Lovegame(21)

It’s not his fault, after all, that I can’t feel. These are my shortcomings, not his.

But it turns out that he’s in no rush to get to the finish line, no rush to lay claim to whatever parts of me he can touch. Instead, his mouth stays warm and sweet and tender on my own. His hands remain on my cheeks. And his body—even as his hips move restlessly against mine—continues to feel like a promise instead of an attack.

Deep inside me, those first sparks catch fire. It’s a new experience, an unfamiliar one no matter what the tabloids write about me, and I freeze for just a moment as I try to sort out what I’m feeling. Ian pulls back right away, and I grab on to him, my fingers tangling in his hair and my body wrapping itself around him of its own volition.

“You okay?” he asks, eyes dark, hair mussed, lips swollen with my kisses. He looks like a fantasy I didn’t even know I had and I nod frantically, afraid that he’ll slip away if I hesitate for even a moment too long.

He studies my face, those black, magic eyes of his looking for I don’t know what. If I did know, I would give it to him, would use every ounce of acting ability I had to reflect it back to him. That’s how badly I want whatever this is to continue.

It’s a strange state to be in, considering it’s been a long time since I’ve let myself want anyone or anything that wasn’t directly related to my career.

But I do want him. And maybe that’s what he’s looking for—the desire I’m not even trying to hide. Whatever it is, he must find it in my face because suddenly he’s kissing me again. And while the tenderness is still there, there’s an urgency, too, a desperation in the way he plunders me. In the way he uses his lips and teeth and tongue to make my head spin and ratchet up the heat inside of me another notch.

“Ian.” I gasp his name, my hands clutching at his hair, his shirt, whatever part of him I can reach. “Ian, please—”

He pulls his mouth from mine. “Tell me what you need, baby.” And then he’s trailing his lips across my cheek, down my neck, over the sensitive skin at the hollow of my throat.

“Ian.” It’s a moan, a plea, made more so by the way my fingers tangle in his hair and my body arches against his.

“I’ve got you, Veronica.” More hot, open-mouthed kisses along my jaw and the nape of my neck. “I’ve got you. Just tell me what you like, sweetheart, and I’ll give it to you.”

I freeze at his words, all the heat he’s managed to build in the last few minutes deserting me in a rush. Deep inside, I curse him for his words, for what he’s done, even though I know it’s not fair. He’s only being a considerate lover, after all, only asking because he wants to make it good for me. How is he supposed to know that in asking all he accomplished was to kill whatever desire was slowly building inside of me?

Or that I’m thirty years old and don’t have a clue what I like sexually?

Or that I’ve never even had an orgasm with a man?

There’s absolutely no way that I can blithely tell him what I want him to do to me, at least not without just making it up.

I can’t tell him that, though. Can’t even hint at it. It would be a disaster if Ian—the man who is writing what Vanity Fair and my agent both hope will be the definitive article on Veronica Romero—found out the truth. That the sexiest woman in Hollywood is actually a fraud.

I can just imagine the headlines now. The ridicule. The humiliation. The complete and total loss of the power and prestige that comes with my very carefully cultivated reputation.

This industry is all about survival of the fittest. Most people involved in it don’t like to admit that, though; they want to pretend success is all fairy dust and manifest destiny. But I learned the truth at an early age—hard not to with my mother’s career—and I decided a long time ago that if the world is going to judge me on my tits and my ass, then I am going to use them to protect myself and my secrets any way I have to.

Men like sexy women, no doubt about it. But, it turns out, most of them are also afraid of us. Once I came to understand that one truth, everything changed. I began to understand my sex appeal, and how to use it to my advantage. I’ve spent years honing it into a razor-sharp blade that most don’t feel slice into them until it’s far too late.

It’s my protection, my salvation, in this business that eats so many women up and spits them out without a second glance. I can’t survive without it. Can’t even think about facing the world without the armor it gives me.

Which means—now that I’ve gotten into this situation—that I have to do what I do best to get out of it. I have to do what Ian specifically asked me not to just a little while ago.

I have to pretend.

He’s looking at me now, his dark eyes questioning as he waits for my answer. For my definitive list of what I like and how I like it—any good diva has one, I’m sure. But since I don’t and since that’s very definitely not going to happen, I do the only thing I can do. I throw the question back to him.

“Why don’t you tell me what you like instead?” I suggest, leaning forward and pressing kisses to his neck and the little triangle of skin I can see at the top of his dress shirt. “And I’ll give it to you.” I deliberately repeat his words back to him.

“I’m easy,” he answers with a sexy grin that somehow makes him even more attractive. “I like everything.”