by Penny Dee
“Because they’re mean girls.” I glanced over at them. They were watching us. Audrey had her arms folded and her narrow eyes sharpened in my direction. “And the only thing mean girls respond to is a taste of their own medicine. Normally I wouldn’t care but…people like that shouldn’t think they can treat people like they’re worthless and get away with it.”
“Agreed. But I’m trying to work out where I fit into all of this.”
“They think I’m making it up when I say that I know you. And I know it’s ridiculous that I’m actually over here proving them wrong, when really I should’ve just told them to go to hell but—”
“You want me to kiss you, again?”
His words stepped on my tongue, stopping the verbal vomit.
“A simple hello would suffice,” I said, suddenly shy, my heart taking up a violent drumbeat in my chest.
Amusement twitched on his lips. He leaned in. “Or perhaps you’d prefer if I went over there and told them how much I want you in my bed? How I lie in bed at night fantasizing about you.” He leaned even closer; his face close, his breath tickling my cheek. “About making you scream.”
I almost dropped the tray of cupcakes in my hand.
He stepped back and grinned. “Too much?”
“Yes.” My voice was tiny. I had to get away from this man before I made a huge mistake. Because every nerve and fiber was screaming at me to give in to him, and I was afraid if I moved an inch, I’d reach for him and slam my mouth to his. Take that, Audrey Scotsdale. I cleared my throat, my mouth dry. “I have to put these cupcakes in the refrigerator.”
I walked away, desperate to escape. But he followed me into the home economics kitchen, which was only a few yards away.
“I see I was correct about the stalking scenario,” I said, placing the tray of cupcakes on one of the countertops.
“I didn’t realize we’d finished talking.”
“I think Audrey and her two cronies got the picture.”
I had expected the kitchen to be busy. But there were only two other people inside, and once they’d finished filling a pitcher with orange juice, they disappeared outside, leaving me alone with Bull.
“You expect me to believe you came over to me to make a point?” His eyebrow was raised. “So the fact that you went as red as a beet and speechless as a stone has nothing to do with liking what I said, and everything to do with you wanting to show those women that they were wrong.”
“Yes, I was only using you to get back at those bitches. It means nothing.”
His brilliant blue eyes sparkled with amusement. “I see.”
But he knew better. I could see it on his face. The slight raise of his eyebrow. The flash of knowing in those magnetic eyes. The hint of a smile tugging at his lips. He fucking knew I was barely holding onto my fight. That I was hanging off the cliff, my fingertips bleeding as they held onto the last of my resistance.
I turned away because I was seconds away from crashing my lips to his. Because I knew how they tasted. How soft yet commanding they were. How it felt when his tongue slid up against mine.
I busied myself with repositioning the cupcakes on the plate.
But he came up behind me and caged me between the hardness of his body and the counter, his breath whispering along the nape of my neck.
“This. You and me. It’s going to happen. Whenever you’re ready. I’m a patient man. And I’m tenacious as fuck. But you need to accept that you’ve already lost the fight, darlin’.” His lips brushed my ear. “And it’s only a matter of time before you lose the war.”
His words sent an exhilarating thrill down my spine and I shivered against him. Wanting him. Craving him. So fucking ready for him.
I turned in his arms to face him. He was right. I had lost the fight the moment I’d accepted this job. But what he wanted, I couldn’t give him. I had to think about Noah.
The war raged within me.
Because being this close and feeling the heat of all that muscle surrounding me was making me dizzy with lust. All and everything outside of this moment was forgotten. I couldn’t think straight. My pulse roared in my ears, and my heart was pounding so hard I thought it’d break free and burst from my chest. When my mouth parted, Bull’s brilliant blue gaze dropped to it, a look of raw hunger taking over his face as I dragged my tongue along my lips.
Hell yeah, I had lost the fight and was about to raise the white flag in surrender just to feel everything this man had to offer.
Everything else be damned.
I wanted this.
Fucking needed this.
But in that moment, Noah’s teacher walked into the kitchen with two of her students, and the spell was broken. I quickly moved away from Bull, immediately feeling the loss of heat from his body. Goose bumps tightened along my skin and the cold ache of disappointment swelled in my chest.
Damn, that was close.
I would have to be smarter in the future.
Because my attraction to Bull was off the charts, and I was quickly losing power over it.
I would have to pretend.
Pretend I didn’t want to touch him as much as I did.
Pretend I wasn’t yearning to give in to a longing I couldn’t shake.
And I knew I could do it if I had to.
Because I was really good at faking it.
Ten Years Ago
For as long as I could remember, I had enjoyed dressing up. For me, there was a fascination about slipping into a fairy princess dress or a costume pulled from a dress-up box, because putting them on allowed me to escape from the real world. It was how I coped with my childhood. How I dealt with the truth about my parents and who they were. It was my escapism. A skill I would call upon, time and time again, when I needed to get through another day of neglect.
I never dreamed it would become my profession. That when Alex called on me, I would become whoever he needed me to be. All it took was a wig, a certain style of clothing and a whole lot of play acting.
