by Angel Payne
“Help me,” she pleaded.
He pulled back enough so their stares met. Her eyes were hooded, heavy pools of purple lust. “You mean hurt you,” he said.
Her answer took three seconds to come. “Yes. Yes. Make me forget…everything. Make it hurt. Please!”
He nodded. Slowly set her down. As soon as he was certain she could stand again, he grabbed her and turned her toward the kitchen’s little chopping block. It smelled like a citrus grove. This is where those fresh drink garnishes had been prepared. How convenient that someone had left behind a whole box of those cute toothpicks with the colored swizzle tops.
He actually grinned as he pushed her over the block, facedown. She writhed and sighed in pleasure. He let her squirm in that state for close to a minute as he paced around the block, making sure she saw him stroking the growing mound at the center of his thighs. Only then did he speak again.
“Unbutton your pants, flower. Shove them down to your knees along with your panties.” He broke the seal on a new box of toothpicks and let the contents flow out along the block in front of her face. “I’m going to give you what you need, Luna. I’m going to hurt you, and then I’m going to fuck you. I know you’ve got a few issues with safe words, but it’s been a while for you, so call that red if needed.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, Sir.”
He repositioned himself behind her, stroking her spine in appreciation for this stolen, perfect moment of time. Fuck, what a night. It had gone from crazy-good to crazy-bad at Bella’s, then just plain crazy in the team’s meeting, and now escalated to crazy-ecstatic.
He never should have underestimated the power of crazy-bad.
“Laudia?”
The shout came from the old bartender, now standing on the storeroom side of the swinging door. It was a good thing half Tait’s brain was still in hyper-response mode, because he got Luna yanked up and turned around a second before the guy’s gaze landed on them.
“Harvey!” Her voice was overly bright, though Tait doubted Grandpa Simpson noticed.
“Laudia?” He shot it at her in a teasing mutter.
“Cover name,” she whispered back.
“Yeah, but Laudia? You didn’t have time to bother with one more letter?”
She elbowed him as she gave Harvey a smile that likely raised the man’s blood sugar by ten points. “Sorry. You need me? I was catching up with an old friend. I’d like you to meet…errm…Abnuss. Yes, this is my friend Abnuss.”
Grandpa gave him a brief wave. “Nice to meet ya, Ab.” He glanced back at Luna. “Sorry to break it up, but we got a rush. Was there something goin’ on at the Bowl tonight?”
“Likely.” She was still more falsely cheerful than the first runner-up in a beauty pageant. “It’s summer, and they are the Hollywood Bowl.”
“Hmmppff.” Whether that meant the guy agreed, disagreed, or just had bad gas, Tait couldn’t tell. After “Laudia’s” assurance she’d be out in a second and the guy finally left, he turned and pinned her with a playfully dark glower.
“Abnuss?”
She smirked in feline defiance. “That’ll teach you to hate on my cover.”
He moved in on her again with two prowling steps. “Yeah, about covers. Or as I prefer, no covers at all…”
He kicked up a new grin. Just as hers descended.
“A-Actually…Harvey probably saved us.”
He gritted against the renewed ache in his chest. “Why does that sound like the Luna Lawrence version of we need to talk?”
She tipped her head, again regarding him with that strange mix she’d given him out at the bar. Part curiosity, part needy, with a giant slather of sadness on top. “There’s nothing to talk about.” Their hands touched. She laced her fingers into his, one by one. “You know it as well as I do.”
He breathed hard, waiting for the pain in his chest to explode into fury. Didn’t take long. He broke from her clasp to grab her face with both hands, ravaging her lips with an angry, biting kiss. He needed to brand her, make her feel—
What?
He jerked back, stunned by the charge that came from a corner of his mind. What did he want from her? What had he wanted from being with her tonight?
The answer burst at him immediately. Straight from the depths of the gut she couldn’t stop wringing like a goddamn towel in a floodplain.
He didn’t want anything.
He’d only wanted to give her what life itself couldn’t.
Freedom.
