Command Performance (17 page)

“Holy fuck, baby. You’re trying to kill me.”

She sighed and ran her fingers over one of his hands. He was crushing her, but it felt kind of good. “I’m sorry I’m so naughty.”

He laughed and rolled off her, then slapped her ass.
Ow. Ooh...
“Liar. You’re not sorry.”

“No, I’m not.”

He curled around her on the floor. She leaned back against him, resting her head on one very strong bicep or tricep or whatever it was. She was exhausted. She was pretty sure she was done for the night. She started to drowse and perhaps he did too, because when his phone buzzed, they both startled awake. He turned her in his arms, gave her a soft, infinitely tender kiss. “So what did you think of all that?”

She grinned. “I liked it.”

“Was I too hard with the strap?”

“You were hard enough that it felt real. I wanted it to feel real, you know?”

“Yes, I do know.”

“So I liked that, even though it hurt more than I thought it would.”

He caressed her hip, her thigh, then tipped her forward to check out her backside. “You’ll have a few marks to remember your first time.”

She sighed, gazing at him in all his sexy perfection. “I don’t mind. But I don’t need anything to make me remember. I’ll never forget.”

He traced her ass cheeks a while longer, to the point where he almost put her to sleep again. “Thank you for being so brave,” he said after a long silence. “For trying this with me. I won’t ever forget either. What a night.” He shook himself to life again and sat up. “I think you’re tired. I know I’m tired. Come on. Shower and bed.”

Miri didn’t argue. The shower was a grope fest, but they were both too wrung out to do anything beyond that. Mason came to bed with a big bowl of strawberries and more champagne, feeding the fruit to her even though she said she was too tired to eat. She’d remember this too, his playfulness, his smile, and tart strawberries and champagne. All of it swam in her mind along with the memory of blue water and sunset, and Mason Cooke sliding into her and filling her up for the first time.

*** *** ***

Mason watched her, spellbound, long after she fell asleep. It was warm and comfortable in the house, with a light breeze, since the windows opened to the sea. There was no need for clothes, no need for blankets. All of them were strewn on the floor so he could look at her entire gorgeous body, from her light blonde hair down to her pretty little toes.

He should be tired. He should be goddamn exhausted but he couldn’t settle down. He kept remembering her tied to the bed on her tummy, her arms and legs straining, gorgeous round ass cheeks reddening as he spanked her. He’d tested her limits and she’d liked it. The noises she made, her reactions... He’d been doing this long enough to tell she’d loved everything he did to her.

So what now?

They were going to be real. This was going to escalate, he could tell that already. She was kinky and sexy enough to satisfy him after all. What had he ever done to be so lucky?

Mason frowned as his phone buzzed again. He shouldn’t have even brought it. For a moment he considered throwing it out the door into the whispering waves of the ocean, but that would just make more work for his assistant, buying and setting up another phone. Against his better judgment, he eased off the bed and picked it up. A call from his mom. God bless her. A call from Gareth, which he could return later. Four calls and five texts from Shane Greenberg.

Fuck.

CALL ME.

CALL ME NOW.

MASON COOKE, GODDAMN YOU. TURN ON YOUR GODDAMN PHONE.

YOU’RE NOT ALONE ON THAT ISLAND. THERE ARE PHOTOS.

The one after that had no text, just an attachment. Mason opened it and his whole world went red. He stared at it, not willing to believe. It was a photo of him and Miri on the beach, a crystal clear capture. They were stark naked, walking toward the house hand in hand. He threw the phone down and stalked outside, stormed around the side of the house to the place the trees and bushes started. “Come out, you goddamn motherfucker,” he yelled. “Come out and face me! I know you’re there. I’m going to find out who the fuck you are and nail your fucking ass to the wall.”

He stormed around to the other side. How dare someone invade their privacy like this? The photos were already sold. If Shane had them, a news organization had sent them over. “Come out,” he yelled again, glaring into the dark on the other side of the house. He was so furious he wanted to raze the scrubby tropical forest with his two hands, shake out any photog still hiding there. He would rip off his head and jam it into a coconut and throw it out into the ocean.

