Hard & Fast (Rules to Break #1)

by Ana Gabriel

  “I’ll get the bags,” I mouth, and then he’s ushered away, undoubtedly to be stuffed into the waiting car I ordered. I sigh and watch him go, feeling more and more like Prague is nothing but a distant memory.

  ~

  When I finally get back to the house, I’m so exhausted from the flight and not sleeping and my own scattered thoughts that I drop our bags in the doorway, drag myself to my room, and fall into bed.

  The minute I wake up, I know I’ve slept way later than I meant to. Early morning sun blares in through the blinds. I stretch up and glance at my phone. I’ve missed a call from my mom, but my head’s not together enough to deal with speaking to her. I make a note to call her tomorrow. Maybe I can have a few more auditions lined up by then. I shouldn’t feel like I have to have them as armor against her disapproval, but the fact I had that thought at all proves that I do feel that way. I just have to make it and prove her wrong, that’s all.

  The house is quiet and when I stick my head out of my door, Cole’s bedroom is open and empty. I try to remember his schedule for today and then go check my planner. He’s on set. Which means he’s definitely gone all day.

  I check the time and flit into the bathroom. If I’m quick I can make acting class. Which I do, but after I’m finished and I step out into the blinding sunshine on the baking hot sidewalk, I’m at a loose end. I’ve had to forcibly evict Cole from my head for the entire class, but now that I’m done, I have a thought. I dig in my purse for my phone and make a quick call to Cole’s agent. We’ve spoken several times before so I could make arrangements for him and I don’t think it’ll seem at all unusual if I ask if he can get me onto the set without bothering Cole.

  I’m right. Within minutes I get a call back saying there’s a pass waiting for me at a checkpoint. I grab a cab and sit in the back, nerves fizzing in my stomach. I haven’t felt this uncertain and excited and worried and delighted since I was in high school. It’s ridiculous and embarrassing how much I want to see him.

  The whole ride, I’m tied up in knots staring out of the window without really seeing anything. Until we reach the checkpoint at the edge of the lot and I realize I’m actually going to do this. I’ve seen all of Cole’s films—who hasn’t? —but seeing him on set, actually at work, is something else. The thought of it is just as exciting as getting him on his own later.

  I pay the cab driver, and the security guard hands over my pass as if I belong here, no questions asked. It’s a total thrill to walk straight past him with a confident smile even though the whole place just looks like a massive parking lot with huge warehouses towering above me and spreading back as far as I can see. I know where I’m headed though—Cole’s agent told me where he’d be.

  A golf cart zips past and startles me. God, I’m so nervous. And I wish I’d worn better shoes for walking. My strappy sandals are starting to rub.

  Eventually, I find the right place. But the doors are all closed, there are no windows, and I feel awkward and unsure. After a few minutes of standing outside in the shade cast by the huge building, a door opens and a girl runs out clutching a clipboard. I grab the door before it closes again and peer inside. There are lights everywhere. Lights and cameras and about three thousand miles of cables all over the floor. There are people running around and people pointing and talking to each other and people hanging around tables at the back that are strewn with water bottles and the leftover remains of lunch. I can’t see Cole anywhere.

  But this is definitely the right place, so I edge my way into the building and make my way to the tables at the back. It’s hot and I doubt anyone will mind if I help myself to some water. There are a couple of girls picking over some cherry tomatoes. I smile politely and they do the same and then turn back to each other. They’re both dressed in dishevelled, dirt-marked clothes and one of them has a huge fake blood stain on her blouse so I think they must be extras because otherwise they’ve both made some seriously strange wardrobe choices today.

  I take a bottle of water and step back from the table, trying to blend into the background. I’d love to see Cole at work before he realizes I’m here.

  One of the extras sighs loudly. “Do you think he’s ever coming out of there? I mean, it’s not like I don’t appreciate getting this job, but it’s not like we’re getting paid any extra if he takes the whole day, is it?”

