tuna.
“So, are you seriously going to follow me everywhere?”
“Till your mom says otherwise, or whoever signs the checks. How long is this supposed to take, anyway?”
“Mom will get frustrated and give up as soon as there's any real push back. I give it a couple of months.”
“Why's she doing this?”
I shrug. “She says it's for me, but she always says it's for me. She wants to be a movie producer. She has this fantasy that she can buy her way into fame for me and her with my dad's money.”
“Where's he in all of this?”
I cut off a bite of beef wellington. It's perfectly done, at least. I chew it for a while, savoring the taste before I answer him.
“He's at work. Nobody's going to say it, but it's pretty clear that they're in an open relationship and have been since I was in sixth grade. She spends money like water, but if this production costs something nuts like fifty million, he'll have made six times that on interest on one account before it's over. If she's out screwing around in the desert playing movie mogul, he doesn't have to schedule his booty calls around her. I think his latest is some French conceptual artist.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. The kind that strips down, paints herself orange, and stands around with leaves on her nipples to represent the clearing of rainforests or something. She's actually kind of fun, but I don't want to be Eskimo Brothers with my dad.”
“What?”
“You don't know Eskimo Brothers? It's when two guys have both—”
He grunts. “Huh.”
“Yeah,” I say. “You should go see my mom, find out where you're supposed to sleep.”
“Not until you're buttoned up in your trailer, kid.”
I narrow my eyes and grit my teeth. “Don't call me kid. Besides, how old are you?”
“Twenty-eight,” he says.
“Hah, not even old enough,” I say. “What are you so worried about? We're in the middle of nowhere.”
“See,” he says, gesturing at me with his sandwich. “That play won't work.”
“What play?”
He smirks. “Telling me your plan and trying to make it sound ridiculous so I won't be suspicious.”
“I don't even have a car.”
“Like the drivers won't run you anywhere you want to go. Are they going to say no to Prince Grabthar?”
I glare at him. “Fuck you.”
He stands up, taking his sandwich with him. “These heaters are burning me up.”
I'm with Sandy, not hungry enough to choke down any more of this overly rich food. I stomp past him towards my trailer, neither giving a heads up nor announcing where I'm going, but I can't shake my new babysitter.
I wonder if Mom told him he's not the first. I suppose maybe this was justified when I was sixteen, like I needed guarding at prep school. Maybe it was a dad thing. Set the boy right or he's off to military school. I really doubt that. I don't think he cares. This is all Mom, trying to keep me from being just embarrassing enough that the old man takes notice and bounces her.
This entire debacle. All her. The worst part is I think she genuinely believes this steaming pile of garbage she's talked these people into creating is actually going to launch me a career.
Lucas shadows me all the way back to my trailer. I stop at the door.
“Did you want to follow me inside and tuck me in?”
For a few heart pounding seconds, he seems to consider it. God, he's hot. Looking at him, it feels like I've never seen a man before. This alluring creature before me is a new, undiscovered territory I want to explore. Never in my life have I felt this kind of reaction. I'm hard as a rock and I can barely breathe.
“Try not to lose yourself overnight,” he says.
“I won't,” I say sarcastically.
Inside the trailer, I slam my door and lock it. It shakes the whole damn thing. It's freezing in here. The air is still running full blast. There's no thermostat, so I can really see my breath now. I rush over to it and shut it off, and stare at my shaking hands.
I haven't felt like this since the first time I got laid, except it's fifty times more intense. My dick is as hard as a steel rod and my balls are boiling.
I can't sleep in jeans. Well…I can. I choose not to. It's so freaking cold in here, I turn the shower on full blast with the hot water all the way up before I clamber inside.
The water stings my skin from the heat. I duck my head under it, and a faint layer of dust turns slick and trickles down my back. The dirt in this place gets everywhere, you can't stop it.
So I soap up, get the sweat and omnipresent grime off of me.
My hand goes between my legs and I take a harsh pull on my cock, dragging the skin through my fingers. My eyes half open, I start thinking about Lucas Baxter, my bodyguard.
I've…I've had fantasies before. Who doesn't? I'm just curious, I've always told myself, even when I slide a finger up my ass…like I'm doing now, gliding it inside me and thrusting into my fist. What would he taste like? Hot breath on my face, in my mouth. Strong where a woman is yielding, rough rather than soft, hard and urgent rather than enveloping and inviting. I pump my ass hard. One of my old girls got freak on me back there once and I got a taste for it.
So much of a taste that I keep a nice thick plug in the drawer by the shower. I lube that boy up and shove him in there, yelping from the brief pain as the widest part spreads my hole open. Cumming is one thing, but cumming with the heavy weight of the plug pressing on me from the inside almost makes me fall down.
I slide to the cramped floor of the shower and play with myself, wondering what his skin would taste like, how it would feel to take his cock in my mouth. I always fantasized about a kind of generic guy, just wondering how things would feel. I wrote it off as being jaded about sex, and if anyone is jaded about sex, I would be.
Okay, maybe it wasn't always a generic guy. A few of my classmates, a teacher or two… Mister Babbage, the gym teacher, was ripped as fuck and he'd teach classes in basketball shorts, swinging around like a sock full stuffed with a cucumber.
> Lucas is hung, I could tell just with a glance. Only a guy with a big dick swaggers like that.
Fuck. I explode into my hand, shuddering all over as I lose control and moan softly, choking down the sounds. I never learned to be all that quiet—I could be banging cheerleaders two at a time and my mom and father wouldn't notice as long as we didn't leave my suite in the house—but for some reason when I fantasize like this I need to restrain myself. Like I'm ashamed.
The high from orgasm makes my head swim as the aftershocks twist through my body. I have to catch a breather before I pull the plug out and crawl out of the shower. The water went cold while I was sitting there and now I'm not just freezing, I'm wet and stiff and I just finished beating off.
Shivering like mad, I towel off as fast as I can and throw on loose warm-up pants and a hoodie.
Then I head for the door.
Outside, the crisp night air sucks the moisture right off my skin and scalp. Hood up, I wander through the camp. There's still lots of activity. The crew mom hired are all hanging out together. I hang around the edges, watching the rough and tumble guys argue, brag, and joke with each other.
They all know what a complete shitshow this is. You should have seen the look on the guy's face when she bought half a million dollars’ worth of cameras and lenses over loud objections that most productions just rent because of how fast they go obsolete.
I don't know what I'm looking for until I find it: Lucas.
They gave him a trailer. It's about half the size of mine, just barely enough room to stand up and walk around in. I creep up to it when I spot him through the window, freezing when he stops, a deep expression of concentration on his face.
He's listening.
Sneaking up on this guy seems like a really stupid idea all of a sudden. I should back off and get back to my trailer before he drags me there by the scruff of my neck…or go jack one of the production's Navigators, head down to Vegas, and have a good time.
Instead I wait, frozen, deer in the headlights, until he turns back to what he was doing.
Undressing.
Carefully, I creep up to the curved aluminum wall of the trailer and lurk near the window, watching.
He detaches his shoulder rig from his belt first, removes the gun and checks it, and sets it on the side table.
I suck in a breath when he whips off his shirt. His body is more massive muscled even than I realized. He's huge, a godlike figure of raw power. I lick my lips, staring. He sheds the shirt and moves and flexes, sitting to take off his shoes and socks before he rises again to undo his belt.