“Amazing!” Frank was still exclaiming behind them. Mack abandoned her camera, navigating the maze of cords and electrical tape to sneak back through the sets, headed for Greg’s dressing room.
*
Amazing. Greg accepted a robe offered by another assistant, brushed off a gushing Lyle, and beat a fast path to his dressing room. He had to get dressed, find Mack and make sure she was okay. He had looked up to find her gone.
He reached his dressing room and found the door slightly ajar.
“Mack?” he called from the hallway.
“It’s me.” She opened the door and stepped aside to let him in.
“We need to talk.” And that was what should have happened. But, instead, he stepped forward, forcing her back into the dressing room so that he could kick the door closed behind him. He untied his robe before he advanced on her.
“You said you wanted to talk,” she said. “Talk.”
“We will, but first I want you.”
His fingers popped the snap on her jeans. If it was physically possible, his throat closed up at the same time that his mouth started watering uncontrollably. He came so close that the very air between them heated before exiting completely—they created between them a vacuum of thick, near-tangible desire.
“I’m scared of you,” she said. “Of this.”
“You’re going to love me,” he replied, his fingertips grazing so close to her skin that the wispy hairs on her forearms stood up. “But, for starters, you’re going to love what I’m going to do to you.”
He brought a hand around to hover over the crest of a breast, the same scant millimeter away from touching her. He lifted his eyes and she lifted her chin and he closed the space, cupping her through her tank top.
She kissed him as hard as she could. The contact was like a gunshot, and it rocked Greg back on his heels. He’d never really understood lust until Mack Alexander kissed him. She was pushing him to the limit of his control. On set, when he had caught all of Jessica’s damp, delicious moans in his mouth, he had damned near lost every ounce of it he had remaining, picturing Mack in the same scenario.
And now she was standing on the last fraying thread of self-containment that was holding him together. Greg yanked back on her hair and pushed his mouth over hers in the roughest, most possessive way he had ever kissed a woman. She jerked once, twice in his arms, and then she bit him. He felt the sting of her teeth breaking the skin of his lower lip and instead of pulling away, he pressed deeper into her mouth. She dug the nails of her free hand into his forearm, moaned, and then opened for him. Nothing, absolutely nothing that he’d had in life so far felt as much like victory as this kiss.
He pushed his tongue against hers and she pushed back. He went for her tank top, ripping it over her head. Her hands free, she brought them between their bodies, up to rake the robe from his shoulders. He lifted her onto the counter, in front of the dressing room mirrors. She ran her fingers down his stomach.
“Careful,” he rasped, pulling away from her. If she put her hands on him right now, he’d probably lose it.
“Don’t worry,” she purred against his lips, “I’m not going to hurt you.”
He laughed. His gut-deep desire for her fanned higher. He paused, licked his lips.
She watched him, her eyes full of challenge. “You said we should wait until tonight, anyway, right?”
He wanted her so badly that he would just about give up any limb but the necessary one to have her. Right. Now. “Darlin’ I don’t think I can wait another five minutes.”
Her fingers inched into her jeans, and she lifted her hips and skimmed them off.
“If you’re not inside me in the next thirty seconds, I’m going to make you wait until tonight,” she said levelly.
*
Mack couldn’t believe she was behaving this way. Behaving wasn’t even the word. She couldn’t believe how hot he made her. His eyes widened when she unhooked her bra and tossed it aside. She tingled from the roots of her hair to her toes. She was sitting in front of him in nothing but a pair of black panties.
The sight he made, naked, the vee of hair at his chest tapering enticingly down to an impressive erection, was mouthwatering.
“You have twenty seconds.”
*
His eyes roamed from her tousled hair to the tips of her breasts and then downward, past the barely-there panties to her legs. He frowned.
“Protection,” he said. “We need protection.”
“You planned to seduce me tonight, aren’t you prepared? Ten seconds.”
