Close Up and Personal (Spotlight Series)

by JS Taylor

  I feel James’ fingers and my ass tightens around them as I come. Then suddenly, he begins to move them, firmly, fast, pulsing his fingers in and out quickly.

  Keeping his fingers working my ass, he positions himself between my legs. Then with a strong push he forces into me, stretching me open and filling me up.

  Then he is fucking me from behind, plunging deep into where I am already pulsing with orgasm.

  His fingers fuck my ass as he slams into me with his body. He moves hard, urgently, and I feel the aftershock of my orgasm begin to build higher.

  “Oh God Isabella,” he moans. “I’m going to come.”

  And then his fingers plunge deep into my ass as he explodes inside of me.

  In the still shuddering aftermath of my first orgasm comes another wave, shattering through me in a second intense bolt of pleasure. I am coming for a second time.

  The orgasm it hits me with double force, and I cry out aloud.

  Then the waves ripple slowly back, and I find my body collapsing, relaxing with the force of it.

  James slides himself out of me, and flips me around in the tub.

  It’s all I can do not to sink under the water. I feel as though every need I ever had has just been sated.

  I gaze up at him, hazily, my eyes in soft focus.

  “Do you see Isabella,” he says, “how if you trust in me I can give your greater pleasure?”

  “Yes,” I whisper, staring into his green eyes. In the after-light of the multiple orgasm he’s just given me, they seem more beautiful than I’ve ever seen them before.

  He smiles at me, a happy, boyish smile.

  “I like making you come,” he says. “You look so lovely, lying there in the water. And knowing that I’ve satisfied you makes me immensely happy.”

  I smile back at him and sit up so we’re facing. He holds my hips with his hands.

  “So tell me,” I say, “did that take your mind off these demons of yours?”

  It’s a risky thing to say I know, but to my relief he throws his head back and laughs.

  “Yes,” he says, when his amusement has subsided. “Very clever Ms Green. You are quite right. When I’m with you perhaps those demons are not so near.”

  He gazes at me for a moment, happy, but somehow calculating something. Then he rises to his feet, and hands me a huge fluffy bathrobe.

  “Come to bed,” he says. “Perhaps we can find some other ways to chase away both of our demons.”

  Chapter 20

  We float into the bed, and lay for a time in each other’s arms.

  Then, under the hotel sheets James and I make love, our eyes locked, breathing perfectly into one another.

  The softness of his movements opens up something different inside of me. And this time as he strokes me to orgasm with his body and his fingers, the climax feels different, deeper.

  We fade into each other, tired and happy. And I realise with a falling feeling that there is no way back for me now. I am undeniable, irrevocably, in love with James Berkeley. The idea is frightening and exciting all at once.

  I fall asleep in the soft scented sheets of the bed, but am woken later in the night by shouts. I turn to see James is twisting in his sleep, crying out aloud. I draw him tighter, and whisper him softly awake.

  “James. You’re having a nightmare.”

  The moment he wakes up he looks glassy-eyed, confused, as though he doesn’t know where he is.

  “It’s cold here,” he says. His voice is sad, fearful, like a small boy.

  “Shhh,” I pull him close. “It’s ok now, you had a bad dream.”

  He turns, and looks confused. The he blinks himself more awake.

  “What happened?” he asks, in more of his usual voice.

  “You had a nightmare,” I say, “you were crying out in your sleep.”

  “Oh.”

  He looks thoughtful.

  “That happens sometimes. I didn’t realise I spoke in my sleep. I apologise for waking you.”

  “Don’t be silly.” I’m staring at him. “Are you ok? It sounded like a really bad dream. You said it was cold,” I add, hoping to jog his memory.

  He shakes his head, as though trying to shrug an image from his head.

  “It was nothing,” he says. “Just a dream about when I was younger. Go back to sleep Issy.”

  I lie back, and as I begin falling back to sleep I feel him slip from the sheets, and walk away from the bed.

  The mysterious James Berkeley, my subconscious murmurs as the dreamy world takes over my thoughts. Will I ever understand him?

  Then sleep takes over, and I fall into a place halfway between this hotel bedroom and somewhere different entirely.

  In my dreams a green-eyed boy in boarding-school uniform sits shivering. He asks me over and over when he can go home.

  I wake to bright daylight, and my phone ringing by my ear, James is nowhere to be seen, and I grab the phone off the bedside table.

  My mother’s name flashes on the display. I realise I’ve not spoken to her in a few days. Probably she wants to remind me of her impending visit.

  “Hi Mami.”

  “Morning carino. Where are you?”

  “I.. Um. I’m at a friends,” I manage. I’m not quite ready to explain the complexity of James Berkeley to my mother just yet.

  “Oooooh I see.” My mother can always tell when I’m hiding something. “Well, alright then darling. But are we still good to meet up in an hour?”

  An hour?

  “Don’t tell me you forgot? I sent you an email.” She sounds more amused than annoyed.

  “I… I’m so sorry Mami. I did forget. We organised it a few days ago and it’s been mad since then.”

  My mother gives her big warm laugh.

  “No problem darling. I am not offended. I would rather you had a life, eh? Not holed up reading scripts or whatever you do. Or checking for emails from your mother.” She laughs again.

