She gasped, her slick folds cradling my erection and I moved my hips gently below her, rocking against her body. She took my hands in hers, lacing them together, and slid one of my fingers deep inside her mouth.
“We shouldn’t again tonight,” I said, hating myself a little bit. Stupid, responsible, Dominant bullshit.
“Why not?” she asked, her voice breathy.
“You’re going to be sore tomorrow as it is. And I want you feeling good and ready for more, tomorrow night after work.”
Her mouth dropped open just the slightest bit. “Can we just… take things slowly? No dinners out or drinks at the club. Nothing’s changed. I still don’t want anyone to think I’m sleeping with the director.”
“Even if you are sleeping with the director?”
“You know what I mean. Integrity means a lot to me. I want to earn my position. My job at the company. And not by spreading my legs.”
“Lucy,” I brushed my fingers through her damp hair.
“I mean it, Ash. That’s partially why that consent contract bothers me so much. I don’t want to sign it.”
I sighed. “We can probably hold off a little, but eventually we’re going to have to inform the Studio.”
“But not yet?”
What was her deal? I understood that she didn’t want to appear like she was sleeping with the director. But filing with HR was for both of our safety. And just because we filed didn’t mean anyone other than the head of HR, and Richard, would find out. “No. Not yet.”
She breathed easier, sighing. I pushed out of the tub, grabbing two towels. Wrapping one around my waist, I draped the other around Lucy when she stood. “Are we done?” she asked.
“We should go to sleep soon,” I said. “Early day filming tomorrow.”
Her face dropped. “So, you really meant it when you said no more sex tonight.”
“I really did.” Even though I didn’t want to mean that. “Let’s rent a movie and watch it in bed.”
Her face contorted, her eyebrows dipping between mahogany colored eyes. “I’m sleeping here?”
I laughed, hugging her towel-clad body against mine. “Yes, you’re sleeping here. If you want to, that is. No pressure if you’d rather go home… but… well, I’d really like you to stay the night.”
“Oh,” she said softly. “What about tomorrow at work? I don’t have a change of clothes with me.”
“Lucy,” I said, chuckling. “You wear jeans and a white t-shirt almost every day. I doubt anyone will notice if you wear yesterday’s jeans.”
She wet her lips, tugging the towel tighter around her. “What about underwear?”
“You could always go commando.”
I expected her to balk at the idea, but instead she smirked, a slow and wickedly sexy grin. “I could…”
“Or I could toss your clothes into the laundry tonight.”
She smacked my arm. “You were going to make me go commando when you have a washer-dryer here?!”
I laughed and kissed the tip of her nose. “Do I get points for coming clean?”
She narrowed her eyes playfully. “Only if I get to pick the movie tonight.”
“Nope,” I answered, shaking my head. Her shocked little gasp was fucking adorable. “Because I’ve already picked it. I’m pretty sure Prime has A Star is Born on streaming.”
That look of joy that beamed on her face? Fuck. It socked me in the gut. It knocked the wind out of me.
Chapter Fifteen
Ash
The next day was one of the best mornings of my life. And it was also one of the worst mornings of my life. I was a living Charles Dickens novel apparently. I awoke with Lucy in my arms. The first woman to sleep in my bed since Brie.
My throat clogged as I peered down at her, her dark brown hair fanned across my bare chest and her arm draped across my stomach. I pulled her in tighter, kissing the top of her head and closing my eyes as I dropped back onto my pillow. My chest was tight, and my eyes burned. I brushed my thumb across Brie’s ring, still on my pinky, and gave her a silent apology. Another woman was sleeping on her side of the bed. Resting a head on her pillow. Using her nightstand.
I don’t know what the alternative would have been. I couldn’t and wouldn’t stay in Lucy’s apartment. I couldn’t be anywhere near that apartment complex. And last night, Lucy wasn’t ready for LnS—that was for sure. I guess there was always the option of going to a hotel… but even that felt wrong. It cheapened what we were doing here, and I didn’t want to run the risk of Lucy feeling used. I swallowed, the lump going down like a ball of sawdust.