Tonight, I was a blonde. With red lips and false eyelashes. My dress was black, tight to show off my curves, and matched with a pair of five-inch heels. Later I would slip on a long-sleeve jacket and a pair of Hermes gloves, and I would walk with phony confidence toward another night of memories I’d rather forget.
I stared at my reflection in the mirror, feeling the disgust already rolling through my stomach.
“Are you ready?” Alex asked, walking up behind me.
I looked at him in the mirror and nodded.
I wasn’t ready. I didn’t like doing what he wanted me to do. The men were always so gross. Some were old, some were young, some were even good looking, but they were all vile and they made my skin crawl.
“He is waiting for you,” he said, cupping his hands over my shoulders. “Serge is downstairs ready to drive you.”
In the back of the limousine, I looked at the bright lights of the city moving past the window. I was calm, despite the repulsiveness I felt for what I was about to do. Tonight, I was meeting Luciano, the Lamb, Bianchion, a well-known underworld figure known for his love of good wine, good food, and for inflicting pain. He also had a penchant for blonde women with long legs and red lips, and often indulged in all of his desires in one night.
According to Alex, one of Luciano’s dates ended up losing an ear when he bit it off during sex. Another suffered internal bleeding when he took her virginity with a police baton.
His nickname was ironic. Because he was anything but a lamb. No matter who you were. Family. Business associate. Lover. Streetwalker. High-class call girl. If the urge possessed him, he could be brutal on a whim.
“Keep your wits about you, my darling, and you’ll be fine,” Alex had said. “This one is worth a lot of money.”
I found Luciano at his usual hangout, a nightclub he owned called Sin in the City, where the town’s rich and coked-up twenty-somethings liked to party. It was a dark and sophisticated bar where you could get away with just about anything in the sh
adowy corners. A place where coke was currency, human decency was optional, and a good time was everything.
He was waiting at the bar, a man in his early sixties with white hair and jowls, nursing a tumbler of whiskey. When I approached him, his gaze swept up and down the length of me, a lascivious gleam in his watery eyes.
He bought me a drink, which I accepted but didn’t touch.
We flirted and did the dance two people do when sex is in the cards.
I laughed at his embellished stories and looked at him through heavy lashes when the conversation became suggestive, while he got hard behind his Armani slacks.
I played the part I was expected to play.
I became the person I had to be to get the job done.
I ignored the bile rising in my stomach as his clammy, fat hand slid along my thigh.
“Are you wearing any panties beneath that dress?”
I held back the vomit I needed to hold back as I slightly parted my legs. “Want to take a look for yourself?”
It wasn’t long before he was leading me out of the club and into a waiting limousine. We were on our way to his penthouse where he was about to have his mind blown, and I was about to make more unpleasant memories.
BULL
“This has got to stop, Bull.”
Tito’s whiny voice broke through a pounding headache as he stood in front of me, his hand on his hip, his comb-over sticking to his forehead beaded with sweat.
He ran our production company, Head Quarters, and was brilliant at what he did. Granted, he was a little weird. And I really didn’t want to think about what he got up to behind his closed office doors. But he knew porn and he knew what sold, and he had made us a lot of money.
He was also terrified of Sybil.
The original queen of mayhem, who was nearing eighty and was as fiery as her bright red hair, was a force to be reckoned with. She wasn’t afraid to tell Tito when she thought he was overstepping the line with movie names. She didn’t like him fucking with the classics. And she would stir him up when she told him so.
“Cade is in charge of Head Quarters, Tito. Speak to him about it.”
“I can’t talk to Cade about this. She’s his grandmother… you’re the president, can’t you do something about her?”
I rubbed my temples. Between Tito’s whining and the sexual tension tearing at my body day after day, I was going to have a fucking stroke.
“She’s a seventy-something old woman. Speak to her yourself,” I said.
“Hello, have you met Sybil?”
Point taken.
“Fine. Tell me exactly what I am confronting this elderly lady about?” I asked wearily.
“It seems every other week she’s yelling at me about something. Can’t you ban her from Head Quarters?”
There was a conversation I didn’t want to have. I’d rather spoon my eyeballs out of my sockets with a fucking fork, than tell Sybil she couldn’t do anything.
“I am not banning Sybil from Head Quarters.”
“Why not?”
“Because I value my balls, Tito.”
Plus, Garrett Calley had already banned any queens from stepping foot in Head Quarters, following the day Sybil tore through the production set of Some Like It Hard because she was pissed about it dishonoring Marilyn Monroe’s memory. I pinched the bridge of my nose. I had never upheld the rule because it was ridiculous. “Let me talk to Cade, see if he can make her see sense.”
“You need to do something, Bull, because I don’t know how much more of her I can take.”
“I’ll handle it,” I said.
After Tito left, I planted my face on the desk.
Some days being president was a headfuck. Give me something tactile like war and revenge, something I could make sense of, not a problem between a control freak in a fucking safari suit, and the original first lady of the club.
A sudden ruckus coming from the clubhouse lifted my head off my desk. The female cry that followed had me off my chair and out of my office within seconds, tearing down the hallway.
In the bar, I found Taylor on the floor clutching her arm, with Randy crouching over her.
