Sex Idol

by Shelley Munro

  A soft moue of disappointment lugged him back.

  Sasha.

  “Haven’t come yet, sweetheart?” To his discomfiture, he had no idea. He shifted, a subtle movement that realigned their bodies. “Hold on.”

  The sensual pout of her lips tempted him to kiss her. Taking it easy, he slid his tongue deep into her mouth. She sighed, arching against him, her breasts rubbing against his chest. Sasha was beautiful, and the thought of any other man touching her in this intimate manner played with his head. Concentrate, dammit. He slid a hand across her belly and dipped to take a nipple into his mouth. As he pulled and sucked, his finger crept lower across her pelvic bone to the moist feminine flesh where they were still joined. His finger teased her clitoris. Her pussy tightened around his semi-erect cock. Heat stabbed him again. He released her breast to study her face. Her mouth. The delicate color in her cheeks. The semicircle of dark lashes. He rocked his hips, playing with her swollen clit. The tiny nubbin throbbed beneath his ministrations. She was close and so, so lovely.

  “Come for me, beautiful. Let me see your release. Feel it. I love the way your greedy cunt tightens around me. Sasha, sweetheart. Open your eyes. Let me see the passion come.”

  “Antonio.” Slowly her eyes opened to reveal dark pupils, so black and full of desire that his cock lengthened.

  “Sasha.” He rubbed her firmly, but not too hard. He wanted to draw this out, make her come as hard as he had. Transport her into a world of pure pleasure so she would never ever leave him.

  “Yes, just like that. Oh, Antonio.” A long pent-up breath whooshed from between parted lips. The flush on her face intensified, the heat in her eyes so hot he was in awe.

  His finger strummed her flesh again. Once. Twice. Then he felt her shatter. A sigh drifted and the slow, rhythmic clenching of her sex grabbed at his cock, holding him and making him realize this was special—she was special—and something had to change.

  * * * * *

  “Tonight we have a special guest appearance by local celebrity Jaz Michaels. Jaz will sing her chart-topping hit Idol while the scrutinizers backstage tally and confirm the results. Take it away, Jaz!”

  Antonio scowled at the pictures on the screen in their dressing room. “I hate all the waiting around, the way they string out announcing the results.”

  “It’s called showmanship,” Sasha said. “Besides, we did a great job. If you don’t make the next round, I’d be very surprised. Scratch that. Shocked and horrified would describe my reaction better. You’ll do fine.”

  More rode on this result than Sasha knew. If he didn’t make the next round, he wouldn’t have an excuse to spend time with her, and worst of all, he wouldn’t turn around his spate of bad luck and poor results. Then there was his family drama—the lack of support from them. “I want this so bad. I’m not a good loser.”

  Sasha’s brows shot upward. “No kidding?”

  Antonio mock frowned at her, taking in her damp golden hair and her green eyes. He’d come so hard and long out there onstage and then in the cleansing unit, his legs still felt weak. His blood hummed through his veins, and he wanted to fuck her all over again. Except this time, it would be slow. He’d take all night. He’d lick and kiss her from head to foot until her taste and scent permeated his body.

  And the most important thing of all—he’d love her in private. On a bed with satin sheets and rose petals. Romance. Yeah, he could do that. He’d woo Sasha and show her how good they were together.

  “Antonio. Antonio? Are you okay? You have a weird look on your face.” Her smile wavered. “Is there someone special in your life? Oh, shit. Is there? I never thought to ask when I…” Sasha trailed off to peer around the dressing room in a suspicious manner. She skirted the low divan to close the distance between them. “When I asked you to father my baby,” she whispered in his ear.

  Panic reared up in him without warning. Love. Did he love Sasha? Fuck, he had no idea what love was. It wasn’t as if he had a stellar example to compare with his situation. His parents had conceived him during a drunken night together, after they’d decided on no more children. His father had never let his mother forget their mistake and had numerous affairs. His father was also demanding of Antonio, making him feel inferior and constantly comparing him with his successful older brother. Yep, no example at all. He knew he liked her, enjoyed spending time with her, thought about Sasha when he wasn’t with her.

