Hollywood Hit (2 page)

Nikki’s eyes popped open and she bit her bottom lip. Her gaze traced its way over the heaps of clothes to the far corner of Adam’s room where he kept his stash of ladies’ underthings. A tight, white-hot burn collected in her chest. He said the lingerie was collected from the stage——all those women throwing all those bras and panties at all his performances. Her gaze flitted from a black lace La Perla bra to Adam. She liked him, the sex was great, buuuut … Nikki returned her gaze to the reflection of her own giant blue eyes, flecked with green. According to Aunt Cici, Nikki needed to do better.

“Babe, come back to bed,” Adam called, his voice muffled by the pillow under his chin.

“I have to go.” Nikki dotted her lips with gloss. “It’s rude to be late.” She pulled a blush brush from her makeup bag and dusted Shimmering Rose over her cheekbones. Her skin was pale like Aunt Cici’s. Too pale for the California sun. Her cheekbones were high and cut a sharp curve to her jaw.

Adam now stood behind her. Tattoos decorated his chest and belly. “Babe, you got the best tits.”

His long, hard, erect cock begged to be clasped and stroked and sucked. Nikki watched his reflection in the mirror as he wrapped an arm around her. His hand slid up under her shirt and slipped over her skin as his fingertips danced up to her bra where he cupped her breast and gave her nipple a soft pinch.

Heat flooded her belly and pulsed down her spine to the hot spot between her legs. Nikki closed her eyes. Adam’s lips were hot on her shoulder. She rested her head back against his chest.

“I have to go,” Nikki whispered.

Her body was betraying her. With his kisses up her neck and his hand still cupping her breast, her body arched backward and her ass pressed against him. In the mirror, Adam’s eyes locked onto hers.

Heat fired through the V between her legs. Shimmers of what they’d just finished in Adam’s bed and what they could do now in front of his bedroom mirror caused her breasts to grow heavy with want and her clit to throb for Adam’s touch. Lust shadowed Adam’s eyes. His hand dropped from her breast and traveled down her belly to the edge of her skirt. She pressed her ass into him, unable to stop the rhythmic motion of her body. She wanted him. She wanted him to fuck her again. God, he was a great lay.

“You can’t leave yet,” he rasped out with his thick, throaty voice, the voice that now had A & R execs lining up at his manager’s office. With one arm he held firm around her upper chest while his other hand slipped up under her skirt and pressed against her fresh cotton thong.

“Babe, you don’t need that,” he whispered. He slipped his fingers under the fabric and between her swollen lips. She pressed back harder. She wanted him between her legs.

His fingertips danced along her clit with pressure and speed as if she were a fret covered in wire strings. A gasp rushed out over her lips.

“You like that, baby?” he whispered.  He peered at her reflection in the mirror. A coy, cocksure grin decorated his face.

“Uh-huh.”

His hard cock pressed against her.  His fingers pressed deeper into her and her body clasped around him. She opened her eyes and met his gaze in the mirror. Fierce, white-hot heat shot through her. With his gray eyes he watched her. He watched her every move, her every response, her every quiver to his every touch. No wonder he was such a great fuck.

“You sure you have to go?” he whispered into her hair.

“I can be late,” Nikki gasped out.

With that one little bit of permission Nikki heard the sound of foil. He shifted behind her one hand pressed her clit while the other unrolled the condom onto his shaft.  Then Adam yanked at her thong. He threw her skirt up over her ass and his cock probed for her wet, sweet spot. He braced his arm over them on the wall and wrapped the other around her waist. His knee parted her legs and his cock slid between them and pushed upward. He shoved Nikki forward, still clutching her around the waist. With a grunt from Adam’s lips, his cock rammed hard into her.

A sharp gasp escaped Nikki with Adam’s cock thrusting deep into her. She licked her lips and pressed back into him. His eyes remained open and he stared into hers, his thrusts pumping faster and harder. The slap of skin against skin broke through the silence as she pushed against him and met his plunges with her own thrusts.