  The other girl checks her phone. “It’s been two hours. But what’s anybody going to do about it? It’s not exactly like any of us can go and knock on the door and ask when feels like coming out. He’s Cole Dean. He can pretty much do what he wants.”

  They both glance over in the direction of a trailer on the far left side of the building. Cole’s in there? I run my finger down the plastic edges of my pass, my heart beating quicker. No one would question it if his assistant needed to talk to him. I could stroll right over there and no one would think anything of it.

  “Yeah, he can do what he wants. Or who he wants,” the bloodstain girl says with a smile. The other girl laughs and I can’t help but stiffen.

  “She’s stunning though, isn’t she? I’d probably do Kenzie Cruise myself if I got the chance.”

  I have to make sure my head doesn’t snap up to stare. He’s in the trailer with his ex-girlfriend? And he’s been in there for over two hours already? Jealousy stabs straight through me.

  “Well I wish they’d get the big make-up and get-back-together over and done with. I’m supposed to be at work at eight tonight,” the girl with dirt all over her face says.

  “Better call in sick. You know what it’s like when Cole Dean gets a girl in his trailer.” They move along the table, picking at the rest of the leftovers, but I don’t move along with them to hear more. I’ve heard enough, and I’m certain my face is burning as bright as my hair. I feel sick and totally embarrassed thinking about what I did the first time I went into his trailer, and about what a fool I’m making of myself right now.

  I head straight for the door, but people start calling out and suddenly lights are flicking on and off, cameras are moving and someone yells “action”. I’m stuck at the back of the room, now thrown into darkness, and I can’t leave. So I have to stand there for the next hour while they film little snippets over and over again and I can’t even enjoy being able to watch, can’t pay attention to any of it. Cole’s trailer door doesn’t open.

  At first, I just feel humiliated, but the more time I have to spend standing here, the angrier I get. I’m worth so much more than this. I stood up to my parents and left Illinois to make the career I want. To do what I want to do with my life. That plan didn’t include being at the beck and call of some spoilt millionaire playboy and it didn’t include being miserable and embarrassed.

  He can’t have my heart. I’m taking it back and my body with it.

  Cole’s been in his trailer with Kenzie for nearly four hours by the time I’m able to slip off the set. I throw the pass on the floor and get a cab home. My feet hurt and I’m hot and tired and furious that I let him make me feel this way. I should never have let what happened in Prague go to my head.

  Back at Cole’s house, I try to calm down, but everything irritates me. His huge house, all glass and leather. His deep blue pool, the water flat and still in the evening heat. His bedroom, his kitchen—there isn’t anywhere I can go without it reminding me what I’ve done.

  The security lights come on outside when it starts to go dark. And by the time the headlights of Cole’s car swing up the long drive, I don’t know who I hate more—myself or him.

  My stomach tenses when the front door closes, and not in the good way. I hear him sigh, realize that he’s moving slowly as he drops his keys and kicks his shoes off. I move into the hallway and flip a light on. His hair is all mussed up as though he hasn’t even looked in a mirror. He’s wearing dirty jeans and a ripped white T-shirt that looks like it got singed in a fire. He’s still wearing the clothes from the shoot. If it ever even took place.

  “Hey, Rose,” he says, all tired an
d quiet and like he’s glad to see me. He smiles and saunters forward, reaching for my waist.

  Which makes me so much angrier than I was before.

  “Don’t bother,” I snap, twisting away from him. I’d half thought I could keep my cool. But I really can’t. And why should I? Why should Cole get what he wants just like he always does, just like he always has? Beautiful girlfriends and whoever else he wants just at the snap of his fingers.

  His face registers genuine shock. Of course it does. Cole Dean doesn’t get told no.

  “What’s the matter?” he asks.

  “Nothing that hasn’t been the matter all along,” I say.

  He shakes his head. “Rose, I’ve had a really long day and I’m not in the mood for cryptic bullshit so if you’re pissed about something, I’m sorry, but just be straight about it so I can go to bed.”

  For a second I can’t speak, I’m so enraged. He held my hand, he invited me to sleep in his goddamn bed. I told him about my screenplay.

