She's All In: Club 3, Book 1 (30 page)

Realizing the poetic nature of her thoughts, she blushed, glad no one else could see in the dim, flickering light of the torches. Good grief, next she’d be putting it to music and playing the ukulele in the moonlight.

She opened the nearest door into a quiet sitting room now in shadows. She bumped an end table, and something fell with a rustle to the woven floor mat. Melia fumbled for the nearest lamp and snapped it on. A sketchbook lay on the floor, a page poking out as if torn.

Bending, she picked it up and opened it, then blinked in surprise as she gazed at a pencil sketch of the bay, obviously done by someone on the front lanai. The sketch was rough, as if it had been done quickly, but even to her untutored eye, it was very good.

She sank onto the rattan settee next to the lamp and turned the page. Another sketch of the bay, like the first, only a little more refined, the black lava rocks shaded in, the palm trees textured. Were these by the same artist whose work hung on the walls?

She flipped to the next page and the next. To her disappointment, all were bare, except the loose one. As she pulled the page carefully from the sketchbook, she caught her breath. This sketch was of a woman. She was seated on a rock, foliage behind her, her head bent. She held a single flower in her hands, and she looked down at it with dreamy concentration. Her shoulders were bare, a few vague lines suggesting she was nude.

Melia narrowed her eyes. The woman’s hair was undefined, her features only a few tender lines. And yet she looked somehow familiar.

The edge of the paper was crumpled, as if the artist had begun to discard it and then changed his or her mind. A little guiltily, Melia set the sketchbook back on the end table, the sketch of the woman still in her hand.

The artist had nearly thrown it away. Surely he or she wouldn’t miss it if she just enjoyed it while she was here. She’d return it before she left.

She went to her room. After setting the sketch carefully on her bedside table, she readied herself for bed, her mind full of the activities and tensions of the day. When she closed her eyes, she felt as if she were still in the water, being rocked gently by the waves. She turned onto her side and hugged the extra pillow to her.

She dreamed of Malu.

He lounged in the shade of the beach palms, smiling lazily at her, even though Cherie and Jacquie snuggled close at his sides in their bikinis.

Melia walked toward him, drawn by a force beyond her control. His dark eyes slid down over her in a caress as strong as if he had stroked her with his hand. Heady triumph filled her—he wanted her, even with the other women available.

He beckoned her with one finger.

Her heart beat in slow, heavy strokes. She knew what he wanted. Slowly, she lifted her hands to the ties of her bikini top and unfastened them. The top dangled from her fingertips, then fell to the sand, leaving her breasts bare to his gaze. Her nipples hardened, thrusting toward him, feeling his gaze like a caress as soft as the fresh flower lei she wore.

He gestured again, and, naughty excitement flooding her, she hooked her fingers in her bikini bottoms and slowly pushed them down until they fell in a soft puddle around her bare feet. As his hot gaze fell to her mons, she caught her breath, trembling with the force of her excitement and arousal. She felt daring, free, and so turned on her legs were weak.

In the perverse way of dreams, she suddenly realized that Dane sat nearby, watching her with an enigmatic look on his tanned face.
Clay and Jimmer were there too, smiling avidly.

Uncertainty filled her. She looked back at Malu, and he smiled as Cherie and Jacquie pressed close to him, their hands all over him.

With a whimper of sheer humiliation, Melia turned to run.

She’s got the moves. He’s got the heat. Will their hearts catch the rhythm?

The Princess and the Porn Star

© 2013 Lauren Gallagher

Rachel Taylor’s manager has to be kidding. A porn star dancing beside her in her next music video? She didn’t claw her way back from near obscurity in the pop music world only to become a laughingstock all over again.

Yet the moment she meets Lee, a.k.a. the infamous Buck Harder, their chemistry sizzles. There’s much more to the man behind the stage name than the obvious attributes that make him so successful, and soon she’s fantasizing about sharing more than just a stage.

In only a few steps, they find a perfect, dance-floor groove hot enough to melt the camera lens. But when the video’s release blows up in their faces, her record label exercises an obscure but ironclad clause—stay away from each other. Or else.

Meeting in secret seems the most delicious solution. But they can’t hide this kind of heat for long…and when the paparazzi sniff them out, she realizes choosing to stay with the man she’s fallen for could cause her to fall off the pop music map—permanently.

Warning: Let’s just say there’s a reason Buck Harder went into his line of work, and it ain’t his pretty smile. Wink wink.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
The Princess and the Porn Star:

Thank God Olivia was halfway across the room when I first saw her. And thank God there were people, equipment and cords between here and there, because that gave me half a minute or so to get my tongue untied before I reached her.

It wasn’t like I’d never seen her before. Not in person, maybe, but back when she was famous the first time, I’d been a fan. And maybe, just maybe, I’d kind of had a crush on her. At one time. A long time ago.

So when I found out I’d be working with her, I’d fully expected to be a little starstruck, but this? Holy shit.

The pretty-in-pink image she’d had back then was long gone. Her hair was darker now and longer, tied back in a messy ponytail. And that dress. Christ. It was the kind of look that could be slutty or it could be sexy, and on her, it was definitely the latter. Her breasts weren’t falling out of it, and it wasn’t so short it looked like it was meant for someone half her height. Sexy and provocative but tasteful at the same time.

Olivia Taylor had grown the fuck up.

She looked healthier now too. That last year before she fell off the radar, she’d been scary thin and pale. Even before that, she’d always been just thin enough to keep eating disorder and—especially toward the end—drug abuse rumors flying. She was still slim now, but her face wasn’t gaunt anymore, and the way her hips and waist curved inside that dress made my mouth water. And I was going to be dancing with her? With my hands on her while I wore tight leather pants?

God help me.

I stepped around a ladder and over a cord, and there we were.

