Live Love Rewind: The Three Lives of Leah Preston (20 page)

Bastard memory.

Out loud, she said, “Give me time.”

Time.
She remembered, years ago, sitting beside Tanner as he drove them out to Butch Longenecker’s abandoned ranch. Then, too, she’d been thinking of time.

*

Longenecker’s Ranch

It’s time, Tanner Boyd,
she thought that hot summer day.
Aren’t you ever going to make a move?

They’d been together for two months now, and she was ready to go beyond deep kisses and heavy petting. With the sun filling the sky, it wasn’t difficult to entice Tanner into the ranch’s pond. Her cream-colored bra was exposed as she bobbed happily on the surface. She knew he had no idea that she’d pulled her panties off and sent them to the muddy floor of the waterhole.

“Tanner,” she called out to him. He drifted over slowly, his muscular arms and wide chest making her want him all the more.

His hands went beneath the surface and she felt his fingers curl around her bare buttocks. Realizing that he’d found skin instead of fabric, he smiled.

Holding onto his waist, she felt his sex, instantly rock hard and ready. She’d had no idea that he’d pulled his briefs off, too.

His legs kicking lazily at the water, keeping them afloat, she felt his cock brush her as he lifted her up. A moment later, she felt him enter her.

“You’re so…big,” she blurted. “So thick.”

Her body stretched to accept him. Cool liquid around her, her cunt felt as if it were burning. He filled her completely. Repositioning his hands, he drew her still closer. Slowly, his hips began to pump.

It was an odd sensation, as if his shaft had become a part of her. Even as he gently moved inside her, she could feel his legs working to keep them above the water.

He kept her ass in his grip. The burning feeling faded, replaced by a different kind of heat. His cock caressed her, fantastic and gloriously large, stroking and pleasing her. Tanner began to thrust with more urgency, his own lust growing and his dick, wonderfully, even harder.

Leah threw her arms around his neck. In the middle of nowhere, no one watching them, she whispered in his ear, “Go ahead.”

“You – ?”

“I don’t. I can’t.” She knew she could have faked orgasm. He was close to coming; if she pretended to join in, would he even know?

She wasn’t willing to play that game. Not with Tanner.

“I don’t think so.” He pulled out from her.

“Don’t!” Leah said, a little too loudly. “I still like it. A lot.”

He bent into the pond, his tight, bare butt flashing her as he dove underwater.

“Tanner?” Seconds later, she felt his mouth on her. “You’ll drown!”

He didn’t drown. He felt so very, very good….

*

That afternoon had been remarkable. So much better than what she’d experienced this evening.

Slipping the strap of her purse onto her shoulder, Leah bent over Danny and yanked his short hair. He sat up sharply, his eyes wide. “What?”

“I was just thinking about tonight,” Leah said. “I’ll never forget it.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Sleepily, he hoisted himself out of the water. “Me, too.”

He sat on the edge of platform, his physique an artist’s dream. His shriveled penis drooped sadly, as if aware that it hadn’t lived up to expectations.

Danny rubbed at his scalp, apparently deciding that a hair tug after sex was another of Leah’s personal kinks. “Hey, if the movie goes into production, I’ve got the part, right?”

The Southern accent teased at her. His face and his body remained the living embodiment of Raymond Service.

“You’re trouble,” she reminded him.

“I’ll behave,” he said. “Promise.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” 

No matter what she said this evening, she knew there was no guarantee he’d get the role. As a fledgling producer, her casting choices were suspect. Besides, if her company found a powerful director willing to shepherd the film, he or she would make the final decision in regards to the star.

She’d already learned that very few screenplays actually went into production. When they did, they only featured a cable star in the lead when they were low budget films.

Not this time,
Leah thought.
To do things right, this picture has to cost tens of millions. Which means, the financiers will want a major name to star in the picture.

Considering his career to date, Danny didn’t come close to fitting the criteria. Uncomfortably, she realized why she’d actually wanted to meet him. Despite her own internal protests, she hadn’t done any of this for career reasons. Danny’s face and body had aroused her and she’d wanted to get laid.

The promise of a job was her bait to get through his trailer door. A few glasses of wine had brought them both into his hot tub.

Really, she was no better than he was.

Chapter Seven

A few months later,
King and Country
was officially canceled. The announcement garnered a small headline and a few inches of print in the trade magazines, barely catching Leah’s attention. She was too busy to give it much thought, trying to steer her first project through the shoals of preproduction.

Everything had come into place once Gil sent the project to Clinton LeForte. At least three different studios wanted a piece of the cinema’s hottest director and each had offered him their top projects. Not even Gil expected the mercurial genius to respond so favorably to a bare knuckle thriller set in the swamps.

Budget considerations vanished once he signed on. No one objected when LeForte agreed with Leah that Danny Kucera would be perfect for the lead role. There was some hesitation when the director insisted on using his superstar model girlfriend as the tale’s love interest but even those objections disappeared when her audition tape was actually good.

Gil couldn’t believe their good fortune. “It’s not usually this easy.”

“So why aren’t you smiling?” Leah asked.

“I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

Despite his pessimistic outlook, Gil and Leah started spending money. Their company signed a crew that included LeForte’s favorite but pricey cinematographer. They gave a pay-or-play deal to entice an Oscar-winning actor to be the story’s villain, Sonsev. They’d extended their credit line as far as they could when LeForte sent a short, terse text:

I’m out.

It didn’t matter if all of the elements were in place. Regardless of their commitments, he was walking from the project.

