Hollywood Bad Boys Club: Book 1: Drake (15 page)

Siena sees the baffled look on my face and calms down. She gives me a truly sympathetic look that seems out of place for her.

“Baby, you are in love.”

I know she’s right the moment the words leave her mouth. I’m stunned I didn’t realize sooner what’s going on, why I can’t bear the thought of losing Allie. Before I can process it, though, Siena brings me back to reality.

“But right now we are shooting the sex scene, the one people will talk about for years,” she says, “and I need you to concentrate. I have seen your work and know you are an amazing actor, but you must focus with me now for this, Drake. We must convince the camera.”

I nod. She repositions herself, rolling over on her side and propping her head up on one elbow. “Does Rance like this femme fatale?”

My grin is my reply.

“And if you have no girlfriend, you would want to fuck me, wouldn’t you, Drake?”

I can’t deny it. “Yes, in a heartbeat.”

“Then keep that thought in your brain when we film it. Nobody will know that thought is there except you and me.”

“Yes, I can do that.” I pause for a second, then say, “Thank you, Siena. You’re a friend.”

“No friend! Right now I’m the woman you want to make love to! We will be friends after we make this movie.”

I smile. Siena’s all right once you get to know her.

“And one more thing. Come here.” She signals me to approach the bed. I’m only a couple of feet away, but I move to it, standing at the edge. Her hand reaches out and she swiftly slides her fingers into the top of my modesty pouch. “Take off this fucking thing,” she says. “I hate it and it looks stupid, not sexy.” Before I can react she yanks downward violently, ripping it off of me, my limp cock tumbling out. Siena stares at it for a second, then looks up at me. “Much better. Now put on your clothes and tell Michael we are ready.”

Our next take is astounding in its sexual intensity. I’m sure everyone is surprised when I lower my pants and boxer briefs, but they’re professionals and no one reacts outwardly. Except Chiara (or was it Siena?), who can’t take her eyes off of my cock as I climb onto the bed and slip between her restrained legs. As we fake-fuck, I can feel my shaft sliding along her lips, but I concentrate on the mechanics of the scene and never get the hint of an erection. I pin her wrists back against the bed as I grind against her, and she writhes and moans as if she’s incredibly turned on by the whole thing. She might actually be – who knows? The chemistry between us for this take is off the fucking charts, though – her little pep talk turned into a bonding moment of sorts, and it shows in how well we pull off this difficult scene.

When Michael says “Cut!” I remain on top of Siena, my body pressed against hers. The look in her eyes says she’s ecstatic about what we’ve just accomplished. I give her a gentle kiss on the forehead.

“That was amazing,” I say.

She smiles slyly. “Yes, but it would have been even better at your hotel.”

Michael tells us he’s thrilled with that take and he’s done with us for the day. When we leave he’ll bring in the body doubles for the extra coverage he needs. I wave away a crew member so I can untie my co-star’s ankles myself, giving her a little privacy. Siena sits up in bed, her legs still spread, and watches as I fumble with the knot. She looks around the room to make sure nobody’s paying attention, then leans forward and wraps her fingers around my cock.

“So I will have to wait for this,” she pouts.

Still caught up in the intense private moment we’ve just shared, I don’t stop her and instead look down at her hand on me. She holds me like that, her thumb softly stroking my shaft, which does not respond in the slightest.

“Baby, you
must
be in love,” she says with a wry smile as her hand releases me and my cock drops back down, absolutely unaffected by the attention from this spectacularly sexy, naked woman.

At this point, I’m convinced she’s right.

And I need to see Allie.

I
rush back
to the St. Regis, determined to find this woman. She’s not answering my texts, and my phone calls are going straight to voicemail. I don’t know if she got the two short voicemail messages I left, but she’s definitely not returning my calls. I stop at the front desk and ask if anyone remembers her stopping by the previous evening, but everyone who was on duty at that time is gone. I get lucky, though, as a friendly guy by the name of Andrea says he knows one of the desk clerks who was working at midnight. He makes a call and I have the info I need: Allie asked a clerk named Luca if he could recommend a good nearby hotel, and he steered her to the Boscolo Exedra Roma.

