Hollywood Beginnings (A Novella) (7 page)

He pulled me on top, and I sat up, straddling him. With the smallest shimmer of light slanted across his face, it took my breath away. Brian Keller, with his eager eyes and handsome features, was hard and willing beneath me, and I'd dreamed him before. He was a big man with big hands, and I needed those hands on me.

I reached for the ties of my top, undid the ones around my neck and they slid down, pulling the top lower to expose the swell of my breasts. I felt his hand tighten on my thigh, and then he reached up, tracing a line from my collar bone to where the fabric stopped just shy of where I wanted him to touch. I fumbled with the tie at my back, got it loose, and tossed it aside, my breasts on their best display in the moonlight. I took a deep breath in. "I love California."

I felt his quick intake of air and was pleased when he didn't release it. I'd just made a gorgeous man forget to breathe. The pleasure of that rushed through me and then he made it even better with his own declaration.

"I love Minnesota!"

I laughed and slid down his body then peeled off my bikini bottoms, hoping he'd brought a condom in the beach bag, otherwise we were going to have to get creative 'cause I was not leaving there wanting.

He set me down beside him and motioned to the bag. "I didn't want to assume..."

"Assume away, I'm naked here."

He laughed, grabbed the bag, and dumped the towels out in his haste to find a condom. Even in the near dark when he pulled his trunks off, I was grateful that the whole big feet, big package saying had proven itself accurate.

Size wasn't everything, but it could really be something on a man with the right touch. And Brian Keller already had a superior touch. In fact, his gentle hands were driving me to desperation.

He unwrapped and rolled on the condom way too slowly for my liking, although it couldn't have taken more than a couple of seconds. I pushed him back down, kissed him hard and slid my body onto his erection as fast as I possibly could. His eyes closed for a moment like he was trying to control himself, but when he looked at me, I shook my head. "I'm not going to last long."

He closed his eyes. "You're killing me, Amy."

But when I thought he'd slow things down again, he flipped me on my back and in three strokes we were both crying out.

I'd like to say I came to my senses completely satisfied, but before I'd even caught my breath, I wanted him to do it again.

He leaned over me, his eyes warm in the night. "I wanted that to last longer."

I laughed, held up my hands as if weighing the options. "Quality? Quantity?"

"Where have you been all my life?"

"Having irregular and mediocre sex in the Midwest. Where have you been?"

He rolled onto his side, pulled me in to spoon against him, first by sea and now by land. I didn't think he'd answer and then he sighed. "Stuck, I think."

In the distance, I heard voices and for the first time I felt naked on the beach.

He must have sensed my sudden self-consciousness and moved away to get the towels, wrapping one around his waist, while I put one under my arms and tucked it between my breasts. I thought I saw him smile when my hand went down my cleavage.

I shrugged. "Dive right in."

He grinned, shook his head. "It's going to be nice and slow next time."

Next time
. That had promise. Maybe round two would make me feel like I could go home and not want to tie him to a bed and not ever let him go. I smiled. "Well, if you can do slow, I can do slow."

He tipped his head in the direction of the pool house. "How about a bed?"

"A bed. Gee, I've never done it in a bed before."

We folded up the blanket by mutual consent, and he took my hand again, leading me back the way we'd come. "Beds are where the slow occurs."

"Tell me more."

We skirted near the shore so the couples that remained by the bonfire wouldn't see us. I felt a twinge of something like disappointment that I wouldn't be there again to join them.

"Well, in a bed I have better light for exploration."

The word
exploration
made me tingle.

His voice got huskier. "I'll admire every inch of you, get to see all that soft skin. I want to watch your face, see what you like when I touch you and taste you."

Until I tripped up a stair, I didn't notice how much we'd sped up. I was practically dragging him up the stairs to the pool house, and when we reached it, both breathing heavily, he pointed to an outdoor tiled shower that had a wooden fence curving around it. I noticed his hand shook slightly, so I wasn't the only one under the influence of lust.

