by Mel Curtis
His stream gathered, bunched, shot.
Jack didn’t think he could feel any worse today.
He was wrong.
There truly are six degrees of separation in Hollywood, because Jack and Kaya had a hook-up. Remember how she found Blue at a network event?
“I want to tie you up.” A feminine voice. A whispered invitation in Jack’s ear.
He sat in his luxury sky box. In the dark. Regretting having made a date with reality star Kaya Anika.
After the Flash won a much needed game, Jack sat long after the crowds had left and wondered how he could prove to Viv that he loved her.
He’d tried break-up sex, but they still didn’t talk. He’d tried fixing her up with better men, hoping she’d at least find a man to be happy with.
A cord slipped around his wrist.
The bitch was trying to tie him up!
Jack reached behind him and grabbed Kaya’s arm, dragging her to his side. “Don’t even think about it.”
Kaya was slight of build, short, and currently naked. Her spiky red hair glinted in the arena safety lights. “I wanted to get your attention. I wanted you.” She tugged the hand she’d captured to her bare breast.
It was a flat breast, but her nipple against the palm of his hand was a mild turn on.
“I wanted you bad,” she said.
Christ. Someone wanted him. His pathetic dick pulsed.
Kaya straddled him. “I could arm wrestle you for fuck rights.” She rolled her hips over his rapidly rising dick.
“Fuck rights?”
“I win, I choose how to screw you. You win, you choose how to screw me.” She tugged his face to her nipple.
He obliged with a lick and a nip.
“But I’d rather just fuck you, right here, like this.”
He recognized a desperate, kindred spirit. They were like two wounded animals trapped in a cave. He didn’t know who she pined for, only that it wasn’t him. This was physical.
“Blow me,” he said.
“I like something more adventurous.” She shifted, reclining in his lap, her back on his thighs. With wiry strength, she hooked her legs over his shoulders, offering herself up for the dinner they were supposed to share later.
He buried his face in her pussy and tongued her juicy clit.
“I was a gymnast.” She arched, greedily demanding more force, more intensity. “A strong body served me well in every reality show I’ve been on. But I have muscles inside that can drain your dick dry.”
A dare. He thrust his tongue where his dick wanted to be. “Prove it.”
She slid back down his chest, quickly freeing him, sheathing him in a condom he handed over. She took him surprisingly deep for one so small. And then, true to her word, she clenched him. Not only did she give his cock a wet squeeze, she arched back, changing the angle, changing the intensity.
He had nothing to hold onto but her hips.
The friction, the squeeze, the pull. The smell of sex. The sound of his groans. The rising shout of her climax.
Jack lost himself to a dark, shuddering orgasm that left him emptier than he’d felt when she’d come in.
“Get out,” Jack said, low and guttural. He couldn’t stand to look at the hair that wasn’t blond, at the breasts that weren’t pert, at the face that wasn’t that of the woman he loved.
“We can try something else,” Kaya said softly.
“Get out,” Jack said again.
When Jack and Viv begin to circle back around to each other, the sparks really fly.
Vivian drove straight to the house she used to share with her husband, her veins burning with adrenaline.
So this was what Jack meant about wanting her to date. How dare he pay to make sure she was satisfied by someone else.
It was humiliating. Beyond humiliating when she considered his dating Kaya Anika. That bitch was one of the most hated Amazing Race contestants ever. Just the idea of her power-grubbing hands on Jack made Viv want to punch someone.
She used her key and called out his name, but he didn’t answer, even though his car was in the garage. She finally found him in the pool swimming laps. The porch lights lit up the backyard like Broadway.
You’re such an ass.” Vivian stood at the edge of the pool, arms crossed, legs spread, ready for battle.
“What is it now?” Jack was tan and gorgeous with his hair slicked back. He’d intimidated her when they first met, but had slowly revealed that he was just like any other human being–vulnerable, wanting love. And then something else had stolen his heart – his NBA team.
“Blue Rule and…and…” She hated the Flash.
Jack pulled himself out of the water. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on his body. He should have been a professional athlete the way he kept himself up.
“What, Vivian?” He sounded tired.
“If you thought I needed an orgasm, why didn’t you just offer yourself up?”
Jack paused a moment. “Are you saying that Blue Rule made you come?” He scowled at her wet clothes.
She looked down. Her T-shirt and shorts were wet where her bikini was. Her nipples were taut from the cold air conditioner of her car, the cool breeze of the night, and seeing Jack.
“It wasn’t good enough,” she admitted. “With Blue.” No one could ever be good enough, because she only loved Jack.
He swore. He was so close to her, so nearly naked.
Impulsively, Vivian reached out and fondled him through his wet trunks.
He was firm, and then suddenly hard. His voice a deep rumble. “Do you remember that night in San Tropez, Viv?”
San Tropez. They’d been so happy there. Why would he mention it? “The private beach?” Taking a chance on what she suspected would only be a one night reunion, Vivian peeled off her T-shirt and came closer, pressing her hand over him again. He might reject her. Or he might make love to her and then send her away. Both scenarios could break her.
