Royal Stripper

by Sienna Valentine

  I wanted her so bad. Worse than I had last night. I knew her better now. I’d seen her alone and vulnerable, and I wanted to put all that from her mind. More than that, I wanted to lose myself in her sweet innocence, to know what it would be like to be loved by someone like Ava Cassidy.

  I couldn’t tell her the truth now. If I did, she’d hate me forever. Layla might actually kill me, but it was the thought of Ava hating me that I couldn’t stand. It was the thought of losing her that made me finally pull my mouth away, our foreheads still pressed together as we panted against each other’s lips.

  “I... have to check in with River on some things,” I said, finally disentangling myself from her arms. It took every ounce of strength I had to pull completely away and stride back to my dresser to tug a t-shirt over my head. “I’ll be back to take you to dinner?”

  Without giving her a chance to answer, I dropped a kiss on her cheek and slipped out of the room.

  Chapter 11

  Ava

  For a moment, all I could do was stare after the empty space Bennett had left in the room. How could he just... walk away from that? My heart was still beating wildly, my cheeks warm and flushed, and none of that had anything to do with the mini nervous breakdown I’d been on the verge of only a few minutes ago.

  I was wet between my legs, my clit still throbbing in anticipation of what I’d been expecting to happen. What should have naturally happened. So why didn’t it? Bennett’s body had pressed into mine with an intensity I’d never felt before. Certainly not with Ken.

  Ken had always made me feel like a naive little girl. Bennett... Bennett made me feel like a woman.

  And then he just left.

  I was still reeling from his sudden departure when Layla stomped into the room.

  “Okay, okay. I admit I wanted to see how far you’d take this, and don’t get me wrong, the eye candy around here is…,” she paused, glancing down the hallway at what I assumed must be River’s retreating backside, “stunning, but don’t you think you’ve taken it far enough? Every starlet deserves a break down now and then, but what the hell are we really doing here? Are you serious about all of this?”

  “Oh, god,” I groaned, lips still swollen from that kiss. “I wish I knew.”

  I trudged over to the wide, bay windows that opened onto a wraparound corner balcony, looking down across the valley, the Sierra Nevadas in the distance. Wandering out onto the deck, I curled up in a long, stripped-log sofa, pulling one of the pillows into my lap and wrapping my arms around it.

  “That bad, huh?” Layla asked, dropping heavily next to me.

  “Huh?”

  She nodded to the pillow. “Whenever you’re hella upset, you curl yourself up into a tiny ball, like you think if you can make yourself as small as possible, whatever’s bothering you will just give up and leave you alone.”

  I gave a dry laugh, sniffing a little. “You mean that’s not how life works?”

  Layla slung an arm around my shoulders and pulled me into a hug. “’Fraid not, boo.”

  I looked out at the stunning view, wondering how anything could be bad in a world that had this kind of beauty in it. “Damn,” I muttered, and Layla hugged me closer.

  She let me sit in silence for several minutes before asking quietly, “You wanna talk about it?”

  “No?” I said, giving a teary laugh. “But... yes, too.”

  “Whatever you need, boo,” Layla said.

  I took a deep breath, feeling the crispness of the mountain air filling my lungs. I brought up the last time I’d seen Ken, bent over his desk with his dick in my TV-mom. “I just remember watching them both and wondering, ‘What the hell is wrong with these people? What kind of world is this?’”

  Layla leaned her cheek on my hair. “It’s Hollywood, kid, and it’s the shittiest place on earth. And the most wonderful.”

  “Is it? Wonderful, I mean?”

  “Sometimes,” I felt her nod, and we were both quiet again.

  “Ken was the first guy I kissed, you know,” I eventually continued. “I said in that interview it was Jeremy, on set, in character, but... it was Ken.” The media had gone haywire over the sweetness of a young girl having her first kiss scripted on camera. Of course America’s Sweetheart had never kissed a boy.

  That much was true, at least. I hadn’t kissed a boy. I’d kissed a man. A man who turned out to be an asshole. The part that bothered me the most was how willfully blind I’d been. It wasn’t like I didn’t know Ken was like that. It wasn’t like people hadn’t warned me that it would likely end up like this. I’d just got caught up in his lies, and in the idea of making it work, somehow, with the man I’d given my virginity to—as if I was trying to live out the fairy tale life of my on-screen alter-ego.

  “He was your first in a lot of things,” Layla shrugged. “That’s not ever going to change. But... you don’t have to throw yourself into a marriage just because you lost your first love, or because you’re trying to prove something to yourself. It’s okay to be single for a while. The world won’t collapse on top of you. I won’t let it.”

  I laughed softly, grateful that Layla never seemed to lose her sense of humor.

