We Are Made of Stardust - Peaches Monroe #1 (30 page)

“No!”

He held up his hands, grinning. “Standard practice. I imagine this is all rather sordid compared to running a bookstore?”

“Scandalous.”

“You’ll get the hang of it,” he said.

We walked up to the smaller building, which was also made of logs, and could safely be called a cabin, though it was still rather majestic. Speaking of majestic, my eyes didn’t spend much time on the cabin, because a muscular torso drew my attention. A shirtless man in plaid shorts and a brown, wide-brimmed hat brushed past us, bumping into me hard enough to make me lose my stride.

“Sorry, miss,” he muttered.

I sniffed the air, detecting a familiar musk, and wheeled around. “Dalton?”

Dalton Deangelo stopped and pulled off the hat, grinning. “So much for my disguise.”

“I’d know that chest of yours anywhere. I probably know your nipples better than your face.”

He frowned and looked over at Vern, who was struggling to maintain composure.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” I said.

Jokingly, he frowned and said, “I’m just a sex symbol to you girls. The way you fetishize me. It makes me feel dirty.”

“Sir, may I fetch you anything else?” Vern asked.

Dalton grabbed me and pulled me against him, my back to his front. He wrapped his arms around my torso possessively and rested his chin on top of my head.

“You’ve brought me everything,” Dalton said. “You brought my Peaches, and she brought her peaches, and that’s all I need.”

“You’re so bad,” I said, spanking his forearm as I chided him. The girls in the lounger chairs were looking our way with interest. My anger flared up momentarily as one pulled out her phone, and I imagined her taking my picture and posting it on a gossip site.

Vern excused himself to go check on some details, and I was alone with my guy again.
My guy.
Because I was there as
his girl.

Turning around to face him, I said, “I signed that NDA for you, not for the cash. I’d rather have your trust than your money.”

He glanced around, then kissed my forehead, right over my eyebrow. “Good. Let’s go smooch behind a tree for two minutes, before you have to get into hair and wardrobe.”

“What?”

“Smooch. It’s sort of a slang word for kissing.” He tugged my hand and led me over to a big tree, pulling me into his arms on the opposite side of the crowd of people milling about.

“What do you mean, hair and ward—” He didn’t shush me, but he did press his lips firmly against mine, which made my knees as weak as ever.

He hadn’t answered my question, but I understood the favor he was asking me. With my pictures all over the internet, and me being
linked to
him, having me in some of today’s
Vanity Fair
photos would be good for publicity on the film. I still hadn’t figured out what the movie was about, exactly, but if he cared about it, that was good enough for me.

His lips did most of the convincing. And then his tongue helped, as did his bare chest, his flesh hot and wonderful under my hands. With my back against the rough tree bark, I savored his kisses and his gentle, passionate touch.

He rubbed his lightly-stubbled cheek against mine and murmured in my ear, “It’s a shame we only have one more minute. We could do a lot of damage to each other if we had maybe five minutes.”

I pulled him close, my palms flat on his back between his shoulder blades. “Five minutes? But you have me all night.”

“So you’ll pose for a couple of photos? It would really help me out.”

“I will do anything for you, baby.”

He grinned and took my hand, guiding it down to feel his hardness.

“Feel how hot you make me.”

I squeezed his rocket. “You’ve got quite the situation in those shorts.”

“Don’t plan on getting any sleep tonight.”

I stroked the length of him, feeling equally engorged myself. “I think I’m making your situation even worse.” I squeezed the head, pressing my thumb into the groove and feeling everything through the thin fabric of his plaid shorts.

For a second, I remembered his confession about being in the adult films when he was younger. Stereotypical porn images flashed through my mind, and it didn’t turn me off at all. It made me feel frisky. So frisky, I could have screamed.

He pressed up against me suddenly, pinning me to the tree and grinding himself against my hip bone and stomach. Nuzzling my neck, he murmured, “Tonight.”

“Tonight.”

He took my earlobe into his mouth and sucked, hard. I whimpered as electric feelings shot through me.

After two more nibbles on my sensitive earlobe, he whispered, “Hair and makeup is in the yellow trailer. You’d better run, because you’re late, naughty girl.”

