Stunt: Hollywood Bad Boy Romance Read online

  He lifts his hand holding a small round paddle and I clap my hand over my mouth to stifle the gasp, as he brings it down on one of the women, across her spread slit. She's moaning through her gag and twisting her head side to side in apparent ecstasy.

  I must let out a louder gasp than I realize because the man turns to me and I see the belt is actually a corset. And his naked dick is pointing straight at me, lifted hard from the straps of the garment. He's wearing a leather eye mask but his identity is in no doubt. It's Knox, my employer.

  “Fuck! Why isn't the door locked?” he moans and I feel immediately guilty.

  “Sorry, I -”

  “Alright, you can play too, but no one else.” He sounds like a bratty child and I realize he doesn’t recognize me. His eyes are darkly glazed with sexual lust, but maybe he's high on something.

  I back away from his approach until I'm hampered by the wall. I feel the plush texture and realize its padded in velvet. The women are moaning like a vampire coven, anxious for Knox to return to pleasuring them.

  Although one appears to be sleeping, her head tilted to the side in a way that's going to give her a serious neck crick.

  Knox turns back to the first woman and brings the bat down on her spread clit again with a wet slap, eliciting a repressed squeal from her. Fuck that has got to hurt. I'm frozen to the spot in shock and now Knox is beside me.

  “Take your panties off,” he orders, pinching my nipple hard through the fabric of my bra and shirt.

  “No, I,-”

  “Don't speak unless I give you permission,” Knox commands, tugging on my nipple again, giving it a twist for good measure.

  “Excuse me,” I blurt, backing away before turning and stumbling from the room.

  Oh my god, I'm sure one of those women was -. No, surely an actress that famous wouldn't -

  Forget it. You didn't see a thing. Put that scene from your head.

  But it's ingrained there now and will never leave. Once you've seen a thing you can never unsee it. And worse, my clit is pulsating with heat and I can tell those panties Knox wanted to divest me of are soaked between my thighs.

  I have no desire to join him but I'm still hot with lascivious need after witnessing that scene.

  Is that something I'm into?

  Am I kinky underneath my small town veneer? I'm in a blur as I blunder back down the hall I assumed was the maid's quarters. And as I emerge into the kitchen, praying I'm not going to encounter any more celebrities hooking up, I tumble chest first into a solid wall of muscle.

  “Oh shit. Not you again.”

  “Nice to see you too. I wondered where you'd got to?” Truan says. His grin has turned into something more solicitous. Like he was worried about me. Like he has the right to be.

  “What business is it of yours? I'm just having a look around my boss's house.”

  “See anything you like?”

  “Actually I did, thank you,” I snip.

  He grins with a demon lust so that I'm sure he somehow knows where I've been. My cheeks color lividly and I want to slap the asymmetrical grin straining his mouth.

  “Look you can stop rescuing me now. I'm not your pet project and you don't need to watch over me. Feel free to take off and head home. I'll be fine.”

  I know I'm being a bitch. He standing there and I realize that he works on set as well as being Knox's stunt double, so of course he's also invited to the party. I just want to wipe that superior, I know it all, I belong here, smug grin from his delicious mouth.

  “Actually I am home,” he says.

  “Surely you aren't going to try to kid me that you're really Knox Templeton?”

  “Fuck no, Sweetheart. Why would I want to be that -” I leave the adjective hanging. “I mean this is where I live.”

  “Here? In this house?”

  “For now.”

  “Jeez. What are you two blood brothers or secret twins?”

  “Nah, not any more. Although there was a time. Until he started hurting people I care about.”

  ChapterNINE

  Truan's eyes drill into mine with an intensity that holds me hostage for what seems like hours. He really is decadently divine. The sort of scrumptious you want to dig your fingers into and scrape your tongue over. Of course he is. He's the doppelganger for the most handsome man on the planet, according to various Top 50 Lists.

  But Truan seems more real than the original version, easier to talk to, more genuine in his dealings with other people.

