Costars (New York City Bad Boy Romance) (21 page)

“Okay,” I answer.

She’s running the fingers of her free hand
through my hair, and whether it’s the tenderness of the moment or the
adrenaline of the last one, I’m starting to find myself incredibly turned on.

“What are you doing tonight?” I ask.

“I’m planning on locking the doors,
unplugging the cable box and throwing back a couple dozen shots,” she says.
“You’re more than welcome to join me.”

“All right,” I smile. “You know,” I tell
her, “you look beautiful tonight.”

She scoffs and says, “I look like shit.”

Her hair is a bit disheveled from trying
to pull me and her father apart and her eyes are still a bit puffy from crying
after the press conference, but I’m not lying when I say, “Really, I don’t
think I’ve ever seen anyone look so attractive.”

“Well, thank you,” she says and pulls the
bag of corn from my eye a moment. “How does it feel?”

“It’s not so bad,” I tell her. “The cold
is helping.”

“That’s good,” she says, and her hand that
was going through my hair is now rubbing my back. “I just wish life wasn’t so
screwed up,” she says. “Wouldn’t it just be nice if people didn’t try to screw
each other?”

“Depends on the usage of the word,” I
joke.

“Clever,” she says. “Okay, not really, but
it was the first word that came into my head.”

She puts the bag of corn back against my
face, and I’m putting my hand on her upper thigh, saying, “I’m sorry all this
is happening.”

“It is what it is,” she says. “Not much we
can do about it but deal with it.”

“Yeah,” I respond and just stare into her
bright blue eyes.

I catch her gaze and she looks back at me
with kind, loving eyes.

“You know,” I tell her, “it’s been a pretty
rough day.”

“Yeah,” she says. “It really has.”

“I was thinking maybe I could take care of
you, too,” I tell her.

“You’re the one that got the fist to the
face,” she says and then stops, apparently having realized what I meant. “Oh,”
she smiles.

My hand already on her leg, I start
rubbing her thigh. She takes my other hand and puts it on the bag of corn,
freeing both of her hands as she leans forward and, tilting her head far to the
right, she leans in and kisses me.

“I’m so sorry,” she says.

“You don’t have to keep apologizing,” I
tell her. “It’s not your fault. Like you said, it just is what it is.”

“Yeah,” she whispers.

I take the bag of corn from my eye and set
it on the table, taking a quick glance at her skirt so I can plan the best
possible approach.

“Lean back,” I tell her and she scoots her
butt forward on the chair and reclines a little.

My hands come to her knees and I work my
way under the fabric and up her legs, coming out of my chair and getting to my
knees in the process.

I lift her skirt a little and kiss her
knees, the start of her thigh. My hands move up her legs and around back down
again, and I lift my arms a little to raise the fabric enough to kiss her
thighs and I start to work my way up.

Her skirt bunches as I slip it up toward
her waist, exposing her smooth legs and the black
tanga
she’s wearing under the dress.

With one hand, she’s running her
fingernails over my back and those fingers curl into me as I part her legs and kiss
the area around her pussy. She takes a sharp breath when my lips meet her clit.

It’s hard to tell why, but there’s
something a little extra erotic about going down on her in the kitchen, moving
her skirt instead of removing it.

I guide my tongue over her nub and inch a
finger inside of her wetness.

She groans softly in pleasure as I just
revel in her taste.

“You’re really good at that, you know,”
she says with hardly any voice to her breath at all.

I would answer, but I’m a little busy at
the moment.

Sure, I’m the one that got punched in the
face, but big picture, I think with everything she’s been through today and the
last couple of months with Ben and then with her father showing up, she’s
earned a little relief.

That’s not to say that I’m getting nothing
out of this; quite the contrary. As I move my tongue over her clit and finger
her hot, wet center, I don’t know that I’ve ever been this turned on in my
life.

The skirt is partially over my head as I
adore Emma’s body, but she pulls it up the rest of the way, opening the space
between her eyes and mine.

“I want you inside me,” she says, “but
don’t take any clothes off. I’m really loving this whole clothed thing. I’ve
never actually had sex with clothes on.”

I chuckle and tease her, saying, “Prude.”

“What?” she asks through heavy breath.
“I’m a prude because I’ve only had sex naked?” she asks.

“Ironically,” I answer, “yes,” and I
laugh.

“Whatever,” she says. “Now stick that
fucking thing in me before I change my mind.”

I laugh, but I lift my head, though I keep
my finger inside her, stirring her soft insides.

As I lean back, she leans forward and
stands. I stand to meet her.

