Talking Trouble

by Barbara Elsborg

  Table of Contents

  Legal Page

  Title Page

  Book Description

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Epilogue

  New Excerpt

  About the Author

  Publisher Page

  A Totally Bound Publication

  Talking Trouble

  ISBN # 978-1-78430-572-7

  ©Copyright Barbara Elsborg 2015

  Cover Art by Posh Gosh ©Copyright May 2015

  Edited by Sue Meadows and Nicki Richards

  Totally Bound Publishing

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Totally Bound Publishing.

  Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Totally Bound Publishing. Unauthorized or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.

  The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.

  Published in 2015 by Totally Bound Publishing, Newland House, The Point, Weaver Road, Lincoln, LN6 3QN

  Totally Bound Publishing is a subsidiary of Totally Entwined Group Limited.

  Warning:

  This book contains sexually explicit content which is only suitable for mature readers. This story has a heat rating of Totally Burning and a Sexometer of 2.

  TALKING TROUBLE

  Barbara Elsborg

  Two men are separated by more than the dam between their houses. Can Mollie be the path that unites them?

  Flint Klavan appears to have it all. The sought-after British actor is affluent, loved and vocal in his professional life but privately he’s a mess. A devastating breakup leaves him full of self-loathing. He hopes to find the way to turn things around when disaster strikes. He’s left speechless with fear he’ll never get the chance to recover what he’s lost.

  Mollie James has the perfect job teaching children, and used to have the perfect boyfriend. Attentive, kind and thoughtful. Only now he’s not. She has to sacrifice everything if she’s any chance to survive, and run as fast and as far as she can.

  Lysander Weldon is a wealthy, talented artist who’s hidden himself away following personal tragedies. He shares his house and his body but never his heart. When opportunity to forgive confronts him, he has to choose between giving up his fortress or bracing to watch happiness leave him behind.

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

  Bambi: The Walt Disney Company

  Guinness: Diageo

  Les Miserables: Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Shönberg

  British Airways: International Airlines Group

  Google: Google, Inc.

  Klingon: Star Trek, CBS Television Distribution

  Facebook: Facebook, Inc.

  Eurostar: Eurostar International Limited

  Lakeside Shopping Centre: Capital Shopping Centres Group LLC

  Primark: Primark Stores Ltd.

  iPad: Apple, Inc.

  WiFi: WiFi Alliance

  Harley: Harley-Davidson Motor Company

  Pimm’s: Diageo

  Coke: The Coca-Cola Company

  Horlicks: GlaxoSmithKline

  Marks and Spencer: Marks & Spencer plc

  Sainsbury’s: J Sainsbury plc

  Mars Bar: Mars, Incorporated

  Amazon: Amazon.com, Inc.

  If The Rain Must Fall: James Morrison, Martin Terefe

  A Beautiful World: Take That, Steve Robson

  The Gruffalo: Julia Donaldson

  War and Peace: Leo Tolstoy

  Samonas: Ingo Steinbach

  Secret Garden: Ivy Compton Barnett

  Tesco: Tesco plc

  The Greatest Day: Take That

  Cluedo: Hasbro

  Astra: General Motors UK Limited

  Monsoon: Monsoon Accessorize Limited

  Selfridges: Selfridges Retail Ltd.

  Oscar: American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

  Calvin Klein: Calvin Klein Inc.

  Boots: Boots UK Limited

  BAFTA: British Academy of Film and Television Arts

  Chapter One

  Flint opened his eyes to look down at the blonde who’d taken her mouth off his dick.

  “You get me work in next film, right?” she asked.

  It took him a moment to work out what she’d said. Was that the fault of her strong Croatian accent or his spinning head? When she kept staring, he realized she expected an answer. Fuck it. Getting her a part in a film hadn’t been mentioned when she’d offered to blow him a few minutes ago. In the interests of getting her mouth back in action, he took the easy way out.

  “Sure, baby.”

  She wrapped her lips around the head of his cock and sucked. He clenched his butt on the seat of the bedroom chair and rocked his hips forward, urging her to take more. When she did, he groaned with relief. What she lacked in technique, she made up for with her enthusiasm, her head furiously bobbing over his crotch. Flint tried to remember her name… Alma? Amra? He should know it. She was one of the makeup artists. He was good with names but hers had escaped him. Anja? Azra?

  His balls drew up against the bottom of his open zipper, the discomfort from the pressure of the metal teeth ratcheting up his desire rather than quelling it. His reaction made him think of Marina, she with the high heels, black eyes and promise of a dark cellar, who’d whispered into his ear in a ball-tingling, sultry tone that he was a pain slut. He sort of thought he might be.

