Command Performance (12 page)

They hung up a moment later after exchanging goodbyes. He barely knew her, but he was falling for her. He was going to sleep with her, it was already decided, yet they were preserving some strange formality between them as if... As if to do otherwise might endanger them both.

They were working together to fool people, but Mason had the uneasy feeling they were going to end up fools themselves.

*** *** ***

Mason picked her up the following Saturday in the studio car, ushered her into the back seat looking suave in a dark blue suit and tie. Miri had on some designer number, one of the many garments that had accumulated at her house. As always, she felt fluttery and breathless just being near him.

In contrast, Mason seemed withdrawn. Somber. He gazed at her across the darkness of the sedan’s back seat. “Thanks for coming out with me tonight. For playing along with this.”

She looked down at her hands. “Two actors. You’d think we’d do better at convincing people.”

“You’re doing fine,” he said a little sharply. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to try harder, or do better. I just want you to be yourself. I want to take you dancing tonight, Miri. Not for PR. Well, for PR, but...”

“I understand.”

He leaned forward and put his head in his hands. “I’m glad you do, because I don’t.”

She moved toward him, right against his side. “You know what? I’m excited about going dancing.”

He looked up and drew her close, pressing his lips to her temple for a lingering kiss. “I promise I’ll put an arm around your waist, and hold your other hand warm and tight, and hold you right against me. But we have to fix something first.”

Miri touched her hair, her face. “What? Is my makeup bad? I should have used your stylist.”

“Shh.” He reached under her skirt, slid a palm up her thigh and hooked a finger into the waistband of her panties. “It’s just that I don’t want you wearing these.”

“But—”

“They’re coming off,” he insisted. He slid them down, nudging her hands away when she tried to stop him, and slipped the small ball of silk into his inside breast pocket. He patted it a couple times. “I’ll keep them safe for you. Forever. Honestly, I doubt I’ll give them back.”

The dress’s fabric felt strange against her bare ass, and the way he watched her made her feel ashamed and excited at the same time. “Those are one of my favorite pairs,” she protested.

“My favorite pair now,” he answered with a smile.

The dance club turned out to be a private bar in West Hollywood, housed in the basement of one of those uber-pricey, uber-hip hotels that were as expensive as they were quirky. Miri loved The Riff-Raff Room from the moment the doormen let them into the small, dim space.

There was actually no riff-raff. No crowds, no sleazy players. The couples and groups in the bar were obviously carefully screened guests, all of them elegant and stylish. They were couth enough to leave her and Mason alone, although a few exchanged low-key smiles and greetings. Looking around the room, Miri guessed many of the bar’s guests were even wealthier than Mason. Definitely wealthier than her.

There was a space in the middle where couples danced to slow, jazzy music, but everyone else lingered in alcoves built into the walls, drinking cocktails and chatting. Miri didn’t see anyone smoking but a haze still lingered in the air. The furnishings were huge and solid, and every surface that could be velvet-upholstered
was
velvet-upholstered. Heavy matching curtains flanked the tables and booths, in colors like ruby, deep purple, and black. A three-piece band in the corner played old love songs and standards. A thin, pretty vocalist sang a good bit of them in breathy French.

Mason sat close to her in their secluded booth. He looked so sexy and relaxed, martini in hand, mouth crooked up in a sultry pout. He watched her look around and smiled whenever she smiled. She was very aware she wasn’t wearing panties under her dress. Whenever she shifted, rearranging her skirts, he got a predatory glint in his eye.

Miri realized that for the last hour or so, she’d forgotten all about the reason they were here. To be seen together, to look intimate and loved up in front of the people who were most likely to talk about it and be believed. Somehow, he managed to make her forget about their pact and the act they were supposed to be putting on...because for her it wasn’t an act anymore. It never had been, if she was honest with herself.

Oh God, and she was going to sleep with this man. She wanted to do it now, this moment, wanted to do it every moment they spent together. The intimate ways he played with her only made the craving harder to ignore.