In the depths of her mind, at the heights of her soul, with the submission of her body. If only for a few precious minutes…he’d wanted to set her free.
But gazing at her now, with the shutters back over her eyes and the tension rewrapped in her stance, divine revelation smacked him again. A tigress can leave her cage only if she wants to.
He heaved a leaden sigh. Kissed her again, this time with gentle resignation. But he didn’t let go of her hand. He only did that after he grabbed a pen off a nearby clipboard and wrote the number of their hotel into the center of her palm.
“Just in case the cage closes in on you.”
He turned after he whispered it, leaving the bar via the back door, treasuring the tiny gift she’d given him to take with him. The single tear he’d just thumbed off her cheek.
Chapter Twelve
It was five a.m., and Ava’s cell came alive with the strains of Britney Spears’s “Piece of Me.” Six months ago, she’d linked the song to one special person as a good-karma move. The day after, her sister had packed up and moved to Las Vegas after landing one of the most sought-after gigs in the city. She’d been chosen as a backup dancer in the star’s sexy Planet Hollywood Resort show.
She rolled over in bed and scooped up the phone, almost stunned to observe that her hand looked normal against the device. After what Ethan had done to her body last night, she thought she’d be glowing. “Mmmm, buenos dias, mi hermana.”
For a long second, Zoe didn’t say anything. “I think I’m going to call back and ask for the real Ava Chestain to pick up the phone.”
“Laughing out loud…not.”
“It’s five in the morning. You’re supposed to bitch at me that you were trying to catch ten more minutes of sleep. Then I’m supposed to argue that this is the only time you’ll pick up the phone. Then you’re supposed to tell me how my diva is doing, and I’m supposed to ask how yours is doing. Then I’m supposed to tell you that I just got moved up to lead on the dance team, and you’re supposed to—”
Ava cut her off with a joyous shriek.
“Something like that,” Zoe finished with a giggle.
Ava laughed in return and lowered her voice to a rasp. “Oh, shit. Rayna’s in the guest room with Zeke. They came home later than me too. Bet you’ll become her favorite cousin now.”
“What? I wasn’t always her favorite?”
Ava scooted herself up and propped against the headboard. “Wow. I’m so proud of you, hermana. You worked your cute little ass off for this.”
“Awww. Te amo, cariña.”
There was a telling pause. Uh-oh. Ava could feel her sister’s assessment even through the miles that separated them. She needed to fill the gap fast with a chit-chatty question or comment, but nothing entered her mind except the man who’d filled this bed six hours ago. Who’d filled her…made so many of her forbidden fantasies come true in ways she never could have dreamed. In the hands of Ethan Archer, her submissiveness had become a gift as much for her as him. Even his abrupt departure, leaping to the call of his team, somehow added to the magic of being with him. The way he’d gotten dressed inside a minute, followed by his rough kiss and a growled promise to call so they could meet again before he went home, all imprinted his raw masculinity even deeper on her body and psyche. Even the lingering scent of him in the sheets, musk and midnight and pure man, made her blood sing and her body clench, wanting more…
“So, errrmm…what else is new in the city of sin these days? You still seeing
that cop who gets mistaken for Chris Hemsworth every time you go out?”
Zoe laughed. “Yeah. Sorta.”
“Sorta?”
A discomfited whine trickled over the line. “He’s a little weird.”
“Weird?”
“Yeah.” Zo sighed. “I don’t know. He looks at me strangely sometimes. Like he’s appraising me for an estate sale or something.”
She put Ethan on the back burner for a second and straightened in alarm. “That doesn’t sound right.”
“Meh. It’s probably just a cop thing. I probably need to end it. We’re just not on the same page. It’s great to have a guy who understands my working hours, but other than that, we’re not…”
“Not what?” Ava prompted after Zo’s trail-off became a long pause.
“In sync,” she supplied. “You know what I mean?” Her frustrated groan filled the line. “Aggghh. Maybe it’s asking for too much, to have a guy who just…reads you right, you know?”
Ava couldn’t help it. She smiled. It flowed up from her soul and into her reply. “It’s not asking too much.”
