by Naomi West
But she didn’t tell Pierce that. Not yet. “Besides, you’re a free man now, so you can come with me. We can fly out tomorrow and be home before shooting on Thursday.”
Pierce frowned at the ceiling. “You really want me to be a part of your reality TV show?”
Felice sat up in bed to look down at him, the sheets sliding off of her naked body to reveal her breasts. She watched with amusement as Pierce’s eyes immediately slipped to her nipples, then back to her face. There was a wicked grin on his lips as Pierce sat up just enough to run a teasing tongue around the nipple of her left breast, sending lightning bolts through her veins.
Felice leaned forward, giving Pierce better access to her breasts. She closed her eyes, sighing happily as Pierce continued to suckle her, his lips and tongue teasing every sensitive inch of her breast. “Oh course I want you to be part of it,” she moaned, throwing her head back. “You are my reality.”
Pierce sat up, his lips moving north to find her neck, but his hands moved lower. She was already wet for him by the time his fingers had gotten far enough down her body to slip inside of her. All of her breath went out of her in a rush. “Yes,” he whispered, his breath hot against her neck, “but I am not really reality show material.”
Gasping, Felice clung to Pierce as he slid another finger inside of her body. It felt amazing, even though she was still sore from all of the sex they’d had the night before. Pierce was an endurance man, always trying to make her cum as many times as possible before finishing himself. Never in her life had Felice ever met a man who could satisfy her so completely or took so much pleasure in doing so.
“I think,” she gasped out as he threw her back against the bed and buried his face between her legs without warning, “that the producers would — Ah! — love you as much as I do.”
His mouth plundered her over and over, bringing her over the edge in record time before diving in again. “I’m not sure I want to be in reality TV, Felice,” Pierce answered, his voice rough with desire. His tongue continued to shake her whole body as he slid his index finger into her pussy and his thumb into her ass, stroking both in sync.
She screamed something, her body throbbing in time with his tongue and his fingers. He was playing her like a harp, exciting all sorts of exquisite sounds with his very talented hands and mouth. “What do I have to do,” she moaned, her hands clawing at the sheets as Pierce picked up the pace, “to get you to come home with me?”
He chuckled, and the sound of it vibrated through her body through his tongue, sending her over the edge again. As she screamed and cried out, Pierce said, “You could beg; that usually gets me to do whatever you want.”
She begged and pleaded, crying out his name as he slipped inside of her body once again.
It was several hours before they finished, cleaned up, and packed up the hotel room. Felice had been in this awful city for so long, she’d actually come to like it, and felt a pang of regret leaving the ugly little thing behind. “I mean, I’ve been here for what, almost a month? And that whole time, Pierce has been trying to make me like this hell hole. Maybe he succeeded a little.”
She chuckled to herself, picking up one of her dresses from the floor and bundling it into her bag. Pierce was in the shower, humming softly to himself as he washed up. Felice smiled at the sound. Until something stopped her cold in her tracks. She stopped dead in the middle of packing, her mouth agape as she remembered what she had just been thinking a second ago.
“A month. We’ve been here a month.” It was true; she’d run out of birth control pills two weeks ago and had to have her prescription sent over here. But in the intervening week, while she took the placebo pill, she hadn’t had a period.
Her hands shook as she glanced through her bag; she was remembering right; the box of tampons in her luggage was completely untouched.
“This is worse than late; I missed the whole period all together. Maybe it was stress?” Panic rose in her chest, and Felice had to sit down. Forcing herself to breathe, Felice tried to calm herself. “Yes, it must have been stress. From everything going on with Pierce and him being arrested.”
But her hands still quivered.
She stood back up again, trying to push the thought from her mind. But there was a very insistent voice in the back of her head that wondered if she was going to have Pierce’s child.
Pierce’s child. The thought didn’t fill her with fear, but excitement. If there was a child on the way, she would be ready for it. And she would keep it, no matter what.
Running her fingers over her stomach, she smiled a secret smile before going back to packing for their trip.
# # #
Pierce
“I wish I knew something about reality TV.”
Somehow, Felice had convinced him to take the flight home with her. Somehow, he’d gotten on this plane without even considering what being on a TV show about their lives would be like. Now, somehow, he was sitting on the couch, listening to the camera crew talk about how they would introduce him into the show.
Surprise, surprise, there was little about “reality” TV that was actually real. They spent an unbelievable amount of time choreographing certain scenes to make each and every moment of the Domiano family’s life into some exciting montage. It wasn’t the fact that scenes were incredibly fake that bothered him, it was the bickering between the writers and producers and Dolores that eventually started to get under his skin. Irritated, Pierce went outside for a smoke, only to have the cameras follow him to catch a few candid shots of him “being a badass.” Unsure of how smoking made him a badass, Pierce shrugged and let them do whatever they wanted. If he was going to stay with Felice, this would be his new reality, so he would have to force himself to get used to it.