He scrambled for his jeans, which were draped over a nearby chair. Wrenching open his wallet, he prayed that there was a condom in there. Please, please, please.
In a back compartment, he found a single condom. Thank God. If it was possible, he grew harder.
“Five seconds.”
If she was going to play dirty, so was he. Greg put a hand around himself, turning back to her, rolling on the condom and squeezing all the way up his length and then back down. Her eyes followed his movement. She licked her lips, which sent fingers of electricity through the already hyperaware flesh of his stomach. His knuckles grazed his bellybutton as he repeated the motion, slower.
“Is this what you wanted?” he asked. “You can have it.” A few paces and he was so close that his panting breath moved the tendrils of hair that curtained her eyes.
“Tell me I was right.” He ran his fingers down her forearm to skim his palm over the back of her hand. He ghosted his hands up the outsides of her thighs and hooked his fingers under her knees. “Tell me,” he pushed, leaning in to suck at her neck.
“Greg,” she gasped, digging her nails into his shoulders. He tipped his chin back to see that her eyes were closed. He moved up from her knees, spanned her waist with his hands, which he hoped she wouldn’t notice were shaking, and positioned himself, sliding the barest fraction inside her.
“I can make you say it,” he assured her. “I’ll make you scream it.”
He started to move, set a rhythm, rough with the scrape of his shadowed jaw and the barest threat of the edges of his teeth against her collarbone. He brought her up, up, up. He held her on the sharp, keening edge, and when her body tensed, so close that she held her breath, he withdrew. When she settled, cursing, panting, he stayed perfectly still, looking at her.
“Say it,” he forced out, his hips pressing into hers.
Her silence made him uneasy—had he pushed too much?
“You were right,” she panted, allaying his fears, “this is so much better than watching.”
“You’re mine,” he rasped, pressing the heel of his hand low on her belly so he could feel the movement as he rocked inside her.
She nodded, her hips lifting in response, urging him on. He held nothing back, a numbness stealing in at his temples as he bore down into her, his hips, his legs, his entire body nothing but a vehicle to carry him to the blinding orgasm that loomed frighteningly close. She was saying his name over and over and over again. It was the most erotic and worshipful sound that he had ever heard from the lips of a lover.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. He opened his eyes and let go of her ankle when she wrapped herself around him. He had just enough control to wait for her. One, two, three short, hard strokes later and she was bucking against him and sobbing. Her body was racked with shudders so intense that they pulled him in and wrung from him long, vehement streams of expletives and his own exquisite climax. He poured himself into her as she moaned, his hands fisted in her hair. The small, sharp bite of her nails in his back was the last thing he felt before the world went fuzzy.
As they panted in the aftermath, Greg managed a word. “Wow.”
“You wanted to talk?” There was a warm hint of amusement in her voice, and she sounded as breathless as him.
He laughed against her hair. “I did, but I can’t really think right now.”
Mack reached up and smoothed his hair back from his forehead. “That’s okay. We can tal
k at dinner.”
“Dinner? Change your mind about dating me?”
“Mmm. I’d say if that was an audition, you got the part.”
Greg smiled, hugging her. They stayed like that, wrapped in each other, until a loud knock interrupted their afterglow.
“Yoo-hoo, Greg! It’s Lyyyyyyle, you in there?”
Greg groaned. “That man…”
Greg felt Mack’s wide smile against his skin. “Seriously needs to learn better timing.”
*
S Is for Scandalous
By Emily Cale
Must be comfortable with full nudity.
Kacey read the last line of ad for the eighth time that day. No matter how many times she went through it or what device she looked at it on, it said the exact same thing. She squinted at the tiny type on her phone’s screen, believing for a second that she might have misunderstood or read the sentence wrong. Nope. Still the exact same thing.
She couldn’t decide whether the funny feeling the sentence gave her was fear, embarrassment, or something else. Maybe excitement? The modeling jobs had been rolling in slowly for the past six months, but she’d finally started to make some real money at it. None of those jobs had required her to strip.