  “You want it straight?” My voice is shaking. “Fine. I’ve got a job where I don’t know where I stand from one minute to the next, a boss who pays me to live here so he can fuck me, who then spends a week with me in Prague acting like he’s not my boss at all, and then we get back here and—”

  Cole’s run his hand through his hair while I’ve been talking, but now his head snaps up. “If you don’t know where you stand that’s because you spend so much time thinking about where you stand you can’t stop and just enjoy yourself. God, Rose, does it really matter?”

  My hands clench. I’m so wound up I’m out of breath. “Does it matter?” Did he hear anything I said in Prague about what I want to do with my life? About how much I’ve compromised myself sleeping with him? “No, Cole, I can see that it doesn’t matter at all. Why should you care what happens to some girl you hired as a PA? What does it matter if I never get a role, or if everyone finds out I fuck for pay? Maybe I should just start giving out blow jobs for bit parts.”

  He’s staring at me now with a deep crease between his eyebrows. “Where the hell is this coming from? Nobody’s asking you to do anything you don’t want to do. I’ve never done anything you didn’t want. And if you want to stop now, then by all means, just tell me.”

  I will the hurt not to show on my face. The worst thing is, he’s right. I let him do this to me. I wanted him. I haven’t moved an inch in the hallway, and neither has he, but suddenly I feel like I have to get away from him.

  “Well considering what happened today on set, I think we had better stop, don’t you?” I spit out. I stalk off into the kitchen just as I see Cole’s face change.

  “Wait, what? How do you know about that?” He follows me into the kitchen and it strikes me just how much space he takes up. The muscles in his arms are bunched. Before, he looked tired. Now he looks pissed. “Is there a story out? Did someone find out about this?” His eyes are dark. Furious. And I’m furious right back, because he’s going to make me admit I was there. As if I don’t feel pathetic enough.

  “I have no idea if there’s a story out,” I say. “And I don’t really give a shit. I came down to the set to talk to you about something and you were in your trailer with her for hours. Did you think no one would notice? Did you think with that many people on the set some of them wouldn’t be talking about it?”

  “It’s no one else’s fucking business,” he shouts.

  “Well it’s clearly not mine,” I shout back. “I’m just some stupid little girl you keep here to pick up your dry cleaning and fuck when you want.”

  Cole leans heavily on the counter, his hands squeezed into fists, his shoulders taut. There’s a big rip in the front of his T-shirt and his skin and the muscles of his stomach show through. I won’t look. I’m so, so angry with him. “You made me—In Prague, you made me feel. . .” And then I trail off, because what am I going to say? That he made me feel special? That he made me fall in love with him? So stupid, Rose.

  “Fuck you,” I say. I go to push past him. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I’m shaking with rage and I don’t want to be anywhere near him. He stands in my way. “Move,” I yell. “If you’re back with your ex then fine, but leave me out of it. You might think that little of me, but I don’t think that little of myself.”

  “What?” He’s blocking the kitchen door and I make myself look up into his eyes. Let him see how serious I am.

  But he’s just looking confused as well as angry now. Adrenaline rushes through my body. I just want to get away, be on my own, but my body reacts to being close to him whether I like it or not.

  “Get out of my way!” I put my hands on his chest and shove, for all the good it does me. I can’t move him at all.

  “Is that what this is really about? Me and Kenzie?” He looks furious. As if I have no right at all to even mention it. I totally lose my shit. I’ve never been so enraged in my entire life.

  “I don’t give a fuck who you are or who she is,” I’m yelling, and he’s trying to say something over the top of me, but I can’t hear him and I don’t want to listen.

  “Did you even consider asking me what happened before assuming?” he yells back. “I’m not back with my ex. She relapsed today, came to my trailer in a complete state begging me to hide her so no one would find out. That’s why we were in there. That’s what I’ve been doing all day. Do you think that was easy for me? To see her totally high like that?”

  He moves out of the kitchen doorway and I open my mouth to say something, but suddenly all my rage has nowhere to go and I have no idea what to say.

