by Sybil Bartel
“I sent the video to my cell.”
I tipped my chin, catching her drift. Taking her cell out of my pocket, I handed it over. “Stay. I’m grabbing your bags.”
She didn’t say shit as I went back out through the garage. Five minutes later, the SUV was in the garage, her bags were in a guest room, mine was in the master because it had a bigger bed, and she was standing in front of the fridge, door open.
She took one of those small-ass carrots and crunched half of it before closing the fridge. “I need my schedule.”
“Where is it?” I remembered what the nurse said about feeding her. Pushing her out of the way, I opened the fridge.
“I don’t know.” She leaned against the counter, watching me. “Your pretty boy bodyguard had it last.”
Fuck. I grabbed veggies and tofu and dumped them on the counter, then I pulled my phone out and fired off a text to Tyler. A few seconds later, he responded that he put her schedule in her purse. “Check your purse.” I took a pan out.
She went to the island separating the kitchen from the open plan living room and dug through her massive bag. Unearthing some paperwork, she started at it a moment then pulled her phone out and sat at one of the stools to make a call. “Peter, it’s me. I need a favor….”
I found a cutting board and started chopping carrots, broccoli and onions.
“I know, I saw, but this isn’t about that,” she said to her lawyer. “I need you to call Janette, get her on hourly, and tell her to cancel all my interviews except Miami Morning.”
I silently groaned. Miami Morning broadcasted to a live audience outside every morning it wasn’t fucking pouring rain. It was a shit venue to deal with.
“I know, I don’t care,” she continued. “There’s nothing in the contract about the interviews being mandatory, only the premiere, and I’ll be there.” Her voice turned hard. “But if that fucking asshole Colton is anywhere near me, I swear to God, Peter, I will make a scene. A big fucking scene. Tell Janette that. Have her relay the message. Colton doesn’t know who he messed with.”
Throwing the vegetables in the pan, I cursed.
Her head popped up and she looked at me. “What?” she challenged.
“Leave Payne to the lawyer.” And me.
She gave me the fucking smirk again. “You’re a publicist now? You know how to handle my career?” Her eyes narrowed. “No, Peter, I’m talking to Mr. Gunther,” she bit my last name out sarcastically. “He seems to think I asked for his advice. That, or he’s suddenly an expert on how to handle a Hollywood scandal.”
My nostrils flared. “Hang up.”
She glared at me. “I fucking get that, Peter. Just call Janette and tell her what I need. Take care of that and Jerry, and I’ll handle the rest.” She hung up and practically kicked the stool away as she got down. “I’m going for a run.” She took off toward the guest room.
Goddamn it.
I turned off the burner and went after her. Pushing the bedroom door open, I walked in like I owned the place. “You’re gonna eat, then we’ll discuss your exercise routine.” The last thing she needed right now on an almost empty stomach after giving blood was a fucking run.
“Screw you.” She tossed the banged-up suitcase on the bed and fumbled with the lock.
That’s when I saw it.
Shaking hands and quick breaths.
Attitude, language, hands, storming off—I put it all together in about half a second.
Stepping up behind her, I reached around her small-as-fuck body and grabbed her wrists. “Take a breath.”
She jerked like I’d burned her. “Let go!”
I crossed her arms against her chest and pulled her in tight. “Take a breath,” I repeated.
“What the fuck are you doing?” she screeched, struggling against me.
“My job.” Lowering my head to her ear, increasing my grip, ignoring the sweet scent of her, I dropped my voice. “You’re not the first person to have a panic attack.”
“I’m not panicking!” Her whole body shook. “I’m Dreena MacKenzie!”
I should’ve let her go, she was more goddamn trouble than she was worth, but I fucking didn’t. “Inhale to the count of three and hold it.”
“Or what?” She kicked at my shin. “You’ll pull your gun on me too!”