She jumped, jolted from her thoughts as he ran a finger up her inner thigh beneath the skirt of her dress. He chuckled at her reaction as he stroked her bare skin. She reached for her champagne, took a gulp and nearly choked on it. Tingling alcohol shot up into her nose and she sneezed twice into a cocktail napkin. If anyone was taking pictures, this was probably the moment they’d capture, the one that would be in all the papers. She looked up at Mason who was, appropriately, laughing at her.

“I don’t know. This may be too slick a place for me,” Miri said when she was finally composed again.

“You’re adorable.” His voice was warm, like melted chocolate.

She looked down at his hand, still stroking her thigh under her dress. “Teddy bears are adorable. Toddlers are adorable.”

“Then you’re sexy,” he countered, his voice taking on a rougher edge. “You’re the sexiest woman here.”

“That is definitely not true.”

Her breath stuttered as one of his long, deft fingers brushed across her mons and dipped just inside her pussy lips. “Open your legs for me, sexy girl,” he said.

Miri tensed. “Someone will see.”

“I don’t care. Open your legs for me.”

She inched her legs apart, trembling. She loved this and hated it at the same time. He had no shame, but she did. “What are you going to do to me?” she whispered.

“Nothing,” he whispered back. “I just wanted to see if you’d obey me.” He pressed a finger against her clit, just for a moment. She took a deep breath, embarrassed by how wet she was. Her hormones, her adrenaline, her brain, all of it totally haywire with a mixture of terror and desire.

“What are you thinking?”

Her eyes shot to his. She decided to tell him the truth. “I was thinking how hot it makes me feel when you tell me to do stuff. I shouldn’t like being ordered around. Should I?”

He leaned close to her, caressing her thigh again. Each stroke set off a harder pulse in her pussy. When he spoke, she had to concentrate really hard to untangle his words.

“You can’t help what you like,” he said. “Your body knows what you want. To be good in bed, to be sexually satisfied, you have to listen to what your body tells you and put all the
shouldn’t
s and
don’t-know
s away. If you want to learn about sex, that’s lesson number one. I don’t want to hear anything more about what you should and shouldn’t like, or there will be consequences. Do you understand?”

Consequences.
Oh my God. She stared up at him, transfixed by his expression. Such intensity there, and yet tenderness too. He enjoyed this, holding power over her, making her sweat and squirm and fear and lust for him.

“Do you want to dance, baby?” She released a long breath. Yes, she wanted to dance. Yes, anything to get out of this booth and have something to do besides dream about him pulling her under the table and fucking her senseless.

Oh, but the dancing was much, much worse. He drew her to the middle of the floor where everyone could see them, and wrapped an arm around her waist, smiling down at her. She put a hand on his shoulder. He was so hard, so strong, his body like steel against hers and yet so warm and sexy. Mason Cooke. Sometimes it still hit her out of the blue. She was dancing with
Mason Cooke
. She opened her mouth and shut it again.

“Give me your hand, baby.”

She did, and he held it exactly the way she’d fantasized, in a strong, encompassing grip that made her feel desired and safe. She couldn’t look away from his face, from his smile. It was a knowing smile. But what did he actually know? That she was falling in love with him? Or only that her pussy had been wet as an ocean as he’d caressed her back in the booth?

People swayed around them, in similarly intimate clinches. Did they desire one another as much as she desired Mason? The band played
At Last
, a song Miri had always loved.
At last, my love has come along...
So blissful and sultry. She rested her head on his chest and drifted. This was just like in her dream, only then her dance partner hadn’t had a face, or such an awesome body, and hadn’t smelled as deliciously masculine as Mason with his designer cologne. She wished she could run her fingers up into his soft, dark hair. But that would be too much. If she did that, she’d have to run it down his muscular back and then down to grab his ass and then—

“What are you thinking?” he asked again.

She stared up at him. “I’m thinking you ask me that too much. And I’m thinking this is really, really nice, dancing with you.”

“Nice, huh?” His eyes twinkled and his lips turned up at the edges. He squeezed her hand and kissed it. “Everything you dreamed?”

She shivered. They were only here to convince people. Right? So why did this have to feel so perfect? She gazed into his eyes, feeling sadness and wonderment too. She breathed in slowly, then let it out. “It’s so much more than what I dreamed. Thanks, Mason.”

