Hollywood Nights (17 page)

I glanced around. The Lorraine House barn made a great place to hold a party, but the stark white walls didn’t have any place to hide, and neither did the lawn. Plus, the crowd might have thinned right along with the buffet and the diminishing supply of free alcohol, but a number of Hollywood starlets, gossips, producers, and other minor characters remained. What I wanted to do couldn’t wait for them to leave. Not anymore.

And then I saw it.

“Come with me.”

I took her hand and led her across the barn, then out the door and into the garden in the back. We headed across the spongy grass to a small grove of trees at the edge of the property. Once behind them, almost no one could see us.

“What’s going on with you?” she asked.

“This.”

I pushed her against the tree and my mouth found hers again. This time, I meant it. It was all for real. I knew what I needed, and I needed her.

Now.

Brynn didn’t protest; she kissed me and her arms fell backward, inviting me to press her harder against the tree as our kiss extended, taking up more time and space.

We were alone, nothing else mattered. The rest of the party faded away as I worked to make Brynn feel something with every movement of our mouths. It reminded me of a homecoming, and I realized somehow, during the last few weeks, I had claimed her.

With every kiss, I wanted her to know this was more than business, and way more than a passing attraction. Things were about to become real.

When we came up for air and our lips broke apart again, her eyes were wide, and her breath came in short pants, as if she struggled to get air into her heaving chest.

“What is this all about?” she said, each word sounding more haggard than the last.

“You know damn well what this is,” I said. “It’s the thing I’ve wanted to do ever since I met you.”

“Really? That long?” One corner of her stained mouth turned upward.

“I mean it.” I dropped my mouth next to her left ear. “I want to take you home and make love you until you scream.” I paused. “And then, when you think you’ve had enough, I’m going to do it again. And again…” Another pause. “And again.”

It wouldn’t just be sex for me, and I knew that. It would be more—much more—something I hadn’t done in forever. I’d give Brynn a piece of myself, and there would be no going back afterward.

“You’ve never had it the way I’m going to give it to you,” I said, still whispering. “Let’s go home.”

B
rynn lost her shoes after I closed the front door to my house. She unzipped her outfit by the time we made it halfway up the stairs.

I left my shirt, shoes, and socks at the top of them. The flimsy black strapless bra pushing up Brynn’s breasts found a place on the catwalk railing, and I stepped out of my jeans in the hallway near the master bedroom. We fell onto the master bed with our mouths together and only our underwear left to remove.

I didn’t see anything else anymore. I saw her.

“God, you’re so beautiful,” I said, and she laughed against my mouth.

I pulled myself away from her body, eager to take in the sight of her. Brynn’s hair fanned out from her face and across the soft bedspread. She chewed on her bottom lip as she watched me, and when I couldn’t take it anymore; I pressed my lips against her throat, then traced a small pathway down her collarbone and the top of her chest.

When I tasted her left nipple, she moaned and bucked her hips.

“Yes, Tanner, that’s what I want,” she said from a guttural, deep place inside her throat. She didn’t bother to hide how much she enjoyed this; she wore it across her face, and I felt it in the coolness of her skin. Maybe she’d been thinking about this as long as I had.

We began to move together like two uncaged animals. I lost all train of thought, all perception of time and space. There was nothing but this moment, with this mysterious woman, a woman who had become more than my match.

I toyed with her breasts, licking and sucking them both as her desire for me swelled, and my own hardness grew. I traced a trail of kisses down her flat, taut stomach, and when my mouth arrived at the elastic waistband of her panties, I raised her hips and pulled them off her long legs with my teeth. She groaned and shuddered beneath me.

“I’ve wanted you this whole night,” I said. “I’ve never wanted anyone this badly.”

“I’m ready,” she said. “I want it. Now. Don’t wait.”

That idea tempted me; I was so hard it was almost painful. I wanted to rip my boxer shorts off and shove myself inside her. The thought of her deep, warm, wet pussy made me dangerously close to coming. Had she been just anyone, I would have done it. I would have claimed her immediately.

But this was Brynn Price. This was the woman who had taken a leap of faith, the woman who trusted me and wanted to help me. She deserved more. She deserved extended pleasure.

“Please,” she said. “I want you, Tanner. I want you now.”

I knew she’d given herself over to this moment; I liked that. A lot. Relieved, my lips found her leg and I kissed it, and then moved my kisses up her ankle, calf, and knee. When I reached her inner thigh, she groaned again and begged me to fuck her, but I refused. Instead, I moved my lips the final few inches to the apex of her legs.

I began with one kiss, in the center of her wet, shaking pussy. As I tasted her desire and her creamy wetness, my dick grew harder, but I resisted my instincts and pulled as much as I could from this moment. Delayed gratification was often the best kind.