None of them paid this much money either.
Skimpy clothes she’d done, but never naked. Not even topless. She hadn’t purposefully been avoiding such jobs, but they didn’t come along very often. Especially not ones that appeared reputable. She drew the line at porn, but the rest of it fell in a strange gray area she hadn’t given much thought to. At least until the email from the company she contracted with ended up in her inbox. The number of zeros on the end of the payment had instantly piqued her interest.
The rest of the details seemed to be a little vague. They specified thin and tall—the typical jargon—but the addition of a preference for a small bust was a new one for her. Hell, she’d been turned down for most lingerie jobs because her A-cups didn’t play up the product well enough. For clothed jobs, she often resorted to putting inserts in her bras to appear a cup size larger. For once, her small chest might actually be a benefit in the audition process. Whatever that might be.
Tryouts started in twenty minutes and she was still standing outside the building, deciding if she should go inside. Her body was nice enough, but she typically preferred to have it seen by one person at a time and in a dimly lit space. Maybe even pitch black. There was a reason she kept candles in the bedroom. Everyone looked better in candlelight. No one looked good under the fluorescent lights of a studio.
The thought made her cringe. A panel of judges staring at her, scrutinizing every inch of her body. She could think of a hundred ways she’d rather spend the day, starting with putting a butter knife through her eye. It was like middle-school gym class all over again, but coed and with her ability to pay rent riding on it.
She still had time to change her mind. That was what she told herself as she walked into the building and rode the elevator up to the eleventh floor. The receptionist picked her out immediately as one of the potentials. “Have a seat over there on the bench. They’re running a little behind but will get to you soon.”
The few extra minutes would give her time to come up with an escape strategy if she decided to flee at the last second. An exit sign glowed bright red at the end of the hall over the stairwell. Eleven flights of stairs would be nothing. All her time at the gym had been training for this exact situation. Okay, maybe not this exactly, but something similar. She could be on the ground floor, out on the street and around the corner before anyone was the wiser.
Except none of that was going to happen. She needed the cash. Her best friend from high school was getting married next month in Jamaica and she wanted more than anything to be there. Plane tickets and a few days at an all-inclusive resort would do wonders for her outlook, though it would be murder on her bank account. An extra thousand dollars for four hours of work would be more than enough to allow her to enjoy the time, plus purchase a new bikini to wear on the beach.
That was if she landed the position. From the brief look she’d gotten at the schedule on the front desk, there were at least two dozen other women auditioning. For three spots. Not exactly the best odds someone could hope for. Not the worst either. Kacey had been up against far worse and won. She’d also been up against better and lost. Nothing in this business was easy or predictable. A sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach told her something she’d been wondering about all morning. She actually wanted the job. It might be a little different from her usual gigs, but she didn’t have anything against it. As long as it was tasteful, there was nothing wrong with showing off her body.
Then again, her family in Ohio would be appalled that she was even considering such a thing. They’d also be appalled to learn she wasn’t a virgin and drank alcohol before she turned twenty-one. Those things weren’t on TV though. Would this be? She hadn’t even thought of that. What if the ad ended up somewhere her parents could see it? Or her grandparents? Oh God.
That was it. Kacey was out of there. She stood and started backing toward the stairwell.
“Kacey James?” A tall blonde woman stepped through the door in the hallway and called her name. “Kacey?” She looked up and down the hall before making eye contact with Kacey.
Shit. Fight or flight. Kacey was still deciding when the woman took a couple steps toward her and stuck out her hand.
“Are you Miss James?”
“Uh-huh.” Smooth. Real smooth. Way to be a professional. “I mean, yes, ma’am.”
“Ready for your audition?”
Nope. Never. “Yes, ma’am.”
“This way then.” She motioned toward the open door.
Here goes nothing.