  “There is someone.” A thread of distress reverberated in the air between them. “Is it Bridget?”

  “No!” Antonio snapped.

  “But there is someone,” Sasha persisted. “All right. Do you regret making this deal? Has it caused problems for you and your lover?”

  “No.” Oh, man. He needed a few more words to throw at her. No wasn’t enough under the circumstances. He opened his mouth and tried again. “No.” Distressed by his lack of ready vocab, a fluid Anglo-Saxon curse echoed in the dressing room.

  Sasha’s eyes widened. “That’s a new one.”

  “My mother used to say it all the time,” Antonio said. “Sasha, we made a deal. I was thinking about my parents. That’s all.”

  “You seldom talk about them.” Sasha nailed him with a curious stare. “I thought you’d sprung fully formed from a cabbage patch.”

  “Ha-ha. I try not to think about them. They aren’t what you’d call a good example of a happy couple.” He shrugged, ready to change the subject. “Let’s just say they put me off the whole marriage thing.”

  “The results will be announced in five minutes. All competitors to the backstage area,” a voice ordered through an overhead speaker.

  “We’ll discuss this later,” Sasha said, the tilt of her head and her raised eyebrows telling him she wouldn’t drop this topic. He’d raised her curiosity.

  Antonio opened the door and stood aside to let her exit. Shit, that was all he needed—a little heart-to-heart to tie his emotions into immutable knots.

  Chapter Eleven

  Sasha reached for Antonio’s hand and gripped it hard while they waited for the advancement announcement. A glance both left and right told her she wasn’t the sole one experiencing pressure at the wait. Thank goodness, she didn’t need to go through this on a regular basis or stress about her weight and the hundred and one other things that a competitor—a successful contestant—had to think about.

  “I wish they’d hurry,” he whispered into her ear.

  She had to agree. Despite her earlier confidence, there was always the element of surprise. Audiences were unpredictable.

  The final notes of the music faded away. The master of ceremonies strutted onto the stage, resplendent in his black synsatin suit, his cuffs and lapels glittering under the powerful stage lights. The man looked good and his confident smile proved he knew it. A beautiful blonde in a tight-fitting dress sashayed a few steps behind him.

  “So, are you ready to hear the results?” he asked, his pitch low and confidential.

  “Yes!” the audience shouted in response.

  “I can’t hear you.”

  “Yes!” the audience screeched.

  “Miranda, the computer please.”

  The man made a real production of turning on the handheld computer, stringing out the process until Sasha wanted to shake him. “Can he go any slower?”

  “Hurrying him won’t change the outcome.”

  But it would put her out of her misery. She didn’t want Antonio to fail when she’d partnered him. She’d always wonder if she could’ve done better.

  “The contestants to go on to the next round, in no particular order, are Jon Tavot, Georgia Rogers, Antonio Perez…”

  Sasha’s knees almost failed the instant the man read Antonio’s name. He hugged her, and she clutched him back in intense relief. She’d see more of him while he prepared for the next round. Yes, it was emotional suicide, but her heart didn’t seem to give a damn.

  * * * * *

  Antonio straightened from his slouch against the brick
wall of the warehouse at the ear-shattering roar of an approaching vehicle. He knew that vehicle. A few seconds later, the shiny black gas-guzzler rounded the corner on two wheels. The car shrieked like an animal in pain as the tires sought traction on the narrow road. It rumbled to a halt, a few feet from Antonio. The passenger door opened and Bridget climbed out. She slammed the door and strode over to him.

  Antonio wanted to throttle her. He was tempted to kick her butt from where he stood to the end of the street. He did neither. Bridget could still derail his carefully laid plans.

  “Good, you’re here. We need to talk.”

  Bridget cast a worried look over her shoulder at the driver of the vehicle. “Not here. Inside.”

  “I’m surprised you’re here at all.” It was difficult to keep the bite from his words when he was so pissed with her. Even after they’d decided to go their separate ways, he’d given her a second chance. She’d mucked him around ever since. No more.

  “Upstairs,” she gritted out.