  “I can’t really explain it,” I said, thinking of Bennett and the way I’d felt waking up next to him on the plane. “I know I shouldn’t trust him. Hell, after Ken, I shouldn’t trust anyone. I shouldn’t trust him, but I do. He makes me feel... safe. And I need that right now.”

  Layla was quiet a moment before responding. “I get it. I really do. It’s important to feel safe, especially now, but… you don’t really know anything about him.”

  “I know,” I agreed with a nod. “But he’s been nothing but sweet to me, if a little crude, and god knows a little crude doesn’t bother me after Ken. I don’t know what I’m going to do in the long run, but for now? For now I just want to hang out in the mountains with someone who makes me feel safe.”

  Layla shifted to look at me seriously, and I smiled. “I mean, hell, we got quickie married, we can always get quickie divorced if things don’t work out, right?”

  She kept looking at me, as though she were trying to determine how serious I was about this. Finally, she nodded, gave me a squeeze, and stood up.

  “All right. You give it a go with your husband. I’m gonna go check out River Phoenix. See what his story is.”

  I laughed. “See what his story is? Is that what they’re calling it now?”

  She tossed a pillow at my head as she turned to go, then stopped in the doorway to the balcony. “You’ll tell me if you change your mind though, right? We might be all alone up in the mountains here, but I’m the most resourceful assistant you’ll ever have. I’ll have you back in L.A. before you can say ‘alimony payments.’”

  “Thanks, Layla,” I said, feeling my shoulders relax, like they’d been waiting for Layla’s permission.

  “Anytime, boo.”

  Chapter 12

  Bennett

  I really did have to check in with River, but it definitely didn’t take me until dinner to finish my business, and for the first time that I could remember, I was left feeling out of place in my own home. I didn’t know if I should seek Ava out or leave her alone. The memory of the kiss in my bedroom was still fresh in my mind, and I was a little worried that if I ran into her, I would give in to that sweet temptation.

  I’d never been good at self-control.

  I was still deciding what to do as I left River’s cabin, but then the first thing I saw was Ava standing on my balcony. She’d showered and changed, and looked just as fresh and young as she had that morning. My chest constricted painfully, and I felt a peculiar surge of anger toward everyone who had hurt her. I purposely left myself out of that group. The hurt I was going to cause her hadn’t happened yet, and I was still hopeful I could figure out some way to avoid it altogether.

  That was a subject I didn’t want to look into too deeply just now, so I forced a smile to my face and waved up at her. She grinned bac
k at me, and my stomach flipped slightly. She smiled so easily. You’d have to be an asshole to take advantage of that.

  I was such an asshole.

  Ava was practically skipping down the stairs from the balcony to the courtyard, a bright smile on her face.

  “Feeling better?” I asked, and she nodded.

  “It’s amazing what a shower and some mountain air can accomplish.”

  The constriction in my chest eased. At least, whatever else happened, I let her feel relaxed, even just for a moment. I gave her a place that was safe.

  “You wanna take the tour?” I asked, offering her my arm. “Get some more of that air?”

  “I’d love to,” she said, and she latched onto my arm like she was used to it. Maybe she was. She must have been to her share of galas and red carpet events. Or maybe she just already felt as comfortable with me as I did with her?

  “Right this way,” I said, leading her into the courtyard.

  The ranch was laid out so that there was a horseshoe shaped line of cabins surrounding the main house. Each of the cabins had two bedrooms, a bathroom, a living area, and a kitchen. There was a pool in the courtyard, fed by a stone fountain at one end that was designed to mimic a series of natural rock pools, one flowing into another.

  There were ten cabins in all, not counting the main house, and I led her to the farthest one on the right, the Timberland Cabin.

  “When I was little,” I said, pushing the door open, “we used to come here every summer. We always got the Timberland Cabin. Dad said he liked being as far as possible from the hippie kumbaya circles in the main house.”

  The cabin was a little dusty from disuse, but River kept them all in good, working order. That guy smoked more weed than anyone I’d ever met, but you couldn’t slow him down. I really didn’t care if he was high at work so long as the work got done, and it always did. I sometimes wondered what my caretaker might be able to accomplish if he weren’t stoned all the time.

  Ava looked around the cabin, peeking into cabinets and shelves. “It’s so cozy,” she said. “I bet you loved it here.”

  “I did,” I said softly, entranced by watching her discover, for the first time, this place that I had always known. In a sense, she was discovering me. I don’t know why I’d taken her to this cabin. I’d never taken anyone here before. Even River didn’t know that it was my family’s summer cabin. She was getting to me. I could feel her in my head and in my veins. I had never wanted to share so much of myself with someone.

  She wandered down the short hallway, peering first into the bathroom and then into the smaller bedroom. “Is this where you stayed?” she asked, smiling down the hall at me as I moved toward her.

