by Ava Cummings
My face flushes and I know I’m blushing.
He begins to feel my breasts through my shirt. I arch my back, pushing them into his hands.
“They’re beautiful…perfect.”
I want to tumble into him, down the cavern of Damien, but his reaction to the tattoo makes me consider retreating. There’s more to him that I need to know, that I don’t know. Is he who I think he is? Are the crumbs, the fallen pieces, of what he has revealed a true enough signifier of what lies underneath?
“When is it my turn…what about you?” I ask.
“I’ve got a few stories,” he says, his mood shifting again, his eyes darkening. “When I first got to New York, I partied a lot. Not so proud of it.”
His eyes move down my body, taking in every inch. He slowly starts to slide my shirt up, exposing my panties. My skin responds immediately, and my breathing speeds as my heart begins to race.
He reaches his arms out and pulls me to him, pressing the full length of his long, lean body against mine. Our chests, stomachs, and legs line up together as his arms wrap around my back and neck. It’s the puzzle, coming together. I reciprocate, putting my arms around him, caressing the muscles on his back. I’m dizzy from the energy flowing between us. I close my eyes and absorb it, reveling in this perfect moment. I inhale, breathing him in. His scent, a mix of pepper and wood bark, ignites my senses. His arms sweep down my back and over my butt. He begins stroking me, smoothing up and down, exploring the feel of me in his hands.
He whispers hoarsely, “God, you’re so beautiful.”
I give him a shy smile.
“Guys must be all over you.”
“I wouldn’t say that…but I have had a few interesting experiences.”
“What do you mean?” he says, interested and a bit too excited.
“Oh, probably no more than anyone else,” I say, backtracking.
“You’re not backing away from that one so easily.”
I don’t want to go there yet. If I tell him the crazy things I’ve done, if I say the wrong thing, it will burst our little bubble of perfection.
He wraps his muscled arm around me again, curling me into him in that strong, intimate embrace, pulling me toward his face. We’re so close. His eyes bore into mine powerfully. “What’s your favorite position?” he asks, unflinching.
I pause, taken aback. I haven’t talked about sex like this before. So bold, so upfront, so honest. I don’t have the words to respond.
“You’re making me blush,” I say, grabbing the sheet and twisting it in my hand.
“It’s cute,” he says. “But I wouldn’t take you for a prude, Miss Starr.”
If he only knew about the night in Bernie’s office with Alec.
“You a missionary girl?”
I shake my head no. “Who picks missionary? Too boring.”
“You still haven’t answered my question.”
“On top,” I say quietly, tiptoeing into my answer. “Just lie back and let me do my thing.”
“I’d love to see your face after that,” he says, sharing a soulful, intimate look that gives me the confidence to probe just a tiny bit.
“Yours?”
“Well…lying back and letting you do your thing could easily become my favorite,” he says, taking me in his arms, releasing the heat of a wild animal. He brings his lips to meet mine and dives his tongue into my waiting, open mouth. I fist my hands into his gorgeous, thick hair and move them down his back, feeling every inch of his hard, muscled torso.
He moves his mouth to my neck and caresses it with kisses. As he inhales my scent, a groan escapes his mouth. The rawness—his visceral, unchained movements and actions—send me reeling, and I let out a small moan as a flash of tension grows in my belly.
Damien throws the comforter aside, opening up the expansive king-size bed, as if for us to own, fill up. With a gentle firmness, he spreads my body and works his way down, discovering, assessing like an artist would his next still life.
He moves to take my shirt off, and I scramble to help, throwing it to the side of the bed. He feels my heavy breasts and begins to massage them, letting each one fill a palm. They fit perfectly in his hands, like I’m made for him. He moves his mouth down from my neck to my breasts, taking my nipples into his mouth as he sucks and plays with them with his tongue. They rise to attention, becoming tight and sensitive. I arch my back and give him each of my breasts as he takes them into his mouth. He groans again and his mouth starts working overtime, sucking and caressing, as his body grinds into me.
He moves to my belly, trailing kisses down.