  When that stunt had gone wrong and the snapped cable smacked him across the arse hard enough to draw blood, it had been Marina who’d seen something more than pain in his reaction. As stunt coordinator, she was full of public apologies and jokingly suggested she should apply cream to his sore bits. The director’s gay assistant had quipped, “Get in line.” The guy was cute and Flint had been tempted.

  Marina had later made Flint a quiet offer that had pushed him out of temptation into acceptance. He smiled at the thought of what was to come that night, then frowned, gripping the bottle of beer more tightly in his tingling fingers. Fucking pins and needles. The sensation had started a few hours ago.

  On the other side of the bedroom door, one of several unofficial end-of-filming wrap parties was in full swing. Swing being the operative word. As he and whatever her name was had walked through the main room, they’d passed fully clothed, half naked and completely naked men and women who were
busy dancing, fucking and talking, some of them managing all three at the same time, which was pretty impressive.

  Flint had made an appearance at the official event in a five-star hotel in Split with his co-star and on-the-way-out girlfriend Corin Blakely on his arm. He’d smiled at the right people, said thank you to everyone, including a few bastards who didn’t deserve it and knew full well he didn’t mean it. No amount of skilled acting would fool them, but Flint didn’t give a shit and hadn’t for some time.

  Five months had been spent in Croatia filming Impulse. Several more months would be consumed by editing and whatever else needed doing, like airbrushing Corin’s spotty backside, before it came out in the cinema. Flint already knew the film would be good, maybe as good as his previous film Edge, which was due to premiere in a month. Impulse was science fiction, and according to the director, about the rise and fall of individuals and society, explored on both a physical and a metaphorical level. Flint just thought it was an exciting, innovative film that would make people think, particularly as it had no happy ending except for the bad guy. Which would be him, and it made a bloody change. He was fed up of getting shot.

  He and Corin had left the main event together. Their driver had dropped Corin off at another party, while Flint had been brought to this dazzling house in the hills surrounding Split, rented by the film’s art director. White walls, white furniture, white paintings, white drugs, white everything. It was enough to give him snow blindness, and maybe enough to explain his headache.

  The girl moved her mouth from his cock to his balls and he drew in a breath. She sucked too hard, caught him with her teeth, and he dug his fingers into the side of the chair.

  “Easy.” He wasn’t that much of a pain slut.

  Corin hadn’t gifted him with a blow job in months, which was why he’d been tempted and had fallen. Though it was more than that. He supposed technically he was cheating, but their relationship was over in everything but name. The only chemistry between them was manufactured on-set under the director’s instruction. Alone, they barely spoke and if they did their voices were raised and angry. They’d not shared a bed for the last month. Everyone had seen the way she behaved around Anton Merck, the film’s headline star, the good guy to Flint’s bad. They were probably fucking right this moment and Flint didn’t give a shit about that either.

  He and Corin were booked on an early morning flight back to London, during which he’d tell her they were done. His agent Ryker, who was also his publicist, knew exactly how he felt, and had asked him to wait until filming was over before he dumped her, but enough was enough. Flint just hoped Corin wasn’t stupid enough to make a scene on a plane and start battering him with her champagne glass or air marshals would leap into action and probably arrest both of them. He wasn’t sure that it was publicity he wanted.

  A glance at his watch told him it was almost the witching hour, and the ninety minutes of beautiful hell promised by Mistress Marina. A coil of warmth unfurled in his belly. More, he suspected, to do with the thought of Marina than with the blonde slurping between his thighs. He’d almost forgotten she was there. God, I am such a bastard and she’s trying hard—bless her.

  The loud bass of the techno music pouring from the other room pounded in Flint’s head and the pain at the back of his skull intensified as if some fucker was twisting an ice pick into his brain. The coke he’d recently snorted hadn’t helped. Neither had the booze and, in truth, nor increasingly did the thought of the black cellar in the villa farther down the valley and the chance to try something different. Was that what he really wanted? For some woman to order him around? Rake her nails down his back? Hurt him so he’d stop hating himself? He wished he knew what he was really looking for. It would make his life much easier.

  Flint had a sudden, unexpected urge to sleep. Proper sleep. Not that broken crap he’d struggled through for the last few months but a long, deep, Rip Van Winkle snooze. Maybe he’d wake as the man most people thought he was and not the one he actually was, except there was something he had to do first. He struggled to remember, then looked down and saw the blonde staring up at him with her big brown eyes. Cow, not Bambi, came to mind. He shouldn’t have told her he could get her work. I’m such a fucktard.

  Taking his dwindling erection as an indication she was losing him, she attacked the head of his dick as if she’d entered an ice-lolly licking race, and pumped harder with her fist. Her bright pink nails were very shiny and very long. He shuddered, because nails dragging down his back and drawing blood wasn’t really what he wanted, even though he could finally risk a few marks now that filming was over. As he reached the point of detonation, he considered warning her, then thought again. She was the one who’d come up to him when he’d hardly walked through the door and offered to suck him off. He’d said no, but she’d persisted. He was only human. Well, male anyway. He wondered about the human bit sometimes.

