Hollywood Confidential

by Mel Curtis

  “Media time out,” Trent whispered, settling back on the couch and pulling her on top of him. “Time for a little distraction.”

  She didn’t want to be his little distraction. She didn’t want to be his friend with benefits. But she didn’t know how to be anything else.

  She wanted him to kiss her. If he made the first move, she could blame it on the drinks she’d had. She wanted to explore his body. But that was self-destructive. If things fell apart between the two of them, her work relationships could implode. There was the matter of her self-respect, a sales quota, and her three million-a-year inheritance to consider.

  Cora waited, trying to enjoy a gorgeous man at face value. Those devilish lips in that half-grin. The small scar beneath the stubble on his chin. Those eyes that seemed to see beneath the strong woman she presented to the world, delving to discover who she was underneath.

  Her soul was saying: Claim him.

  Her body was saying: Ride him hard.

  Her brain was sending a silent alarm, which, being silent, was easy to ignore.

  Not having sex has destroyed my brain.

  “Overthrown in-bounded ball,” Trent murmured. “Ren.”

  It was her turn. They’d taken a time-out. She didn’t have to do this.

  They were alike on some levels. Polar opposite on others. She’d had sex with Jack before being assigned his business. Sex with Trent was…would be…She looked up to find his gaze targeted on hers.

  Jack had never looked her in the eyes, had never spent time on foreplay. Sex had been hot and fast and the only reason for his brief visits.

  “If I’d been coaching that team,” Trent murmured. “I’d have let them play.”

  Coach Spinks called a timeout. Trent had clearly done his homework.

  Smart and sexy. She sighed. How rare was that in a man?

  “The team would’ve known what I wanted and how I wanted them to play.” His hand drifted down her back. He smelled of soap and aftershave. He felt 100% hard-body. His hand spread over her butt cheek, squeezing and pressing her harder against what they both knew she wanted. “They’d play hard. They’d play to win. I don’t put up with quitters.”

  Cora was no quitter. She could take a dare. And yet, she hesitated. “Technically, you’re my client.”

  “I’ll say it again.” His voice was a serrated grumble of need. “You’re fired.”

  She wanted him.

  Just last night she’d been convinced she’d been right in putting a halt to friends-with-benefits sex. Just last night she’d thought of white weddings. Having sex with Trent went against all that. She reached for one of her last defenses. “When I meet my sales quota at the Foundation, I’m leaving for Paris. Permanently.” There. She’d said it. Out loud. Let Blue and Amber deal with Daddy’s other off-spring. “I’m not looking for anything long term.”

  “I can’t offer strings.” His hands roved, fueling her heat. “I won’t offer strings. I’ve spent too long limiting my life. I need this time to myself.”

  He was her kind of man–hot, needy, without obligations on her time. So why did his pronouncement disappoint her?

  His grip on her ass tightened. “I’ve wanted to get inside you from the moment I saw you, standing in front of Jack’s house as if you were waiting for me to introduce myself. Just watching you walk is a thing of beauty.”

  Game over.

  She shed her shorts and his. He produced a condom from his wallet. She rolled it on him slowly, following its progress with her lips, until he was fully protected and fully in her mouth. Next time, she’d reach into her stash for chocolate flavored, extra large.

  “Have pity on me, sugar.” He pulled her up the length of him, holding her gaze as firmly as he held onto her. “I’m just a backwoods, country boy who hasn’t had sex in months. I need our first offensive moves to be uptempo.”

  Cora peeled off her camisole and mounted him slowly, taking him in inch by glorious inch, until he filled her empty spaces. “Don’t be a quitter.” She rode him slow and deep, rocking her hips when she came down before riding him high again. “Play to win.”

  He took possession of her hips, bringing her down harder, moving her up faster.

  The tension. The friction. The delicious, high-wire electricity.

  Staring into his eyes, Cora crushed her breast in one hand and speared the fingers of her other hand into his hair. The need to join with him, all of him was nearly overwhelming.