Our arms are around each other and I’m
kissing her neck as she pulls down my zipper, and she moans a little as my
finger is still inside her.

She slowly backs toward her countertop
and, when we get to it, she hops onto it.

With the front of my pants open, she pulls
me out from inside and casually pulls me by the cock closer to her waiting slit.
I move between her legs and right up to her and she’s rubbing my tip against
her clit and she’s saying, “Don’t move—oh my god.”

She continues to use my bell end to
pleasure herself, and she puts an arm around me.

“Like that,” she says. “Do you think you
can manage?”

“I think I can manage,” I tell her and I
take over, my hand guiding the tip of my dick against her bud and her arms are
around me hard and tight and she’s gasping for air.

“That’s it,” she says. “I’m almost there…”

With a sound that I’m not sure I’ve ever quite
heard before, Emma comes harder than I’ve ever seen her come. Really, it’s
quite the compliment.

She’s clutching at my back and I can feel
a rush of warm wetness with my sex.

“Ho-ly
sh
-it,”
she whines in a quiet, higher voice.

Her body is shaking and it all happens so
fast that it takes me a minute to realize what just happened.

“Well, I’ve never done
that
before,” she says as her hands
tense and go lax more slowly now.

“How did it feel?” she asks.

She giggles. “How did it look like it
felt?”

“Fair enough,” I answer and, just once
more, I run the head of me over her clit before I ease inside of her. She’s so
wet that I’m all the way in on the first push.

Female ejaculation is a wonderful thing.

Inside her, now, I’m off in my own little
reality.

Everyone says they know when they’ve met
someone special because the same things will feel different and everything just
gets unexplainably better. To tell you the truth, I always assumed it was one
of those lies people tell themselves, but as I move in and out of Emma, all of
our clothes still on, I can’t remember ever being so thoroughly gripped by
pleasure and affection.

“You feel amazing,” I tell her and she
kisses my lips hungrily.

“I’ve never come like that before,” she
says. “I think we’re going to have to try doing that again before we’re done.”

The amateur move is to immediately agree
and go right back to what brought her that feeling, but one should never
underestimate the power of surprise.

Her shoulders are resting back against the
cupboards, and I’m pulling the top of her dress down to expose her breasts, one
and then the other.

She clutches her breasts in her hands and
looks up at me as if to say that she’s ready and so I pull out and masturbate
her with the tip of my cock.

“
Ohmygod
,” she
says, pitching forward and sooner than I would have thought possible, she’s
coming again.

The floor is wet around me, and I’m trying
to keep my head.

“You know,” I tell her, “I’ve never been
with anyone who could do that.”

“You know,” she says, “I had no idea that
I
could.”

I smile and kiss her on the cheek and as
she pulls away, just that look on her face full of nothing but pure enjoyment,
absolute satisfaction fills me up in a way I’ve never experienced and before I
know it, the words are just coming out, “I love you.”

“You…what?” she asks, looking up at me as
if I just used a phrase with which she’s entirely unfamiliar.

I’m just a deer stuck in the headlights.

Chapter Fifteen

Flashing Lights

Emma

He said he loved me.

If it’s any consolation, he looks like he regrets
it.

“We’re still just starting out,” I tell
him.

“I know,” he says. “I’m sorry. I guess I
just got wrapped up in the moment.”

“I don’t know what it is with you,” I tell
him. “First you break up with me because you don’t think you can deal with a relationship
and now you’re dropping the L-bomb when I’m trying to get thick and juicy?”

“I really don’t know how to respond to
that,” he says.

I laugh and pat him on the chest. “It’s
not that big of a deal,” I tell him. “If I had the chance to get with me, I’d
probably be saying it, too.”

“It’s nice to see that your ego hasn’t
suffered from the event,” he says.

“Did you mean it, though?” I ask. “
That’s
the question.”

There are all sorts of ways to turn the
screws on him for this.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t think I
don’t love you,” he stammers. “I’m just not sure if I’m where I do…yet.”

Do I love Damian Jones?

Before I got to Hollywood, before I got my
first acting job, back when all of this was just my teenage wet dream back in
Who Gives a Shit, Illinois, I would have immediately responded, “Yes, I love
Damian Jones.” The problem with that is that fan love and real love are very
different things.

The only people who really can’t tell the
two apart when they’re right up close are the ones who end up stalking and…

“What ever happened with your stalker?” I
ask. “You never did tell me about that.”

“She still calls,” he says. “I’m thinking
about changing my number.”

“I thought you would have done that by
now,” I say. “How long has she been calling you?”

“A few weeks,” he says and puts his palms
over his eyes, “a few months, I don’t even know. It feels like a long time.”

