Shooting Star (Beautiful Chaos) (9 page)

How could I break him down this time?
Get
to him? My iPod was lying on the coffee table atop a pile of art and film books. I picked it up, scrolled through my playlist and chose “Drunk in Love” by Beyoncé. I padded over to him in my bare feet and stood before him.
Nothing.
No reaction. I began to swing my hips in time to the music, hovering my ass over his lap—yeah, I’d do a lap dance just for him. In my previous movie I’d played a stripper who had a child to support and a mom with Alzheimer’s—my character desperately needed the money. I’d trained enough to know what I was doing—spent weeks learning to pole dance. I was good.

I began to gyrate slowly, leaning in on him, with my ass brushing past his stomach. Did I feel a hard rod dig into me as I eased my butt in little circles? Or was it my imagination again? I bent down so he could get the full peachy view, my short skirt edging higher up my thighs so he could see my panties. I was moist down there—turned on by our proximity. I could hear his heavy breaths and he grabbed my hips. Hard. His fingers digging into my flesh, his grip firm, his thumbs pushing into each cheek as he steadied me so I couldn’t move an inch. His touch shot shivers down my spine—goose bumps crept all over me. I could feel myself moisten up even more. His hold on me was dominating. Raw.

“No, Star.” His grip was relentless. The music continued but I couldn’t move.

“What’s wrong?”

“I asked you to get me to dance with you.”

“I
am
dancing with you.”

“You’re dancing
at
me. I need to want to participate.”

My back was still to him—he couldn’t see, thank God—the tears of humiliation welling in my eyes. Rejection. Being spurned. “What do you want?” I whispered.

There was a long pause and he said, “You need to break me. Not sexually but in a deeper more metaphysical way.”

Metaphysical? WTF?
“Oh.”

“What’s the action in this scene?”

“To cry?”
That would be easy at this point.

“That could be the result. What’s the
action
?”

The lump in my throat hardly let me say the words, “I don’t understand you.”

“The action that’s driving this scene? What does Skye want?”

“She wants to get the hell out of jail!”

“And what’s stopping her?”

“The prison guard.”
Duh
! “He’s her last hurdle. He’s the only thing stopping her freedom.”
You know that, you jerk
!

“This guard is being played by a fifty-year-old. And remember this is set in 1964 and things were different then. You’ll have to think of a better way to ‘seduce’ him because if you do it like this—so blatantly—the audience will not only lose respect for Skye, they’ll be turned off.”

Jake
was turned off.
He
had lost respect for me. This playing-out-a-scene game before official rehearsals was
bullshit
and I’d had enough.

“Let me go, you asshole!” I cried out, freeing myself from his grasp. “You’ve been screwing with my head for days. Ignoring me. Making me feel small and worthless like I’m invisible! You’re worse than my father. Using me for your own ends. Not even thinking for one moment that I’m only nineteen and just because I look like a woman on the outside and grew up before my time—” The words flew out of my mouth surprising even me—“I’m . . . I’m . . . People just want me for what I can offer them: money, a performance for their movies—it fucking
sucks
!”

He spun me around so I was facing him. A glow of warmth flickered in his eyes, and his lips lifted into an almost imperceptible smirk as if he’d won a prize. But then he frowned. He looked up at me and he said, “Bring that vulnerability to this scene, Star.”

“What? Are you
serious
? I am not
acting
right now! This is for real, Jake. I feel used, like you just don’t give a shit about me as a person.” I struggled from his grip but he pulled me close so my crotch was practically in his face—he was still sitting. He bit his lower lip, lust oozing from his pores like rising steam. My eyes dropped down. His swim shorts were tented. He was huge. Hard as a rock. So I
did
affect him after all—my little dance had turned him on! But he suddenly let me go and stood up abruptly, turning his back on me.

“Coward,” I spat out at his strong golden shoulders.

“Fighting your demons head on is
not
cowardly, Star, you should know that by now.”

I stared at the back of him, imagining myself tussling his hair, grabbing it as he pinned me on the sofa. I wanted him to kiss me, shut the words coming out of his mouth with my mouth.