But what if he didn’t send her away? San Tropez. It would be worth it if she could mend the void between them. And Jack would always be worth the risk. She’d just never had the guts to throw herself at him before.
“Viv – ”
She shushed him. Now was not the time for talk. Viv reached back and loosened the ties of her bikini, tossing it over her head as well.
Maybe jealousy was the key she’d been missing all these months. Jack was a very possessive man. Honorable, driven, shrewd, but possessive of his things.
“Blue – ”
“Didn’t touch me like you do.” She slid her hands underneath Jack’s waistband, slid his trunks to the deck so that she was staring at his erection. It was natural to take him into her mouth, to pick up a rhythm she knew he couldn’t resist. And when he came hard and fast between her lips, she knew she’d gained ground.
He dragged her up, claiming one of her breasts with his mouth, bending her backwards until she thought she might have an answering explosion of her own. But before she came undone, he swept her off her feet and onto the plush cushions of a chaise lounge.
He kissed her, claiming her mouth like a gluttonous man devours forbidden fruit – quickly, eagerly. But then he stopped.
No!
He drew back and looked at her face, brushing a lock of hair from her eyes. “It’s you.”
Afraid he’d remember he didn’t love her anymore, she reached between them. Jack was hard again. She pulled aside the crotch of her bathing suit bottoms and guided him home. He filled her, not just her womb, but her heart. They were meant to be like this.
His gaze claimed hers. His hips pounded against hers. They came together in a frenzied rush.
He collapsed on top of her, his weight so familiar, she wanted to cry.
Instead, she hardened her heart. She should have used sex as a weapon months ago.
“Again,” she urged him in a sultry whisper. “Or are you too old?” He hated to be taunted.
He rolled onto his side, stroking her hair. “Kiss me.”
They made love two more times before Vivian left him dozing on their lawn furniture. As she drove to her parents’ home in the wee hours of the morning, she made plans that included making her husband jealous enough and hot enough to realize he still loved her.
It was the first time she’d felt hope in months.
Finally, when Viv is adamant about getting a divorce, Jack and Cora come up with a plan–a forced cool-down period with Jack and Viv locked in a safe room for twelve hours. Things get intense and hot, as any married couple as they fight through their issues on their way back to a place of love and trust.
“We’re getting a divorce.”
“That’s one outcome of the cool-down period,” Jack said.
The feeling that she was being played iced her veins. Her voice rose to a near hysterical pitch, “I’m fucking Cal Lazarus.”
He shrugged. She didn’t know if the gesture was because he didn’t believe her lie or he did and didn’t care.
“Admit it. You’re jealous that another man touched me. That Cal touched me.” She remembered the dark look in his eyes when Cal had opened the slider earlier, and when Jack had opened the bathroom door. She knew Jack was jealous. She wanted him to admit it.
He shook his head. It was infuriating, that head shake. And then he opened his mouth, and Viv’s frustration flamed to fury. “Getting back together can be like starting over. We set aside the past–including erasing our past bed history with others–and start with a clean slate.”
Which might have worked if she’d actually slept with someone else. She hadn’t even let the underwear model get to second base. “You’re such an asshole. I can’t look at you without seeing your dick inside Cora Rule.”
He didn’t move. Not so much as a flinch.
Silence descended on the room like a shroud–everything looked normal on the outside, but beneath there was only death.
She drained the last of her drink. “Did you talk to Cora during sex?”
“Viv, don’t go there.” Finally, the familiar, hard-edged Jack.
“Did you?” He’d always been vocal in the bedroom, whispering endearments and shouting instructions. It would kill Viv to know the details. But not knowing was like a gut-burning, slow acting poison in her veins. She snapped the yearbooks closed and put them away, the same as she tried closing the door on that spark of hope, the hope that this cool-down period would amount to anything other than an official divorce.
“I couldn’t look any of them in the eye,” Jack admitted. “Is that what you wanted to hear?”
No. Air left her lungs, along with the last vestiges of hope. She’d wanted to hear that there’d been a big misunderstanding, that he’d never slept with another woman while they’d been separated because he’d loved her too much. But he’d never loved her. If he’d loved her, he’d have told her about his past, he’d have stayed celibate, he’d have come after her the day she’d left. The anger. The frustration. The drama over him. Wasted. She’d wasted years, and probably blown any chance of having children. She was thirty-three. Ancient by Hollywood standards.
All her bitterness. All her loathing. All directed at him. “Was anything you told me about your life the truth?”
He sat up, the poster boy for tall, dark, and heart-breakingly handsome. “I told you the things that mattered.”
“You told me nothing.” Viv could fill out his tax form. She knew his birthdate, height, and weight. But she knew nothing about him. That nothingness grew. It expanded. It pushed aside pain and bitterness and anger, leaving behind the cold and numbing emptiness of loss.
“I told you I loved you.” His voice, pain-roughened, couldn’t reach past Viv’s numbing nothingness. “I told you what mattered. Parts of my past…they’d only make you pity me.”
“To love someone is to know them. I don’t know who the hell you are.”