I spun her around, gripped her hair and glared at her as I gave her a fucking dose of reality. “I’ve dealt with armed Marines who were having a panic attack with their goddamn finger on the trigger because they couldn’t reconcile the amount of death in front of them. You want to lose your shit over a phone call and a Hollywood reputation, be my guest. But don’t think for a single second you’re more special than all those men and women fighting for your freedom.”
She choked on a sob, and the fight in her body left. “I’m not panicking.”
“Yes you are.” I’d seen it too many times to count.
Her whole body trembling, she fought for a breath. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize to me.” I tamped down my irritation. “Own your shit, and take a breath before you hyperventilate.”
Her chest rising and falling like she was sprinting, she tried to shake her head, but my grip was too tight. “I’m good, I’m fine.”
“Cut the bullshit, Audrina. Inhale to the count of three. One… two… three.”
She inhaled.
“Now hold it.” I counted backwards from five. “Exhale through your mouth.”
Her chest deflated as her hands landed on my forearms.
“Again,” I commanded, counting to three. “Hold it.” I counted down from five.
She listened to my instructions, and we repeated the process three more times before the shake in her limbs turned to a tremor and her breathing evened out somewhat.
After another round, she’d calmed down enough for me to lay it out. “You want to go for a jog, we’ll do it after you eat and after the sun’s down, but that isn’t gonna help you run away from shit.”
“I’m not running away.”
I stated the obvious. “You fired your agent and your publicist, and you have no backup.”
Her gaze fixed on her hands on my arms, and her fingers tightened. “That’s not running away. It’s calculated. And I have Peter.”
There was only one reason she’d fire her team but keep her lawyer. “You walking away from your career?” I told myself I didn’t give a shit what she did. I didn’t care what any woman did, let alone a client. I got paid either way. But the question was out of my mouth before I could filter it.
She didn’t answer.
Still gripping her hair, I tilted her head up. “Eyes on me, Audrina.”
Slow, distressed, her gaze traveled up my face, and if I didn’t know better I’d say she was giving me a performance.
“Yes,” she admitted. “I’m walking away.”
WHAT THE HELL WAS I doing?
I couldn’t tell him my plan. I couldn’t tell anyone. Not yet. I needed to keep my mouth shut and my shit in check. I was close, so close. A few more days, a week tops, then I could fall apart, or run, or do whatever the hell I wanted to do because my life would be my own, and no one could tell me otherwise.
I tried again to pull out of his grasp, but his stupid fucking hands were bigger than my head, and I wasn’t going anywhere until he decided I was going somewhere. And that right there should’ve been enough to staunch the river of disastrous desire that overflowed every time he so much as looked at me, let alone touched me. Or did what he was doing right now, which was pretending he gave a single fuck about me or what I did.
Reaching for and trying to channel some self-righteous anger, I threw out attitude, because I didn’t know what to do with his silent stare. “That’s right. I’m walking away from a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. A seven-figure paycheck per movie career, and I’m doing it all on my own. I planned it, I’m executing it and I committed to it. I don’t need a bodyguard turned life coach. I can breathe and stand and make
decisions all on my own, so you can let go.”
He didn’t move. He didn’t even blink. His steadfast gaze locked on me, he stared.
“Now,” I snapped.
“How long?” he asked.
“What?” What the hell was he talking about?
“How long did you plan this?”
His heart wasn’t pounding out of his chest. His hands didn’t shake. His pulse wasn’t hammering at his neck. Slow and steady, opposite of me, he breathed and stared and held on to me.
For some reason, his calm only made me angrier. “Did I miss the bond fest where we ate too much ice cream, made friendship bracelets and swore to be besties?” He wasn’t my friend. He wasn’t even an acquaintance.
“You don’t plan, execute and commit,” he said, completely ignoring me.
What the fuck was he talking about? “This is relevant how?”
“You commit first,” he stated, no intonation in his voice.
“No fucking shit, Einstein.” I wasn’t stupid. “I committed to this plan over a year ago.” As soon as the words left my mouth, I cursed my stupidity. “That was on purpose.”