“You don’t know me, Star. Just think of me as your director, nothing more. The only thing I’m good for, as far as you’re concerned, is getting a great performance out of you. Trust me—I’m bad for you on any other level.”

“Can’t we at least be friends?” my voice croaked.

He jerked around and looked me hard in the eye. “Honestly? I doubt that very much.”

His words were like daggers. “Why do you dislike me?”

“Dislike you? Is that what you think?” He shook his head. “Come here, Star. Let’s sit down and talk, this is crazy.”

I slumped down on to the oversized couch, sinking into its feathery comfort, watching him watch me. Boy, was he a mind fuck, or what.

“Hang on,” he said, “I’ll get us some drinks.”

There was a liquor cabinet hidden in a bookshelf, which I’d had no idea about. The hinges were so small when it swung open, revealing a mindboggling array of bottles—like something out of a Bond movie. Jake poured a couple of Cokes, clinked in some ice and slices of lemon. I tucked my knees under me and wondered what he wanted to talk about. My character, Skye, no doubt. Jake—a one-track mind: the Movie, with a capital M.

He sat down, close enough, but making sure he wasn’t touching any part of my body. His erection had calmed down and I had that niggling question again; had I imagined it? He had his “I’m a Director” look on again.

“Look, Star,” he began.

“I’m looking,” I retorted childishly. “And I can’t see the freaking wood from the trees. You’re giving me double messages, Jake. You think I want to be here as your prisoner? I could be in a hotel with my friends having fun, not alone here where the only person—I mean creature—that pays any attention to me is your dog!”

“I don’t know how to deal with you.” He took a long slug of his soda. Was he abstaining from booze for my sake? “You’re disarming me. I’m trying to be professional and I’m finding it extremely difficult the way you’re . . . you’re . . . look . . I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Ha! They warned me that you were a player but nobody filled me in about your arrogance. Hurt me? Star Davis? I don’t fall in love, Jake. Least of all with directors.”

“Then why are you acting all wounded when I don’t pay you more attention?”

He had a point. “I . . . I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“This business is a lonely, dog-eat-dog one, and people are out for your blood. I’m just trying to protect you, Star. Like you pointed out earlier, you’re only nineteen.”

“Oh yeah? Like you’re not
one
of them? You want my blood just as much as the next person. Last I heard, all you cared about was getting a great performance out of me and that there’s no way we can be friends!”

“You think we can be buddies when you run around in tiny little skirts—your exposed legs all long and golden, your sexy little arse cheeks peeking out all over the place? Oh, and naked as well! With your beautiful tits in my face? Don’t you get it, Star?
Course
I want to fuck you! Any straight man would. All day long, all I think about is sex. With you. But we simply can’t go there!”

I felt my stomach flip with triumph. Excitement. I’d
got
to him! I felt powerful. Like holding a great hand of cards, I knew I could win this game. “I’m sorry,” I said, putting my hand lightly on his thigh. I could hear the pattern of his breath was uneven and when my eyes strayed to his newly tented shorts—that comforting telltale sign—it sent a tingle between my legs. He desired me. And his desire was turning me on.

“We need to talk—get to know each other a bit better. I’m sorry I haven’t handled things so well, it’s just . . . I find you disconcerting.”

“Disconcerting?” I played the innocent.

Then he said between gritted teeth, “Do you always get what you want, Star?”

“
You’re
a person who gets what he wants,” I answered, “you should understand. But there’s one difference between us: I had to
fight
for my privileges but you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth.”

He laughed. “The spoon was pretty bloody tarnished, I can tell you.”

“Oh, yeah. Your dad’s one of the richest producers this side of Hollywood, and your uncle and grandfather are Academy Award winning directors with a list as long as my arm of hit movies. Tough life, Jake Wild.”

He shook his head, an ironic smile tilting up his lips. “It wasn’t all roses I can tell you.”

It was true. Who was I to decide who he was? I hardly knew the guy, except what I’d read in the papers or heard about through friends. “What about your mom?” I asked, “you see her much?”

“My mother?” His face changed to an expression of disgust—no, more like ‘disappointment’—a sad flicker of his eyes gave it all away.

“They divorced?” I said.

“Yeah, when I was eight.”