Damien slides my underwear off and confidently spreads my legs as he settles in, lying on his stomach with his head between my legs.
“I can’t wait to taste you,” he says, before diving in.
His passionate fury and intensity spur me on. I open myself up to him. I feel vulnerable but want to give myself to him and connect in this way, on this level.
Damien angles me slightly to serve me up in the perfect position for his full lips and hot mouth. He carefully explores my cleft, racing up and down my length, knowing me, owning me with his mouth. He begins to circle my clit, softly and slowly, containing his passion for my pleasure, taking it slow with my most sensitive parts. He works his tongue over the nerves at the top, sending me wriggling into his mouth.
He then wraps his luscious lips around my clit and begins to suck gently, with the finesse of a sensuous lover. I feel the tension building and open myself to let him in. His hand comes up and finds the small bundle of nerves at the top of my cleft, and he gently presses his thumb into it, while keeping his mouth securely sucking. His patient, rhythmic motions continue until I gently topple over, careening into an orgasm that envelops my entire body in waves of heat and tingly pleasure.
“I love your pussy,” he says, slowly lifting his head. “You taste so good…like rose petals and peaches.”
He stretches beside me and pulls me on top of him in a smooth, artistic stroke. It feels like we’re moving in time together, in an erotic dance that happens in perfect form. I see him in his full glory, and I feel overpowered with a need to be connected to him, to know him deeper, get closer. His fine, large erection, veined and thick from end to end, throbs and pulses. I start to move on him.
“I want to be inside you now,” he says, again with bare honesty, as he reaches to the side table, grabs a condom, and quickly rolls it onto his full length.
I climb on and slowly work him into me, letting my insides adjust to his full length and width. He lies there, taking me in with studying, adoring eyes, as I slowly begin to move back and forth on him.
I’ve never felt so sensual and beautiful. He’s opened a door and I’ve walked through, a door to something deeper. Strong, yet gentle, so different than with Alec or Jesse.
I keep moving rhythmically, as he holds my hips and rocks with me. It’s together, we’re together. The tension and heat inside are building as he throbs inside me and gently caresses my G-spot with his artist’s hands, which are strong, rough, yet adept at fine movements and strokes.
Suddenly, I hear a quiet banging sound. In an erotic, trancelike state, I slowly turn my head toward the windows in our suite. Damien’s eyes are closed, and I see that he’s in his own world of pleasure, seemingly oblivious to the noise. I love how he can completely be in a moment, and feel free enough to totally lose himself in that moment.
The corner of the shade is cracked open, and I spot a couple of guys hanging from scaffolding, cleaning the windows. A rush of blood and heat fills my belly at the thought of getting caught. My toes tingle and every nerve ending feels alert, pulsating.
Damien comes back to me and takes my full, heavy breasts in his hands and works them as we move back and forth together as one. I feel tightness forming in me, in my body, in my chest. My breath begins to feel sharp, and it’s hard to intake fully. My body, mind feel out of control, and it all suddenly releases. I come hard, as the muscles inside me
contract in waves of pleasure. Just as quickly, my eyes fill with tears, and a body-wracking sob escapes.
Tears start to stream down my face. I do my best to stifle the sobs, but they’re strong and they’re pushing to release themselves through my body. It’s like a well has been opened. Emotions that have been pent up for years rush out with a fury.
I cry out and moan, as the waves keep coursing through me. Damien grabs my ass and kneads it as he grows even bigger inside me. With a gorgeous expression of pleasure and pain mingled, he releases.
“Keep coming, baby, I know you’re not done,” Damien says as he moves me on him, still hard even though he’s come.
Tears rolling down my face, I come again, just as intensely.
With him still inside me, I collapse on top of him, totally spent, tears moistening his chest, which is already damp, beaded with sweat. He gathers me up in his arms.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” I say, my head turned to the side, avoiding his eyes.
I fear Damien has broken something in me, cracked it wide. My heart, maybe for the first time, is opening.
“It’s okay, baby. Let it out,” he says.
That sends the tears rolling again.