  Before he could spit back an answer, she wrenched open the outer door and stomped up the stairs to Sasha’s classroom.

  Antonio trailed Bridget, his gut lurching at the thought of the discussion to come. Although he’d wanted Sasha to partner him, he’d resolved to give Bridget a chance because she’d seemed so desperate to compete with him, but if he couldn’t count on her, trust her to turn up to training…

  He glanced back over his shoulder, his gaze snagging on the driver of the car, his cap pulled low, his mouth in a taut scowl. The man’s face was familiar, but he couldn’t remember where he’d seen him before. He gunned the engine and laid rubber as he took off. Antonio snorted. Obviously had money to burn, keeping an old heap like that going. It wasn’t easy to buy diesel these days when hovers ran on synfuel.

  Antonio entered the warehouse. “Wait up,” he called to Bridget. “Sasha has a class. She asked us to wait in the small room off to the left.”

  Bridget slowed. “How long do we have to wait?”

  He eyed a mottled bruise on her upper arm in thoughtful silence. “Sasha said about ten minutes. She’s going to get her class to judge our performance.”

  Bridget rolled her eyes. “Wonderful.”

  “We were beginners once, too. What did you do to your arm?”

  The impatience faded, and her shoulders slumped momentarily before she collected herself. “I tripped over a pair of shoes I left lying on the bedroom floor.”

  Shoes didn’t leave finger marks and it was obvious Bridget was uneasy with the conversation. “Why couldn’t you take part in the first heat? What was so important that you had to miss it?” He gestured at her arm. “Does the person who did that to you have something to do with it?” He didn’t believe the family illness for a minute.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” Bridget averted her gaze, preferring to stare out a dusty window to the warehouse next door than exchange the truth with him.

  “Fine.” Antonio kept his manner mild, his manner off-hand rather than confrontational. “How do I know you’re not going to do it again?”

  “I won’t.” Bridget turned to face him, her blue eyes beseeching. Dark shadows shaded the skin beneath her eyes. She looked older. Worried. “I promise.”

  “The other time—it was important. Really. I’ll be there.” She forced a smile. “I can’t wait to do our special routine in the final.”

  She seemed sincere, yet every instinct screamed at him relentlessly. He didn’t trust her. “This is your last chance, Bridget. Muck me around again and you’re out. I’ll find a new partner.”

  “No, please don’t do that.” Bridget grasped his forearms, her pleading startling him. Her hands were like manacles around his wrists. “Please, Antonio.” Panic colored her reply. “I promise, Antonio. Please. I’ll be there. Don’t replace me.”

  What the hell had she expected him to say? She’d let him down. “What about training? Are you going to attend each training session?”

  “Yes. I’ve promised. What more do you want? I’ll sign an agreement if you want, in blood if necessary.”

  Loud chatter and laughter interrupted the moment. A tap on the door confirmed the lost chance to question Bridget further.

  “Sasha said you can come in now,” a young girl said. Her brown ponytail bobbed up and down as she hurried back to the classroom.

  “Okay, class. Quiet.” Sasha clapped her hands together in a bid for silence. “Today, Antonio and Bridget will rehearse their traditional routine for the upcoming show. I want you to score their performance as you see it. Afterward, you’re welcome to ask questions. Bridget and Antonio or I will answer your queries.”

  “Attempt to answer,” Antonio inserted with a grin at his young audience.

  Sasha stared in bemusement at her attentive senior class. They sat in their identical robes, faces beaming. How did he do that? Then she answered her own question. The man had charisma in bucket loads.

  “I want to remind you that the details of this routine are top secret. Anything you see here today must remain in this room. Is that clear?” In her strict instructor manner, Sasha peered over the top of her glasses. “Yes or no?” she persisted.

  “Yes, Ms. Greenacre,” they chanted. Several of them shuffled in their seats with pure excitement. Sasha couldn’t remember being that young, that enthusiastic about performing on the sex circuit. But she must have felt that way in the early days—the days before her fellow competitors ceased to feel like family and became fierce rivals.

  “Your props are in the box over there. Let me know when you want the music to start.” Sasha chatted to her class about points of technique while Antonio and Bridget prepared.