One long moment passed. Another. “Wait a minute.” All three of the words were drawn out with Zo’s older sister knowingness. “I know that tone.”
“What tone?”
“You’ve met someone.” When Ava feebly attempted a scoff, Zoe persisted, “You have!”
Discomfort set in. Was Ethan now a “someone”? In the roughly two hundred and one days since their forest encounter, she’d kept him firmly in the Man Moments Best Forgotten file. In the space of one day, he’d not only jumped out of the folder but was tempting her to torch the damn thing.
That left the question of what file he went into next.
“I don’t know if I’d call it that,” she muttered.
“What, so you didn’t meet him? Does he work on the set? Or was it one of those cute things, like you slammed grocery carts and his bread got mashed against your Ding Dongs?”
“My Ding Dongs?” She giggled.
“Don’t diss the Ding Dongs. They’re one of the main food groups.”
She took advantage of Zoe’s aren’t-I-hilarious moment to slip in her revelation. “I met him when I went back home to visit Rayna before the holidays. At Sage Weston’s wedding. Well, almost-wedding.”
“The day that crazy convict held everyone hostage and nearly killed Garrett’s friend?”
She purposely kept her voice light. “It was a memorable day, for sure.”
“Wait.” Zoe’s tone took a fast turn into apprehension. “Weren’t a lot of the guys at that thing from the base? Garrett’s friends?”
Ava took a long breath and let her sister hear it. “I can tell where this conversation is headed.”
The line went loud with Zo’s huff. “Estás loca? Have you not learned anything after the shit that flew after Colin and Flynn?”
She punched a pillow. “Mierda. You don’t even know his name.”
“I don’t need to. I don’t want to. Dios, Ava! Soldiers are to your soul what bees are to your body. They suck you dry and you happily let them!”
“This isn’t like that. Ethan is—”
“Different?” her sister shot back. “Really? How? He doesn’t have the body that’s hard in all the right places? He doesn’t have the stare that makes you all gooey, ready to throw away every scrap of dignity you have just to feel that way again? He hasn’t growled all the right things in your ear, kissed you until you can’t think beyond wanting to be with him all the time, until you can’t think at all? Am I wrong about any of that, cariña?” She stopped to let out a girl growl. “Am I wrong about telling you, as the person who helped scrape up what was left of your heart after Flynn’s bullshit, that you’re a jewel who doesn’t deserve to be crapped on by these animals?”
“Stop it.” She spat the words. “These animals sacrifice their lives for us! Ethan’s team has spent the last seven months on a mission that was so dangerous, he can’t even talk about it.”
“His team?” Zoe practically stammered it. “A mission? No me digas, is he Special Forces, too? Ava, are you out of—”
“Time,” she snapped. “I’m out of time, Zo. We have a long day on the set, and I need to get going. So save your breath.”
She listened to her sister swallow back a lump of emotion. “I love you, Ava. That’s all. It’s only you, me, and Papí now. We need to take care of each other.”
“I know.” She sighed. “I know. But I’m twenty-four years old. I need a sister now, not a mother.”
Zoe’s thick silence told her all about the raw nerve she’d just struck. Feeling like crap, Ava picked at a thread on the pillow. Zo hadn’t asked for the burden on her eleven-year-old shoulders when Mom came home from seeing Giagia in Greece and was dead from tuberculosis a week later, but she’d accepted her new role with grace and generosity, and she’d always been there to show Ava the way. But now it was time for her to let go a little. Now it was time for her to see that her cariña was full-grown and capable of learning from her mistakes—and qualified to make better decisions because of them.
Ethan was a better decision. She felt it in every thought he filled, in every window he’d smashed inside her lonely heart.
“Have a good day.” Zo said it with as much cheer as Eeyore.
“You too, Ms. Dance Lead.”
Her sister’s comeback had a renewed smile in it. “Go make some people beautiful, wench.”
“Got it, baby.”