“What happened?” I asked.
“She was standing on the bar changing one of the lightbulbs—”
I glared at him. “Why the fuck did you let her do that?”
“I wasn’t here. I walked in just in time to see her fall.”
“Goddamnit!” Taylor winced.
I dropped down next to her.
“Where does it hurt?”
She was shivering. “My shoulder.”
I took a closer look. Her shoulder was grotesquely warped, clearly dislocated.
“Want me to call an ambulance?” Randy asked.
“It feels like I’ve been hit by a truck,” Taylor moaned, her beautiful face showing her pain.
“Fuck the ambulance,” I said, scooping her up into my arms. “It’ll take too long.”
It was a fifteen-minute drive to the hospital. We made it in nine. If we’d called an ambulance, we’d still be waiting.
I glanced over at Taylor leaning her head against the door as I drove. She had gone pale, and I could see the pain in her eyes, but she barely made a noise.
“You ain’t gonna pass out on me, are you?”
Her eyes shifted to mine. “And miss out on your awesome driving skills?”
I smiled at her sarcasm. “That’s my girl.”
When we pulled up, Indy was waiting for us because Randy had called ahead. “What happened?”
“She was trying to impress me with her acrobatics.”
Fighting back pain, Taylor was still able to give me a sarcastic laugh. “You’re hilarious.”
Indy took a quick look. “You’ve dislocated your shoulder. Let’s get you inside. Do you need me to help you walk?”
“I got her,” I said, protectively placing my hand at the small of Taylor’s back.
Indy’s eyes narrowed slightly as she looked at me. But as quick as a flash, her questioning look was gone, and she led us out of the sun and into the hospital.
“I’ll order some pain medication, then see about fixing your shoulder back into place,” she said, directing us into a cubicle where I helped Taylor onto the hospital bed. I took her hand in mine as Indy prepared a syringe. “This is going to sting a little, but I promise, it’s going to help.”
Indy gave her an injection, and immediately Taylor’s big eyes grew hooded. She relaxed and sagged back into the bed, a drunk grin spreading across her lips.
“I’ll let that take effect and be back in five, okay?” Indy said and Taylor nodded dreamily.
“Looks like it’s gone straight to her head already,” I said. “A few more minutes, and she’ll be singing karaoke.”
Indy gave her wink. “I gave her the good stuff.”
“How do you feel?” I asked when Indy left.
Her docile smile grew wider. “High as a kite.”
“You feel any pain?”
“Only the one sitting next to me.”
I grinned. “Now who’s the comedian?”
Her eyelids flickered and then closed.
“I feel great,” she said.
I couldn’t help but chuckle. I’d never seen Taylor under the influence of anything. And she was fucking adorable.
I couldn’t help myself.
“Be honest, was this an attention thing?” I asked with a cocked eyebrow.
Her eyes opened.
“Are you asking if I dive-bombed off the bar onto the floor to get your attention?” She chuckled. “My God, you are so arrogant.”
And then she started to murder Carly Simon’s, “You’re So Vain,” slurring it as she weaved in and out of lucidness.
“Again, you say arrogant, I say confident.”
She reached out and pushed a bendy finger into my bicep. “And I say, fuck you.”
Her head fell back and she floated away on her medicated delirium.
“I’ll give you
a tip.” I leaned forward. “If you want my attention, all you need to do is creep past my office and watch me do push-ups again.”
Her luscious lips pulled into another drunk smile. “Oh God…I was so turned on watching you…”
As her words fell away, my body tightened with a strange excitement.
“You were?”
She opened her eyes. “What?”
“You were?”
“I was what?”
Okay, she was really high now.
I shook my head. “Never mind.”
Indy stepped into the cubicle. “How’s the patient? Those pain meds kicking in?”
Taylor opened her eyes and her head lolled about on her neck. “I think so.”
“Good. Let’s get this shoulder back in place, shall we?”
Taylor looked up at her. Her usual sass was gone, and she looked soft and gentle. “Is it going to hurt?”
“I’m not going to lie. It doesn’t tickle. But don’t worry,” Indy gave her a wink. “I’ve done this before.”
Despite the reassurance, Taylor still looked worried, and I was overcome with a need to take her in my arms and kiss the concern from her face.
Which, I’ll be honest, I was ready to overthink.
And I would have, if it wasn’t for Indy maneuvering Taylor’s arm into position, and then yanking it into place.
“Sweet mother of Christ!” Taylor cried out.
I felt my fists tighten, then relax.
“Feel better?” Indy asked.
Taylor exhaled heavily. “Wow. Yes. That…feels so much better.” Her eyes sparkled with the heady combination of relief and drugs. “Thank you.”
Indy put her arm in a sling. “You’ll need to wear this for the next few days. And try to keep it as immobilized as possible, okay?”
Taylor nodded. “Sure.”
“I’ll leave you to rest up. The drugs should wear off in the next hour or two. Until then, you can wait it out here.”
“Thanks, Indy,” she slurred.
While Taylor fell back into her drug-induced nap, I waited beside her. I had shit to do. A fucking ton of it. But none of it seemed more important than sitting right there.