“Come the fuck out, you cowardly motherfucking asshole!” He raged at the faceless threat, suffocating with helplessness. “How would you feel if someone was doing this to you? Why can’t you show some fucking consideration and let us enjoy one fucking private moment without ruining it?” He kicked the sand in emphasis, sending it flying. His voice echoed in the stillness of the night, and then there was Miri’s voice from the porch, soft and scared.

“Mason?”

“Go back inside, baby. Put on some clothes.”

“What’s wrong?”

“We’re not alone here, that’s what’s wrong. Someone’s taking pictures of us.”

There was a pause. She backed a little closer to the door. “Please come inside with me. I’m scared.”

Fuck, now Miri was scared. Fucking assholes. It wasn’t one person. It took a team to pull off an invasion of privacy like this. He’d tried so hard to be careful, to be secretive, all for nothing. Someone was going to pay. He would sort through the red tape and false names and find out who’d taken the photo, who’d made it possible and who’d bought it. He’d sue the publishers, the magazines, the people who manufactured the fucking camera. It was too much.

“Mason? Please.”

Miri needed him. She was scared. He had to pull it together. He went to the door and ushered her back inside. All the windows were wide open, so it was silly to lock the door, but he did. He wondered if the photographer had crept to the house and taken more photos from the window, photos of them inside. They wouldn’t sell. Selling photos of people outdoors was one thing, selling photos of someone having sex in a private home was trickier. But the photos could be there. On someone’s memory stick, on someone’s hard drive. The person could be masturbating to them right now. Mason collapsed in a chair and buried his head in his hands.
Miri, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for this.

He felt a light touch on his back. “What happened? Who’s out there?” she whispered.

He turned and caught her in his arms, settling her in his lap. She trembled against him. He rocked her, smoothing back her hair. “It’s just pictures, honey. I’m sorry I lost my temper. I really lost it, but I’m okay now. I’m sorry I scared you.”

“Pictures of what?” she asked.

“Pictures of us. Outside,” he added, to reassure her a little. Although he didn’t believe for a second that was all there was. Maybe there would be blackmail attempts. Maybe the photos would be leaked, passed around virally, visible to anyone with an Internet connection.

It was too late now. He should have known better. Even here he should have known better than to do all those things with open doors and open windows. He’d read somewhere that a person was never more than six feet from a spider. He thought he was probably never more than six yards from a photographer.

“What’s going to happen?” she asked. “There are pictures of us out there? From...here?”

“Of us on the beach, yes. They’ve been sold. They’ll probably be published in a thousand papers with our private parts blurred out.”

“But who took them? Who sold them?”

“I don’t know, but we’ll find out. We’ll sue the shit out of someone and we’ll win, but that doesn’t matter now. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” she said, just as he knew she would. He couldn’t argue with her tonight. He couldn’t spend his rage on her, because one thing was certain. It wasn’t her fault.

“Please, don’t worry.” He stroked her face and squeezed her again. “Let’s go to bed. Let’s put it out of our minds and worry about it in the morning. Today was such a great day. I don’t want it to be ruined now.”

“Nothing could ruin it,” she said staunchly. “Nothing could ruin this day for me. Everything will be okay.”

He wished he believed her. They huddled together—under the covers now—and Mason wished for everything to be okay, but he had a sinking feeling it wouldn’t be. He’d tried to use the press for his purposes, and now it was backfiring on him. He’d thought he could manipulate them with no repercussions on his end. Play the fame game and not get burned by it.

He supposed the hardest thing was that, in some way, this invasion of privacy felt deserved.

Mason slouched down in the back of the studio car, exhausted. It had only been a month since their getaway to Cap Camil, but it seemed like forever. He needed another goddamn vacation—uninterrupted this time. He needed Miri. Miri waited at home for him, available, open and sweet.

And unhappy.

