by Renee White
“Good, eh?” Damien said as he wiped a hand across his mouth. “You having a good time? Am I taking it slow enough?”
That wasn’t the kind of slow I meant and he knew it, but he also knew how much I’d enjoy having his face between my thighs. He kissed me, and the dirty bastard slid his tongue into my mouth and forced me to taste myself.
“Jesus,” I blasphemed when, after that kiss, he dropped to his knees and took me with his mouth again.
We were kissing when my second climax hit with a trembling, almost violent thrashing of arms and legs. I grunted and groaned and squealed as my thighs shivered and my back arched, and I swear I squirted onto Damien’s wrist as his fingers curled and rubbed inside me, insistent and unrelenting as they took me higher than I’ve ever been before.
For the rest of that day I acted my ass off, euphoric on such a rush of emotion caused by Damien that I surprised myself at how good I actually was in front of the camera.
I didn’t know then, but there were forces at work behind the scenes that were conspiring to upset the little world I shared with Damien.
The next day’s filming came and I crashed to Earth.
3
As soon as I saw the word on the page I felt myself go all hot and clammy.
“We just added to the script,” Damien said. “Alexandra had the idea and I think it’ll work.” He looked up from the sheet of paper and I saw is brow crease with concern. “What’s wrong?” Then he grinned. “Oh, don’t worry; it won’t be a real spider that you have to step on. We’ll have a fake one made up for that scene. At first we’ll shoot the scenes of the live one crawling around, milked of venom or whatever the hell they do. You won’t even see the real one if you don’t want to.”
And that was it, or so Damien thought. He didn’t know just how bad my phobia of spiders is. He probably thought I was just being a girl, him being the super-tough he-man and all. But it was worse than just being averse to creepy-crawlies. Just the thought of it made me go cold and goose-pimply and want to vomit.
But when Damien saw my worry, despite his tough reputation he showed that sensitive and caring side that he hid and I felt a rush of emotion for that kindness. There’s been a lot of that over the past few days, those little slides in the pit of my stomach when Damien speaks to me or I catch him looking. I think I’m beginning to fall for Damien Taylor, and when I see him looking at me too, all deep and thoughtful, I wonder if he’s feeling it as well.
I couldn’t bring myself to tell Damien just how frightened I was of doing the scene. Even though the spider would be fake, for me it’s just the same as the real thing. Irrational and a little kooky I know, but knowing on a logical level doesn’t make it any less real in my head.
Alexandra came over, giving me the once over with a weird look on her face. Maybe she thought I was critical of her suggestion? “Everything OK?” she asked,
“Sure,” I bluffed, “just going over the script.”
“Any problem with it, Kylie?”
Why did she sound so snippy? “No, no problem at all,” I replied, a little too enthusiastically as I tried to mask my terror.
Alexandra nodded as she glanced at my sweaty forehead and flushed face. Then, after giving me a final, weird look, she turned to Damien. “I’ve spoken to all the people. We’ll shoot it this afternoon.”
I felt like a condemned woman. Shoot it this afternoon? – They might as well be shooting me instead of a scene in a movie.
My character is a kind of do-gooder Lara Croft figure who is trying to save a small African village from being decimated by a greedy mining conglomerate. In this scene I’m in Paris at the mining company headquarters and am tricked into entering a basement level where they’ve put me in a cage with a deadly spider they’ve brought over from Africa.
It’s a simple scene. Spider sneaks up on me; I see it just before it gets to bite me. There’s a bit of action where it disappears into a crack in the floor only to pop up again ready to pounce. In the end I have to squish it under my boot. Simple.
Determined to fulfill my ambition to burn as a brighter star than my sister I decided to power through the scene. Besides, I didn’t want to let Damien down. Plus it was Alexandra’s idea and I would feel really bad if it all went wrong for her because of me.
“It’s only a fake, it’s only a fake,” became a mantra I kept muttering under my breath.
“You OK, Kylie?” Mike, the sound engineer asked. “I can hear you,” he added, pointed at his huge headphones.
“Fine, fine,” I said in a weak voice.
“OK, let’s go!” Damien called.
And we were off.
It was a disaster. At first I was simply paralyzed with fear, trembling from top to bottom, pale and sweating, as if I’d suddenly come down with the flu. Reminding myself that I wanted to outdo Jenny I dug deep and found some hidden reserve of strength. I muttered my mantra a few times and took a couple of small steps forward. The last I recall before I collapsed was Damien shouting, “Cut!”
When I came round, all groggy and confused, I saw Damien and Alexandra looking down at me. Damien’s face was etched with worry, and I felt like such a wimp. A fake spider, a fucking fake and here I was on the floor after fainting with fear.
After flying so high in the first few days of filming I felt like a complete failure. The heady rush of excitement that caused me to perform so well the previous day had evaporated and I had absolutely no self-confidence left.
“I’ve suspended shooting for the day,” Damien said, his fingers brushing my hair away from my face.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, tears welling as I started to sob.