  “Sugar…” A desperate plea. His hands moved lower. His thumbs reached between her thighs. The extra pressure sent them both shuddering in pleasure with added shouts celebrating release.

  And then later in the story…

  “You’re afraid,” Cora began slowly. “That I’ll put the needs of the players above your need to win.”

  He nodded.

  “I will.” She turned in his lap, facing him. “Our jobs are different. I need to keep them sure of themselves. You need to keep them wanting to play their hearts out for you, hungry for a win.”

  “That wasn’t exactly what I was looking for when I shared my story with you.” His fingers hooked into the V of her bra.

  Her breasts felt full and heavy, swelling toward him. “I won’t sacrifice what I believe for anyone.”

  “Admirable trait.” His hand slid down her belly, slid lower still. He squeezed the flesh at the juncture of her thighs. “Tell me if we have a problem.”

  A problem working together? Or a problem that he was touching her as if they were going to have sex?

  She shouldn’t have sex with him again. She thought of Gemma and Mimi. Of Amber. Of her plans to go to Paris, plans that held little appeal lately. She considered the possibility that she was just a rebound to him. There were so many reasons she should stop this.

  He nibbled on her earlobe. His fingers strummed her like a tautly strung guitar.

  She recalled how it felt to be filled by him, to have him look her in the eyes with fire and desire. “If we have sex, don’t think I’ll do what you want with the team.”

  “If we make love, I won’t be thinking.” He pressed kisses along her jaw-line. “I’ll be lost.”

  She reached for his waistband. His hand captured hers. “Not here.”

  “I want you. Now.”

  He set her on her feet and stood, leading her inside, locking the door behind them, but leaving the curtains drawn, allowing the pool lights to spill into the room. “Don’t you know a bed was made for more than sleeping, sugar?”

  He stripped the covers to the floor. And then he stripped her with a slow pace that frustrated. A shirt over her head. Kisses on bare flesh. The clasp of her bra undone. Suckling that made her breasts ripe with wanting. Leggings inched off. Nibbles along her inner thighs that made her tremble.

  “I’m dying here, Trent.”

  “Patience, sugar.”

  Every time she reached for him or for his clothes, he brushed her hands aside. When she was finally naked, he arranged her on the bed and looked at her.

  “You’re beautiful.”

  “And I’m ready.”

  “I could look at you all night.”

  Despite the darkness, she could feel the intensity of his stare. “I might fall asleep at the pace you’re going.” She was drifting into shrew territory, but she wanted him. Every cell in her body pulsed with need.

  “If you drift off, I’ll hold you and watch you while you sleep.”

  Cora wasn’t used to waiting for sex. She propped herself on her elbows. “Is everything all right? Down there? You don’t need a pill or anything?”

  “Sugar, I’m about to burst. You’re talking about me as if I’m an old man. Let me show you what this old man is made of.” Finally, he stripped off his T-shirt and shucked his shorts to the ground. But when he joined her in bed, he didn’t have a condom.

  “You are so not old.” She reached for him eagerly, but he stilled her hand.

  “Let me teach you something new,” he whispered.

&
nbsp; “What?” The man who’d been with a preacher’s daughter for ten years had something new to show her? Had he snuck into Wicked Tantric?

  “Sunday morning sex.” His voice was as tempting as soft butter drowning in maple syrup on hot griddle cakes.

  “It’s not Sunday morning.”

  “I know, but this is how my ideal Sunday morning would start. I’d explore your body and make you melt. Then you’d do the same for me.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to do.” She began stroking him, trying to increase the pace.

  “Sugar, I want to taste every inch of you first. Didn’t I make myself clear? Lie back and enjoy yourself.”

  “I can’t.” She flopped onto her back, pounding her fists into the mattress. “You’re going too slow.”

  He covered her body with his, paying special attention to her breasts with his mouth. She almost didn’t care that it took him so long to slide lower.

  Now that’s more like it.

  She arched her hips against his pecs. She was aching for release. “Hurry.”