“That was so intense…I’m not sure what’s wrong with me,” I manage to choke out between sobs. “This has never happened before.”
“It’s okay,” he says as he buries his face in my neck, giving me gentle kisses.
“You probably think I’m a nutcase,” I say, pulling back from him.
“I think it was those window washers. You just feel so bad for them, having to be out there working so hard on a Saturday morning,” he says, winking at me with a gorgeous smile.
21
On the Trail
“This issue is so far from acceptable,” Bernie says, addressing the senior editorial team at the morning meeting. “To beat Insider, we need the stories no one else has. Why am I even telling you this?”
Tilted forward in her chair at the head of the conference room table, she continues to berate the senior editors, in a twisted effort to beat fresh ideas out of them. The mood is dark. The whole editorial team sits there frozen, heads down, avoiding eye contact for fear of attracting her attention.
“Anyone?” she starts, her voice rising. “What am I paying you for? Jack, what can you pull out of that lobotomized skull of yours today?”
“Well, I’ve got something…it’s kind of different…” Jack, one of the senior news editor, mumbles.
“Save the rest of your friends here and give us something good. If you please, Mr. Whitmore.”
“Well,” he says hesitantly, rustling the folder in front of him. He fumbles with the pages inside, eventually pulling out a stack of pictures. I crane my neck to see what he’s got.
“So, it would be a spread—two pages—in the well. And it would be, like, a quiz—pictures of stars’ butts and boobs, and the reader has to guess which it is. We’d call it, ‘Cleavage or Crack?’”
Celeb’s executive editor pipes up. “Seriously, Jack? What kind of twisted mind produces this shit? Some days, I can’t believe I work here. I mean, how low can we go?”
“Hmmm,” says Bernie, actually considering the idea. “It’s too guy. Not something women would like. Maxim would do it. Why don’t you go work for them, Whitmore?” She tears into a bite of her low-fat blueberry muffin, signaling the end of this round.
“Let’s go through the pictures that came in overnight and see if anything sparks an idea,” offers Brendan. In each morning meeting, he takes us through the images the paparazzi have shot overnight, getting into bidding wars with Hollywood Insider for the best shots.
Brendan pulls out his stack of prints taken off the wire services. “Look at this one—Melodie actually has cellulite!” he says, showing an image of her on the beach in Cabo.
“How is that even possible? She’s rail thin,” says Jack.
Young editors never spitball ideas in the morning meeting. We’re supposed to be the wallflowers, listening as the senior team rolls out headlines and stories, but I blurt something out without thinking.
“She’s skinny fat…I see it all the time on girls,” I say, looking around, freaked out that the words actually escaped my mouth. Realizing what I’ve said, I’m both horrified at the fact that I’m fat-shaming other women and excited that I spoke up in the meeting.
“We could do a story on it,” says Brendan. “I’m sure there are others. I mean, just because you’re skinny doesn’t mean you look good naked.”
I’ve reached a new low and can’t believe how much I’ve changed since I started, just a few months ago. I feel like a little piece of my soul has gone over to the dark side.
“Love it,” says Bernie. “You can’t be too rich or skinny. And there’s our headline: ‘Skinny Fat Stars: Just Because You’re Skinny Doesn’t Mean You Look Good,’” says Bernie, as she jams the rest of the muffin in her mouth.
“And if we don’t get any hard news this week,” she continues, “it will be our cover. It’ll sell like hotcakes.”
I may have gone over to the dark side, but it does feel good to have Bernie like my idea. Aunt Sylvie would be proud…I think.
“I’ve got something,” Chelsea chimes in.
An audible sigh of exasperation rises in the room. The senior team braces itself—another undermining is on its way. Bernie turns her head toward Chelsea, who’s standing just to her right, smiling.
“Whatcha got, dear?”
Chelsea looks over at Bernie and smiles back, and then faces the Celeb team. Everyone waits, collective breath held, for her to let loose another scoop. She owns the room. Her timing, the way she quietly announces her idea—it’s like the confident power of a military officer. No need to be showy or loud. Her simple presence and news delivered is enough. She’s definitely taken charge of the troops.