“Why? Because I didn’t detail how I had to crawl to the bathroom at night because I didn’t want my mom to help me take a leak? Or how I didn’t hold you after we made love and whisper about the time my physical therapist nearly killed me? How he shoved me into the water and watched me sink in the deep end because my legs were too weak to swim?” Jack choked on the last word and rocketed to his feet. “What kind of man would I be if I did that? What kind of man would tell the woman he loved that he was scared shitless that he’d never walk again? That I was terrified my parents wouldn’t find the money to send me to the specialist before it was too late?” He stalked the few feet to her, towering over Viv in her chair, no longer eye-candy, but a powerful, virile, angry man. “Would it have turned you on?” He gripped her arms and pulled her to her feet. “Would that have made you wet?”
It wouldn’t have. But his pain, his indignation over his past, did.
She tugged him closer and kissed him fiercely.
One last time.
The nothingness receded. In its place was heat and compassion, and something she was all too familiar with, but refused to name.
She claimed his mouth, nibbling, nipping, biting his lips. After each punishment, she laved each hurt with her tongue. Her hand clung to his belt as if she needed an anchor in the impending storm.
Don’t, a calm voice cautioned.
Do, another urged.
His hand slid across her shoulder. His fingers slid beneath the thin strap of her dress.
She’d be lying to herself if she claimed to have chosen this dress for Cal. She’d imagined Jack sliding the strap off, Jack’s hand roving down her chest, cupping her breast, squeezing her nipple. Rumor among Hollywood ex-wives was that break-up sex was hot.
Let me burn.
She was wet. He was hard.
His shirt. Her dress. His shoes. Her bra. His pants. They hit the floor. Her reservations pooled nearby.
He didn’t bother removing her thong. He tugged it aside with one hand, while the other lifted her up. One thrust and he filled her.
“Baby,” he whispered huskily as he pumped. “Look at me.”
She may have dumped her reservations, but her defenses remained. He hadn’t looked in the eyes of the women he’d had sex with during their separation. She didn’t want him to look into her eyes and see the love she knew was still there. She didn’t raise her gaze above his collarbone.
The friction, the need to take him deeper, the breath-stealing thought that his words might be sincere had tears forming in her eyes. The tension built between them with each thrust, a delicious heat that made her want to melt into him.
“Look at me, baby. Please.”
She hated him for those lovers. “No.” Placing a hand on his shaft, she pulled him out and squirmed to the ground. She turned her back on him, and spread her torso over his desk. Her bare nipples swung like pendulums across a pile of legal-looking papers. She arched her back, too turned on to make out the fine print. “Like this.”
“I want–”
“I don’t care what you want!” She was horrified that she was close to tears. “Fuck me. Like this.” Let him stare at the back of her head. Let him fuck her impersonally, as he claimed he’d done to so many other women.
Something in the vicinity of her heart panged. She ignored it, extending a hand between her spread legs for him.
Silence stretched between them, as taut as a bad American Idol contestant’s high note. Viv shifted her weight on her Gianvito Rossi heels. What if he rejected her?
You’ll live.
And then Jack’s shaft came to rest in her palm, marking her wrist with a drop of moisture.
Thank God.
Yes, she was thankful for Jack's libido, his rock hard erection, and that he still wanted her.
She guided him home, rotating her hips against his so that each thrust sent shudders of pleasure radiating through
her.
Strong hands laid claim to her waist. Squeezed. Brought her harder to him. “You’re not making this easy, Viv.”
“Like you ever did.” Their lovemaking had always had an intensity that thrilled. Why end things in slow, missionary style?
“That doesn’t mean we can’t change.” His thrusts slowed. His hands moved. A thumb to her cleft, circling, heating, making her pant. His other hand moved fingers to vise her nipple, squeezing, pinching, making her writhe with want.
Her body was on fire. It was glorious and humbling at the same time. She wanted to cry out. She wanted to tell him to never, ever stop.
She did neither. She held everything in. But the heat and the tremors and the bolts of flame were almost too much. She bit her lip and stuffed her emotions into a tight ball in her chest.
Viv sensed Jack’s frustration in every guttural breath. He wanted her to respond to his words, to the ecstasy of their joined bodies. She may have been bent before him, but he hadn’t broken her. He’d never break her. If this was their last hurrah, she’d stretch out her pleasure. She’d outlast him. And never give him the response he seemed intent upon pounding out of her: I still love you.
“Don’t, Viv. Oh, God, babe. Don’t fight me. I’ll give it to you all day, every day, for the rest of your life, if you just say the word.”
Viv tried to say, “Like hell.” Really. She did. But her vision went fuzzy, and her breath was too ragged to argue, and it took all her concentration to stay in the hot, tingly zone above orgasm.
Don’t come. Don’t come.
It became her unvoiced mantra.
Don’t come.
He thrust and circled and pinched.
It was heaven.
He kept on playing her body, crooning words like babe, beautiful, love, and forever.
The heat turned icy hot. Her knees weakened. She slid back toward him. His arm came around her waist, sealing her hips against his as he came in one mighty thrust. She tingled and throbbed everywhere as the icy hot feeling consumed her.
When she came back to herself, Jack was pressing kisses along her spine, professing words of love.