He pulled away, turned quickly, and jogged off in the direction of the smaller cabin, his hat off his head and held casually in front of his shorts.

I staggered toward the trio of mobile dressing rooms, drunk on lust. Two of the trailers were brown, and one bright yellow, so at least that part was easy.

The next part, however, was not so easy.

Inside the trailer, I was introduced to about a dozen people, each of whom passed me on to another person. Finally, a buxom girl with coal-black hair and tattoos up and down both arms shook my hand, and suddenly the two of us were alone in the trailer.

“I guess you’re stuck with me,” I said.

She winked, her full cheeks rising merrily. “We’re stuck with each other. Is this your first shoot?”

“Not counting the ones I didn’t know I was a part of, yes.”

She gasped. “You’re Peach Tits!”

I nearly slapped the bitch. I probably should have. That’s grounds for slapping someone, isn’t it?

She continued, “I’m a huge fan! Me and my girlfriends are all Team Peaches.”

And then, as she said my name again with her particular accent, and I heard it: Peach-tchiss.

“We looooove Peach-tchiss!”

I clapped my hands to my face. “I nearly slapped you. I thought you called me Peach Tits.”

Her snow-white face grew even more pale.

I fanned my face, saying, “Phew! Just give me a moment to get my bitch dialed down. It shot up to eleven there, but we’re okay. We’re cool.”

The young woman pulled back her silky black hair to show me a hearing aid. “Some of my words come out different from other people’s, because of how I hear them.”

“I’m sorry I thought the worst. I’m a little trigger happy since I read all those nasty things online.”

“I’m Finn,” she said, offering me a delightfully plump hand to shake. “Short for Dolphin, but spelled with an F, in case you’re wondering.”

“We’re sisters in the weird name club.”

She glanced down, taking in my full figure at the same time as she stuck one round hip to the side. We were sisters in the BBW club, too. She could have played my body double, if not for the tattoo sleeves up both of her arms. Her ink was a mix of macabre and sweet, with the skeletons of cartoon animals mixed with flowers, sailboats, and antique keys, plus one yellow French’s mustard squeeze bottle. Surely there was a story to that one, I figured.

“Come to my lair,” she joked, leading me over to a swivel chair in front of three mirrors. We squeezed past several racks of clothing packed into the narrow trailer, and I took a seat.

As the perfumed scent of the makeup hit my nose, the gravity of the situation began to sink in. Holy shit, I was going to be shot for
Vanity fucking Fair.
Shot, stuffed, and mounted in a display case for all the world to see.

“You have good hair,” she said.

“Thanks.”

“My instructions are to go Country Bumpkin, but screw them. Let’s go Sexy Farmer’s Daughter.”

“What’s the difference?”

“About a mile of false eyelashes and a push-up bra, plus a gorgeous pinafore dress instead of overalls.”

“Honey, you had me at false eyelashes.”

With a confident smile, Finn started opening packages of makeup and prepping fluffy brushes. She worked on my hair and makeup, then helped me try on a few outfit options. She knew exactly what to put on my body, from her own experience, and even loaned me her own silver belt when I confessed that none of the wardrobe options were nearly as nice as hers.

I found myself wishing my mother could have been there, as she would have gotten a kick out of the whole thing.
Next time
, I thought, then I laughed at myself for thinking there would ever be a next time.

After some frenzied last-minute makeup touches, while people kept popping their heads in the door to urge Finn to hurry up, I emerged from the trailer in my glamorous Sexy Farmer’s Daughter getup.

The pinafore dress we tried didn’t have the seam integrity to handle my curves, so I was in a sturdy and eye-popping polka dot dress, red and white. They actually had a lot of dresses my size in the wardrobe department, which surprised me. A stiff crinoline spread the skirt about a mile wide, and made my curvy legs, exposed from the mid-thigh down, look positively dainty amidst all that fabric. Around the high waist, I wore Finn’s lovely silver belt, which was a snake biting its tail. At the top of the boned bodice, my breasts were high and proud, round and ready like two well-inflated bouncy castles.

My blond hair was styled in two braids, but artfully voluminous around my face. The makeup was comically heavy, especially the round blush apples on my cheeks, but Finn assured me it was necessary, because the bright lights would blanche half my color out. My earlobes were burdened by heavy clip-on earrings. My ears aren’t pierced, so Finn didn’t have many choices, but we both agreed the shiny silver earrings brought out the blue in my eyes.