I dash to that hotel, aware that I now have several paparazzi following me. Luckily, they can’t enter the hotel with me. The front desk there is delighted to see Drake Manning and are quite helpful, possibly even illegally so, since they’re violating the privacy of a guest. To my chagrin, I learn that Allie checked in late last night, then checked out this morning, asking if the hotel had a shuttle to the airport.

She’s gone.

J
ust like that
, my fairytale is over.

I sit in coach on a Delta flight from Rome to Los Angeles. Stuck in the middle seat, I put in my earbuds and close my eyes so that the people on either side will get the hint and not attempt conversation. It works, but after just an hour I feel lonely and devastated and begin to think talking to a stranger might be better.

I hadn’t really given much concrete thought to the idea that Drake Manning and I could have a permanent relationship. Subconsciously, though, I was hoping. He’s so handsome and fun and funny, and so adored by his fans, and I think I just got swept up in the attention he was giving me. I felt like Cinderella at the ball with the handsome prince, until midnight struck. But he’s a world famous megastar with a never-ending stream of beautiful women throwing themselves at him, while I’m just a writer.

And the sex – oh my god, the sex.

We seemed as perfectly paired sexually as two humans could possibly be. Not only am I distraught at losing Drake forever, but I have serious doubts as to whether I’ll ever have sex that intense, that powerful, ever again. It honestly seemed like we had a connection, that we were both feeling something we didn’t feel with others. To learn that he’d slept with someone he met in a restaurant the same day I began to have real feelings for him is a unique kind of torment.

My interview will be coming out in the LA Times Magazine in just a few days, and I’ll be known from here on out as the woman who shared a hot tub with Drake Manning and his friends. I’m guessing it won’t be long before my name appears on the Drakecount website, and I’ll become just one more in a very long list of women he’s fucked and forgotten.

I feel humiliated and stupid to have allowed this to happen.

Most of all, though, I feel a gaping hole in my heart.

L
ights are coming
on in the Rome dusk as I rush over to Cinecittà to talk to Michael. I find him in a projection room with Clarissa, the film’s editor, going over the rushes from today’s shoot. When I walk in, Michael signals me to take a seat and I’m startled to see on screen my own naked body, grinding away on top of Siena. It’s a great shot and everything about it is sexy. I recognize it immediately as the last take we did, the one we all loved.

“Yeah, keep that one,” Michael says to his assistant. Clarissa nods, then whispers something to Michael. “Of course. Hey Drake, there’s something you need to see,” he says, then barks out instructions to the projectionist, some local guy named Gianluca. The next shot I see was taken from the camera they had behind the headboard of the bed. I can see Siena’s naked body as I tie her other ankle to the bedpost, but it’s a very quick shot before they cut away to the close-up of her ankle being tied. That’s followed by a cut to a different version of that first shot, as I strip off my clothes. This time it’s cropped so that at the end of the bed I can be seen from the abs up as I look down on her naked form, which is not visible. It’s not a horrible shot, but not great either.

“Yeah, so?” I ask, unsure of what Michael wants me to notice.

Clarissa smiles at me, then says, “Forgive the intrusion into your privacy, Drake, but contrast that shot to this next one.” Again Michael calls out instructions, and a few seconds later the screen flickers again.

It’s the same shot, but this time it’s a continuous uncropped version and I see everything that the camera recorded on-set. Beyond Siena’s tits you can see the mound of her pussy, though from this angle it’s actually a pretty chaste look. At the foot of the bed I spread her legs to tie the other ankle, with no break for the close-up. Instead the single shot continues as I stare lustfully between her legs. I continue looking at her naked body as I strip off my clothes, ending up totally naked myself, my cock hanging proudly in front of me.

I stand there at the end of the bed, continuing to stare between Siena’s legs for a second or two before climbing up on top of her, an intense look on my face, and lowering myself to her. The screen fades to black and the lights come back on. Clarissa and Michael are both looking at me expectantly.