His arm dropped from her waist, and his fingertips found her clit. Nikki’s hands reached out to the hard wall, and she braced herself against his thrusts. He rubbed her swollen nub as he continued to piston in and out of her. Her body fractured, the seams of pleasure cracked wider and wider with the push of him and the grunts, the moans. She spread her feet wider and drove herself back harder against him.

“Oh, baby, fuck yes… yeeesssss,” he moaned.

His eyes closed and his head dropped forward. His expression wrinkled and contorted. A shiver rushed up through him and his fingers pressed harder on her clit, begging for her to meet him in this space far above the earth, flying high above Hollywood, higher than the choppers and the stars. She closed her eyes and pushed backward, meeting his final thrust with her own.

“Fuuuuuuck,” he yelled as his cock pulsed one final time.

Her pussy clasped tight and millions of quivers danced across her skin. She took a deep breath and coursed over the edge of pleasure. Rushing forward, faster, faster, faster.

Then the rush was gone.

He slid from inside her. Nikki opened her eyes and glanced in the mirror. Emptiness engulfed her. Adam’s penis, now flaccid and small, hung like a limp, used sack. Her own eyes were shaded with doubt. Adam caught her gaze in the mirror and wiggled his eyebrows.

“Now, babe…” He gave her still-bare ass a slap and grinned. “Now you can leave.”

Where r u?

An existential question or one grounded in the firm murkiness of Nikki’s new Hollywood reality? She shook her head at the question and waited for the next red light on Sunset before she tapped out a response on her iPhone to her roommate, Christina Darmides.

Just left the rock star, going to Jeb’s.

She made a fast left turn onto Alta Drive and her Toyota squealed in protest.

TWOT.

Total. Waste. Of. Time.

Let Christina think Nikki’s excursion into Beverly Hills to meet with Jeb on a script he’d written and so far failed to set up was a complete waste. Every ounce of Nikki’s trailer-trash Tennessee blood was determined to make
Boundless Bound
and to make the film without a whit of help from her famous aunt.

Unlike Christina, cannibalizing nepotistic relationships to gain success wasn’t the road Nikki wanted to travel. Upon graduation from Oxford three years before, Christina had fallen into a job as executive VP of development at Albright Productions, run by Christina’s billion-dollar-in-ticket-sales-producer stepmom Lydia Albright. Lydia just
happened
to be married to Zymar, the world-famous director who was Christina’s dad.

Nikki glanced from her iPhone to the street. She squished her lips together and twitched them from side to side. The handout from family seemed to work for Christina, but a handout from Celeste “Cici” Solange wouldn’t work for Nikki. More than a flicker of resentment burned an ever-increasing hole in Nikki’s heart. The original tear was a mere rip in the family fabric of Nikki’s childhood. For Nikki and Nikki’s mother, Lacey Solange, there’d been food stamps, days with no electricity, aggrieved landlords, and herds of bad boyfriends milling around Lacey Solange while Nikki grew to womanhood. Meanwhile, Aunt Cici reigned supreme at the box office, pulled down eight figures a film, and luxuriated in Beverly Hills. Whether the years of Cici’s disregard for Lacey and Nikki were willful or neglectful, Nikki wasn’t yet sure. Aunt and niece had stitched an ill-fitting patch over the familial rip at the burial of Nikki’s mother, but threads continued to tatter and fray.

Even with their tenuous family ties, with one phone call and a “please” Nikki could have a job similar to Christina’s. Hell, Aunt Cici would give her the job without the please. Nikki would be ensconced as VP of Development in Cici’s production company. She would read scripts all day. Fabulous scripts by well-established, fabulous writers, sent by fabulous agents to what would be Nikki’s fabulous office. She would use her swank expense account and ride in her swank convertible to and from the Worldwide Studio lot. Nikki had the actress aunt, the movie-mogul stepuncle, the
connections
that people in the Industry worked a lifetime to develop, so why…
why
… Aunt Cici often asked, was Nikki slumming with an unsigned carousing guitar player and driving a twelve-year-old Toyota to meet with a has-been star to discuss an unfinanced film?