  Caring.

  That's exactly it.

  Is he adding me to the list of people he cares about?

  “So tell me what you saw that enticed you,” he murmurs in an oil-slick voice.

  He moves forward so I'm forced to take a step back out of his magnetic pull. I'm brought up short as my back hits the tall yellow cabinet behind me. He takes another step and he's all the way up in my space. It's like the air sucked out from between us because suddenly there's none to inhale.

  I'm starting to pant as he stretches his arm to grip the edge of the cupboard, making a barrier that cages me in his wide torso. He tips down so his face is an inch from mine.

  “Nothing,” I mewl. “I don’t want to talk about it with you.”

  “Who do you want to talk about it with?” he says.

  His fingers stroke down the side of my neck and graze across my breast making the nipple engorge.

  “Your boss?”

  “No,” I blurt. “No, I don't, I-”

  I have so little air in my lungs I'm fighting to inhale between each word. Truan on the other hand is breathing long and hard. His hot breath hitting my nostrils with its masculine aroma of oak and musk.

  I wish he'd accidentally graze my nipple again.

  And more.

  I want him to press his fingers into the throb of agony between my legs and slide all the way along the length of me.

  “So you want to go home now? Or can I convince you to slip out of this uncomfortable strapping?”

  He slides the strap off my shoulder beneath the shirt then pushes his hand under my breast, flipping it out of its cup.

  “Ohmigod,” I heave.

  “I’ve tasted those sweet lips once and I'm hooked,” he murmurs, his voice dropping to dirt-bike tones as he circles his thumb pad around my eager nipple, making radiations pulse in my clit. “All I can think of is tasting more of your candy sweetness.”

  He's less than an inch from my face, watching my reactions intently, observing my resistance coming apart.

  “Get away from me,” I say so lamely, the worst actor in the world could have been more convincing.

  Because it's the last thing I want.

  “Is that what you really want?” he gnarls.

  I open my mouth and a squeak comes out as he pinches my pointed peak.

  “You want me to punish you?”

  My mouth won't operate because of how close his lips are and the need to have them wrapping my nipple. If I wasn't caged in my his huge torso I might lift my hands to tug his mouth down onto me.

  This isn't like Truan at all. To be so- dominant. I can't think clearly but I do know if he ordered me to take my panties off, I would. Because I want Truan's fingers delving into my slithery crevasse.

  If it is him.

  I left him with Tom back at the bar but that was a while ago. Maybe that was Truan in the purple room with those women, and this is Knox.

  “Who are you?” I murmur, forcing my lips to move.

  “Who do you want me to be?” he rasps.

  “You. I want you,” I whimper, hoping he never stops strumming his hard thumb across my hard nipple. But my words are drowned out by a guy stumbling into the kitchen with a girl on each arm.

  “Hey hey lovebirds. Get a play room.” The man roars with laughter and Truan flips my tit back into its cup then turns to face the arrivals, blocking me from view as I fix myself.

  The two women perch on the kitchen stools so Truan takes me by the hand and leads me b
ack into the party. We move across the room, meaning we have to wend our way through a ton of beautiful people, looking perfect in priceless jewelry and designer outfits.

  My cheeks are flushing with a painfully embarrassing burn from being stared at but Truan doesn't care. He really doesn't give a shit about anything. Nothing intimidates him. Especially not the beautiful people.

  “You didn't answer me.” He rounds on me. “Who do you want me to be?”

  Now I'm back among the ritziest crowd in Hollywood, I feel like a nobody. I'm an assistant, a go-fer. These stars live in another world I’m not remotely a part of. I've never seen anything like I just witnessed in the purple room, never even imagined it.

  And yet my body hungered for the same. I can't admit my desire for something like that to Truan. He'll think I'm some sort of kinky girl. And I do not need to see that cocky smirk from him again.

  “It's him, isn't it? You want me to be him.” Suddenly a flame of anger licks around Truan's voice and his body stiffens all the way down to the hand he's gripping me with.