“See?” Clarissa asks. Is it my imagination or is her face flushed?

Michael chimes in. “Not just your nudity, but the entire shot, the intensity, the abject lust in it. And the fact that Drake Manning is naked is a major part of that.”

“Let me see it again,” I say. The projectionist queues it up and I watch. The desire in the shot is palpable. I’ve seen a lot of movies over the years, but this is one of the steamiest scenes I’ve ever witnessed. It’s almost like I’m watching someone’s private sex tape. I imagine being a Drake Manning fan as I see myself strip on screen.

When it’s over the lights come up again.

“So fucking sexy,” Clarissa says.

“It’s night and day,” Gianluca adds in heavily accented English.

He’s absolutely right, you can’t even compare the shots. I’ve been in this business long enough to know that the second one is the kind of steamy shot people will talk about for years, like the famous Sharon Stone leg-crossing scene in
Basic Instinct
.

“It’s utterly perfect, Drake,” Michael says. “It’s a shame we can’t use it.”

I nod, then just as I’m about to tell him “too bad, a contract is a contract,” I remember Allie saying it was unfair that actresses were expected to do shots like that, but actors were nearly always exempt from the practice. I think about how brave Siena was in that scene, exposed as she was. Allie’s right, it really is absurd.

I take a deep breath and give it one final thought.

“You’re right,” I say. “I think that shot makes the movie. Let’s use it. If Siena’s okay with it, I’ll sign off on it.”

Clarissa smiles. “Bravo for you. I’m proud of you, Drake. That’s some amazing work you two did today, and it shows in this shot.” Michael nods in agreement.

I smirk. “Yeah, well that’s not all that shows. But if Siena can do it, so can I.”

Michael still has concerns. “But your contract specifically states no full-frontal nudity.”

“I’ll waive that clause. I can have Mason email the studio a revised version.”

He smiles. “Thank you. You realize word will likely leak out ahead of time?”

“Sure, but that will just mean more publicity and a bigger take at the box office,” I say. “That could be an off-the-record part of the PR campaign, to start rumors about the big sex scene in this movie. Two major stars, both totally naked, were they actually having sex, blah blah.”

They all seem thrilled at the prospect. Great. That will make my request – the reason I came here to find them in the first place – that much harder to turn down.

“In return, I have a favor to ask regarding the shooting schedule for the next few days.”

T
hey weren’t
happy about it, but they granted my request. Michael said he could juggle the shooting schedule to give me the three days off I needed, and the producers okayed it. That was all I needed to hear, and now I’m on my jet somewhere over France en route to Los Angeles.

Brian and Jerome were surprised to get a call from me, but they’re both troopers and cut their own Italian vacations short to fly me back. They’re both well aware that their big salaries and plentiful time off come with an obligation to be at my beck and call, ready to go anywhere at a whim.

Once we’re airborne, Jerome comes back in the cabin to ask if everything’s okay. He and Brian know me well enough to know when something’s up. We spend an hour discussing my new relationship with Allie and what an idiot I was the night before I left for Rome, the night I fucked that Vanessa chick. Jerome is a sympathetic ear, and talking about the situation gives me some perspective and cements a few things in my mind, the most of important of which is driven home by his admission to a similar indiscretion in his past.

“If there’s one thing I learned from that, it’s that when you have an amazing woman in your life, you treat her with respect,” Jerome says, confiding in me. “It’s been three years and that bad choice still haunts me.”

When he returns to the cockpit, I think about Allie and wonder what’s so different about her. Then I realize it’s not one particular thing – it’s
everything
. I’ve had more women than most men could dream of having in ten lifetimes, but this one has really gotten to me. Even before we slept together, she’d gotten under my skin in such a way that it shook me from the firm foundation I’d built, my famous bachelor movie star persona.

That’s all changed now, and I don’t know if I can ever return to being that guy again.

Bearing that in mind, I plan my course of action. Getting Allie Winters back might be the hardest thing I’ll ever attempt, but something in my heart tells me I have no choice, because forgetting about her would be impossible.