His body tightened and his hand tensed around hers. “If you keep looking at me like that, I’ll have to drag you out to the car.” He guided her head back against his chest and held her tight. The waif-like songstress started another French song, but it barely registered. Miri was much more compelled at the moment by Mason’s hard length pressing against her front with every sensuous sway of his hips. They danced for three songs. Four. Erotic tension grew between them. Her body ached every time she met his gaze.

“We need to go soon,” he said finally. “Like, now. Are you ready?”

Thank God.
“I’m ready.”

He took her hand and led her from the room, down a quiet corridor to an iron flight of stairs. They climbed together to the exit.

“Good night, Mr. Cooke,” one of the doormen said. They pushed open the wide steel doors and Mason ushered her through. That was when the world exploded into pushing, screaming, and flashing lights.

“Jesus Christ,” Mason hissed. He pushed her behind him as the crowd surged forward. “Help me!”

At first Miri thought he was yelling at her to help, but then the doormen materialized at their sides, trying to box out the photographers. It was two men against what seemed like a hundred. “Come on,” Mason yelled at her. She flinched as he stepped on her foot, then she tripped and almost went down. There was a rabid heat coming off the crowd as it surged forward. Mason put his arms around her and shouldered through the mass of photographers only to realize they’d surrounded the car.

“We need a cab,” he barked to one of the doormen. Miri felt a camera bump her head, felt someone pulling her arm. She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t think, and then she was falling into the back seat of a Hollywood taxi. Mason came behind her, slamming the door. “Go! Just get out of here,” he snapped at the driver. “God damn it.” He turned back to Miri. “Fucking Shane. I told him where we were going, but I didn’t know it would be like that. If I knew, I would have snuck you out some other way. I’m sorry.”

Miri stared at Mason, trying to make sense of the hysteria they’d just encountered. She couldn’t stop shaking. She tried, but she couldn’t. Holy fuck.

*** *** ***

Mason turned off his phone and turned off his brain and held Miri until she stopped trembling. He had the cab bring her to his house, where he helped her undress and fussed over her foot and apologized a thousand times for the bedlam outside the club. She finally put her fingers over his lips and said, “Look on the bright side. They seem to believe us now.”

She always looked on the bright side, his lovely sidekick. Just like that, the incident was behind them, erased by her patient smile.

He took her to bed, needing to be tender and sweet to her. Needing to worship her. If that crush had happened to Jess through some fault of his, his ex would have tormented him for weeks. She would have found ways to get back at him, devious, cruel ways that required lots of planning. Miri just cracked a joke, smiled at him, and moved on. God, what a miracle she was.

He stripped her bare, stripped himself too, trusting himself not to lose control. He wanted her so bad. He wanted to fall on her and destroy her pussy. Instead he held her, kissed and caressed her. He pushed her back on the bed and pinned her arms so they were spread wide on either side of her, then he knelt between her legs, stroking his cock, praying for calm. “Don’t move an inch, baby. Nothing. Perfectly still.” He watched her a moment to be sure she’d listen.

Her eyes were wide, curious. Her breathless little pants slaughtered him. Her mouth fell open and Mason had crass thoughts about driving into it until his cock hit the back of her throat. Instead he grabbed her legs, draped them up over his shoulders and lowered his mouth to her pussy. It was one of his favorite things, going down. They hadn’t gotten to it yet, but Jesus, it was time.

“Are you— Mason—” He paused, looking up at her. “No one’s ever done this to me.”

“And?”

It took a moment for the wheels to turn. “You’re going to do it to me now?”

“Yes. I’m going to lick your pussy until you come.” He took her legs again, drawing her near to his mouth.

“But—”

“But what?” he asked with a groan. He couldn’t wait to taste her, to show her how much her patience and kindness mattered to him.

“I’m not sure…”

Silly girl. When he used to do this to Jessamine, she’d raise the roof with her screams. “We made a deal, yes?” he reminded her. “I’m supposed to teach you about sex. Now lie back and be still like I asked. I guarantee you’ll like this.”