  “Forget it.” Cole turns his back on me and walks away. I hear him go upstairs and his door slams.

  I thought I was embarrassed today on the set, but that was nothing compared to how I feel now. I am the worst person in the world. There’s something deeply wrong with me. I pace the kitchen, all the pent up energy from the fight still spiralling around inside me. I get a glass of water and my hand shakes as I hold the glass. Finally, I decide to go upstairs. I need to apologize. More than apologize. I just told my boss/lover/whatever he is to fuck off. I’m pretty sure that’s not a good idea no matter what’s going on between us.

  I go to my room and peer down the hallway. His door is closed. My heart’s still galloping, so I go into my own room and pace some more. What can I say now? How can I explain? I turn the shower on. I’ll cool down and once my mind’s stopped racing and all this fight in me has drained away I’ll think of something.

  My door bursts open and I jump. Cole’s standing there still with the same ripped, dirty T-shirt on. He crosses the room in three strides while I’m saying, “I am so sorry.” But I don’t get chance to say anything else before he kisses me. His hands are on my lower back, pulling me in to him and I keep trying to talk for a minute because he has to know that I really am sorry, but he won’t stop kissing me and a fluid line of heat shoots down my body because this. This is what I want.

  He tugs impatiently at the zipper on my skirt. He could push it up, but I like that he wants to take it off. His mouth is hot and urgent on my skin. The shower is still rushing in the background and he pulls away from me for a second to tear at his own clothes.

  “Cole, I’m sorry,” I say again, but he’s naked in front of me and I can’t remember why I’m sorry only that I am and that I need to do something with all the buzzing energy inside me that’s threatening to spill out.

  I push my underwear down and Cole sucks in a breath and pulls me back to him so our skin touches down the length of our bodies. He glances towards the shower then lifts me up in one quick move so I’m wrapped around him, his mouth on mine, my hands in his hair, his arms tight and hard around my hips. God, I love that he can do that.

  He moves to the shower and steps under the water, pushing me up against the wall. Then he pulls away to look at me, water running over his skin, darkening his hair and his eyelashes. He’s so beautiful. “It’s ok,” he says quietly, then he kisses me until I moan into his mou
th. He’s hard against the hinge of my thigh, and I shift, desperate to get him inside me. We’re both on edge, both revved up from fighting. He lets me slide down so I’m standing and steps away. I move forward, but he gives the barest shake of his head. His eyes rake over me so I stand under the water, still trembling, and wait.

  The water runs cool over my body, but it does nothing to calm either of us down. I can’t stop looking at him. He’s breathing too fast, his muscles are tight and I want to touch every inch of him.

  I can’t take it. I push him back, out of the water, out of the bathroom, towards the bed, not stopping, not waiting, not caring. He falls back onto my bed, water spotting and spreading onto the sheets, pulling me with him at the last second. I meant to be on top but he moves me as if I weigh nothing, sliding me underneath him.

  He trails hot hard kisses down my throat and across my breasts. My back arches as his tongue circles my nipple, his hand moving down my body and between my legs. I gasp, but his fingers are there only seconds before he’s kissing down my stomach as though he can’t wait, can’t stop himself. He doesn’t tease me. His mouth is there, sucking me in. I let out a breathless sound that makes him wilder, his mouth roaming back up my body while I fight to get him close to me, closer, inside. He doesn’t fight it, doesn’t make me wait. He needs it as much as I do, matching me with each shaking breath I take. I push my hips up to meet him and he thrusts all the way into me with a desperate noise.

  His rhythm is wild and lost and fevered and I’m frantic with him, my hands and tongue and teeth on his skin. I’m pushed higher and higher, closer to the tensing and tightening in my body until I forget to breathe and then I can’t breathe. I have to hold inside the weightless pulsing of my orgasm as it pulls me under.

  Cole’s hands fist in the pillow on either side of my head and he tenses so hard it makes him shudder, over and over, hard enough inside me to make me come again. I’m soundless, out of my mind, until slowly, it starts to fade and my muscles begin to relax.