He didn’t insult me by rubbing it in. “If this was planned, then why are you panicking?”
My heart rate a little slower, the awful tightening in my chest not so bad, my lungs taking deeper breaths, I hated that I’d been panicking, but I hated more that he’d called me out on it. I still hadn’t seen the video of my shit last night or checked all the fallout on social media, and the old me, the person I was trying to cut off at the knees, was panicking about that.
Half my brain was telling me I needed to get in there ASAP. Manage damage control, watch the video, scour the gossip sites, see what my fans were saying, see what my haters were saying, see what the hell kind of spin Colton Asshole Payne was putting on it or if he’d started rumors that we were a couple.
That half of my brain was overpowering any sense of rightness I’d felt in pulling my own proverbial trigger. So when I saw the footage of that asshole giving me a shot he’d put drugs in, and his smug-as-fuck expression followed by his fist pump like he was actually going to get me in bed or worse, I’d lost it.
I’d tried to run. I’d needed to run.
But a six-and-a-half-foot giant tank of a man had been in my way.
He was still in my way.
Mustering every ounce of training I’d gotten over the years from all sorts of whacked directors, I schooled my expression and went for shock value. “From publicist to bestie to life coach. What’s next, Falcon? Fucking?”
Just like I thought it would, his expression went stone cold when I said his name with equal parts disdain and sarcasm. It was a low blow, unconscionably so after he’d laid out his story, but I didn’t care. I told myself I was done giving a shit what people thought of me.
Except seeing his face shut down did something to my stomach. And my chest. And I didn’t like it. At all.
“Let go of me,” I snapped.
Silence.
His eyes searching my face, his grip just as tight as before, he didn’t move.
Idiotic, suicidal, I egged him on. “Go ahead,” I seethed, wrapping my arms around his massive neck and going on tiptoe. “Do what every other man in America wants to do.” I pressed into his impossibly hard body. “Kiss a movie star.” I bit out every ugly word. “Take from me like every other fucking person on the planet.”
All at once, his expression went slack, his shoulders dropped and he let go of me. “You done?”
Yeah, I was done. So fucking done. With him, with acting, with fame, with pressure, with assholes who put drugs in my drinks, I was fucking done. But I was also stubborn enough to do the stupidest thing I could think of.
“I’m just getting started.” I launched myself at him.
My arms went around his neck, my legs around his waist, and I desperately, pathetically did to him what I accused him of doing to me.
I took from him.
I forced my mouth over his and I kissed him.
For one horrifying, confidence-slaying moment, he remained stone still. A wall of muscle, he didn’t even flinch. As if my weight on him, my assault, was nothing, he stood perfectly, impossibly still.
A cry, part anguish, part anger, and all humiliation erupted from the ashes of my dignity, and I lashed out. My arm pulled back, my hand fisted, and I aimed. “I hate you.”
He moved.
One of his huge hands caught my fist as the other gripped a punishing handful of my hair.
Then his mouth slammed over mine.
His tongue, huge and thick and dominating, drove into me. Taking my shocked gasp, stealing my breath, still holding my fist, he bent my arm behind me. Incapacitating me on every level, he pushed my arm into my lower back, forcing my hips against his.
One controlling, perfectly executed grind of his hips, and I felt every inch of his giant cock between my legs and on my stomach as he thrust his tongue.
He didn’t kiss me.
He devoured me.
And I fucking melted.
Clawing at his neck, grinding my hips, moaning, I wanted him to fill my empty core or I wanted to die. There was no in between.
“Fuck me,” I begged, out of my mind, forcing words around his unrelenting possession of my mouth.
For five glorious seconds, he tightened his hold on my hair and shoved his tongue deeper. Air rushed past my heated body, and the resulting shiver only made my dripping core wetter.
Yes, I thought. Yes, yes, yes.
Until my ass hit the cold top of the dresser.
His grip on my arm behind my back dropped, and his mouth ripped away from mine. The pressure on my scalp ceased, leaving an unbearable tingle as a rough, calloused hand wrapped around my throat.