“It’s Jennifer Smallston. She had a miscarriage—lost the baby. The Hollywood golden child is gone. It happened yesterday. She called Gavin in London to tell him. He’s shooting a movie there, and they both broke down in gut-wrenching sobs. He got on the next flight back to LA and is now by her side.”
“Does Insider know? Who else is on this?” Bernie says, urgently and overexcited, knowing she just nailed the issue.
“No one else has this—yet. We’re ahead of them.”
Bernie won’t question how Chelsea’s getting the news. She’s too hungry for it, salivating at every morsel Chelsea drops.
“This is our cover and lead story. I want 2,000 words and a four-page spread. Jack, get a timeline going of her pregnancy, with images of the growing bump, and find out what they had done to prepare for the baby so far—a nursery, a baby shower? This is gonna be great.”
“Is this what you use to take all your girlfriends out on the town?” I say, eyeing a beat-up beige Ford Taurus. “Not quite the playboy ride.”
“Hey, it was my parents’,” says Jesse, a bit stung that I’ve turned the tables on him.
“But you’re Jesse Martin,” I say, not letting up. “You, my dear, need a playa car.”
“Just get your pretty little butt in here and let’s go do this.”
On our way to the Lincoln Tunnel, Jesse fills me in on what he uncovered: How SMTP Industries is connected to Goodall’s name. That the address, which he finally tracked down after a week of digging, is located in Newark’s industrial cityscape.
The tunnel empties out into an endless maze of highways and warehouses. As the sky darkens, it casts a sinister light onto New Jersey’s industrial skyline, inhabited by factories, refineries, and endless fields of oil tanks. Blinking red and yellow lights sit atop smoke stacks that exhale gray bilge. It’s like the land that people want to forget exists.
“What is that smell?” I say, crinkling my nose, overcome with a toxic scent so pungent my eyes begin to water.
“It’s the Jersey smell, my dear. Haven’t you heard about it? Kind of legendary.”
I nod and resor
t to taking short, quick breaths through my mouth.
“The factories and refineries have made the air putrid. It’ll pass once we’re off the Pulaski Skyway.”
We cruise along a swirl of highways, passing a sea of decrepit buildings. I wouldn’t be able to find my way back through the industrial maze, even in the bright light of daytime. I try to help navigate the wasteland as Jesse shouts directions but am useless. I could find my way home through a tangle of dirt roads and logging trails in the woods, but this landscape is ghostly foreign.
“Sorry, Jess.”
“I’m good. I think we take the next exit, and then it’s over there, somewhere,” he says, waving his arm out the driver side window, to a warehouse the size of an airplane hangar.
We wend our way through a series of desolate, wide streets with nary a car in sight. A couple of freight trucks roll by as we slowly cruise past more warehouses and abandoned buildings. Several minutes later, after a few more twists, he turns into a small parking area next to a darkened, one-story, low-slung warehouse with a small office attached. He drives to the back corner of the lot, backs the car into a space, and kills the engine.
“This is it. The beautiful home of SMTP Industries.”
“Lovely.”
“Feels like The Ritz.”
“This place is depressing.”
“A dump.”
“Disgusting.”
“Derelict.”
“Okay, okay, enough wordplay,” I say, turning to open my door. Jesse grabs my arm tightly, yanking me back into my seat.
“Easy!” I shake my arm back.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he says, firmly. I run my hand up and down my arm, soothing where he grabbed. “We sit here and wait.”
I give him a twisted, confused look. “I was expecting The Avengers. Me as Emma Peel, all stylish and investigative-y…”
“This is how a stakeout works in the real world, babe. But I did bring a few things to pass the time,” he says, reaching into the back seat. He grabs a big brown paper bag from Dean & DeLuca and pulls out two gourmet sandwiches, a container of fresh strawberries, chocolate chip cookies, and two large coffees. “A stakeout survival kit. Just the essentials: sustenance, sugar, and caffeine.”