  Pressure built at the back of his skull, adding to the nagging pain already there. As she fluttered her tongue over the crest of his cock, fire flashed down the fuse wire of his spine and ignited his balls. He erupted into her mouth, his stomach clenching and pelvis jerking with each spurt. His head fell back as orgasm wrapped his body in delight momentarily strong enough to overpower the ache in his head.

  Except the pleasure of coming faded too soon and once the aftershocks had dissipated, discomfort strengthened its hold. Oh God, my fucking head. What the hell am I doing here with a woman whose name I can’t even remember?

  She smiled up at him, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

  Oh fuck. She wants me to say something.

  Flint tucked his cock away and zipped himself up. “Thanks. You’re a sweetheart. That was great.”

  He pushed to his feet and staggered across the room, surprised he was so unsteady. He hadn’t drunk that much. A couple of glasses of champagne at the other party, a beer at this one. Oh and there’d been that line of coke he’d snorted just after he’d arrived. He opened the bedroom door and emerged into chaos. People, music, too much noise, everyone moving too fast, shimmering in and out of focus. His dizziness worsened as he snaked his way across the room.

  Another of the makeup artists caught his arm as he stumbled past. “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” But he wasn’t. “Bathroom?”

  “That door.”

  Two guys having sex in there quickly left when Flint dropped to his knees in front of the toilet and threw up. Oh Christ. Had someone slipped him something? He’d been as good as gold during filming. No drugs, well, not many drugs, careful with his alcohol intake, though he wasn’t the big drinker some people thought he was. He pushed himself up, rinsed out his mouth and looked in the mirror. Why was he fuzzy at the edges? He rubbed his eyes, took out his phone and after a struggle with the buttons, called his driver, who hopefully had parked nearby.

  Flint had to fight to get out of the house, not through people but through thick air he couldn’t seem to drag into his lungs. But it was no better outside. Sweat beaded on his forehead and trickled down his back as he made his way to the bottom of the drive, weaving as if he was drunk. He couldn’t see too clearly either. His heart rate rocketed. What the hell’s the matter with me?

  To his relief, Josip waited by the gates. He opened the rear door of the car as Flint lurched toward him. The sensible thing would be to go back to the villa rented for him for the last five months, hope for a good night’s sleep and wake nice and fresh for the airport run in the morning, but he’d never been sensible. Since he’d so spectacularly fucked up two years ago, he didn’t see any point.

  “Rokunica Street. Villa Flot. Hvala.” Croatian for thank you.

  By the time the car pulled up, Flint felt a little better, more clear-headed, his vision back to normal, though considering what he was planning to put himself through, that might not be a good thing. But the pins and needles were still there. Maybe he’d trapped a nerve. He flexed his fingers, the sensation intensified and he winced.


  “I’ll call you in an hour or so,” he told Josip, and made his way to the front door.

  It opened before he reached it. Marina was dressed head to toe in black—figure-hugging corset, lacy knickers, stockings, suspenders and thigh-high boots. Her long dark hair was tied up so tightly not a wisp escaped. It was as if her skull had been spray painted. Flint stepped inside and she kicked the door closed behind him.

  “Sorry I—”

  “Shut up,” she snapped. “Don’t speak unless I tell you.”

  A shiver of lust—or it might have been dread—rippled through his cock. It stayed limp so he figured dread had trumped lust.

  “Strip,” she said.

  Flint fumbled with the buttons on his shirt. Marina looked as though she’d been levered into the corset, her breasts spilling over the top, dark semicircles of her areola visible. He had a vague feeling that should have turned him on, but it didn’t. He kicked off his loafers and unfastened his pants, pulling them and his shorts down together.

  She produced a studded black leather collar and fastened it around his neck. His Adam’s apple pressed against the band and he swallowed hard in discomfort.

  “Your word?” she asked.

  My word about what? It wasn’t as if he was going to tell anyone what he’d gotten up to on his last night in the country.

  “Safe word,” she said. “One you not likely to use.”

  Oh, right. Only one word came to mind that he’d never accidentally blurt. “Love.” The only time the words ‘I love you’ would come out of his mouth would be when they were in a script, and he hadn’t had to say them yet because he mostly played the villain.

  She laughed. “Come.”

  He glanced at his dick, hanging limply between his thighs, thinking coming might take a while, then followed her along the tiled corridor, through a heavy wooden door and down cold, worn stone stairs into a cellar. The walls were painted black, illumination from several ornate metal sconces patterning the surfaces with slashes of hazy light. Ahead of him, in the middle of the high-ceilinged room, stood a big wooden X on a frame. His gut clenched and his balls shrank. Alarm filtered into his sluggish brain.