  A lump of unease sat at the base of her tummy. Her gaze drifted to Antonio and scanned the strong lines of his body, his tight and naked ass. She sighed with longing. His hand was on Bridget’s bare shoulder as he whispered something to her that made her laugh. Probably one of those stupid Irish jokes that he trotted out to soothe ruffled nerves. Last weekend that had been her.

  “Music, please, Sasha,” Bridget called out.

  The girl band sang about a man and a hat and how he should leave it on.

  Sasha’s class sat straight and paying rapt attention to the two sex stars. They looked good together, Sasha conceded. The pair moved well. Antonio palmed Bridget’s buttocks and slid his fingers into the valley between her butt cheeks. Sasha froze. Her knees trembled, so much that she sank into a chair beside one of her students. A shaft of pain pierced her chest, and pressure started behind her eyes. She wanted to run and stop the music, shove Bridget out of the way and step into Antonio’s arms.

  Oh, shit. Bad. Terrible. Sasha struggled to contain the green-eyed monster that clawed at her guts and ripped her heart. She wanted to be the woman in Antonio’s arms. No one else. And sex with another man or woman? Forget it. In that moment, she realized that only Antonio would do for her.

  She didn’t want any another man to father her baby.

  The sour taste in her mouth had her clutching her stomach. Every muscle in her body tensed, but a shudder tore through her anyway. Despite her heart’s objection at seeing Bridget and Antonio together, she couldn’t rip her gaze off the couple. Because it was performing. Not making love, which was what she and Antonio did when they were together.

  “They’re good, aren’t they, miss?” the girl beside her whispered. Excitement and adoration shone from her eyes.

  Sasha wanted to scream at her, tell her it was wrong, that what they were seeing was plain, no-frills sex.

  Nothing pretty.

  Nothing unusual.

  Just sex.

  Her gaze remained glued on the couple. From a distance, she analyzed the performance. It was good. But it could be better yet. Bridget was a little stiff. Some of her movements appeared forced and unnatural. Antonio moved over Bridget and thrust into her, driving slowly so the audience saw the impalement process.

  “What do you think of the technique?” Sasha
murmured to her student.

  “They’re good at positioning so the audience misses nothing.” The girl hesitated.

  “But?” Sasha prompted.

  “It’s good, but it’s like two people performing instead of one.” The final words came out in a rush as if she was frightened she’d spoken out of turn.

  “Good observation. Note it down on your score sheet. Both good and bad points, remember.”

  Antonio thrust, and Sasha focused on his flexing muscles. Her pussy clenched as a phantom dick slid into her heated flesh. A spike of pleasure shot through her, but she felt empty, resentful it was Bridget with Antonio and not her. Sasha’s gaze followed the path of Antonio’s hands—the slide of fingers between Bridget’s legs, the pinching of her nipples, the nip of teeth at her shoulder blade.

  “Good thrust action,” a student whispered from behind her. “It makes me wet just watching and thinking about that cock inside me. Whoa!”

  “Well, I’d like to be the cock inside her. She’s gorgeous. And did you see that sexy silver stud in her pussy lip? Man, I’d like to investigate that labia at closer quarters.”

  “Shush.” Sasha turned to quell her student’s outrageousness with a glare. “Write your comments down. We’ll discuss them later.”

  “Sorry, Ms. Greenacre.”

  Sasha turned back to the action taking place in front of them. Nausea tap-danced up her throat until she swallowed repeatedly. She leapt to her feet with enough force to knock over her chair. The crash reverberated, drowning out the music. Every face in the room turned to her, including Antonio and Bridget. Scarlet-cheeked, she righted the chair, but she’d ruined the moment.

  Wasn’t that what you wanted? her conscience taunted.

  “I’m so sorry.” Her cheeks burned hot with mortification. She had to get a grip of her jealousy or she’d spoil everything. If she acted clingy and possessive, Antonio would run, and she didn’t want that. Somehow, she had to control the unreasonable, unpredictable emotion, stall it long enough to conceive and hold her pride and dignity intact before Antonio moved on with his future.