  Finally, his tongue dipped where she wanted it most. But he didn’t heed her urgency, her need. He set a slow, Southern pace, when she wanted the speed of Southern California.

  “Please.” Her hips bucked in an encouraging rhythm.

  If anything, he stroked slower, gripping her hips and holding them in place. Each pass of his tongue sent her into a sweet, languid place. The need for speed dissipated. He could touch her like this forever. She’d float in the zone between urgency and completion, between heat and ice. Her entire being pulsed with each stroke, waited for the next one. Until finally, she went up in icy flames.

  But he wasn’t done. He lay beside her and suckled her breast, while his finger plunged repeatedly inside her, and that part of him she wanted most lay hard and trembling across her thigh just out of reach.

  “Talk to me,” he encouraged, screwing her with the wrong appendage. “Tell me what you want.”

  “I want you.” She clenched around his finger. “I want you to f–”

  “Shhh.” He stretched up to kiss her. “We’re past that word, don’t you think?”

  What?

  Somewhere deep inside, around where she supposed her heart should be, Cora tensed. Sex had to be impersonal, had to have distance. He was asking for something she couldn’t give.

  As if sensing her fear, he moved his finger in a way that made her gasp. “Since you can’t tell me what you want, I’m going to be creative.” And then he kissed her, a tangle of tongues in a slow dance as lethargic as her first orgasm. His hand worked its magic between her legs, again and again.

  “Let me touch you.” She kept reaching and he kept elbow-checking her away. “I’ll go slow.” She was starting to be a fan of slow. She burned all over.

  Someone spoke, out by the pool.

  He tensed.

  She took advantage, taking him in hand, soothing him with a tender stroke. “They can’t see us in the dark, even though I can see you.” Not the details, but she could see the outline of Trent’s face, his short hair, the breadth of his powerful shoulders.

  He was such a tender-hearted man. Strong as he led his warriors on the court, but remorseful in his decisions when his men were hurt.

  “They couldn’t see if you put on a condom. Or if you came down on me again.” She paid special attention with her hand to that strong, hard part of him. “They couldn’t see us f...They couldn’t see you losing yourself inside me or me combusting when you find that sweet spot.”

  He reached for a condom, but instead of increasing the pace, he positioned her on her side again so she could see out the window to the pool where two men were talking and smoking cigars. He spooned himself behind her, sliding home.

  Her vision went fuzzy. She was ready for him to bring it, to bring her to a much needed peak.

  Trent had other ideas. He kept up that slow, languid rhythm. His lips and tongue traced patterns on the back of her neck and shoulders in a way that drained and energized. His hand roved from her breasts to that delicious pressure point between her legs until she was overwhelmed with sensation.

  “You drive me insane,” she panted. None of her fuck-buddies had ever worshipped her body like this, had ever made her feel loved like this.

  “Don’t lose it. Not yet.”

  She laughed, not sure who he was urging–himself or her.

  An icy hot feeling built inside her, swelling through her limbs like a building ocean wave, curling, tightening, thundering, until she was wildly taking him over the crest and pounding down in an explosion of energy.

  The men by the pool stopped talking and looked around.

  “What a surprise, sugar,” Trent whispered. “You’re a screamer when we go slow.”

  If you want to find out how Cora and Trent find their happily-ever-after, read their story in Book 3 of the series: It’s Only Love.

  Jack

  Hero in Novella 2: All She Needs is Love

  Jack and Viv are legally separated from page 1 book 1 of the series. Viv is celibate, waiting for her man to return to her. And Jack? He wants to be celibate, but…Even if he is having sex, Jack isn’t having the kind of good, soul-shaking sex that makes him fall out of love with his wife. And so they spend much of the series on a roller coaster of love and lust.

  The charity function was a bore.

  Jack Gordon watched his estranged wife kiss the cheek of her date, a New York underwear model. That didn’t bore him. That pissed him off.

  Jack wanted to grab Viv, find a bedroom, a closet, hell a pantry would do. He loved his wife. And he was fairly certain she still loved him. But they couldn’t seem to get their shit together. They’d been separated for nearly a year.