She laughed as she disconnected the line, and then looked at her phone for another long moment. Biting her lip nervously, she scrolled to her text-messaging screen…and tentatively typed the beginning of Ethan’s name. Though she’d been diligent about deleting every message he’d ever sent to her, the device recognized his name and automatically filled it into the Recipient field. The blinking cursor waited for her to fill in the message part.
With a chastising grumble, she closed the window.
“Do this the right way,” she ordered herself. “He told you he’d call, and he will.” She nodded with determination. “Show Zoe she’s wrong. He’ll prove he’s the different one. You know that. You know that.”
Maybe he’d even prove he was the right one.
With a smile she felt down to her toes, she hurried to take a shower, taking care to keep the phone nearby.
* * *
A text came in on her way to the studio. She heard it ding when she was three stoplights away from the studio gate but dutifully left her cell in her purse until she’d parked. That officially turned those blocks into the longest she’d ever driven.
Her heart sank when she picked up her phone. The message was from Bella.
Exciting cast + crew mtng this am. Meet me on main set.
After the disappointment ebbed, the curiosity set in. Bella never went to the set without makeup. But her message distinctly said “exciting.” It was a dichotomy worth witnessing, at least.
When she arrived at the soundstage, the air buzzed with activity like it was nine a.m. and everyone was ready for the first take of the day. Ava checked her watch. It was barely seven thirty. She gravitated toward the area they all referred to as main set, though it was actually a composite of four smaller areas that represented the main characters’ homes and domestic base workplaces. The show had a couple of other permanent sets, including a huge “Middle Eastern forward operating camp,” affectionately nicknamed Camp Cameron, and a scale representation of a Chinook helicopter with part of its side carved away for camera accessibility. Though the crew called that one “the shithook,” openly borrowing the real army’s slang, Ava had heard rumors it had a more secret pet name, as well: Bella’s Bodacious Bird.
The real Bella wasn’t looking terribly bodacious yet today, though Ava admitted the woman was more put together than she’d anticipated. Since the studio sent a car each morning out to the villa, Bella’s usual MO was to roll out of bed and into the car, relying on Ava to tame everything into place for t
he day’s shooting schedule. Right now, Bella had actually changed out of the sweats and T-shirt in which she normally showed up, favoring a soft caramel-colored sweater that was belted so as to show off her bust to its fullest. Her skinny jeans were tucked into suede ankle boots. Her hair was piled on top of her head in a purposeful mess, with tendrils framing a simple, self-applied makeup job. The only exception to the Bella au naturel look were her lips, perfectly adorned in the red she’d made so famous, MAC Cosmetics had renamed it “Bella’s Kiss.”
The title seemed appropriate this morning—in a way that made Ava’s stomach turn over.
She entered just in time to watch the woman transfer at least an inch of that lipstick onto a defined, noble jaw…on the face that had filled her dreams last night. “Ethan?” she queried beneath her breath. “What the…?”
It trailed into nothing as her lungs clutched. Even in his dress uniform, he let the lipstick just stay there. Revision. He broke into a dazzling grin as Bella wiped it off for him. He murmured something, making her laugh louder as he tugged at the curls near both her cheeks. When she leaned her face into his palm, his smile vanished…as he tunneled his long fingertips deeper into her hair. They looked like a pair of teenagers dancing around the are-we-gonna-do-it-or-not elephant.
“Oh my God.” She had a weird urge to laugh. Though she hid the burst behind a hand, it was the comfort she needed to push down her nausea and apply some common sense to this alternate universe into which she’d clearly stumbled.
That logic returned some indisputable facts. Ethan had been at Bella’s last night but chosen to go home with her. He’d done those magical, carnal things with her. He’d commanded her to call him Sir and assured she’d never look at a peppermint without smiling again. And he’d helped her to start putting Colin and Flynn where they truly belonged. Far in her past. She was ready for the future—and his parting kiss from seven hours ago had told her he wanted at least an immediate part of that. Oh hell, that kiss.
He hasn’t…kissed you until you can’t think beyond wanting to be with him all the time…until you can’t think at all?