Brynn spread her legs to give me room, and I went to work pleasing her. I licked and sucked on her pussy, giving it detailed focus as she squirmed and twisted beneath the power of my tongue. When she cried out and insisted she couldn’t take it any longer, I shoved my index finger inside of her and increased the pleasure, pushing and pulling with my finger and tongue until she shuddered in uncontrollable ecstasy.

When we were both naked and I was pleased with my work, I raised up from the edge of the bed and took a condom from my stash in the top drawer of the nightstand. I ripped it open with my teeth and shoved it onto my dick.

“I’ve wanted this for a long time,” I said. “Maybe since the moment I saw you.”

“Really?”

“I knew you were different, and different is exactly what I need.”

We shared another kiss, and I entered her at last. I took one long, deep breath. Then, my body and my mind disappeared as I moved inside of her. Slowly, I pushed in and out, still hoping to lengthen the moment from a few minutes into an hour or more, but it was too much to take. She begged me to go faster and harder, and I did.

We moved together as the moment built. I kissed her again and our tongues twisted together; she spread her legs so I could go deeper. Our bodies had been made for each other, and I had never had it this good.

When the moment came, she orgasmed first, shuddering and crying out as she finished. The sound of her voice pushed me over a cliff and I came, too, losing myself inside of her as everything inside of me released.

It was beautiful. It was scary. I wanted more of it. Immediately.

“That was amazing,” I said.

Too soon, our breathing slowed, and the moment faded. I rolled off her body, took off the used condom, and threw it into the trash. When I turned back to her, we moved under the covers of the bed.

“I didn’t expect this,” she said.

“I did.” I played with her hair, admiring the dark curls. I’d seen plenty of sexy bed head in my day, and this woman would have it for sure the next morning.

“Is that what was going on earlier? You wanted to fuck me?”

I kissed her nose. “That wasn’t fucking.”

“Good, because if you’d said it was, I wouldn’t have believed you.” She pressed her forehead against mine, then after a beat, she kissed me, a small peck across my lips. “But I’m curious. What was it?”

I wrapped my arms around her in the bed. “That was more like… making love.” I paused after the word rolled off my tongue. I couldn’t remember a time when I’d used the phrase before, but nothing else would have described that night. “Fucking is random. That wasn’t random.”

“But we broke the contract, you know.” She grinned. “It said no sex.”

“Hasn’t anyone ever told you? Rules were made to be broken.” I kissed her, longer this time, savoring every millisecond of our connection. “We can break them again if you want.”

A laugh. “I’m sure you’d like that.”

“Anything you want, honey. You’re the boss.”

She settled into me and soon fell asleep. I listened to her contented breathing, and thought about her for a long time. I liked Brynn a lot. Somewhere, in the mess I had made of my life, I’d gotten lucky. I’d found her.

And I was going to show her how much she meant to me.

I
woke up in Tanner’s bed around five thirty the next morning. He’d wrapped his legs and arms around me during the night. I felt his mouth next to my ear, and I heard his breathing. I watched him for a few minutes, and then made a few small and calculated movements to get out of bed without waking him.

Then my gaze fell on the nightstand by Tanner’s bed. A few weeks before, a photo of Lana had adorned it. That morning, though, it was gone.

Things had changed. A lot.

I threw on the extra bathrobe I found in his bathroom and stumbled, bleary-eyed, down the hallway. I picked up pieces of my clothing as I went, and the trail took me back to my purse. Everything went back to the pool house except my cell phone. I took a seat in one of the lounge chairs around the pool and opened the contact list.

Dad picked up in two rings. I knew he’d be awake; he never slept in, even on his off days. His flat Midwestern twang soothed me. “Hello, honey. Been thinkin’ bout you.”

Dad sounded happy to hear from me. This made me feel guiltier for not keeping in touch with him.

“Hey, Dad. I’m sorry I haven’t called.”

We made the usual round of small talk. He planned to go into the auto repair shop around eleven because the owner had offered him an extra shift. He’d started going to AA meetings again and next month would be two months sober. The family across the street had put their house up for sale, making them the latest neighbors to move away from Griffin since the economic downturn. They planned to try their luck in Oklahoma, where the man said he had a job in the oil fields that paid $75,000 a year. Dad would do it, too, if he didn’t have a bad back and deep ties to Griffin, including the fact someone in our family had lived there since 1875. He’d always been so sentimental about that town.

The entire time we talked, I thought about how to break the news to him. Finally, I decided to rip the Band-Aid off as fast as I could.

“I’ve some news of my own, “I said. “I’m dating someone. Someone famous.”

“I know you are, sweetie.” A pause. “You’re Tanner Vance’s latest girlfriend. All anyone around here can talk about.”

Griffin, Ohio, had always seemed like a world away from Los Angeles. Growing up, no one there seemed to care about much of anything beyond the banality of their lives: dead-end jobs, taxes, gossip about people who’d become addicted to heroin, and talk of who played well in the football game Friday night.