The truth was, I wanted Lucy to stay over tonight. I expected a BDSM fuck last night. Something to get Lucy out of my system and teach her a bit about a lifestyle she clearly was drawn to. But instead of getting her out of my system, I was now hooked. I craved more of her. And instead of a BDSM fuck… I made love to her. For the first time in five years, I made love to a woman other than my wife.
Fuck me. One night; one emotional, heart-to-heart fuck with Lucy and I was already turning into a sap.
“I’m sorry, Brie,” I whispered to the dark bedroom, almost as though she were there with us. Like the world’s most unsexy haunted threesome. Shit, it’s the kind of stupid movie idea Richard would greenlight for drunk frat boys. Haunted Threesome: Coming to a theater near you.
Don’t be sorry, Brie whispered back in my mind. If only it was really her. If only it wasn’t just my stupid subconscious trying to convince myself that what I did was okay. And that it would be okay to do it again.
I gripped the Egyptian cotton sheets twisted around my legs and clenched them hard in my fist. I promise you, I won’t do this again here, I thought to Brie. I’ll take Lucy to LnS next. Keep a healthy separation.
Healthy? Brie’s voice chuckled in my mind.
Okay, fine. Healthier, I countered.
Healthier for who?
Don’t you hate it when you argue with the voices in your head?
I groaned, and checked my phone for the time. Four-twenty-six a.m. The sun hadn’t even begun peeking through the navy sky yet, but we had to be on set by six. In a matter of minutes, my alarm would blare and whatever this was—Heaven? Hell?—would be interrupted. I slid out of bed, careful not to wake her just yet, and went to the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face. No need to hop in the shower since Lucy and I covered that last night.
When I came back into the bedroom, Lucy surprised me by not only being awake, but was already dressed in yesterday’s jeans and t-shirt which I had washed for her last night. An unsure smile twitched at the corners of her mouth. Nervous? Why was she nervous. I crossed the room to her. “Morning, gorgeous,” I said, my voice still sleep-graveled.
“Morning,” she answered quietly.
I bent, pressing my lips to hers. “You sleep okay?”
She nodded, but said nothing more. Hmm. “You talk in your sleep,” she said quickly, and I froze. Fuck. Brie used to tell me that, too. But it only happened if I was extremely relaxed. Hence, it hadn’t happened in over five years. Or at least, not to my knowledge.
I cleared my throat and reached for a shirt from my drawer. I could feel Lucy’s gaze burning into my back, but I refused to look up at her, and instead rummaged through my clothes. “Did I say anything interesting?” I slid my arms into a soft green polo shirt and then grabbed a pair of black pants hanging in my closet and slipped into them.
She took a while to answer, but eventually Lucy shook her head no. “Not really. Except…”
My mouth went dryer than a sandstorm. “Except?” I prodded.
“Well, you did say something about Judy being better than Liza.” A grin broke out along her face.
Relief hit me like a wave and my shoulders relaxed. “Oh, you’re going down!” I tackled her onto the bed as a peal of laughter tore from her throat. I dove my fingers into her sides, tickling her, and she squirmed, wiggling that curvy little body beneath me.
Her legs opened wider,
my pelvis wedged between them and her laughter morphed into soft, short pants. My cock hardened, pressing into her denim covered cleft, and she parted her lips, eyes heavy as she looked up into my eyes from over her glasses. She curved her legs around my waist, her heels digging into my ass, pressing me deeper against her.
“Ash,” she moaned my name, her voice more husky than usual. Her cheeks flushed pink and I could smell our arousal heavily in the air.
“God, Lucy,” I gasped, my hands fisting restlessly into the twisted sheets surrounding us. I closed my eyes, taking her mouth in a bruising kiss, sliding my tongue in long strokes against hers. I swallowed her moans. Her cries. Her gasps. I drank them in like the finest scotch. Her hand found my cock, gripping me hard through my pants. “Oh, fuck,” I said through gnashed teeth, breaking our kiss.