  Her date’s hand drifted over Viv’s ass.

  The actress who’d been nominated for an academy award this year for portraying a cancer survivor, Nan Forrester turned flat blue eyes Jack’s way. “I realize these things do a ton of good, but they bore me.” Her gaze dropped below his belt.

  She was blond. She was pretty. She had a decent body. And she was open to having sex with a man she’d just met.

  Jack had had a shit day. The L.A. Flash, the NBA expansion basketball team he owned, had lost in their last playoff game. His mother had called after the loss to tell him she had cancer.

  Christ, his mother. He’d thought losing Viv made him cold. He’d felt frozen since she’d dropped the C-bomb on him.

  The moment his mother hung up on him, Jack had called Viv to tell her he wanted to see her. She hadn’t picked up. So he’d shown up at this charity event where he knew she’d be and had been given the cold shoulder.

  Jack wanted the comfort of his wife’s arms. He’d settle for the comfort of another woman’s body. A woman who’d played a cancer survivor.

  Jack ran the back of his hand down Nan’s cheek. “How would you like to get out of here?”

  “I’d love to.” Nan signaled her assistant, a mousy woman wearing a forget-me gray dress and flats. “I know a place close by.” She walked away, expecting Jack to follow.

  After a glance in Viv’s direction, he did.

  A few minutes later, Jack stood in front of Nan’s limousine. The door was open. Nan reclined in the back, naked. Her glittery blue dress glittered on the floor boards.

  Jack’s back twinged.

  “What’s wrong, lover?” Nan pouted, her eyes dazed. “Don’t you like what you see?” She let her legs fall apart, revealing pink wet folds.

  Her assistant stood at the front bumper, fooling no one that her phone was more interesting than this chemical-high freak show. Why had it taken Jack until now to realize Nan was on something?

  “You’re beautiful. It’s just…I’ve got this old football injury.” Jack leaned in the car door, imagining he could smell her sex, imagining she wasn’t high, imagining she was Viv. It helped if he didn’t look at her face.

  “Come on, lover.” Nan rose to all fours and crawled to him, plump breasts
dangling like ripe peaches ready to be picked.

  He didn’t move. If he didn’t move it wouldn’t be cheating. Except they’d signed separation papers, so technically it wasn’t cheating. If only he didn’t love his wife.

  If only he didn’t love sex with women.

  He let Nan unbuckle his belt. He let her unzip his pants. He let her take the hard thick length of his dick in her mouth. Jack held onto the roof of the car and stared at the concrete ceiling of the parking garage.

  Nan knew how to make love to a penis. Her mouth was a significant improvement over his hand. She swallowed him from tip to balls, over and over. Suck, swallow, repeat; until he tightened and tensed and–

  Air hit his trembling cock.

  “Not so fast, lover.” Nan lay back across the seat. “You don’t have to eat me. You just have to fuck me.”

  Jack’s stomach churned. He was married. Nan was high.

  “Maybe you like it better doggy style.” Nan returned to all fours and backed to the door, ass in the air. She was every man’s dream.

  Every man but Jack.

  His dick stood at attention, ready to perform.

  He threw out a lifeline, looking at her assistant’s back. “Shouldn’t we get her help?”

  The woman didn’t even turn around. “She’ll fuck the driver if you don’t do it. It’s a gift. Take it.”

  Nan was diddling herself, talking to herself. She’d probably pass out soon.

  “Do you need a condom?” the assistant asked. “Your wife’s date asked Nan if she had any extra.”

  Viv’s date was looking for condoms?

  Jack swore and removed a condom from his wallet. From this angle, he could almost pull off the fantasy that she was Viv.

  Sheathed, he lifted Nan’s ass and drove inside her. Over and over. Hard and deep and punishing.

  Punishing Nan for being such a talented woman who’d fallen prey to drugs.

  Punishing Viv for being unable to see that he loved her.

  Punishing himself for being a man. A weak, sex-starved man.

  Nan climaxed with a shriek, muscles clenching around him.