  “Look around you, Jenna. These people do not care about you or me or anyone except themselves. If they look at you it's only to wonder what you can do for them. And Knox Templeton is the fucking worst of them.”

  “You're just jealous because you're the understudy. So typical,” I snap, more sarcastic than I mean, but who is he to tell me what to think?

  “That's what you believe? That I'm jealous of this shit? These people who with all their money that do absolutely nothing for others. Oh, they may dump a ton of cash into their favorite charity, when their accountant needs a tax write-off. But they'd cross the street if a beggar or a broken poor kid was soiling their path. This is not who you are. And it's not who I am. I can see you wanna fit in big time but you don't ever need to be concerned about what crappy people like this say or think of you.”

  “Aren't you worried that Knox will kick you out with that attitude?” I murmur, filled with wonder that Truan is so badass he doesn’t worry about anything.

  “He could do a whole lot more and no, I don't give a fuck. The more I'm around these self-obsessed shits who only want to gaze at their perfect phoney reflections all day long, the more I want to surround myself with something really good and beautiful.”

  He looks at me with the gaze that delves straight to my center and down to my toes. Like he's taking me all in. Which is quite a change from the crowd that only ever see the surface me and decide it isn't nearly enough.

  “Is it wrong to want to act? You hate all movie stars?”

  “That's a fine art to want to pursue if that's the reason. But some people only get into this business because something's missing deep inside themselves. And the more they pile on the star persona, the more they hide from the real one.”

  “Perhaps they don't feel good enough inside and only want to find love.”

  “I can relate to that. There's probably a ton of people who can. But is it honest to act like you're better than everyone around you, that you're actually this larger than life being that deserves more than other humans? I prefer to challenge my weaknesses and work to make myself a better person.”

  “So you think the movies are a bad profession to aim for?”

  “No. We're providing entertainment. We're giving people pleasure. But can't we do something better with our good fortune. Like people don't need to be living on the street while movie stars have twelve bedrooms.”

  “You want Knox to take in some homeless people?” I'm not trying to be flippant, only to lighten Truan's intensity. I had no idea he could get this passionate.

  “Yeah, imagine that. But seriously, he could finance a shelter for homeless, for abused women, just for the price of what he spends on parties in a month.”

  “You aren't above doing some abusing though are you?”

  “What? I -” Now he stumbles into the trap I didn't know I'd set.

  It was him.

  No doubt about it now thanks to the guilty flush of confusion passing across the previously smug features. I cannot believe how I came so close to surrendering to more of him. He may drag amazing sensations from between my thighs and send them fluttering throughout my body but I am not his fucking toy to fool around with.

  I wrench my arm away from his grasp.

  “Excuse me, I see some real friends are here.” I steel myself to stride through the crowd, all the way to the back, where a couple of set dressers are backed to the wall. I spend the rest of the night with them and catch a ride home without speaking to Truan again.

  *

  “I heard someone say he's working out,” a runner tells me when I ask whether he's seen Truan anywhere. He points me in the right direction and eventually I find my way to the gymnasium building, all the way in back of the lot, close to the canteen.

  Nothing glamorous, nothing but a dark room with a lingering odor of socks. But Truan is there in the elevated boxing ring, pounding out a rhythm on the bag.

  “You're needed on set in half an hour,” I inform him, averting my eyes as best I can from the glistening bulbous biceps.

  The sheen of sweat extends across his bare torso, pooling lightly in the ridges of his impressive ab pack. I see why Knox lets his double do the man chest shots. Usually doubles aren't lookalikes, just the best the studio can find but in Knox and Truan's case, they're identical aside from the muscle weight. Truan is way more ripped. The sweat also highlights his tattoos and it's tough not to get closer and examine the detailed fine work.

  “You my Girl Friday too now?” he quips.

  “No. Knox has decided he doesn't want to do the shower scene. You better get to make-up.”

  “Yes, Ma'am,” he says. Did he actually just stand half to attention? Like I'm sort of major-general barking out orders?