  I roll my eyes. My mother is always on at me to have more of a social life.

  “So you can tell me all about this friend later?” I can hear the curiosity in her voice.

  “I.. Um. Yeah. Sure Mami.”

  “Do you want to meet a little later than we planned?”

  I mentally calculate my position in London. I’m in Mayfair. We always meet in Trafalgar Square. It’s a tradition since I moved to London.

  “No, that’s ok Mami. I’m in Mayfair. It will only take me twenty minutes to walk to Trafalgar Square.”

  “Lovely. OK then darling. Well I’m very excited. We go to the gallery, then we go to lunch and you tell me all about this friend of yours.”

  “Ok Mami.” I sigh, wondering how I’m going to explain things. I never could lie to my mother.

  “And don’t sigh darling. We have nice day. Oh, I nearly forgot. I arrange to meet Robin and Carol for lunch too.”

  Robin and Carol are my aunt and uncle on my father’s side. They live in a London suburb, and I stayed with them during my years at drama school.

  I hated the long commute into central London on the underground, but I always loved Robin and Carol. They had no children of their own, and always treated me like a daughter.

  We had a running joke that they had adopted me, and it was more or less true.

  “Great idea Mami,” I say, “I should have remembered to invite them myself.”

  I realise it’s been a few weeks since I went to see my aunt and uncle. I’ve been a negligent step-daughter.

  “Ok darling, we’ll have fun.”

  “Yes Mami. See you later.”

  “Love you carino.”

  “Love you too.”

  I hang up the phone to see James standing in the doorway. He looks amused.

  “Your mother is Spanish?”

  “Yes. How did you know that?” I try to remember if I ever told him.

  “I speak a little Spanish. I recognised the word for mummy.”

  “You must be good to know that mami is Spanish.”


  He shrugs. “I get by. In any case, I was hoping you might let me meet her.”

  “Meet my mother?”

  “Yes. If you recollect I asked you once before but it was too soon. I was hoping perhaps the events of last night…”

  He moves towards the bed, and sits next to me, scooping up my hand.

  “Isabella,” he says, staring into my eyes. “I have never felt the way about anyone that I feel about you. I would very much like to meet your family.”

  “What about us being seen together?” I ask. “What about photographers?”

  “The ones we can’t control come out at night,” he says. “Paps aren’t an issue during the daytime. We have budgets to keep them in hand.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Paps can sell the right shot for thousands,” he says, “but the big money shots are always night clubs, or by swimming pools. That’s where the scandals happen. We pay a retainer to the worse paps to leave us alone in daytime. They know they’re unlikely to make big money for daytime shots anyway. So it works out for everyone.”

  “Oh.”

  I never realised photographers were so complicated, and make a mental note to ask Chris the next time we’re doing a shoot. If we do another shoot, I think remembering James’s jealously.

  “In any case they don’t tend to favour busy areas,” says James. “Too many normal people around and not enough scandalous activity going on.”

  Ok. I can see that. But do I really want him to meet my mother? She’s not the most normal of people.

  I take a breath. “The thing about my mother…”

  “What?”

  “She’s… She’s Spanish,” I say, by way of explanation.

  James laughs. “So? I’ve met quite a few Spanish people in my time.”

  I sigh, wondering how best to explain things. My parents spent part of their lives in a circus commune, and my mother’s life is irregular to say the least. James Berkeley with his fancy upbringing would probably be horrified at my chaotic childhood.

  “Are you embarrassed of your mother?” asks James, leaning forward in mock seriousness.

  “No. It’s just… She can be quite intense,” I manage.

  “I think you’ll find me more open-minded than you think.”

  I pause for a moment, trying to think of another excuse.

  “Where are you meeting her?” he asks.

  “In Trafalgar Square. We’re going to the National Gallery.” This is another little quirk of my mothers. She’s been to the National Gallery a hundred times, and the pictures in the main collection never change. But she loves to see it all the same. It’s the artist in her I guess.

  James seems to think about this.

  “Your mother likes the National Gallery?”

  “She loves it.”

  “Would she perhaps like to see a little behind the scenes?”

  “What?”

  James gives me a winning smile.

  “It just to happens that a close friend of mine is a curator at the museum.”

  “And?” I can see where this is going.

  “So if you and your mother would like a tour of behind the scenes, I would be delighted to accompany you.”

  His face is a picture of innocence. I grin at him, slapping his arm playfully.

  “James Berkeley. Are you bribing me to meet my mother?”

  “Technically I’m bribing your mother,” he says, returning my grin. “But of course I know you wouldn’t be cruel enough to deny her.”

  He leans forward, encircling me in his arms, and drawing me out of the covers.

  “How long until we meet her?”

  “Under an hour,” I say, smiling ruefully at how he’s insinuated himself into the invitation.

  “That’s a shame,” he says, looking into my eyes. “Because it will take over an hour to do what I had planned for you.”

  I can tell from his expression he’s not talking about breakfast. And I feel the familiar warm feeling growing again inside of me. How can he do this to me with just a few words and a look?

  I blush, wondering if he knows the effect he’s having.