  “Yep,” I said, stepping into the room. There were two twin beds, covered with handmade quilts in reds and browns. Between them was a whitewashed nightstand, a banker’s lamp on top of it. “Me and my brother.”

  I had definitely never told anyone else about coming here with Al.

  “Are you close?” she asked, sitting on one of the beds. I took a seat next to her.

  “We were,” I said.

  “What happened?” Her voice was quiet, gentle, like she knew she was poking into a place that didn’t get much sunlight.

  “He died,” I said, surprising myself with how flat my voice was. I didn’t like talking about Al. I avoided it whenever possible.

  “Oh, god, I’m… I’m so sorry,” Ava said, her small hand resting on my back, a warm weight against my spine, just over my tattoo. “How old were you?”

  “Twelve,” I said. “Al was seventeen. It was a... car crash.”

  I swallowed hard, feeling a lump forming in my throat and angry with myself for letting it. Ava’s hand began to move in slow, soothing circles on my back, and I closed my eyes. “The first time we came here without him,” I said quietly, not sure why I was even still talking, except that Ava made me feel comfortable, and I felt like I’d lied to her enough. She deserved the truth about something. “That first summer... it was so weird being here without him. I felt like nothing was the same again. I spent a lot of time hiking through the woods on my own.”

  Ava’s hand stayed on my back, and she leaned against me, her temple against my shoulder. She didn’t say anything, and somehow that made it easier. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “He was always pushing me to be better. We used to do these... experiments. We’d head into the woods and experiment with snares or with making explosives out of kitchen ingredients. We got in a helluva lot of trouble.”

  Her hand stilled for a moment, and it didn’t move again until I resumed talking. “After he died... I don’t know. It wasn’t as much fun.”

  I hadn’t stopped, though. I’d just gotten more elaborate, started to run the experiments on actual people. That’s when all the pranks had really started. I wanted to get reactions out of people. Draw extreme feelings out of them, perhaps in an attempt to replace the deadness I felt inside myself.

  We sat there for a long while, her hand on my back, her head on my shoulder.

  “What was it like for you?” she finally asked. “Growing up? I mean... was he your only brother? What are your parents like? How did you... get to be you?”

  I shifted to look at her. She’d asked me this last night as well, but of course she didn’t remember. I smiled faintly. “It was... good. I had a good childhood. My dad worked hard, but he gave us a good life.”

  “How good?” she asked, and I could see in her face that she really wanted to know, wanted to learn about me, about her supposed husband.

  “Not private jet good,” I said with a smirk. “But we came here every summer, and we never had to struggle to make ends meet. Dad still made me get a summer job when I turned sixteen,” I said with a wry smile. “I think he thought it would help me make something of myself.”

  When I’d told her all of this last night, she had listened with the same sweet interest as she did now.

  “Why do I feel like I know you already?” she asked, leaning in a little closer, until I could feel the warmth from her skin radiating against my side.

  “Because you do,” I whispered, caught in the strange twilit magic of the moment. I raised a hand to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, and our faces were close enough that I could feel her breath on my cheek.

  She tilted her head, pressing her cheek to my palm. “What happened between us, last night? I... I want to remember, but I’m only getting short glimpses.”

  That prickling guilt was back in my mind, and I knew this was the perfect opportunity to tell her the truth, but I just couldn’t force the words out. Not while I was sitting here like this with her, feeling more at home, more myself, than I could remember being in a long while.

  “You were in a bad place,” I said quietly, searching her eyes for some sign that I was doing the right thing. That I could still somehow get out of this without her hating me completely. “I wanted to make you happy.” That was just as true now as it was last night, but I knew my impulsive decision to pretend we were married coupled with my lack of balls in coming clean was going to make that impossible to believe.

  Her smile was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen, and if I could see it every day for the rest of my life, I might be satisfied.

  She glanced down to my hand on the bed between us, the warm sunlight peeking through the curtains catching on the sapphire chips of my wedding ring. The symbol of my lie, and a reminder that everything I was feeling now was destined to come to a disastrous end.

  “You know,” she said after a long pause. “As weird as this is? I’m... I’m actually pretty happy.”

  She tilted her head up, and I reacted completely on instinct, dipping my head to kiss her, my lips catching lightly on hers. She met the kiss with confidence, sliding a hand up my arm to curl around the back of my neck. As broken as she was, as hard a time as she’d been having, she was still strong, still holding her own. It sort of amazed me.

  My arm slid around
her waist, and she shifted, sliding into my lap without breaking the kiss. My hips rolled up automatically, and I remembered the last time we’d been in this position, with fewer clothes between us. I felt as much as heard her moan as she rocked forward, grinding down against me. My cock was already hard, throbbing in my jeans, and I moved again on instinct, rolling us both so that she laid back on the mattress, the bed squeaking slightly as I settled over her, her legs coming up to cradle me between them, bringing the heat between our legs closer together.