We darted around the corner, and he turned on the shower, pulling me into it and against him. Before I could even get my towel off, he kissed me under the stream of warm water. The sand swirled at our feet, and I thought of all the things he was going to do to me when we got to the bed.

I didn't think I'd make it that long.

"Condom. Condom." I managed to rasp out between kisses then lunged for the bag myself. Finding one, I rolled it on him, taking his hardness for permission.

He reached between my wet thighs, stroked up into me once and then lifted me against him. Only a guy built like he was could manage such a sexual maneuver. With Brian inside me, I didn't have another thought, just sensation after sensation that rippled through my body, taking him with me.

He backed up, sagged a little with his back to the tile wall, and we rested with our foreheads touching.

"You can put me down now."

"I don't want to."

"Oh, okay." I didn't want him to either.

"If you let me rest, I promise to show you slow."

I put my lips near his ear, nipped the lobe once and whispered. "If you let me rest, I promise to make you do it fast again."

I felt Brian drift off, holding my hand, our foreheads dipped together as we met in the gap between our pillows. But I wanted to stay awake as long as I could. It was just so wonderful, and I'm not the kind of woman who throws around a word like
wonderful
. It was, in fact an expression my mother would have used for the birth of a child or the sight of a glowing bride standing in the vestibule.

Once when I was little, I snuck down to the basement of the church just before a wedding ceremony. I passed the worn but immaculate kitchen, the epicenter of potlucks. It always held the scent of cinnamon coffee cake and fried chicken, and while that combo doesn't sound good, it is. And it was also home to the sacramental wine, locked in a cabinet after my brother and two other altar boys got into it and barfed all over the front sidewalk.

I guess I'm not the only imperfect person in the family.

But on that day, minutes before the bride was escorted up to the sanctuary, I saw her in the Sunday school room that doubled as a dressing room. I stood still, taking in the sticky sweet scent of Aqua Net hairspray as I admired her radiance.

I don't know the woman's name anymore, and the romance cynic I became after my ex cheated with a gas station clerk knows the bride was only radiant because she didn't know what was ahead. But at that moment she
was
radiant, and the little girl I was stood in the hallway that day and believed in happiness ever after.

I wanted, god help me, to believe in something again, to possess just an ounce of the faith I'd had in love back then.

I closed my eyes and followed Brian Keller into sleep.

***

I'd like to say I woke up in the night and enjoyed sex in a bed for a change. I'd like to say I hadn't missed
any
sexual opportunity since the window for sexual opportunity should have closed at dawn.

But it was past dawn when I came to again. The sun streamed in the window, and California sun knew a thing or two about streaming. It was solid and yellow as if it were more sure of itself than northern sunshine.

I knew I should look at the clock, make sure I didn't need to rush off and get ready for the funeral. But I didn't want to look, and I didn't want to rush. I wanted to enjoy another minute before regular life kicked in, or maybe kicked me.

Brian was rolled onto his back, sprawled out like only a big beautiful man can be with his wide tan chest and a muscular thigh exposed where he'd bunched up the sheet. I would have been squeezed out of bed, except his hand was on my thigh, tethering me to his bed and to him. His mouth was open just a little, so sweet in the way he didn't quite snore, but I could hear the rasp of his calm, even breathing.

I needed to shake myself. And probably take a cold shower before I woke him. Or I could just brush my teeth, jump back in, and do exactly what I wanted to with him, which was pretty much everything.

I slowly moved his hand, and the lack of contact made him stir. I wanted to think he'd reach for me again, but he was out cold and went right back to his deep breathing.

Sliding out of bed, I stepped around the wet gingham suit lying in a heap on the floor. It made sense why the entire pool house was tiled. I picked it up. The least I could do was hang it up to dry in the bathroom. As I headed down the hall, I noticed for the first time the hodge podge of photos stuck almost randomly in the hallway. Clearly the place had been untouched by an L.A. designer. There were some wonderful vintage shots of the Hollywood sign, one of Grauman's Chinese Theater, and my mother.