I arched into her tight grip, my balls swelling. I needed to bury myself inside her. I needed to come hard and fast and feel her little body spasm around my milked dick. I wanted her spread-eagled right there, and to sink my dick into her hard and fast until my balls were pressed against her swollen pussy lips.
She popped open the button of my pants, reaching into my boxer briefs and gripping me, flesh on flesh. A groan tore from my mouth, and I arched into her hold, thrusting my cock harder into her palm. I threw my head back, and then I made the biggest mistake of all.
I looked up.
I opened my fucking eyes to the carved wooden trinket box on the dresser across the room. Brie’s trinket box I couldn’t bring myself to put away or get rid of. The one I carved for her myself, and put her engagement ring in.”
“Ash?” Lucy blinked up at me, confused. Her lips were wet and swollen from my brutal kisses. I pushed off of her, swiping a hand across my unshaven jaw, and reached out a hand to help her up.
“We’re going to be late,” I said. I didn’t mean it to come out as gruff as it did.
“We have an hour,” she answered, looking at the clock.
I did my best to smile, but it was forced at best. She could see right through me, I was certain of it. “Well, we need to get breakfast first. And… I assume you don’t want us arriving at the same time. That whole ‘not wanting to look like you’re sleeping with the director’ thing, right?”
“Right.” She nodded, looking around the room as though it held the answer to why I was such an asshole. Hell, it did hold the answers, but nothing she was going to find.
“Okay, then,” I said. “I know a pretty great diner along the way we can hit. Follow me in your tin can.”
Jude gaped at me in the hallway, a bowl of some sort of quinoa bullshit salad in one hand, and a forkful paused halfway to his open mouth.
It was already lunchtime; the morning had flown by in a series of shots that kept both Lucy and I so busy, I hadn’t even seen her since we arrived at the studio. Breakfast had been nice… not too tense considering I had freaked out at the prospect of fucking her in my bed this morning. No, not my bed. Brie’s bed.
“You took her back to your house?” Jude repeated, whispering in the hallway despite the fact we were the only two there.
“Yeah,” I grunted.
“You were intimate with her in your and Brie’s house?”
I swallowed, heat climbing from my gut. An encompassing guilt threatened to engulf me. And hell, I would have let it. “I’m a dick.”
“No,” Jude said, dropping his fork into the bowl, untouched. “Ash, it’s been five years. Brie was my friend too, and you can’t stand there and tell me she wouldn’t be happy to hear you’re moving on.”
My throat burned. “I’m not moving on.”
“Okay…” Jude said cautiously. “Brie would be happy to know you’re exploring more lasting relationships.”
I snorted. “Not in her fucking bed though.”
Jude smiled. A goddamn humoring smile that—even though he was my best friend—I wanted to punch off of his perfect fucking face. “Buddy… most people have sex in beds.”
“Not me,” I grumbled. “I fuck. I fuck hard. I fuck long.” I didn’t even mention that we never got to the part of fucking in the bed because I lost my shit like I had swallowed battery acid.
Jude shrugged. “Well, maybe it was time for that to change.”
Was it time? Five years was a long time to go… but not when you expected a lifetime of lonely misery. Not when you deserved a lifetime of lonely misery. “I don’t know how to describe it. Sex has just always been a way of stress release for me. Almost like a habit. It’s never different. It’s usually good. Sometimes just okay. But always reliable.”
“And this… wasn’t?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Because it was phenomenal. “Because… I care about Lucy. I connected with her.”
Jude lifted a brow. “You don’t care about your other subs?”
“Yeah, of course. Sort of. Like… I would care if something happened to them. I care that their needs are met and that they get pleasure out of our scenes together. But I don’t want to sit and have dinner with them. I don’t want to debate what films are the best with them.” A smile touched my lips. I don’t want to argue over Liza or Judy with them.
“But you want to with her?”
Yes. “I don’t know.”
Jude’s eyes flicked down the hall to where Richard’s corner office door sat slightly ajar, taunting me. “You better go talk to Richard. Especially if you’re planning on taking this girl to dinner. Chances are she’s not going to want to be your dirty little secret.”
