by Grey, Parker
Asshole. That seems like too kind of a word for Nolan Maddox.
I might prefer monster. Or sociopath.
Or horror movie villain who tortures people for fun.
“I appreciate the effort,” I say to Jen. I ignore the ache in my side and the gritty dust I feel on my sweaty hands, which I also blame Jen for. “And thank you for letting me stay with you the last two nights. But I think I’m going to go back to my own place. I think the best thing for me is to be alone for a little while.”
“Are you sure?” Jen has a weird tone in her voice. “I think you might have some things to talk about soon.”
“What do you mean?”
Jen points her chin down the road. There, leaning against my car as if it’s the most natural place for him to be, stands Nolan Maddox.
God damn it.
I want to scream at him, but I take a few deep breaths and walk towards him. I wonder if he’ll apologize. I wonder if he thinks that will make it okay. He’s in front of me now, and as angry as I am, I can’t help but wonder what he has to say to me.
“Have a good hike?” he asks.
“No.” I pull open the car door, letting him scramble out of the way.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you where I was,” he says.
So that’s the apology. That’s the best he could do.
“You couldn’t?” I ask. “You were in the hospital?”
“No, I was in New York.”
“So you could have told me where you were. You just didn’t.”
He’s frowning. “I just want you to know, I’m trying to fix this. I have a plan. I couldn’t tell you until we were alone.”
“We’re not alone. Come on, Jen.”
I wave over at her. She’s been hanging back, not wanting to get too close to the fight.
“Excuse me.” Jen gives an awkward smile as she climbs into the passenger side of the car. I jump in beside her and drive off, leaving Nolan behind.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Nolan
Well, that couldn’t have gone any worse.
I keep my phone off and drive home in silence. No radio, no music. Pull into the driveway. Still a dark tinted car sitting on the curb.
I give him the finger, but my heart’s not in it. Marwin’s job is done. Emma’s gone, even if my plan does work.
Inside, I drop my bags, pour myself a tall whiskey, and do the thing I’ve been dreading most.
I turn on my phone. It lights up with notifications. Emails, calls. Text messages.
Text messages from Emma.
I go to take a sip of whiskey and find the glass already empty. That was fast. I pour a second one, even taller this time, sit down, and start to read.
It’s as painful as I feared. She’s confused. She’s scared for me. Then she’s coldly disappointed. Why shouldn’t she be? I abandoned her.
I keep scrolling, and soon her text messages disappear as Emma goes quiet, and they are replaced by other, more recent messages from movie execs.
“Congratulations,” they read. “Great news.”
I just take another sip of whiskey. I should be ecstatic right now, overjoyed. But without Emma here, it’s all ringing hollow.
The last text is from Thorne Beckett.
“Didn’t even drop a hint to me about this, did you?” he asked, and he left a link to a news article.
Nolan Maddox Starts New Studio with $50M from Investors.
Maddox Films. My longtime dream, here at last, but now it feels like nothing. At least soon I’ll be busy again. Meetings, auditions, screenings. That should keep my mind off of Emma for a little while, I tell myself, but I know that it won’t be enough.
It won’t quiet the longing or the loss.
That will stay with me. Forever.
I can’t be here now. I head into the garage, ignore the damn Tesla, and uncover the old motorcycle. It’s not as comfortable as the newer bikes but it’s a classic.
Besides, comfort is the last thing on my mind as I roar down the driveway, through the gate, and past the dark-tinted car that struggles to keep up with me, and down to Sunset Boulevard, where I cut between lanes and quickly leave my stalker in the rearview.
I head west until the road ends at the ocean and then I cut up the coast, flying under the street lamps, watching the moon’s reflection on the water. When I turn up the canyon road, the street lamps disappear, leaving me to navigate by just the headlight and the moon.
My estate, the place I used to want to build, in another future now vanished.
The first place I took Emma.
Coming here was a mistake.
I put my feet down on the dusty road, ready to turn around and go back to the city, but I stop in my tracks, all the thoughts rushing out of my head.
There’s something shining, reflecting the light of my headlight back to me.
A car.
Emma’s car.
With Emma sitting on the hood.
I ride up next to her, downwind, so the dirt and gravel don’t touch her, and pull off my helmet. She knew that I’d show up here, which means she must know more.
She knows I’m hurting. She knows I couldn’t stay still without her.
And she knows where I’d feel the need to go.
Maybe she knows me better than I know myself.
“Alone.” She speaks quietly, her eyes full of accusations. “You said ‘alone.’ I haven’t been alone lately, have I? I’m being watched. We’re being watched.”
I nod my head.
“That’s what you’re trying to fix.”
Her steady gaze searches mine, and something flickers to life in my chest.
“It’s why you disappeared.”
I nod. Her hair is blowing in the hot night breeze. It’s killing me.
“It’s bad, isn’t it? Whatever is happening?”
“The less you know, the better,” I say.
“They’re not here now,” she says.
“No,” I agree. “But I still can’t talk about it.”
Emma nods, looking off to the moon on the ocean.
I can’t help myself. I lean in, kiss her hard on the mouth. I’m reclaiming her as mine, and for a moment, she’s stiff under my hands, still resisting me.