“So why wouldn’t you have changed your
number already?” I ask.

“I like my number,” he says.

I snort. “You would rather have a stalker,
a crazy woman with an unhealthy, possibly dangerous obsession with you,
continue to call you at her leisure because you like your phone number?” I ask.

“Well,” he says, “that and…”

Whatever it is, it seems like it’s really embarrassing.
I probably shouldn’t pursue it any farther.

“That and…?” I ask.

“Well,” he says, “I don’t know. I guess I
wanted her to still be able to call in case the police wanted to, like, trace
her number or something.”

I’m putting my breasts back into my top
and I’m curled forward, laughing.

“Yeah,” he says, not nearly as amused as I
am, “that’s about what the police said. Apparently they care a lot less than I
thought they did.”

“You’d think they’d take a celebrity
stalker a lot more seriously in a place like this, huh?” I ask.

“Really,” he says. “Anyway, are we good?”

“About what?” I ask.

I know exactly what he’s talking about.
I’m just trying to be breezy. Not knowing how I’m going to respond, that seems
like the appropriate response.

“You know,” he says, “about what I said
earlier.”

“Oh right,” I say. “I’d forgotten about it
to be honest.”

“So you wouldn’t say that you feel
anything like that for me?” he asks.

What are you doing here, boy?

“I think that we’re still learning how to
be with each other,” I tell him. “I am very attracted to you—ensorcelled,
really. I just think that people should be in a relationship for a pretty
substantial amount of time before they start talking about love and diapers and
crayons and snot all over the place and the dog’s chewed up everything, you know?”

“I’m not entirely sure that I do know,” he
says.

“I’m just saying that we should wait and
give it some more time to grow, give the relationship more time to grow. Then,
if that’s how we’re both feeling, we can go from there,” I tell him.

“You’re such a commitment-
phobe
,” he says.

“First off, you can’t just add the word ‘
phobe
’ to the end of another word and expect that to create
a psychological term,” I tell him. “Second off, you’re the one that said he
couldn’t handle being in a relationship at all. Are you really going to push
this?” I ask. “After everything that’s happened today, everything that’s been
happening, is
now
really the time to
have this particular conversation?”

He shake his head, saying, “No. I don’t
think this is the best time to do this.”

“Good,” I answer. “That’s settled, then.”

“Still horny?” he asks.

The question serves its purpose as it gets
me to smile.

“No,” I tell him. “I think I’m good.”

“All right,” he says. “Just one quick
thing…”

“What’s that?” I ask.

“You never said how you would answer,” he
says.

“What?” I ask.

“You never said, gun to your head, if you
absolutely had to, whether or not you’d say you love me or not,” he says.

“I thought we were dropping this,” I
groan.

“We are,” he says. “I’ve just got that one
question: Do you love me?”

I scoff and turn away, but as I bring my
gaze back to settle on him, I notice something that I haven’t before. It’s
subtle, very subtle, but as I look at Damian’s expectant face, I see softness
about him and I feel a tender warmth and security with him.

“I don’t know,” I tell him. “I haven’t
really thought about it.”

“You’ve had a few minutes,” he says.
“What’s your kneejerk reaction?”

I narrow my eyes at him, looking for any
sign of jest or insincerity, but if there’s any there, I don’t spot it.

“I’d say I’m closer to a yes than I am a
no,” I tell him.

“What does that mean?” he asks.

“Yes is love, no is not love,” I answer
brusquely. “I’m closer to a yes than a no, but that opinion is certainly
changeable.”

“Okay, okay,” he says. “I got it. Just
wanted to be sure we were on the same page and all that,” he says.

“Okay, so are we done?” I ask.

“Yeah,” he says.

“Good,” I answer.

“Unless you’re still horny,” he says. “I
kind of liked you up there on the counter top.”

He’s pretty, but not too bright.

Damian lingers in the kitchen, I’m
assuming, in case I change my mind and decide to wipe the floors with him. He’s
going to be waiting in there for a while.

I get out to the front room and see the
glare of headlights and camera lights and I wish these people would just go
home. Why are they so God damned fascinated that they’ve got to camp out on my
front…

“Damian?!” I shout.

“What?” he calls and rushes into the
living room.

What I caught out of the corner of my eye
through the window wasn’t a mass of cameras and reporters, there’s a small fire
burning on my front lawn.

“What the hell is that?” I ask.

“It’s her,” he says. “Call the cops. I
don’t know if she’s still on your property or not.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I
shout at him.

