July (Calendar Girl #7)(18)



I stood in the corner waiting for my turn to be battered. I’d been working on the same scene all day. Mostly, I did an ultra-sexy walk, followed by a hip swivel one way, then the other, bend down, back up, shimmy the tits and arch back. Eventually, Anton would be following behind me, doing his moves with the backup dancers. Some of the moves I learned would be consistent with whatever he was learning and going to do with his body. In all honesty, it was nothing compared to the paces that Maria was putting these other dancers through, and I was already beat. It had been a long fricking day. I needed a shower, food, and bed. Besides, tomorrow was my birthday, and Anton had given me the full day off. That also meant that Wes would arrive.

Equal parts excitement and trepidation warred with one another as I thought about my laid-back, movie-making surfer. I wanted to see Wes so bad I could feel the ache in my teeth. However, I also didn’t want my heart to be broken when I told him I was ready to be exclusive. A one-woman gal. His gal. Hopefully.

In order to do that though, he’d have to cut Gina DeLuca loose. No more casual sex with the nation’s hottest movie actress. Even the mere thought of her made the green-eyed monster rear her disgustingly ugly head. If we were going to do this, we had to commit. Fuck. Commit. That was one word I hadn’t said in a long time or place anywhere near the opposite sex. Mostly because every time I did, I got screwed over one way or another.

“Mia, hermosa, come here.” Maria pointed to a spot on the floor where a black X had been placed. This was where I needed to stop and do my own body roll against Anton in the video. She made sure I knew exactly how many steps it took, where each one of my limbs needed to be, and how all the other dancers would be placed. Between her and Heather, they had all the dancers lusting after me, dancing around my form while I walked, sat, and leaned against a wall. There were several different pieces I had to learn, but most of them, I had down. She was a kind choreographer with a bottomless well of patience. Every time I messed up the other dancers would scowl, knowing they would have to do it again. Maria, however, had no problem running them through their paces over and over again. She insisted it perfected their parts.

Maria positioned me and then pretended to be Anton’s character. “Go through your moves.” Her eyes cut to the dancers. “I’m not doing this because Mia needs help. You all are slacking. I don’t care if you’re tired. I don’t care if your muscles are sore and your feet hurt. You want to be in the biggest hip-hop video to date?” Her blue eyes turned ice-cold as she clocked each one of them with a glare. “This is what it costs. Trabaja por el. Work for it!” She repeated the admonishment in English as she often did. “Now Mia, start from the beginning.”

I went back to the corner of the room and took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and set my sights on what I wanted to accomplish. This was my first music video. My face would be on televisions, Internet feeds, and cellphones all over the globe. You so got this girl. Nail it for Maria, for the dancers, for Anton…to hell with all that, I’m nailing this shit for myself!

The music came on, the lights dimmed, and I swayed my hips and shoulders from side to side. Very Jessica Rabbit. When the right note hit, I strutted across the floor. Before I could move more than five steps a pair of masculine hands were on my hips.

The base of the music hit harder, I closed my eyes and went for it, arching my back, allowing Anton to grind into my behind as I laid my hand on the back of his neck. The aroma of coconut drifted around me in a cocoon of fun in the sun. Hips hit, hands gripped, and Anton spun me around, then did a body roll from my thighs up past my pelvis to my belly where he arched back. I mimicked it, pushing my body hard. He fell back to the ground, the same as the dancers did as if I’d knocked him out with my body. Then he was up on his knees pumping his hips up towards me in a graphic display of his manhood.

“Ride it baby, ride… **thrust**

“With me, I’ll go all night…”

“Let me do you right…” **thrust**

“And ride it baby, ride…”

The music matched our movements perfectly. Towards the end of the song, Anton did some crazy, urban ninja-style run-and-leap off the mirrors of the studio, landing on his feet where he tugged my waist, got to his knee and draped me over it. My back arched almost painfully over his knee, and he laid a hard, smacking kiss on my mouth.

And that’s when it happened…again.

I got a nice fist to his mouth, cutting open his lip before he restrains my hands with one of his, then gropes my body with the other. Wild drops of crimson trail down his chin, his teeth turning a sickening, vile red. Aaron crushes me against the concrete wall. A piercing pain grates along the tender skin of my back as the coarse surface abrades my skin raw. His lower half presses harder, over and over while he dry-humps me, his erection like a steel pipe digging into my sex.

I start to scream, but he puts his mouth over mine so fast that nothing but a garbled sound escapes. I’m screaming bloody murder when I hear the sickening jingle of his belt being unbuckled and the noise of the zipper opening, each tooth unlocking as if in slow motion. Aaron retaliates by biting down on my lips and slamming my head against the concrete. I see stars and rainbows across my vision, and things are now hazy. He yanks on the hem of my dress, pulling it tight as he slides it up to my waist. The cool air slithers across my bare flesh. More swirls of distorted light still splinter across my vision. I blink several times, trying to stay conscious. Aaron’s fingers slide down my stomach reaching his target and he cups my sex roughly, pressing into the soft tissue. I hear myself whimper as bile rises up into my throat, the intense burn gagging me so bad I want to vomit.

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