The Director (Hollywood Nights) (3 page)

           
She allowed him to press and pull
her up and down his length until her legs were trembling. The feel of him was
powerful, intense. She was shaking like a leaf and anxious to come again.

           
“Oh fuck,” he gasped. “You feel so
fucking good.”

           
The words added extra sparks to an
already overstimulated system. Shay pushed harder, faster, determined to get
all of him. One of his hands left her hip to cup her breast. The fingers found
and pinched her nipple. The reaction immediately spilled through her, clamping
her body around his and pulsating in wave after wave of pleasure.

           
She had let her head fall back, her
body arched, her mouth open as she called his name.

           
She could feel his hand between her
breasts, the fingers slid lower, she looked at him, and he licked his lips and
slid the fingers lower still. His blue eyes blazed with lust. He was being
greedy. He wanted more from her spent body. She wouldn’t be able to walk
tomorrow at this rate. Her thighs, used to the burn of running, were already
tired from the different angle and use of the muscles.

           
His thumb pressed her clit, her body
jerked as a response. His eyes widened a bit, he was watching her, watching her
reactions while he touched her. He tested and moved until he found the right
rhythm, the right pressure, and she came undone.

           
“Jed,” she gasped.

           
“I just want you to come once more,”
he whispered. “You’re amazing, and I have to see it one more time.”

           
He rubbed with one hand and pushed
at her hips with the other. This time, he didn’t close his eyes. The blue heat
burned into her. The ripples began, her body wound tight, the man creating such
pleasure looked about undone himself. He pushed a fraction deeper and she came.
She looked at him. She breathed. They did not say a word. They just breathed
through it. She knew he had come, she could see it in his eyes. Could feel his
hips jerk quickly beneath her, pushing into her. It was too intense, too
personal, and yet she could not look away from him.

           
It was over. It was done. As
evidence her body was permanently marked by the event, it pulsed an errant beat
through her. He felt it. She knew because he inhaled a sharp breath. She slid
up his length removing him from her body and then sat on the edge of the seat,
legs shaking, breaths slowing, and heart still thumping away like they just
finished a race. Her back facing him, she could feel rather than see him move.
He stood, disposed of the condom, and then moved to stand in front of her.

           
She wasn’t sure what was supposed to
happen next. This was a one night thing. She cleared her throat and said, “If
you tell me where I am I can call a cab.”

           
His big feet padded away from her.
He returned with his tuxedo shirt held out towards her. “I thought you didn’t
have to be home tonight.”

           
She slowly looked up at him. He
tilted his head and seemed genuinely confused.

           
“I thought…”

           
“Ah,” he nodded. “You hungry?”

           
She reached for the shirt. As she
stood, she slid her arms through the sleeves and was surprised that he helped
straighten it out and buttoned the buttons for her. “A little.”

Chapter
2

           
Jed let them into the house and led her
to the kitchen. It wasn’t his house. It was his father’s. A house the man
didn’t live in, but loaned out to friends and family as they requested it. Once
upon a time his family would come here to get away from it all. When they were
kids, their mom loved this place and their dad loved the desert. It was a
compromise in their marriage for her to have a beach front and for him to have
a house in the hot sand. He had sold the house he loved right before the
divorce, maybe as a last ditch effort to keep them together. In the divorce, this
house was the only thing his father insisted on keeping. He thought he knew
why, but didn’t want to think his dad would be that spiteful.

Jed didn’t want to think about
it. His affection for this house was not due to his mother or father. This was
his favorite place to come as a child. No one knew about it except family and
select friends. He learned to swim and surf in that ocean right outside. It was
where he had his first kiss, lost his virginity, and learned that he had lost
his first love. It was where he had come to mourn the loss of his girlfriend, Dana.
It was the place that both made things frightening and safe all at once. Major
life decisions were made here. His major life decisions anyways, like inviting
Shay inside for a sandwich. He had planned to fuck her and take her home. He
wasn’t even going to take her inside the house. He wasn’t actually going to
bring her there, but the roads wound into one another and soon enough, there he
was, bringing her to this place.

He had noticed her on the set of
Jonas’s movie. He had an urge, and he hadn’t felt one in a long while. He
lucked out and she was actually at the wedding. He wasn’t expecting her to be
friends with the bride, but he was glad that was his opening line. He needed a
cigarette, but he was trying to quit. He didn’t want to smoke. He wanted her,
again. He planned to gather his wits, have her once more to prove he was
mistaking the surge of emotions that rolled through him, and then take her
home.

           
He placed the clothes on the counter
and went to the refrigerator. As he was searching through for something for
them to eat, the finest piece of ass he had ever had asked him, “Don’t you want
to put your pants on?”

           
“Does it bother you?” He grabbed an
assortment of items and handed them to her as he pulled them out.

           
“No,” she lied. He could tell
because she said it too quickly. “I just…well you handed me this shirt…”

           
“That was for my benefit, not
yours.” He grabbed two bottled waters and closed the door. He looked at her shocked
face and clarified, “If you’re naked I won’t be able to do anything else but
touch you.”

           
“Oh.” She still pouted. Those
gorgeous green eyes looked at him as though she could see into his soul. He was
already off guard. He told her that stupid story about the sand and the water. It
was something he did so long ago on a night he was grieving the loss of his
high school sweetheart. A night he was almost certain he would rather be with
her in the afterlife than here with anyone on this earth.