“Hi,” I said.

She responded with a thin smile and a quiet, “Hi.”

“So you’re Olivia.” I extended my hand. “Buck Harder.”

She shook my hand. “I’m Olivia, yes. Well, Rachel.”

“It’s nice to meet you.”

“You too.” She let go of my hand, and I didn’t miss the hint of a smirk. I was used to that. Price you pay for a stage name like mine. I supposed I could have made things easier by telling her my real name, but that was something I kept guarded. The fewer people who knew Buck Harder was really Lee Peyton, the better.

“So, um…” I cleared my throat and glanced at the half-constructed stage. How the hell was I supposed to make conversation with this woman? Without saying something like,
You’re even hotter in person
or,
Holy shit, you look goood in leather
?

Just before I could open my mouth and make an ass of myself, Jim, the director, broke in. “Oh good. You two have been introduced.” He put one hand on my shoulder and the other on Olivia’s. “Pretty straightforward, what you’ll be doing up there”—with his chin, he gestured toward the stage—“but we’ll also be shooting in front of a green screen. Close-up of your faces. Not too much to rehearse there, though. Mostly just different lighting and camera angles for us.” He smiled at her, then at me. “Isn’t a whole lot for you two to do except lip-synch and dance, but do either of you have any questions?”

Olivia and I shook our heads.

“Good!” He clapped our shoulders, and we both winced. Oblivious, Jim said, “Let’s get this started, then. Everybody onstage.”

As ordered, we headed up to the stage. Olivia went ahead of me and made judicious use of the handrail on her way up the six stairs. I cringed on her behalf; those shoes looked excruciating, and I imagined even the slightest stumble could result in a trip to the emergency room.

She made it onto the stage without incident, though. Front and center, someone had made a small box out of electrical tape on the bare plywood.

“Need both of you in that box,” Jim shouted.

I eyed the box, then him. “You…
both
of us?”

“Both of you.”

The tape square was just big enough for one person to stand comfortably with their feet roughly shoulder width apart. But two? Not so much.

Olivia stood as close to the front of the box as she could. I stayed as close to the back as possible, trying to give her some breathing room. Fat chance of that, though. Even with the balls of her feet on the front and my heels on the opposite side, my chest brushed her back, and her whole body tensed. She stood ramrod straight, drawing as far away from me as her center of gravity would allow.

“They don’t give us much room to move, do they?” I muttered.

She turned her head slightly. “Not really, no.”

“Hands on her waist,” Jim called out from below us.

I didn’t think Olivia could get any tenser. I was wrong.

As I rested my hands on her waist, she sucked in a breath, and every muscle in her body stiffened. I gritted my teeth. It was hard to tell if she was repulsed by me, or if she was just uncomfortable with the entire setup, but either way, it didn’t bode well for much onstage chemistry.

And Jim didn’t help. “Buck, I need you to move in a little closer.”

Closer? Seriously?

I cleared my throat. “Uh, how close do you want me to get? This is about as close—”

“Lean in more,” Jim said. “So you’re almost kissing her neck but not quite.”

Fuck, dude. Really?

Olivia blew out a long breath. Over her shoulder, she said, “It’s okay. If he wants us closer, then…” She tilted her head slightly, offering up more of her neck.

I did as I was told. Thanks to the high heels, I didn’t have to lean down very far to get my lips close to her neck. Well, at least that would be easier on my own neck. I’d already scheduled a massage for tomorrow after the shoot was over, but the less I aggravated that old injury, the better.

“Music’s about to start,” Jim called up to us. “When it does, you know what to do.”

Yeah. I do.
I resisted the urge to adjust my grasp on Olivia’s waist. No point in reminding her where my hands were, even if the leather was already making my palms sweat.

I pulled in a deep breath through my nose and caught a whiff of both leather and either a faint perfume or the remnants of a sweet-smelling shampoo, and goose bumps prickled to life beneath my clothes. Forget pretending I wanted to kiss her neck. I did want to. I wanted to breathe her in, taste her skin, kiss beneath the sharp edge of her jaw.

Just as well she doesn’t like me,
I thought, willing myself to focus on anything but lusting after her,
or I might be tempted
.

The music started. In a heartbeat, the stiff, tense body in my hands was in motion. In fluid, smooth motion, like the tempo was hardwired into her muscles. Her hips swiveled. One shoulder dipped and came up. Then the other. I followed as best I could, and thank God for years of professionally following women’s leads, because my body instinctively complemented her every move. We probably would have been in perfect synch if not for the constant chorus of
don’t touch her too much, don’t touch her too much, don’t touch her too much
echoing in the back of my brain. Or the lingering stiffness in her, the slight hitch in her otherwise perfect motion, which was all too conspicuously an effort to keep our contact to a minimum.

The music stopped abruptly, and our bodies did too. I kept my hands on her waist, but we separated as much as we could, jumping at the opportunity for some breathing room.

“I need to see more motion.” Jim waved his arms in the air. “I want you two in one place, but I need to see
more motion
.”

“Says the man wearing comfortable clothes,” I muttered.

Olivia snorted. Well, that was a start. At least she had a sense of humor.

Then Jim said to someone, “Cue up the music and let’s start again.” Instantly, whatever minute relaxation that laugh had brought out of Olivia evaporated, and her body was once again stiff and tense against mine.

I tried not to think about the uncomfortable tension between us, and when the music started, I focused on that instead. I hadn’t heard the song before today, but I’d listened to it a few times since I’d arrived this morning. If the rest of the songs were half as good as “You Ain’t Even Kissed Me Yet”, this album was going to sell insanely well. Her sound was so much better than her old stuff. The old music was great, but this? This was unreal. Stronger, bolder; her image wasn’t the only thing that had grown up.