As I followed some unnamed assistant to the set, I was glad for the earrings pinching my lobes, as they helped keep me from floating out of my body amidst the surreal scene.

My mouth dropped open as we came around the corner and I saw the scene in front of the log cabin. A seven-man band, all in red and black lumberjack-flannel jackets, were getting into place with musical instruments. A man with a long, red beard played the stand-up bass contentedly as people milled around.

The guy at the drum set, whom I recognized as Shayla’s cousin from the other side of the family, Lester, gave me a wave. That’s when I realized I was looking at the Bushy Beaver Tails, Beaverdale’s almost-famous band.*

*Be careful when you type Bushy Beaver Tails into a search engine, that you don’t have image preview turned on.

Lester cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Go, Peaches!”

I felt myself blushing under my thick makeup.

When Dalton tapped me on my shoulder, I threw myself into his arms. “Hold me, I’m scared!” I wailed, mostly joking.

“I’m not Mr. Deangelo.”

I squeezed him tighter, pressing my body against his, but careful not to smear my makeup on his crisp, green button-down shirt. “Then why do you smell like him?” I asked, nuzzling the neck of the man I assumed was Dalton.

With his hands firmly on my waist, the man pushed me back from him. “I’m the stand-in,” he said, his blue eyes twinkling.

For an instant, I was amazed Dalton had turned his green eyes blue, but then realization smacked me in the face repeatedly (the way realization always does).

I apologized to the attractive young man, and he laughed and told me he would take my error as nothing but a compliment.

The realization I’d nuzzled this stranger’s neck was still smacking me in the face as we got our instructions about where to go for the photos.

The Dalton look-alike was going to pose in the images with me, and then the real one would come join us at the end. As we talked a bit more, I found out that Charlie (that was his name) wasn’t there just for the shoot, but also had a small role in the movie, as Dalton’s character’s brother.

The shoot itself was about as strange as you’d expect. They brought in some bales of hay for us to sit on, and Charlie and I sort of danced* while the Bushy Beaver Tails actually played music, and then we all acted terrified when a trio of people in teddy-bear suits interrupted our party.

*Charlie was a fine dancer, whereas I merely pretended to dance while trying not to look down and get a bunch of chins.

The photographer said nothing directly to me, but whispered to her three assistants, who then directed me.

And how did I enjoy my first major magazine photo shoot? I hated/loved every minute. It was the worst/greatest thing, ever. I felt hideous/gorgeous and the work itself was easier than selling books.

The time whizzed by, and I did a quick wardrobe change into a puffy white blouse and my own jean shorts for the next series. Charlie disappeared, and
my guy
strolled onto the photo set on the lawn of the log cabin, looking every bit the star. He wore an expensive-looking suit with a tie the same color as his gorgeous green eyes.

The next part was the most challenging: we had to pose like we were about to kiss, without actually kissing. Having Dalton’s lips just out of reach was tantalizing torture. He dialed up the pain by eye-fucking me the entire time. I nearly died.

And then, it was done.

Well, first there was a tedious amount of hand-shaking and release-papers-signing, but eventually it was done. The sun disappeared behind the rolling hills, and that was the end of our light. The silent photographer and her three assistants disappeared in a helicopter, and everyone else drove off.

Dalton and I lingered behind to pet the horses, and before long, we were alone.

The horses eventually got bored of us, deciding we had no sugar cubes, and wandered off into the dusky night.

Vern had gone to wait for us in the car, where Dalton assured me he was taking a nap.

“Should we go somewhere?” I asked. “Back to your trailer? We’re not allowed to hang out here with nobody around, are we?”

He laughed. “We’re not trespassing. Help me block out a scene, will you?”

I didn’t know what that meant, but I followed him back to the smaller log cabin, the dark sky cozy around us. Back in the main building, the large one behind us, lights were on and the windows showed human activity. Most of the production crew were staying there, with the family who owned the ranch. There was a personal connection between some of the crew and the ranch owners—a connection I didn’t care about, because Dalton had my hand in his, and that was everything.