*
“Are we really doing this?” It was a reasonable question. Austin had been to several amazing sushi restaurants and a few mediocre strip clubs, but he’d never once thought of combining those two things. In fact, he preferred to keep them separate. In general, he made it a policy to never eat the food from strip clubs. And that food was only on a buffet. One he never actually ate from. It always seemed like the people eating off it were asking to get food poisoning. Now his friend wanted him to not only combine the two, but eat the food off the stripper. Gross.
“You’re blowing this out of proportion. Think of it as a cultural experience.” Isaac could make anything sound glamorous if he tried hard enough. It was a skill that made him one of the best hires the advertising firm ever made. It sucked as a feature in a best friend. Half the time he didn’t realize he was saying yes until it was too late. Like that horrendous roller coaster ride a few summer’s back. At least Austin had gotten his revenge by turning his stomach inside-out onto Isaac’s shoes when they got off.
He snorted. He highly doubted there would be anything remotely cultural about the evening, but he also knew there was no point in arguing. Skipping those few steps would save a lot of effort and time, especially when they both knew Austin would eventually give in. Americanized sushi eaten off the dirty skin of some girl he’d never met. Not exactly the Japan he’d been dreaming of.
Not that he’d know the difference. Japan was nothing more than another checkbox on the long list of countries he wanted to visit. The closest he’d come was heading across town to have lunch at Sushi House. Unless Mexico was closer to Tokyo than Los Angeles. He’d been down to Cancun for a couple of spring break trips during college. “How about I think of it like the weird evening it is. We’re going to go eat food off naked women.”
“What part of that is upsetting you? The part where there are naked women or the part where you are getting free dinner?”
Isaac’s company was sponsoring the dinner and he had an extra ticket that he’d forced on Austin. Normally these sorts of things wound up with the two of them attending some Italian opera that lasted four hours and didn’t contain a word of English. Austin couldn’t decide which evening was worse.
“You use
d to like that sort of thing. Remember the days when we used to take Jell-O shots off the stomachs of sorority girls?”
He did. Hard to forget that sort of thing, though the tequila shots certainly went a long way toward erasing his memory. They weren’t twenty anymore though. They were almost thirty. Twenty-five to be exact. Sure, it might be halfway in between, but the day he’d celebrated his birthday he could swear he actually heard a click as he switched from being young and wild to becoming an adult. Whatever that was supposed to mean.
“Come on. Don’t leave me hanging. I promised to bring someone along to this thing. My firm is expecting me to have someone with me and you are as good as anyone.”
“And?” With Isaac, there was always a catch.
“And they might believe that you have some say in your company’s representation.”
There it was. With Isaac there was always a catch. It wasn’t always immediately apparent, but if you waited long enough, it always showed up. “Isaac. You know I don’t have that kind of pull. The only thing I get to decide is whether we order black or blue pens this week.” Even that might be a stretch. Get coffee for other people, answer the phone, and shut the fuck up were all part of his job description. Good thing he spent thousands of dollars and two years of his life working on that Master’s in Public Administration.
“You do better than that. You’re in charge of all those numbers.”
“No, I add up all those numbers. Other people decide what they are.” No matter how many times Austin attempted to explain his job to his friend, Isaac never seemed to get it. He helped with the budget for the grants they brought in. Emphasis on the word helped. They never trusted him to do anything but make sure all the little decimal points lined up.
“Whatever. You just need to pretend that you are powerful for an evening. They aren’t going to push you for anything. It’s more of a meet-and-greet thing. Low pressure.”
“Why do I doubt that?”
*
It’s cold. The thought ran through Kacey’s mind over and over again while she lay on the table, staring up at the ceiling. She’d initially tried to take her mind off the situation by counting the indentations in the ceiling tiles. Somewhere around four hundred she’d lost track. Or given up. Even trying to create a system for working across the ceiling couldn’t draw her attention away from the reality.
Love Letters Volume 5: Exposed Page 5