Miri was unhappy. She tried not to show it, but she was. He couldn’t solve the problem, couldn’t fix it, so it remained there, one more stress on top of everything else. He was back on set in another film, but Miri wasn’t getting work, and it was probably his fault. The papers had grown increasingly unkind over the past month, smearing her as a gold digger and career opportunist. The naked photos hadn’t helped. Their trip away was painted as a kinky sex slave initiation, with the two of them cavorting naked on the beach. So much for cleaning up his image.

The agency responsible for the photos settled quickly and privately for a large amount of money, which Mason funneled to charity. It was the only positive thing about the whole debacle. It didn’t make the photos go away or anything. The uncensored versions still floated around online and probably would forever.

Miri moved into his place so they could spend time together outside the spotlight, but their romance felt a lot less like forever and a lot more like,
let’s try to survive this
. The sex was good, and they cared for each other, but some part of their relationship still felt like a performance. They rarely went out anymore because they didn’t want to face the paps and act happy when...well...they weren’t. Mason kept his head down and worked, and used sex to cling to her, but how long was that going to sustain them?

Miri didn’t even have work to prop her up.

He should have broken up with her weeks ago. It would have been the merciful thing to do. He should have let her go after the nude photo disaster sent things skidding sideways. It would have been kinder to her. It would have allowed her to distance herself from him and regroup. He knew Miri’s father was pushing her to break up with him. Shane Greenberg called him every day and told him to break up with her, that she was dragging him down.

So why hadn’t he broken up with her?

It wasn’t just for the sex, the comfort. He tried to convince himself of that. He really did like her. Maybe he loved her. God, he didn’t know. There were too many other things going on with them to figure out how they felt about each other. Add in the professional jealousy she felt—he didn’t blame her at all for that—and they had a nearly untenable situation.

Still, he couldn’t seem to let her go.

And she didn’t go. Every day he came home and expected her to be gone. Things weren’t going to get any easier. When this film wrapped, he had two more on the schedule, projects he’d lined up before he’d even met her. There were premieres, junkets, special events, awards ceremonies scheduled through summer and into fall.

“Mason,” she told him once as they lay in bed together. “I feel like I’m losing myself a little more every day.”

She said stuff like that but then she backtracked. She’d make calls, get out there and go to auditions. Then there’d be the letdown.
You’re not right for this part. We’ll be in touch for our next project.
Mason remembered how wrenching that rejection felt and he hated seeing her go through it. He commiserated with her, but he also felt at fault. Why couldn’t he get her good parts? Why couldn’t he promote her?

Because his own stock in Hollywood was more and more at risk.

He needed to talk to someone. He thought of Jeremy Gray, but he didn’t want to drag him into this. Satya? It was late. She’d be annoyed, but once he got home, he headed over to her house. Satya would help him sort through all this, because she was direct and insightful and she wasn’t afraid of hurting his feelings by telling him the god-awful truth of things. He hadn’t talked to her in so long. In a way, he’d felt too embarrassed to talk to her. He was embarrassed to tell her, or any of his friends, how fucked up his life had become. Even now, he didn’t know what he would tell her.

He rang the bell and waited, rubbing at the tension in his neck. Satya took one look at his face and let him in, no questions asked.

“Would you like a drink or would you like to sober up?” she asked, leading him into her living room. He collapsed on her sofa.

“I’m not drunk.”

“You look like hell then. Did the Virgin Miri finally leave you?”

Mason shot her a look. “She hasn’t been a virgin in a while.”

“I just like calling her that.” Satya narrowed her eyes at him. “I’ll make some coffee then, while you tell me what’s wrong. And get your feet off my couch,” she called over her shoulder as she bustled to her kitchen.

Mason kicked off his shoes and, at Satya’s glare, carried them to the mat by the door. He joined her in the kitchen, sitting on a bar stool at the counter. He rubbed his face and raked his hands through his hair. “Sats, I’m all fucked up.”

She watched him for a moment. “I could say something really mean.”

“Don’t. I’m sure it won’t be anything I haven’t already said to myself.”

“This is what you get for trying that obnoxious stunt with Mireille Durand. You should have laid low and let the gossip die out.”