  “I'm just doing my job,” I snap. “I'm not being bossy.”

  “Yeah, you are,” he comes right back. “And the job is making you seriously uptight.”

  “No it isn't,” I yelp in a voice sounding distinctly uptight. “I've got a lot to do and chasing after stuntmen who prefer to slack off in the gym isn't easing the pressure.”

  “Come up here and let me relieve some pressure for you,” he says, the grin sliding up his features to his ravaging eyes.

  “Excuse me?”

  If he tries anything with me again I will report him this time I don't care what promises I made to Knox.

  “Come up here and put on some gloves.”

  “Boxing gloves?”

  “Not scared are you?”

  “No, I'm not scared. I don't know how to box.”

  “I can show you.” I'm about to turn and walk away when he adds, “I'll even let you sock me one on the jaw.”

  “That's something I've been dying to do for ages.”

  I've always wanted to punch out the douchebags who make filthy remarks or go in for a grope. But knowing it'd hurt always stopped me. With gloves on, I can take a slug at this one without breaking every one of my fingers.

  That and his smug smirk, assuming I won't step up to his challenge because I'm a girl, or a smalltown hick, or wearing a tight skirt, make this too good a chance to miss.

  The only problem is I can't move in said skirt enough to get a leg up and climb into the ring. Truan, saunters over, leans down and lifts me by the scruff of the neck up onto the edge. I have to grab onto the top rope to stop from toppling then I realize he's grasping hold of my waist.

  “Just trying to help you open your legs,” he says as I snatch myself away from him.

  I can't climb over obviously, so I have to shimmy the fabric up over my knees, enough to be able to climb between the lower cords. When I come up from bent, I rise alongside his wide strapping thighs. Then travel further up the taut bulge and the bare carved abs that almost make me totter from desire to stick out my tongue and lap a path up his body from knee to neck.

  When I come to face him, flushed and gasping, I discover his gaze remains glued to my exposed thigh
. I shove the material back down and hold his eyes, not swayed by his filthy stare even if it was fully appreciative.

  He's dangling a pair of gloves hooked over his index finger. I reach for them and he snaps them away.

  “Oh, just forget it.” I bend over to start the arduous struggle back between the cords.

  “Chill out, Mistress Uptight.”

  I reel around on him again, find he's checking my ass and snatch the gloves from him.

  “I'm going to enjoy this.”

  The gloves are surprisingly difficult to squeeze into and as soon as they're on, Truan is dancing around me, sparring, throwing feigns. I toss him a hook and he leaps away easily, He's extremely fast on his feet and agile for such a huge guy. He's gotta be absolutely amazing in bed.

  Oh god, stop thinking about getting under him and focus on landing him the smack he deserves.

  He laughs as I again flail at empty space. Then he reaches out with a featherweight knock on my chin. He barely touches me but his smug face makes me livid.

  I hit a crazy one-two like a tantruming toddler at the supermarket. Aiming at his chest, his face. Seeking any connection to beat out my frustration with this town, this job, my failure and my goddamn attraction to this jerk.

  He leaps back every time and then in a tumultuous whirl, he somehow scoops his arm around me and twists my body into him. I'm trapped under his huge arm, pinned across my chest.

  The undersides of my tits shelved on his steel forearm and my back pressed into the solid rippling torso. We're both panting hard, not solely from exertion.

  His hot breath curls down the side of my neck and beneath my blouse, hitting the tops of my breasts which I notice are heaving up and down rapidly.

  “Let me go,” I whimper.

  The heat from his body filters through my skin

  “I thought we could work on some holds,” he burrs into my ear.

  “You're disgusting,” I exert a massive struggle to free myself and he lets me go.

  I'm again flailing at air. His smile makes me want to punch him desperately except this whole scene is seriously discombobulating. I throw the gloves down on the ring and haul my skirt up again, feeling his hungry eyes burning into me as I climb unglamorously through the ropes.