“Emma,” I whisper, our faces together. “I love you. I couldn’t stand to hurt you.”
She caresses my face softly, and then, all at once, she melts into me. Like she’s been dreaming of this moment for days.
“I know,” she murmurs.
She’s in front of me, sitting on the hood of the car in her panties, moonlight casting shadows on her face and on her breasts. She reaches out and wraps her legs around me, and with her hands she fumbles with my t-shirt. I pull it off, stretching it over my head and dropping it aside.
When I lean into her again, she arches her back and stretches up to meet my kiss. I drink her in, tasting her lips, her sweat, a hint of chapstick, and even that makes me ache more for her. I feel like I’m bursting at the seams, my erection pressing against us through the fabric, as I press into her hips and she hooks her ankles behind my back.
When we do, the metal of the hood bounces and pops, letting out a sound that echoes back from the hills. We laugh together at the silliness of it, her with her long limbs trying to balance on the hood of her dusty car, me standing shirtless, leaning down to reach her.
I take the moment to step back and throw off my belt, my jeans. Emma clutches at the band of my underwear like she’s unwrapping a present on Christmas morning. I take out my cock and she flashes a new smile at me, a look that tells me she’s got an idea.
She runs her tongue along my length, and the warm touch is soft but electrifying. I stiffen up further, standing up straighter, as she wraps her lips around me, then pulls back and looks up at me mischievously. Before I can ask, she rolls over, the hood of the car flexing and popping loudly under her, as she turns over onto her back and looks up at me upside down.
Emma almost slips, and I
put my hands out, afraid she’ll spill out down the slanted hood and onto her head. It’s incredibly sexy and incredibly silly at the same time, and I can’t help but laugh at her, splaying out on the crooked and uneven metal for me.
I’m afraid she’ll think I’m making fun of her, but she laughs too, and reaches for my cock, grinning. I grab myself and step forward, guiding my cock into her mouth, and Emma arches her back and leans back her face to meet me, taking me in.
She reaches her arms around me and grabs onto my ass, pulling me forward and pulling herself up at the same time, almost holding onto me for dear life, as her feet kick against the windshield. I laugh again.
This is truly a terrible idea, I think, but only for a second before she closes her mouth tightly around my cock, and suddenly I can’t think of anything else.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Emma
I taste him fully inside me, tonguing his cock, careful not to let my teeth scrape him, not too much, anyway, as I suck on him. I have to lean fully back, until my weight is resting on the top of my head against the car, where I rock back and forth.
“Oh fuck,” Nolan moans. “Yes, yes.”
I rock even harder, leaning back farther, sprawled out there on the hood with him standing over me, taking as much of his cock as I can into my mouth, when the hood pops again and my foot slips against the windshield.
“Mmmmphmm!”
That’s what comes out as I try to keep my balance. I dig my hands into his muscle, grabbing on as hard as I can, flailing my foot out, but it’s no use. I’m falling, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
My hands let go instinctively, covering my face, trying to protect myself from the hard gravel rushing towards me, but I never reach it. I feel instead Nolan’s hands under my back as he pulls me off the hood of the car and stands me up next to him.
“Thank you.” I look up at him, glad to see that he’s smirking down at me, not irritated.
He looks at me like he’s trying to make a decision.
“I think that’s enough of that. Time for one of my ideas.”
His hands snake towards my thighs and I hear a sound. He holds up my panties, torn in two. How did he do that? I didn’t even feel a thing, but I can tell from the wind blowing on my pussy what happened.
Before I can do anything more than look at him wide-eyed, his hands grip me and turn me around, shoving me forward, and I throw my arms out to catch myself against the hood of the car. Bent over, I look back at him and laugh.
“You know,” I say, “sometimes you can be—”
Nolan’s inside me before I can finish the sentence, and then all I can do is gasp. I bounce back into his hips, straightening my knees and raising my ass, and he claps a hand onto my shoulder, gripping me, pulling me back. His other hand reaches around my stomach and grips me between the legs, and his thumb drops gently to my clit.
That’s too much for me, I can’t handle the pleasure and keep my balance at the same time. My hands propped on the hood give way, and I drop down to my elbows, practically laying down on the metal. I keep my feet on the hard dirt ground.
“Oh god,” I say, practically shouting it out against the metal hood. I let him rock me, feeling the waves of pleasure building up, moaning out into the car. Looking up at the windshield, I see us both in the reflection, my face contorted with excitement, tits bouncing against the car, and Nolan behind me, mouth open, head back, a touch of sweat on his neck.
Nolan pulls out and spins me over, and before I can complain, he’s penetrating me again, my legs in the air somehow, my knees hooked over his bulging shoulders, my bare back on the hood of the car, and I’m looking up at him and he’s looking down on me with the stars behind him.
“Don’t stop,” I gasp.
“You’re loud,” Nolan laughs.
He puts a hand on my breast, pressing me down.
“I like that.”
He slams his other fist against the hood next to my head, leaning hard over me, his face hovering just above mine, sweat dripping from his forehead to mine, and I stare up at him as I come.