I stopped.

It wasn't
my mother
, my mother. It was my actress mother on the beach. It looked like the set of
Beach Blanket Twist
, with a cove indented behind her. And the cove, I'm afraid to say, looked exactly like the one I'd been naked in last night.

In the photo she had a blue bow from the film in her bouffant and...

My eyes scanned from the photo of her in a blue gingham bikini to the same suit now gripped in my hand.

I heard something behind me and turned to Brian, rubbing sleepy eyes and wearing nothing but lazy happiness. Until he saw I was standing in front of the photo, my fist raised as if I'd been unconsciously holding the suit up for closer identification.

He shook his head. "I can explain."

Why did men always start lying with that? Duane couldn't explain and neither could Brian. Whatever Brian Keller was up to went beyond a tabloid article. Maybe he had some kind of obsession with my mother, and I'd been a stand-in, a twisted body double.

I stormed past him, shoving the damp suit into his hands on my way to the dressing room where I'd left my clothes. I needed my Amy clothes, ones he probably couldn't wait to get me out of, sick bastard.

He followed me in, and I could hear him but refused to look as I yanked on my dress and found my shoes.

"Hey, let's talk about this."

"Hey, let's not."

I heard him make a huff sound from the doorway, and then have the gall to sound like the one wronged. "Really, Amy? That's how you deal with things?"

I shook my head. "I don't deal with things like
this
."

He held up a finger. "
One
, I don't think you like to deal with things at all and
two
you don't know squat about our situation."

"There is no
our
. I mean,
us
, and you don't know diddlysquat about me."

"Uh, pretty sure the two of us started an
us
last night."

I fought the sweet pain of hearing him talk about us as if we were a real couple. And since the best defense is a good offense, I rolled my eyes at him. "Pleeease. That was sex. Don't go all girl on me. It debases both of us."

"It..." He seemed to be sputtering.

"Yeah, you know exactly what I'm talking about. And FYI, obsessing over a woman who's, like, 70 is pretty twisted. You might want to spend some of your low class magazine money on counseling."

He made a couple of gestures that looked like he'd be flicking me on the forehead if I were closer. "You are the most..."

"Yeah, whatever."

I headed toward the door, and he followed me, naked, and still arguing. "We're not done."

"Oh, we're totally done."

He crossed his arms, looking nothing but stubborn. Still gorgeous, I hated to admit, but mostly stubborn. "I will follow you naked to the parking lot."

I rolled my eyes. "It will be the least disturbing thing I've experienced in the last ten minutes." I didn't even want to think about it. And, no, that did not mean he was right about my not wanting to deal with things.

"Go then."

"I will, and you suck at arguing too."

"Too?" He looked really upset at that. "You're implying that you cried out my name twice last night
and
scratched up my back because I'm not good at
something
else? And there'd be a lot more crying out and scratching up if you hadn't woken up all cranky."

That stopped me. "Oh, it's my fault? I'm just
moody
. And you know what else? I'm not even that blonde. So good luck with your Beach Blanket fantasy."

He lifted his hands in confusion. "Is this about your mother?"

I tapped my nose three times. "Ding, ding, ding! Tell him what he wins, 'cause it's not gonna be me."

This time he rolled his eyes. "If you won't listen to me, crazy woman,
ask
your mother."

"Do not bring her into this again, you twisted man."

"Twisted man?
You're
the one who's really bad at fighting. Over-react much? Geeze, Amy, there are rules about arguing."

"You want rules? Leave my mother alone."

"Your
sainted
mother? Yeah, I'll give you a heads up. You might want to start there, Amy, and open your eyes a little."

"Oh, I have." I meant to size him up and dismiss him, but, dammit, my eyes traveled a little too slowly and when I got back to his face, he was smirking.

"You'll be back."

I flipped him off on my way out but had to fight the urge to glance at him standing naked in the sun. Damned if I didn't have horrible taste in men. I could hear the voices of my father's congregation…
But she grew up in such a nice family
.