Even more irritated than he was before his smoke, Pierce stepped back into the Domiano household in an uproar. Dolores was screaming at the top of her voice about “cowards” and Felice’s brother Matt was watching the scene with amusement from the sidelines. Felice looked so angry, her face blood red and twisted with fury.
Pierce wanted to protect her from whatever had happened to make her so mad, so he took a step forward before he had to stop himself.
Because the person who had set Felice off turned out to be Clay Patterson.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Pierce asked, crossing his massive arms over his chest, standing up as straight as he could to try and intimidate the asshole out of the Domiano house.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Clay responded, his upper lip curled into a sneer. “What is this trash doing back here with you, Felice?”
“None of your business, Clay,” she answered coldly, flipping her long, white-blonde hair over one shoulder, her emerald eyes blazing.
The asshole turned his anger on Pierce for one, rage-inducing second. “I thought you were in jail?”
“They acquitted me of all charges. The police know I didn’t do it.”
Clay deflated a tiny bit at that, his mouth turning down into a frown. “A shame; they should have kept you in prison anyway and thrown away the key.”
Pierce took another calming breath, trying not to show Clay how much he was getting under his skin. “I’m pretty sure that’s illegal.”
Clay opened and closed his mouth like a fish, unsure of how to respond. Pierce chuckled darkly, but didn’t say anything else, opting instead to stand behind Felice, resuming the bodyguard duties she so obviously needed when Clay was around. He didn’t want Clay dripping any more of his poison into her ears; he was so good at saying just the right thing to make Felice feel like shit. “I hate that power he has over her.”
Filming started, and they had Felice and Pierce ride in on a motorcycle, posing several times for the camera before they were happy with the takes. Clay remained on set somehow, grumbling the whole time about shitty acting skills, which Pierce pointedly ignored.
“This kid is really trying to start a fight, and I don’t think he knows what he’s begging for. Little s
hit has probably never been in a real fight; I’d punch him through a wall.”
But instead of allowing his baser instincts to take hold, Pierce took a deep breath and buckled down, forcing himself to ignore everything that came out of Clay’s mouth. Unhappy, he and Felice got to work, doing the best they could to block the sound of Clay’s whining.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Felice
Felice’s mouth was dry as she stepped into the so-called “Confession Booth,” where the Domiano family could spill their guts in “private” about whatever was happening on the show. Felice always felt weird about talking to the camera like it was a priest in a confessional, but the producers loved it.
Sitting down in front of the signature red curtains, Felice waited for the light to come on, trying to formulate what she was going to say. Her head was empty. So much had happened, but she couldn’t seem to think of anything to say. Mind blank, Felice sat down in front of the lens and stared forward as the makeup artists flocked around her.
“Alright, Felice,” the producer James said to her, looking happy to see her back. Felice was a pretty popular part of the show, and he’d been rather upset when she wasn’t at the house waiting for filming to start. Hopefully she’d more than made up for it by bringing a bad boy for them to film. “Whenever you are ready.”
The light came on, signaling silence to the crew. Everyone was staring at her, their eyes trained on her face. But she couldn’t think of anything to say, so she stared dumbly off into the corner.
But then all of a sudden, like a dam breaking, words just started spilling from her mouth. “I spent the last month or so getting my new boyfriend out of jail,” she whispered, her voice like broken glass. “It was horrifying; I knew he didn’t do it, but the police didn’t want to believe. But he is innocent. He’ll not spend a single day in jail, even though he originally ran from them when they tried to pin a murder on him. It was because he was ‘helpful in providing resources to properly close the case.’” Felice was rambling and she knew it, but she seemed unable to stop herself. Her fingers twisted around the hem of her skirt, putting permanent bends in the fabric.
“So I spent a month with him in his hometown while we waited for the charges to be cleared. I — ” She turned away from the camera, her eyes filled with something forlorn. “I wanted us to get back to normal, get back to dating and getting to know one another better. But then — ”
The staff were all staring at her, all of them holding their breath. Tears pricked the edges of her eyes, blurring the whole world. “But then, I found out I was pregnant,” she whispered, closing her eyes as the crew silently gaped at her. “Having a bad boy biker for my boyfriend is all well and good, but a bad boy biker father of a baby?” Her insecurities poured out of her like a faucet turned on full blast. “What kind of life would that be for our child? Can he be a good dad?”
Wiping her tears away with shaking fingers, she seemed unable to stop the tremendous flow of words that had been hiding behind her lips. “Maybe, just maybe, I need someone a little more stable. But then again, Pierce might be that man. What do I do? Should I tell him? Should I — ” Tears finally overwhelmed her words and she sobbed at the camera, burying her face in her hands. “Is this what I should be doing?
“I haven’t told anyone; not my mother or my family or even Pierce. I don’t know if I want him to know. I don’t know if I — ”
Felice stopped mid-sentence as the sound of scream came from the other side of the soundproofing of the confession booth, muffled but loud enough for her to hear. Voices cried out, and Felice was on her feet in a second.