“Hey, don’t worry,” Damien crooned as he knelt beside me and enveloped my in his arms. “It’s no big deal. Don’t you worry about it.”
I think that’s the moment I started loving him. He was just so kind. I don’t know how much work and time and money I cost him that day, but there he was, just being nice to me. I was suddenly homesick for my dad, and I clung to Damien and let all the anguish pour out of me. It wasn’t just the scene and the fact I’d let Damien and Alexandra – everybody in fact – down, I felt so foolish for flaking like that in front of everyone, and on film as well. I think those wrenching sobs were also for what Jenny and Rafe had done, were cathartic and a sign that maybe I’d come some way towards being repaired. I’d always bear the scars, like a vase that’s been dropped and glued back together. I’d never be the same, but I’d be whole again.
When my sobs had subsided to sniffles, while I was still curled in Damien’s comforting, masculine embrace, Alexandra also knelt and stroked my hair to comfort me. “Oh, my God, Kylie, I’m so sorry. I had no idea you were so afraid of spiders,” she said.
“It isn’t your fault,” I snuffled.
“It isn’t anyone’s fault,” Damien interjected. “Now, come on, Kylie. Let’s get you up and back to the hotel. We’ve got that dinner tonight. You’ve got to look fabulous for the paparazzi. They’ve been hounding us so we’ll give them a photo opportunity later.”
Despite his kindness I still worried about Damien’s real feelings. Was he angry at me despite his outward show of concern for me?
And, as he helped me to my feet and escorted me to the limo, my leg’s as shaky as a newborn colt’s, I noticed a strange expression on Alexandra’s face. She smiled and waved when she saw me looking at her, but I couldn’t quite understand why she’d looked so pleased.
4.
On the evening of my humiliating fainting session on set I forgot all about the odd look on Alexandra’s face. The chaos of being surrounded by a pack of baying paparazzi pushed that scene from my mind. We gave the paparazzi their pound of flesh, and as the cameras whirred and the flashbulbs exploded, while the picture hungry photographers all called out instructions to look their way or to face this way and that, barking at us like a pack of dogs, all I could do was worry about Damien. I was concerned about how he felt about the incident with the spider. Was
he secretly pissed off with me? With my self-confidence at basement level I might have been worrying unnecessarily, agonizing over every sentence Damien spoke, over-analyzing and maybe finding hidden meaning behind his reassurances that it was really OK.
I was also unsure about how Damien felt about me. I was falling for him and wondered how he really felt about me deep inside. He’d said a lot of nice things to me, kind and tender murmurs of endearment, especially as we made love, but being so emotionally vulnerable after my day made me question everything.
My cellphone rang and I noticed a quick flick of irritation on Damien’s face when I pulled it from my purse.
I experienced a cold wave of shock when I saw Rafe’s name appear on the screen. My cheeks flushed when I glanced at Damien, but to my relief he’d turned away and was smiling and waving and showing off. He joked with a few of the photographers while I declined the call and turned the phone off. I posed and smiled for the cameras before, finally, Damien took my elbow and steered me into the restaurant, the other cast members following us in.
A fawning waiter showed us to our table, fussing and generally getting on Damien’s nerves.
“I’ll call you over when I’m ready,” Damien said brusquely. The man bent at the waist in a little bow and scurried away from Damien’s dark face.
“I’m sorry, Damien,” I said, concerned that my performance on set had caused this bad mood. “I’ll get over it. I’ll do anything I can to get over my fear of spiders. I’m so sorry,” I repeated. “Please don’t be mad at me because of it.” I reached for his hand. “I owe you so much for giving me this break. I’ll do anything I can to make it right.”
Damien checked around at the other tables to see if anyone could overhear before he looked at me, his eyes cold. “That isn’t what I want,” he said, a tic twitching in his cheek.
I took the twitch to be a sign of how Damien really felt, and that in spite of his reassurances that everything was fine, he really was mad at me.
“I can get counseling or something,” I said anxiously. “It doesn’t have to be a big deal. It’s only a fake spider.”
His eyes chilled me. Oh God, it was all over! He’d made a mistake in giving me the role. I could read it in his face. He was monumentally pissed at me and was having a hard time covering it up. The cracks were showing and I felt so weak and helpless.
“Meet me in the bathroom in five minutes,” Damien said through clenched teeth.
He stood up and almost toppled his chair with the back of his legs as he pushed it away and threw his napkin onto the table.
“Is everything all right, miss?” the waiter asked, almost wringing his hands with concern at Damien’s abrupt exit while some of the others muttered behind their hands.
“Yes, yes, everything’s fine,” I murmured as I fingered the shiny fork nervously. “We’re just a little tired, what with work and everything.”
The guy did his little bow and inclined his head before gliding away and leaving me to an anxious five minute wait.
I excused myself from the group and followed after Damien. When I saw him in the men’s room I gasped. The sight of him standing there with his pants unzipped while he stroked himself roughly held me enthralled. He wasn’t mad at me at all. He was horny!