  He leans forward and kisses my forehead.

  “Best I keep you nice and fresh your Mami,” he says, pronouncing the Spanish word with perfect irony. “I wouldn’t like her to think I was corrupting her daughter.”

  “Well you are corrupting me,” I say, pretending to be huffy about it.

  James raises an expressive eyebrow.

  “Au contraire, Miss Green,” he says, rising to his feet with an unreadable expression on his face. “I think you’ll find it is you who is corrupting me.”

  Chapter 21

  To my delight, James suggests we walk rather than take the car to Trafalgar Square.

  The morning air is refreshing, and in this part of Mayfair there is hardly anyone on the streets. They’ve all either gone to work already, or are waiting to descend again on St James Street at nightfall.

  “I love walking London,” says James.

  “Don’t you get mobbed by fans?” I ask, thinking people must recognise him.

  He shakes his head.

  “Directors are not to recognisable as you might think Isabella. We are a little like authors in that regard. My name might be known, but my face not so much. I don’t appear on screen, after all.”

  I call to mind of all the pictures of him and Madison at red-carpet events and think he may be under-estimating his own fame.

  I’ve already seen a few pedestrians turn and double-take. Most directors aren’t in their early thirties, tall, muscular, with sexy green eyes and ruggedly handsome features.

  “I love walking in London too,” I say, smiling at him because it’s true. And it’s nice we have something in common. With his glamorous lifestyle and aristocratic upbringing I was beginning to think we were different in every last thing.

  He smiles back.

  “Not everyone understands how small it is,” he says, squeezing my hand. “That’s the contrast with London and LA. When I first arrived in Las Angeles I tried walking the streets to get a feel for the place. Now I take a car or go jogging.”

  We pass Fortnum and Mason, with its sumptuous display of hampers and expensive goods. Then we stroll by chocolate shops and patisseries, with decadent ranges of truffles and coloured meringues decorating their windows.

  James takes a sudden turn, navigating us through a hidden passage which acts as a short cut through onto Regency Street. He obviously knows the London streets even better than I do.

  “Did you grow up here?” I ask, “after you moved from Mauritius?”

  I thought it to be a safe question, but I can feel from the sudden tension in his hand holding mine that I’m wrong.

  “No,” he says. “I boarded in Scotland.”

  The image of him waking from his dream last night comes back to me.

  It’s so cold here.

  “It must have been hard,” I venture, “to move from somewhere hot like Mauritius so somewhere as cold as Scotland.”

  “Yes,” he says shortly “It was.”

  We walk in silence for a moment until it becomes clear he doesn’t plan on sharing any more details with me. Then Trafalgar Square breaks into view, and I see my mother, waving madly near a statue of a large lion.

  I make a noise somewhere between and laugh and a sigh. My mother is dressed as usual in a colourful mixture of waving scarfs and tight floral pants. Under the medley of bright fabric she wears a purple cheese-cloth shirt. At her chest and wrists is an entire market stall’s worth of Mexican silver, huge semi-precious gems, and various bulky costume jewellery.

  As we near she races towards me, her heavy necklaces bouncing.

  “Isabella! Carino!” She catches me in a warm hug, kissing each of my cheeks enthusiastically, and enveloping me in a cloud of her amber perfume.

  She takes a step back, clutching my chin in her hands and considering my face intently.

  “Ho
w are you? How is the script writing?”

  “It’s going OK Mami. I’ve been doing a lot of waitressing lately.”

  “Ooof!” she makes a dismissive noise. Then she remembers James.

  “And who is this?” she asks, glancing at him and back at me, her face a picture of delight.

  To my relief, she doesn’t recognise him. But then my mother is hardly an avid reader of gossip magazines or tabloid newspapers. Her chaotic house is crammed full of unread novels and poems as is it.

  “I am Maria, Isabella’s mother,” she says, reaching out her hand to James before I can answer.

  “Mrs Green,” says James, shaking her hand. “My very great pleasure to make your acquaintance.” His face is a picture of charm. I see my mother melt.

  “Ay Isabella,” she says sotto voice, nudging me with her elbow. “He is a handsome one.”

  I wince in embarrassment, but to my great relief James laughs.

  “Mrs Green,” he says “Isabella tells me you enjoy the National Gallery, and it just so happens I have a good friend in the curator there. Might you be interested in seeing some parts of the gallery which are usually screened to visitors?”

  That’s it for my mother. I think she might well be in love with James herself.

  “I would like that very much,” she says. For once she seems almost lost for words.

  “Then please allow me to escort you both,” says James, offering his arm first to her, and then to me.

  We walk across Trafalgar Square with my mother stunned into near silence.

  She’s been pestering me for years for news of any romantic liaisons. So even James’s existence is enough to thrill the pants off her. But that combined with his effortless charm, handsome features, and ability to pull strings to get her backstage at the National Gallery – it’s no wonder she’s having difficulty taking it all in.

  We walk up the large marble steps into the huge doors of the Gallery. Since it’s still fairly early the only visitors are a large school party. And they’ve been marshalled into a single group to the side of the entrance.

  James disappears to make the arrangements with his friend, and my mother’s relative silence finally explodes outwards.