Chasing Kings

Dedication

This one is for Lauren Dane, who said she wanted to read about a hero who knew what he wanted.

For Alisha Rai who wanted a porn star hero—here’s Ethan.

In large part
because
of James Deen. Feel free to make your own jokes about James Deen’s “large part” now.

To the lovely—and filthy-minded—ladies who run several Deen-themed Tumblr accounts, thanks for the, ahem, research assistance.

And to every naughty-book lover who wouldn’t mind going for a tumble with a dirty man.

Chapter One

Ethan Silver didn’t want to be a prick or anything, but he wasn’t to blame for letting his mind wander mid-blowjob.

The woman currently polishing his knob was certainly enthusiastic about the task at hand, but she was putting too much porn-star flourish into it for his taste. He considered himself a blowjob connoisseur. A fellatio foodie of sorts. He’d gotten head from the best mouths in the business, and this woman…

Well, she wasn’t as skilled as the twinkle in her eye might suggest. She moaned and wriggled and told him how big he was, but the whole thing felt…dirty. Wrong in a way he couldn’t shake long enough to actually have any fun.

He brushed her hair back and looked at her face. Her upwards-turned gaze demanded a positive acknowledgment from him to tell her he was enjoying himself. She needed an ego stroke.

“You’re doing real good, baby,” he lied, laying it on thick with his best bedroom voice. He’d cultivated a career with those dirty, husky whispers, so he knew what she wanted.

What she was paying for.

The woman bobbed her head, trying too hard to mimic some move she’d probably seen in one of his movies. He made an appreciative groaning sound before letting his mind wander again.

He was going to call Sam the second he got out of here. Julian had already implied Ethan’s presence would be expected at a party the next week in Vegas during the awards.

The woman stopped and stared up at him. Her expensive eye makeup was smudged slightly around the edges, giving her a rode-hard, put-away-wet look. But Ethan hadn’t ridden her anywhere, and that wasn’t part of their deal.

“Where do you want to finish?” she asked, flicking her hair back off her shoulders and smiling. “I don’t swallow.”

Ethan resisted the urge to grimace, propping himself up on his elbows to give her a good long stare.

“And not on the face,” she added, doing nothing to hide her disgusted expression. He ignored the way she said it and absently stroked himself, hoping his own hand might yield better results than her mouth had.

Finally, when she began to appear impatient, he gave a halfhearted shrug and said, “Tits.”

She edged forward on her knees, and instead of offering him any assistance, simply stuck her chest out and closed her eyes.

He might have been offended or put off in another situation, but this was par for the course with the whole scenario. He closed his eyes as well and fondled himself until he came. Once he was through, he handed her a towel that had been neatly folded on the bed.

Julian was ever the gracious host. He’d thought of everything.

Ethan cleaned himself off and did up his jeans. “Thanks,” he said, and held out his hand to help her to her feet. She stood before him, a glowing example of what plastic surgery and a trainer could do for a middle-aged woman.

“It was my pleasure.” She giggled, and he tried not to cringe, the gesture unbecoming of a woman who was likely a judge or politician in her daily life. She’d come here to play a role, though, and he was letting her fulfill her fantasies. Most of the time those fantasies involved pretending to be someone they weren’t. Just like they didn’t want the
real
Ethan. They wanted the version they’d seen on their clandestine DVDs and hotel-room, pay-per-view rentals.

He grabbed his shirt off the bed and left her to get dressed privately. In the hallway outside the door, a couple was making out, the girl a bottle blonde Ethan was intimately acquainted with, and the man was a stranger. Ethan had to wonder what Ellice—the woman—owed Julian that she had found herself here tonight.

Money.

It all came down to money.

After jogging down the staircase, he paused at the entrance to the living room. Everywhere he looked people were engaged in various stages of fucking. Some of the people he knew personally. Others were minor D-list celebrities he recognized from the pages of gossip magazines. All of them were blowing, being blown or being screwed. The sounds—the wet smack of skin on skin, grunting men and moaning women—were those Ethan imagined filling the air of Sodom and Gomorrah.

A waitress wearing a French maid’s uniform passed by, her tray heavy with champagne flutes and full tumblers of whiskey. He grabbed one of the short glasses and swallowed the amber liquor in one shot.

Damn if this place wasn’t going to make him a cynic.

It wasn’t like he’d never been to an orgy before.

The only difference was he wasn’t getting paid for this one. And there were no cameras rolling anywhere.

He wrinkled his nose at the scene and made a beeline for the patio. Outside, the warm L.A. air made sweat bead over his skin, and he wiped his brow. The city was lit up like the inside of a nightclub, and behind him the rolling Hollywood Hills wore Julian’s modern glass mansion like a bright tiara.

Leaving his shirt off, he hung it over the balcony railing and rummaged through his pockets for his cell phone. He scrolled through the numbers until he found Samantha Hart, and dialed.

Her voicemail greeted him with the faux sensuality of a sex-line operator.

“Kelly,” he said, using her real name to impress upon her how serious he was. “I’m starting to get the feeling you’re avoiding me. Can you call me back? We really need to talk.”

He hung up the phone and jammed it into his back pocket.

Women. Who knew they could be so much trouble even when they weren’t around?

Chapter Two

Las Vegas left its Christmas lights on all year round.

Wedged between a middle-aged man in high-waisted pants and a girl doused with Britney Spears perfume, Samantha Hart was wondering what mistakes she’d made in her life to lead her here.