“Oh well, what’s new? Most parents get divorced. Sticking together is pretty rare.” I took a swig of Coke, hoping I didn’t sound too cavalier. “What happened?”

He let out a deep sigh, “In a nutshell? She’s an alcoholic. In all these years she’s never cleaned up her act.”

“Oh. Well, I can relate to that.”

“Yeah, I suppose you can.”

“I’m not talking about
myself
—I mean my mom.”

“Your mum’s a drinker?”

“
Was
. She died a long time ago. Well, actually, her drug of choice wasn’t drink
exclusively
—she was more into pill popping.”

He frowned. “I’m sorry you lost your mum—must have been tough.”

“And yours? Where’s she now?”

“In England. She lives in a small village in the countryside. My dad still supports her—supports her habit, rather.”

“But she managed to raise you, all the same?—get you to school, make your meals? You turned out okay.
Just
,” I added jokily.

Jake snickered. “God, no. I was sent to boarding school—I was eight—they take boys as young as that in the UK. Tradition. Character building, you know? Then in the holidays—vacation time—I came to Los Angeles to be with my father and whoever happened to be his wife at the time. He went through a string of them.”

“Nice.” This felt good. Finally we were communicating, getting to know one another.

“Yup. Well, you know, I got my training to be a director that way. Plenty of drama all around, even off set. There was a ball-buster lawyer from Long Island who spoke through her nose, an Italian who had a Chihuahua she used to carry around in her handbag, a skinny Polish woman who used to pinch us when my dad wasn’t looking, a gold digger from Iowa who wore false eyelashes that used to fall into her soup, and a Jamaican beauty queen called Rebecca. She—Rebecca, I didn’t forget in a hurry.”

“Because she was beautiful?”

“Because I lost my virginity to her.”

My Coca Cola went down the wrong way and I spluttered, “Your dad’s
wife
? How old were you and how old was
she
?”

“I was fourteen. Guess she must have been a good ten years older.”

“And you were okay with that? I mean, sneaking around behind your dad’s back? I’m assuming he didn’t
know
about it?”

“He was away on location for the best part of a year and was shagging someone else. Who was I to turn down beautiful Rebecca’s advances?”

His story was amazingly “normal”—by Hollywood standards, anyway. I’d heard worse case-scenarios.

“This town is so screwed up,” I murmured. “So then what happened? What became of Rebecca the beauty queen?”

“She must have gone back home. I remember lots of fighting and arguments. My dad isn’t an easy man to live with.”

“Powerful men can be difficult. Especially when they’re disobeyed.”

“And megalomaniacs worse.”

I locked my eyes with his. “And you? Has it rubbed off on you? Are
you
a ‘megalomaniac’?”

He threaded his hand agitatedly through his hair. “I like to be in control.”

“Don’t we all.”

“And that’s why this is so hard for me, Star—because I’m losing it with you.” He slipped his hand up along my thigh. Very slowly. My breath hitched at the suddenness of it all. I hadn’t been expecting this. Just five minutes ago he didn’t want anything to do with me.

“You see, I don’t know how much longer I can hold out,” he said in his cool English voice—so husky, so gravely—still with his hand on my leg. He leaned in closer, his messy hair flopping over his face.

I closed my eyes and couldn’t help but let my senses go. His fingertips explored the soft flesh of my upper thigh and his thumb brushed past my panties, scraping the fabric of the cotton.

“You’re wet, baby,” he murmured.

“I’m not your baby.” It came out as a growl, but soon that growl turned into a purr—what he was doing felt sooo good, so sensual, I couldn’t slap his hand away. I arched my back so I was closer to him. It was true; I was slippery wet. I felt two long fingers ease their way inside me and I moaned quietly. Then his thumb pressed onto my clit as he slid his fingers in and out. I heard a guttural groan coming deep from within him, reverberating in his strong chest where I laid my head. All he had on was his swim shorts—the towel having lost itself at some point—shot loose earlier by the strength of his rock-hard boner, which must have pinged it out of the way like a catapult.

We still hadn’t kissed. Romance was obviously the last thing on his mind. He thought he had me—thought he had me all worked out. The One Sure Thing. Star Davis: the easy one who’d fuck any hot guy in the blink of an eye.