He’d broken up with his girlfriend.

At the moment they could least afford it, the other shoe had dropped.

“Our deal’s ironclad,” Leah told LeForte. “We’ll bump everything back a few weeks and replace Tasha.”

“I only agreed to do the picture because of her. She’s the one who wanted it.”

“Insurance won’t cover what we’ve spent. Won’t come close.”

He rolled his eyes, not caring.

Leah said, “You’re going to cripple my company.”

“Don’t you understand?” he asked peevishly. “This whole deal was my way to keep us together. It didn’t work, okay?”

“That’s not good enough.” Leah fought to control her emotions. She’d worked so hard for this and everything was about to vanish. She felt angry and frightened.

LeForte’s thin lips curled upward in a parody of a smile. “Are you going to cry for me, Lee-Lee?”

He’d discovered that the nickname annoyed her and, as a result, used it frequently. It was another thing that pissed her off.

“Am I going to see a tear?” he mocked. On those words, her fright vanished.

“Tears?” Leah responded. “Not even close. I’m going to sue you for everything you’ve got, you pig. When my lawyers get done with you, you’ll be lucky to get a job directing a YouTube video.”

His pale face grew paler. Pinching back any further reply, he hurried from her office.

Meanly, she wondered,
Are you going to cry for me, Clinton? Am I going to see a tear?

As the lawsuits started flying, LeForte reconciled with his girlfriend. Gil stepped in, soothing hurt feelings, and the production returned to life.
To Protect and Service
was finally underway.

The movie’s director had only one, nonnegotiable demand: Leah Preston wasn’t to be on the set. In fact, he didn’t want her on any of his sets anywhere, now or in the future, forever and ever, amen.

Leah felt she could live with that.

Chapter Eight

“I don’t know if I can go without you, Leah,” Gil told her. He leaned back in his padded desk chair. “The backwoods of Mississippi is no place for a city boy.”

“Nothing frightens you, Gil. You’re ex-Marine.”

“Sweetheart, that’s another reason I love you. Lies glide off your sweet tongue and sound almost sincere.” Lifting a big hand, he wiggled his fingers at her. “See these nails? Manicured. You know why?”

“You’re a stylish metrosexual?”

“I’m scared.”

Leah wasn’t sure how to respond to this. Gil was her rock, unflappable and never flustered.

“You’re in the office every day, sweetness, you read the trades, you think you know what’s going on.” He feigned surprise at her innocence. “That’s not how things work in this industry.”

“Tell me all, Obi-Wan Buntich.”

“If someone wants to hear the latest scoop, they get their hair done. Their nails. They get a new suit tailored or they buy an expensive lunch. The hair stylist, the manicurist, the waitress, they hear things. If someone is half-decent to them, they’ll tell you what the buzz is around your project.”

Leah wasn’t as green as Gil pretended. She knew this stuff but she also knew he needed to talk.

Gil loved to talk.

He said, “You want to know what the town is saying about our flick?”

“Rising star, great screenplay, interesting location?”

“They say the title sounds like a porn film.”

“There’s a whole series of novels about Raymond Service. Every book has ‘Service’ in the title. There’s
Service, Please,
and
Service Without a Smile
, and –”

“
To Protect and Service
,” Gil said. “I know, I’ve read ‘em. Read the coverage, anyway. Those are just the books. We have to sell tickets to everybody, not just the Ray Service fans.”

“So it’s a working title.”

“People are saying that filming on location is a huge gamble. Do you know Mississippi has hurricanes and cyclones? Sure, you do, you grew up there.”

“This isn’t the season.”

“It remains a concern. Filming in and around water is always a risk. Some say this is going to be
Jaws
in a swamp, complete with its own malfunctioning mechanical creature.” 

“That’s not fair,” Leah protested.

“Neither of our leads has ever carried a movie. A real flick, not one of those direct-to-DVD things. Our Oscar-winner plays a villain and our second biggest name, the only other true movie star we have, gets killed off before the thirty minute mark.”

“Nobody will expect it. People love surprises.”

Gil chewed on a manicured nail. “The Groundhog State is a long way from here but you convinced me to send our crew into the wilderness. It’s not cheap, sending a union crew that far from home. Even with foreign sales, our business is on the line. We can’t afford any new problems.”

“My mentor told me, it takes money to make money.”

“Your mentor is an ass,” her mentor said. “I’m all in, honey. I’ve got your back. I just wish you could be there with me.”

“The director hates me.”

“You insulted him.”

“I never did. I said he was a useless sack of steaming cow manure.” Leah would never forget how Clinton LeForte had tried to abandon the picture, nearly killing it. “I was under oath, Gil. I had to tell the truth.”

“Well, the lawsuit worked. He’s ours now.” There was absolutely no joy in his statement. “This was supposed to be your production. Your material, your home turf, your handpicked star. Your everything.”

“Not my director.”

“No, the useless sack of steaming cow manure was my call,” Gil admitted. “I’m paying for it now.” His big frame sagged in the large chair.

“The picture is going to be great,” Leah said brightly. She hoped it was true. “Danny is going to be a big star.”

“Funny how nobody else has picked up on that,” he said. “Kucera played a bad boy on his cable series. Some say, there were times he forgot he was acting.”

“A lot of girls like bad boys.”

“I’ll bet you did, too, once upon a time. I know he’s got charisma. I know he dazzles on screen. I just wonder what’s going to happen once we start shooting.”