My lungs, deprived of oxygen, automatically reached for air and I inhaled.
Slow, like coming awake when I’d never been alive, my eyes traveled up the chest of a tank and my gaze came into focus. I took in the formidable beast of a man in front of me as he stood staring at me.
His expression hard and impenetrable, his storm-colored eyes locked on me, his lips wet, he waited.
My stomach dropped.
“Hi,” I whispered, forcing a swallow.
“You do not,” he started, his voice low and threatening, “fucking kiss me.”
Desire surged between my legs and my traitorous core pulsed. Hoping, praying, for attitude-laced words, I opened my mouth.
The pressure on my throat increased.
I snapped my mouth shut, but not from fear or pain. Oh no, it was worse, so much worse. My mouth shut, and my legs rubbed together as I choked down a groan because my body wanted to do anything and everything this dominating asshole tank of a man told it.
I wasn’t humiliated or blindingly angry.
I didn’t even give a shit about my dignity.
I was out of my mind desperate, salivating for him.
And he was denying me.
No recourse, not even sure I wanted one, I dropped my gaze.
His thumb pressed under my chin and lifted my head as he barked out an order. “Look at me when I’m talking to you.”
I did. Instantly.
“You don’t take,” he warned.
“Okay,” I whispered, hungry for something I didn’t understand.
His nostrils flared.
Hope surged like a victory party low in my belly, and a dangerous thread of brazenness unraveled. Emboldened, I licked my bottom lip.
It was the last thing I should’ve done.
His expression locked down, his hand dropped, and he walked out.
FUCK.
Submissive little bitch.
But fuck.
I never should’ve fucking kissed her. I didn’t kiss chicks, and I sure as hell didn’t fucking kiss needy ones.
Goddamn it.
I strode into the kitchen and grabbed the rice out of the cupboard. I didn’t think she’d follow me, but the scent of her wet puss
y and the sound of her light footsteps ate up my six. I filled a pot with water and threw it on the stove. Her doe-eyed, desperate gaze burned a fucking hole on my back, but I didn’t spare her a glance. My dick painfully hard, I grabbed a knife and turned on the broiler. It wasn’t until I was cutting shit up that I felt the air shift.
“Sit your ass down,” I barked, not turning around.
I didn’t have to look to know she fucking complied.
Reaching into the fridge, grabbing a bottle of some sort of premade fruit-blended drink, I held it out behind me. “Drink,” I ordered.
The weight of the plastic bottle left my hand, and I let go.
Hearing the twist of the cap as she opened it, I fought a smirk. Dominating asshole one-oh-one, reward them when they do what you say. Then I ignored her for the next twenty minutes as I made food. I didn’t look at her, I didn’t give her any tasks, I didn’t fucking speak.
I cooked. She watched. I calculated.
Fucking her would be an epic mistake. She was too goddamn vulnerable. She’d attach herself to me faster than I could give her an orgasm. I fucking knew this. But I was still thinking about a tight pussy that hadn’t been touched in four years, and that smart mouth. I wanted to fuck that mouth. I wanted to fuck the incorrigible right out of her.
Shoving down the way she’d instantly gone submissive on me, I turned the burners off on the stove and plated the rice, sautéed vegetables and tofu I’d broiled. Grabbing a couple of forks, I walked around the island and sat, putting the plates down.
Still sitting on the island, she looked over her shoulder at me.
I didn’t make eye contact. “Get over here and eat.” Fucking hungry, I took a huge bite.
She hopped down without comment and came to sit by me, but she didn’t pick her fork up. She stared at her food.
Jesus fuck, not this shit again. “Eat,” I ordered.
She turned to face me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her chest rise with a steadying inhale. “Answer a question, and I will.”
Mentally shaking my head, I took another bite. Any other woman, I would’ve told to fuck off. But other women didn’t talk to me like she talked to me. My height, my size, my scowl, they either ran the other way or did exactly what she did when I got my hands on her. They submitted.