           
He had never told a soul about it. It
was after a real attempt he made a few months after Dana died. He had burned
everything they shared together except one photo. The photo in the card she had
left for him explaining things. Seventeen was too young to deal with heartbreak
of that magnitude. He didn’t know why he told Shay that story. It just felt
like he could. She didn’t freak out like his family would have. Of course, she
was just there to have sex with him, not provide therapy. Though as therapy
goes, her body did great things for redirecting his thoughts.

He looked at her from head to toe
and decided to ask, “What are you made of?”

           
She looked at him with her delicate
eyebrow arched in question. She was a high maintenance actress. Everything
about the way she was groomed told him that. He could barely believe he was
standing in this room with her. She was nothing like anything he had ever
wanted before. She licked those smooth lips and said, “Sugar and spice and
everything nice.”

           
He chuckled. “That’s one hell of a
genetic code.”

           
She smiled and began assembling a
sandwich. “I’m a mutt. My mother is white and Hawaiian, my father is black.
They met when he went there for college.”

           
“That explains it then.” He propped
his hip against the counter.

           
She had taken her first bite of the
sandwich. She chewed it over and then said, “Explains what?”

           
“Why they are using you in so many
roles. With a tweak to your makeup and the right wig and clothes you could pretend
to be anyone. Your skin coloring is ambiguous, you could be any race, your
green eyes at once disarming and sexy, and…” He took a bite of his sandwich and
looked her over again. She was younger than him. She was closer to his
brother’s age, but she was friends with Frankie who was five years Jonas’s
senior. It was hard to pinpoint it. “You’re young.”

           
“You know I’m an actress?” She
seemed surprised. “I recently finished my first job. It’s not public knowledge.
How do you know that?’

           
“I saw you on the set when I visited
Jonas.” He shrugged. “I asked the director. He likes you. You’re committed to
the work, and that’s why he just keeps having them suit you up in different
outfits to play different roles. That and you’re a Harvey girl.”

           
She moved to the table and took a
seat. He grabbed his drink and followed. He realized she was probably a bit
stunned. “I’m sorry. I guess you’re not used to people knowing a certain amount
of your background yet.”

           
“Why did you bring me here?” she
asked quietly.

           
“Because they didn’t have a traditional
wedding with bridesmaids for the older, single brother’s picking,” he said and laughed.
She didn’t crack a smile. He frowned. His social graces were lacking. He was
scaring her he could tell. “Ah, shit.”

She looked up at him then.

“Honestly, I brought you here
because I looked across the room and saw you standing alone, leaning against
the wall, looking sexy as hell in that dress, and I thought…maybe you were like
me.” He admitted more than he had planned to.

           
“Like you?”

           
“Yeah,” he shrugged. “Lonely. I mean
why did you come here with me? You knew who I was, didn’t you?”

           
She looked up at him and said,
“Yeah. I knew you were Jed Gunner. You were a teen heartthrob who stopped
acting and years later started directing. You went from being a poster on
everyone’s wall to being…reclusive. Once your little brother hit the scene you
became…obsolete.”

           
He sucked in a hissing breath.
“Ouch. That stings.”

           
Her expression softened and she
said, “I didn’t mean that. I get defensive…”

“Understandable in this
situation,” he admitted.

“The truth is I came here because
when you looked at me, I just felt warm, and wanted, and it has been a long
time…if ever… someone looked at me genuinely that way.”

           
He understood all too well what she
was saying. It seemed impossible such a beautiful creature could be lonely.
When he went to talk to her he half expected her date to interrupt, but she was
in fact alone. When she looked at him, he lost all good sense and asked her to
leave with him.

           
He licked his lower lip and thought
about how sweet she tasted. “Shay.”

           
She stared into his eyes, into his
soul. It unnerved him in a way he was not familiar with and in a way he was not
going to admit. He stated, “I want you again.”

           
“And what if I say you can’t have
me?” She looked from his face to the half-eaten sandwich. He knew she did it to
hide her true feelings on the subject.

           
He sighed. This was part of the
reason he had banned any attempts at real relationships. He rarely said the
right things and women rarely appreciated that about him. He didn’t have his
little brother’s gift of charm. He didn’t have his sister’s gift of kindness.
He had allowed himself to love one soul and he had lost her. Since then, he
refused to make an effort. He could count on two hands the amount of women he
had slept with. He could count on one finger how many he had slept with more
than once. He refused to compromise his principles for anyone.

           
“I’ll be in the shower,” he said as
he moved from the table to put the leftover food back into the refrigerator. He
closed the door and said, “It’s up the stairs, third door on the right. If you
don’t want to join me, there is a guest room on this floor just down the hall.”

           
He was on the second step when he
found it impossible to move any farther. He groaned, turned around and found
her standing in the room behind him. He looked at the hall leading to the guest
room. He looked at her. He looked at the stairs. He took a deep breath and
said, “Can I convince you to come up stairs with me?”

           
She looked down the dark hallway
leading to the guest room and then back at him. He knew that hallway could be
scary. The entire house could be. It was large, open, and the wood creaked and
moaned as it settled. His siblings would not travel down the hall without the
lights on. After the incident, they wouldn’t come to this house. He didn’t mean
to do that to them. Before his thoughts could delve deeper into the past she
asked, “How?”

           
He cleared his throat. His gut
clenched with nervous anticipation. “What would you like? I mean, you know I’ll
make you come. You know I’ll worship your body with my mouth, my hands, my…”