It's an explosion that rocks me out from my core, bending my spine and launching my hips up uncontrollably. My hands slip off the car, and I would have slid down to the ground if Nolan didn’t have me pinned in place. There’s nothing I could have done about it anyway, as my body is wracked by pleasure, leaving me powerless, squeezing Nolan between my thighs, his gray eyes locked on mine.
At last the waves of pleasure and pain subside, and I realize I’m wailing. It’s not a dignified sound, but luckily for me Nolan doesn’t seem to mind.
He’s rocking above me, his face slack, his eyes still locked down at me, as he shouts “Oh, fuck, Emma!” His face contorts, and the rocking of his body slows, moving in long, wide arcs that feel amazing against the receding tide of my orgasm.
With the last push he slumps against me, his chest heavy on mine, my face in his neck, and on a whim, I run my nails down his back. He arches and gasps, and I grin to myself. We lie like that for a long time, dripping and exhausted, feeling the wind on our cooling sweat.
“So,” I say after I’ve caught my breath. “You still can’t tell me what’s happening?”
Nolan sits up, his back gleaming in the moonlight.
“Well,” I smile. “I don’t care what you tell me as long as you keep doing that to me.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Nolan
In the morning, I’ve got no time to linger on the memory of our late-night rendezvous, because I’ve got to go to work.
Going to work. I’ve done it a million times, in a million different moods. I’ve gone to work angry one day, eager the next, and exhausted the day after that. With anticipation when it’s going well, frustration when it isn’t. I’ve been fired, I’ve been screamed at. Once I made a director so mad that he kicked dirt on my shoes, like a baseball player from fifty years ago. That’s a fond memory.
But even on the worst days, the days when whole movies threatened to collapse under their own weight, the days when I thought I had made one enemy too many and might be thrown from the grounds, even on those days, I never felt afraid.
Not until now.
Because today isn’t about my bank account. It isn’t about my career. It isn’t about me at all. It’s about Emma.
“Afternoon, Frank.” I wave to the security guard at the Marwin Studios gate.
He steps out of the booth. “I’m sorry, Mr. Maddox, I can’t let you on the lot.”
I frown at him.
“Frank,” I say, “how long have I been coming here? I see you every day.”
“It’s not about that, Mr. Maddox.” He’s wrinkling his forehead under his hat, looking uncomfortable. “You don’t work here anymore.”
“How are your kids? Did they get the Christmas present I sent them?”
The guard is looking behind me, at the line of cars waiting. I can see the anxiety growing in his eyes. But at the same time, he’s steeling himself to do something.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Maddox, but I can’t let you on, and if you try to go onto the studio lot, I’m going to be forced to stop you.”
“But Frank, how could you do that” I say, trying to look as sympathetic as possible, before I drop the act, “when I’m on the visitor list.”
He blinks. “You are?” He sticks his head into the guard shack, checks the list. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“You didn’t ask,” I tell him.
“That’s not funny,” he says to me as he hands me my pass, but he’s already smiling.
Once I’m through the gate, I instinctively drive to my parking spot before I remember that it’s not mine anymore. I pass by and see that they’ve already painted over my name, leaving just an ugly rectangle of poorly matched paint in its place. Fine.
In the parking garage, I have to drive up and around two levels before I reach the guest spots, with sluggish cars in front of me slowing me down the entire way. When we re
ach the guest spots, even those are crowded. We snake our way up and around to the next level, which is as crowded as the one below. Finally, it opens up to the roof, and spaces appear.
I hate to park my car up here. Unlike my old spot, it’s got no cover, it’s completely exposed. Nothing to stop sun damage.
This is the worst thing to happen to me this month, I think, and I laugh at my own joke.
Then I ride the elevator down and begin the long walk towards the actual worst thing to happen to me. Marwin.
Since I’m just a guest here, I can’t drive one of the company golf carts across the studio lot. I’m trekking on foot, and it’s a long way to go when the air is hot and the sun is high. I take a break in the shade of a tree halfway across the lot, because I refuse to let Marwin see me sweat.
A see a blur of white fabric pass by me. A woman in a summer dress. An actress, maybe, but unlike most of the actresses I see she has real curves. In the old days, I’d love to watch a woman like that walk away from me. She has a swivel to her hips, and I can see the lines of her underwear through the fabric.
But today every woman I see only makes me think of Emma.
Looking at this woman in white is bringing me nothing but heartache. It’s time to move. I walk again, with the woman in white ahead of me. My eyes seem to unfocus, they won’t let me look at her body even if I wanted to, because all I can think about now is Emma.
More than anything, I wish I could talk to her about this. She would see it from her own angle, her perspective that no one else would have or could ever have. I just want to hear her voice.
Next thing I know I’m stepping off the elevator on the top floor of the offices, shaking myself out of my daydream of her. Down the hall, past the lines of security and reception people, through the double doors, and into the conference room, where the board meeting is already underway.
It’s a board meeting like any of the others I sat through in this room. Shareholders lined up around the big table, leather folders open, papers shuffling, speakers droning on. The only difference is the sputtering stream of profane gibberish coming from Marwin at the head of the conference table.