I snorted. “You’d be surprised. She doesn’t want anyone finding out about us.”
Jude slipped the fork in his mouth as his eyebrows jumped. “Looks like you found your match, Ash Livingston,” he said after swallowing.
“Fucking tell me about it,” I mumbled, and ambled down the hall toward Richard’s office.
I gave a little knock, causing the slightly cracked door it to creak open.
“Come in,” Richard called from within the room.
I pushed the door open, and as Richard looked up from where he was working, his eyes widened briefly. “Oh. I was, uh, I was expecting someone else.” He looked around my shoulder in the empty hallway.
“Most of the crew is still at craft services eating,” I said. Richard rapidly tapped the edge of his pen against the lacquered cherrywood desk. “I can come back later if you prefer.”
“No. It’s, um, it’s fine. We just have to make it quick.”
I closed the door behind me and slid into the leather chair across from his desk. “I found a natural sub I want to train,” I blurted out before I lost my nerve.
Richard’s eyes widened. “Well, that was fast… You know I wasn’t telling you to go out and do that, right?”
I snorted. “Yeah, I know.” You also weren’t telling me not to do it.
“So?” he prodded. “How’s it going with her?”
“So far it’s … good. But, I didn’t find her at LnS,” I said. Well, technically, I guess I did… but that was beside the point. “That’s what I need to talk to you about. I found her here. She works at Silhouette.”
“Goddamnit, Ash,” Richard fell back in his chair, rubbing his hands across his eyes. “Almost four million people in this city and you have to sleep with one of the two hundred who work here in my studio with you?”
I shrugged, chuckling despite the bitter snap of his words. “Rich, production teams spend eighteen to twenty hours a day on set. We go to bed at midnight, wake up at four and do that for months during filming and post-production. Where the fuck do you think we’re going to meet people? There’s a reason so many of us date colleagues.”
He shook his head. “But you’re the director. You’re no longer her colleague. You’re her boss.”
I nodded. “I know. I thought of that already and I gave her department over to Jon to handle. I have no firing or hiring or budgetary authority anymore.”
Richard nodded. “Good. Like you did with costumi
ng because of Kelly.”
I froze momentarily, then forced myself to breathe. “Um… yes. Just like that, actually.”
Richard sighed and pulled some papers out of his desk drawer. “You’re both going to need to sign a consent waiver and file it with HR.”
I chewed my cheek, breathing the stale air-conditioned air of Richard’s office. Fuck, this wasn’t going to go over well. “Yeah… about that…”
“What?” he snapped.
“She’s really nervous to sign anything. Not because she isn’t consenting, but she’s afraid the crew will see her as sleeping her way to the top if it gets leaked.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Richard slammed his drawer shut and sighed. “What is wrong with this generation? She has to sign. You have to sign. I don’t care if you file it with HR or just each keep a copy for yourselves in case this goes ass end up, but you both need proof of consent, each for your own safety.”
I put my hands out in front of me. “Look, I know. I get it. The consent waiver is important. But so is earning her trust and honoring what she wants. And what she wants is for no one to know about our relationship.”
Richard paused, his eyes locked on the waivers in his hands. “She sounds like my niece.”
“Well, unless your niece works here at Silhouette, I doubt it’s the same woman.”
Richard swallowed hard and his silver eyes slowly lifted to mine. “Right.”
I tilted my head, unsure of why he was studying me so acutely.
He shook it off quickly, flashing me a smile so disarming that if I’d been a woman, I would have handed over my number right then. “What department is she in?” Richard asked and even though the question was casual, there was an edge to his voice that was anything but. He stood, walking over to his French press and poured a cup.
“I don’t think I should reveal that yet, either. I’ve earned her trust… now I have to keep it.”
Richard took a sip of coffee, nodding. “I understand.”
I shoved my hands in my pockets, smiling at Lucy’s temper, at how angry she would be if I ever told someone—not that betraying her trust is funny. But there was something about her, a quality, that whether I was thinking about her laughing or angry or aroused… she just made me smile.
Role Play (Silhouette Studios) Page 21