He looked so sexy like that, swollen and huge and sensationally hard, his eyes hungry while he stared at me. I watched him for a few seconds, feeling my insides melting as my body reacted to the sight of such a beautiful male animal in full-blooded arousal.
A whimper mewled from me and I was overwhelmed with the urge to touch him.
“God but that’s so hot,” I sighed. “I love seeing you like that. And it’s just like you said, it’s such a rush to know we could be caught any second.”
With a glance at the door, half-expecting the pain in the ass waiter to come checking, I lifted the hem of my dress to my waist and walked towards Damien.
He watched me approach, his fist moving more urgently while I felt his eyes lasering onto my underwear.
When I reached him I leaned forward for a kiss, filled with a sudden, desperate need to feel his tongue in my mouth. I wanted his hands on my breasts and between my legs; I wanted the girth of him stretching me while we went at it hard and fast and deep.
I remembered the first time Damien had taken me, when he’d made me kneel on the sofa with him behind. This time I wanted to sit on him, to face him as my body accommodated every glorious inch of his maleness. That way I could watch his face while I moved, my body clenching and oiling with desire. He could maul my tits and pull my face down to kiss his mouth as I milked him to orgasm.
When I tried to push Damien back so his butt pressed up against the sink and I could lift one leg to slide onto him, he stopped me by putting a hand on my shoulder. He slid the underwear to one side with his fingers and went at me with his mouth like he was going to devour me.
His tongue felt incredible, probing and lapping and sliding over my clit. I groaned at the sight of Damien using his mouth on such a private place. It had never been like this with Rafe; I always felt a little uncomfortable about letting Rafe see me in such a vulnerable position, like I was shy or embarrassed at the way my own body might look to him. But with Damien it felt so wonderful when he looked at me down there; I felt beautiful and wild and free; I felt like a woman with Damien, that he was a man who could love me. I wanted to please him, and if he wanted to look at me between my legs, to touch me, to taste me, I was only too happy to flaunt my sex at him. It felt so damned sexy, so naughty.
At first, just as Damien began to pleasure me so expertly with his tongue I kept my eyes on the door. I was certain that someone was going to come in and catch us like that, me with my legs akimbo and my modesty so lewdly compromised. But as Damien’s magic tongue began to charm me, I soon forgot all about being interrupted.
To hell with it, if anyone did walk in I was confident that Damien would handle everything. He’d said as much on the night he’d made his indecent proposal back in LA.
Besides, it was just too good for me to care about anything else.
“Oh, baby,” I groaned. “I’m going to cum.”
Damien got me there quickly and, as I could have bet, he started on me again immediately. I was soon on my way to orgasm number two. During a brief pause, Damien left my pussy and brought his face to mine. I kissed him hungrily, holding his cheeks in my hands as my shoes slid and scraped on the sink surround and Damien used his fingers on me.
After a second juddering and vocal climax, after he got me there again with his tongue, he pulled away from me with a gasp while I slumped panting and breathless to the cold marble floor.
After that I was sure I loved him. What I’d felt when he comforted me after I’d fainted on set, that warm, protective embrace was one facet to the nature of Damien Taylor. I loved that he could be so nurturing when we shot the movie scenes, I loved that he’d looked after me and protected me that afternoon, and I absolutely adored the sexual dimension to this gorgeous, sharp, sensitive man.
I thought Damien’s actions in the men’s room were a sign that he’d forgiven me for the spider incident. But as it turned out I’d been wrong about that from the start. Damien wasn’t bothered by all that anyway, it was something else that had upset him.
He told me what he really felt in no uncertain terms in the limo on the way back to the hotel.
And his words hurt me, shocked me so much that I begged the driver to stop and bundled out of the car.
Before Damien could come after me I hailed a conveniently passing taxi and climbed inside. The driver took me to a nice hotel, not in the same opulent style as the other hotel but decent enough. It wasn’t as though I was used to the high life anyway, and this hotel was more like the standard I was used to. I only needed somewhere to hide out so I could think without Damien finding me.
The clerk on duty looked at me quizzically, no doubt wondering why I looked so upset. He gave me a key after I’d paid using my credit card
and I went along the corridor in search of my sanctuary.
I sat on the lonely bed and went over Damien’s words in my head. He’d spoken about how I belonged to him sexually, and that he’d seen Rafe’s name on my phone when it rang, but had only kept up the happy, smiling pretense for the cameras.
“I’ll ruin that arsehole’s career if he makes any attempt to get you back,” he’d growled, his face twisted into a snarl of fury. “You made a deal with me, Kylie. I’ll fucking destroy that wanker if he tries to get you back. Sexually, you belong to me. Don’t forget that. You’re mine. That little scene back in the men’s room was just to remind you.”
So he didn’t really care about me? I was just something to own, his plaything. How could he think I’d go back to Rafe? Hadn’t he listened to me after all?
And to say he’d ruin Rafe’s career just like that, on a whim, like a spoilt kid in a tantrum because someone tried to take his ball. How could Damien be so awful?