The driver had the heat in the shuttle van cranked up in spite of the temperature outside hovering over the sixty mark. Spanish guitar music was blasting on the radio, and a tiny bobbling hula girl was stuck on the dash.

Sam closed her eyes and tried to ignore the rocking motions of the van and the trashy sweetness of the girl’s perfume. Between the bumps, the stink and the bright Nevada light, she was pretty sure she might throw up before the shuttle dropped her off.

As far as she was concerned the trip was already an unmitigated disaster, and she hadn’t even gotten to her hotel yet. Adding carsickness to the mix would turn it into a living nightmare.

“Yo,” grumbled the driver, making Sam lift her head. “Hard Rock?”

“Oh. Yes, thanks.” She collected her carry-on bag off the floor and hugged it to her chest, climbing over the portly gentleman blocking her path to the sliding door.

The shuttle driver met her at the back of the van and after some confusion managed to pull her wheeled pink suitcase out from the Tetris-style tower of luggage.

The minute she got inside the hotel, the temperature shifted and the smell of stale smoke bombarded her, causing her stomach to churn worse than before. She’d forgotten smoking was legal indoors in Las Vegas, and made a mental note to ensure she asked for a smoke-free room. Oregon was looking better and better every minute.

Inside the front door, the lights were low and several glass cases greeted her, exhibiting outfits from Slash, Prince, Tupac and a few others. More memorabilia hung from every flat surface, including polished guitars, leather jackets and a full wall of drum kits.

Adding to the sensory overload was the central gaming pit, a circle in the middle of the lobby with poker and blackjack tables and an assortment of brightly lit, obnoxious-sounding slot machines. The whole lobby buzzed with the alarms from the machines and the humming voice of dealers catering to the patrons willing to throw their money away. The girls running the blackjack tables wore pleated skirts no wider than a belt and low-cut tanks with the words Hell’s Belles written across them, their enhanced breasts spilling out the tops.

Sam found herself transfixed by the flagrant display of tits and ass. Back home these girls would be a spectacle, but here this was the norm. She didn’t think she’d be able to adjust to the Vegas culture if she was here for a month, let alone a week.

Sam dragged her suitcase up to the front desk, where a huge series of flat screens displayed information on the various restaurants and clubs the hotel had on site. All she wanted was a shower and a soft bed. She’d deal with figuring out what she was going to
do
in Vegas once she could think straight.

If Muriel wasn’t seventy-five and family, she would get her butt kicked for this.

“Good afternoon, welcome to the Hard Rock.” A cheerful young woman with a sleek blonde bob smiled at Sam as if this should be a
happy
trip.

“I have a reservation.” Sam hiked her purse up on her shoulder, snagging her long auburn hair, adding further injury to the insult of this so-called vacation.

“Absolutely. What was the name?”

“Samantha Hart.”

The young woman’s eyes widened, and she gave Sam a once-over. “I’m sorry, you said Samantha Hart?”

“Yes?” For a moment Sam questioned herself. It had been a hellish travel day, and now she wondered if she’d given the wrong name. But Hart was the one she’d been born with, and as boring as Samantha was, it had been hers from day one. “Yes,” she repeated, more certainly this time.

“Can I see some identification?”

It wasn’t the request that had Sam scratching her head, since it was standard practice to give ID when checking in, but the girl’s flagrant disbelief that she was who she claimed had Sam thinking,
What the heck?

“Okay.” Sam rifled through her purse. Finding her driver’s license, she handed it to the girl.

“My apologies for the formality, Ms. Hart. It’s standard procedure for us with VIP guests. I’m sure you understand.”

Sam reclaimed her ID, and it was her turn to gawk at the desk girl. Had she said VIP? Was it possible Muriel had managed to do something
right
for this trip? Considering all the screw-ups thus far, a VIP suite would be a nice apology. Perhaps it was a belated Christmas gift?

As long as it wasn’t getting charged to her credit card, Sam didn’t really care.

“Yeah. VIP. Sure thing.”

The girl waved over a bellhop, and he relieved Sam of her suitcase and carry-on. “Jeremy will show you to your suite. We’re here for you twenty-four-seven, and of course you can expect the utmost discretion from our staff.”

“Thanks. I think.”

Jeremy the Bellhop was off and running with Sam’s things before she had a chance to ask any more questions. In the elevator he pressed a button for one of the top floors, and Sam’s heart began to sink, her pulse elevating and a nervous sweat dewing her forehead.

What if this
was
going on her credit card?

The higher the numbers on the elevator ticked, the more uneasy she became, adding an extra zero to her total bill for every ten floors. At this rate she’d have to sell books until she was seven hundred in order to recoup her losses on this stupid trip.

Forget killing Muriel, that was too easy. By now the old woman had surely earned some kind of Chinese water torture, or an elaborate scheme involving bamboo shoots.

It was hard to be mad at the old woman, though. She’d apologized profusely so many times. And after about six hundred chocolate chip cookies, Sam was five pounds heavier and a lot less angry. Mistakes happened, but she was still stuck in Vegas nursing a nauseated gut as the floors got higher and higher.

The elevator finally stopped, and Sam’s imminent heart attack told her she’d be mortgaging her store when she got home. And her house.

Jeremy led her up to a glossy black door and swiped her keycard for her. He held open the door and wheeled her bag inside, then paused in the entryway, waiting. She handed him a five-dollar bill, and he gave her a look that was first confused before shifting to disgusted.