“I’ve never seen her,” he says, fumbling
for his phone. “I don’t know if she runs off after she does what she does or if
she waits somewhere nearby where she can see my reaction or what. Just call the
cops.”

He hands his phone to me.

I take the phone and he runs around
locking doors.

This can’t be happening.

I dial 9-1-1, although I’m really not sure
whether this constitutes an emergency. Well, I guess the fire, however small,
might be reason enough to send someone pretty quick.

“What is the location of your emergency?”
the operator answers.

I go through and give the woman all of the
information. She asks if I’ve been outside about the time Damian’s heading back
to the front door, this time to unlock it.

“What are you doing?” I ask, covering the
phone.

“I’m going to see if she’s still out
there,” he says. “If not, I want to see what she did to your lawn.”

“Stay inside,” I tell him.

“Ma’am?” the operator asks through the
phone.

“Wait for the cops. You don’t know if
she’s dangerous. You don’t know what she’s capable of,” I tell him.

“Ma’am?” the operator asks again.

“Yes,” I answer, putting the phone back to
my ear. “I’m sorry about that. I was just telling my boyfriend not to go out
there until someone in a uniform checked it out first.”

“So the two of you
are
in a relationship,” the operator says.

You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

“Ma’am,” I start, “I’m not calling to
gossip, I’m calling because some psycho lady just set my lawn on fire and I
need you to send someone!”

“Help is on the way,” she says. “So,
what’s he like. Is he nice in person—he really seems like the kind of guy who’d
just be really nice to you if you met him on the street or in a coffee shop or
something, is that true?”

“‘Is he nice in person?’” I ask. “This is
a practical joke, right?”

“I don’t know, he just seems like he’s got
that humility to temper the confidence, you know?” she asks. “Is he doing a
nude scene?”

“Is there anything I should be doing?” I
ask. “Should we be staying away from windows or something?”

“Probably,” she says. “Did you ever see
that movie he did, Eastland, the one where you get a ten second look at that
cute be-hind of his?”

Help’s on the way and I’m really just so
tired of fighting things that I just give up.

“Yeah, that was quite something, wasn’t
it?” I ask.

Damian’s moved away from the door now and
he’s pacing in my front room, occasionally stopping to look out the window at
the burning patch of lawn. Whatever she did, the fire seems very well
controlled.

“I wore
out
that DVD,” the operator laughs. “Between you, me, and the lemon
tree, I must’ve watched that part of the movie about a couple hundred times and
you know what?” she asks.

“What?” I ask.

“I’ve still never seen the ending,” she
says and erupts in laughter.

I’m starting to hear sirens in the distance,
and, thanks to what I’m assuming is my utter exhaustion, I just start laughing
with her.

“Do
me
a favor?”
I ask her while I sit down.

“What’s that, hon?” the dispatcher asks.

“Is there any way we could just keep this
conversation between you and me?” I ask her. “To tell you the truth, I think
I’m about done with all the attention for the more screwed up things in my
life.”

“That isn’t really my call,” the woman
says. “I think if we’re contacted, we have to release the tape. I really don’t
deal with that, though.”

“Huh,” I say. “Well, maybe with all of
this I can be the first person to actually break the internet.”

“Things happen,” the woman says. “Things
get better.”

“I hope so,” I tell her. “Things are
pretty crappy right now.”

A fire truck and an ambulance—for some
reason—pull up to the front.

“They’re here,” I tell her. “I should
probably let you go.”

“All right,” the woman says. “Keep that
chin up.”

“I’ll try,” I tell her. “What’s your
name?”

“Doreen,” she says.

“It’s been nice to talk with you, Doreen.
I’m Emma,” I say.

“Well you go on and have a better evening
now, all right?” she says.

“All right,” I tell her. “Thanks, bye.”

I hang up and release Damian, who’s been
eyeing that front door for the last five minutes.

He’s outside before I am, and by the time
I’m walking out the door, he’s already standing near the fire, looking down at
it.

“Are you Emma Roxy?” one of the firemen
asks. The patch on his jacket says Jackson.

“Yeah,” I answer. “I called. This just
happened—what?—like ten minutes ago.”

“Did you see anyone around here?” he asks.

“No,” I tell him. “I just came into the
living room, saw the fire and I called you.”

“Okay,” Jackson says. “The fire is
obviously very well controlled. We’re going to wait for the police to get here
before we put it out. I hope that’s all right with you.”

“What is it anyway?” I ask. “Is it just a
bunch of sticks or what?”

“They’re pieces of wood arranged to form a
sentence,” he says. “I really wouldn’t worry about it. Between us and the cops,
we’ll get this taken care of for you.”