She ran out into the living room of her mother’s home, fearing the worst.
And unfortunately, her fears were realized.
Clay and Pierce were hitting each other, their fists up and in fighting position. The world slowed down as Clay took a swing at Pierce’s face, only to be blocked by Pierce’s arm. He looked cold, colder than any human being should be allowed to look. There was nothing left in him that Felice recognized, and her heart froze into a solid block of ice inside of her chest.
Crying out, Felice ran to them as they swung at one another.
# # #
Pierce
“You’re a piece of shit, you know that?” Clay said, his whole body quivering with rage.
Pierce looked away from him, trying to master his anger. “Please fuck off, Clay.”
But the pretty-boy ex of Felice’s wouldn’t shut up; he would never shut up. He followed Pierce around the house, spitting accusations. He called him low-class, revolting, and ugly, hoping for something that would sting, a weakness he could exploit. But Pierce held firm, continuing to do his best to keep away from the brat.
“Can you do something about all of the noise in here?” Pierce asked Dolores as he made his fifth lap around the house, Clay close on his heels. He wouldn’t shut up, and the sound of his voice was grating on Pierce’s nerves.
Dolores chuckled. “You seem to have picked up a duckling somewhere.” Then her face became serious as she turned to Clay. “If you want to stay in my home, Clay, you will leave Pierce alone. Any more of this, and we’ll have you removed.”
Clay backed down, leaving Pierce in peace as he walked into the kitchen. Dolores’ taste was a lot more colorful than Felice’s, and the too-bright yellow walls actually made him miss that monochromatic white house. It had been too long since they were there; he missed it like he imagined he’d miss home, if he’d ever had one.
Despite the rules laid out by Dolores, it didn’t take long for Clay to find a way around them. As Pierce, much calmer after a quiet moment in the kitchen, came back to sit with the producers, Clay decided to join in on the discussion, interrupting Pierce with every word.
“So, we’re going to have more of you on the motorcycle,” one of the crew said. His eyes were wide and glittered with the idea of filming all of those “action scenes” with Pierce. “We’ll probably take some more stock footage of you on the bike tomorrow morning, if the weather is clear.”
“Whatever you would — ” Pierce started.
But Clay was ready, interrupting his words with a kind of malicious glee. “It would be better if you filmed those scenes at night; it would have more of an impact.”
“I don’t care when — ” he started, grinding his teeth.
Clay interrupted again. “Oh, let the professionals talk; you just don’t know how these things work.”
Grinding his teeth together, Pierce shut his mouth, listening with growing anger as Clay tried to alter all of the scenes Pierce would be in. Every time Pierce opened his mouth, Clay would be there, loud and juvenile, to yell over his words.
It didn’t take long for Pierce to snap. “All right, Clay. You need to shut the hell up.”
The little snob laughed; even his laugh was annoying. He sounded like a braying donkey. “And who is going to make me shut up?” he asked, gleeful.
Pierce knew he was playing right into his hands, but couldn’t seem to stop himself. Red tinged his view of the room as he stood up. “Stop acting like a child,” Pierce growled, his fingers forming fists as he stood from the couch. “She doesn’t want you anymore. These games, the rumors you spread around to hurt her, make you looked obsessed. All you’re doing is hurting her; don’t you care?”
Clay laughed. “All I’m doing is helping her to make the right decision. Besides, she doesn’t need my help ruining her reputation. You two did that for me, all on your own.”
Dolores stepped in between the two of them, no emotion on her pretty face. “Clay, Pierce. Both of you shut up before I throw you both out of my house.”
But Pierce could no longer hear her, no longer see her. All that was left was the sound of his blood boiling in his veins, the tunnel of red around his vision that cut out all of the world except for Clay.
“I’m going to kill him.” Without his permission, Pierce’s feet started to move toward him, his body an unstoppable train. He walked arou
nd Dolores, her protests falling on deaf ears.
Clay’s stupid, childish face looked so smug. Pierce was ready to punch that expression right off of his spoiled little mug; this would be a lesson he wouldn’t soon forget. But as he reached Clay, his hands balled into fists and his face full of rage, Felice’s voice cut through his mind. “You shouldn’t be fighting Clay; you’re only giving him what he wants,” her voice said, so clear that he was tempted to look around and see if she was actually in the room.
Sighing, Pierce turned away from Clay, his voice still trembling with rage. “Look, man, say what you want, but Felice doesn’t want you here anymore; she’s tired of being with a cheating, lying sack of spoiled shit. So just go, okay? You’re not going her any good by being here.”
But it was pretty clear, at least to Pierce, that Clay didn’t care about Felice’s feelings at all. Especially when Clay took a swing at him, his fist barely missing as Pierce jumped back. “Stop it, Clay, or I will kick your ass.”