Righteousness pulsed in Nikki’s chest. Because Nikki’d gotten all the way to twenty-two, all the way from Tennessee, and all the way through college without help from Aunt Cici. Nikki wouldn’t ask for help now.

Nikki’s mama had never asked for a handout from Aunt Cici. Even when there’d been nothing but a piece of moldy Tillamook cheese and a near-empty bottle of Heinz in the fridge. Lacey had never begged from Aunt Cici and Nikki wouldn’t begin to beg now.

She was determined to make
Boundless Bound
without Aunt Cici’s help, without Aunt Cici’s connections. She’d push the boulder of an indie film uphill like a tortured Sisyphus with size double-D breasts.

Nikki peered out the open window of her car and searched for 729 Alta.

“Hmmm… 722, 726,” Nikki murmured under her breath as she crept down the street. “And… 727. Wow, 727 is awesome.” Nikki slid by a remodeled manse with lighting straight out of
Architectural Digest
. “Wait… 731, 733… what the hell?”

Nikki slammed the brake. Where was 729? She’d gone too far. She jammed the stick into Reverse with a loud grind (her clutch was nearly dead) and pressed hard on the accelerator. The backward momentum of the car sounded like she was winding up a toy train.

There it was. Jeb Schmaltzer’s castle. A brown palazzo knockoff with a turret and red roof tiles. The wrought-iron gate, adorned with curlicues and guarding the circle driveway, was already open and Nikki pulled her Toyota onto the flagstone pavers. She parked, turned off her car, and checked herself in the mirror. She was here meeting with Jeb Schmaltzer (whom Aunt Cici called fuckface) because Nikki wanted her own success. A success unburdened by favors from Aunt Cici or from Aunt Cici’s famous, well-connected friends.

Nikki glanced through her dusty windshield. Jeb’s garage door hung at an angle on its hinges. His house was a little too old, a little too unkempt, and a little too… has-been. Pride burst a shatterbox of fragments in her chest like slivers of glass. She recognized an overgrown lawn and a home in need of repair. Nikki pursed her lips together. She would get through the hell of breaking into Hollywood on her own.

Nikki tossed her iPhone in her purse. She was an hour late. She’d texted Jeb after her f&ff with Adam and blamed traffic for her tardy arrival, but she’d gotten no response. Nikki slammed shut the Toyota door. She hoped Jeb wasn’t pissed.

*

Jeb Schmaltzer wasn’t pissed, Jeb Schmaltzer was dead.

The gaping hole in Jeb’s chest was testament to his death while the rust-colored water in the pool was evidence in opposition to the claim made by many (including Cici Solange, Nikki’s aunt) that Jeb Schmaltzer was full of shit. The deep red, cloud-like billows that floated through the incandescent pool proved otherwise.

Her heart hammered at a near one-hundred-yard-dash rate. Sadness and shock fought irritation in her chest cavity. Irritation was the immediate winner, if only for self-preservation. Nikki pulled her iPhone from her purse and paused—should she call 911 or her aunt?

Her aunt.

She pressed the speed-dial for Cici. Two rings later—

“Nikki? Where are you? Aren’t you supposed to be having drinks with that fuckface Jeb Schmaltzer?”

Nikki’s gaze rested on the back of Mr. Fuckface’s head—he floated dead-man style in the pool—oh, the irony.

“I was. I am. I…” Like an elbow to the chin, reality hit Nikki. Jeb was… Jeb was… Jeb was dead! The nuanced bravado, the abject ennui, all that Nikki had worked on for the past four months since moving to LA to achieve, in an attempt to cover or kill the deep-seated DNA of sincerity and kindness, was slipping… slipping… slipping, like Lindsay Lohan two days out of rehab.

The horror of what floated in the pool hit Nikki full force in the chest. Her throat choked tight and her gut soured. She fought her gag reflex. A few feet away with water lapping at the edge of the pool, inches from her freshly pedicured toes, floated gallons of blood. Along with a dead man.

Dead!

“He’s dead,” Nikki whispered.

“What!” Cici screeched into the phone. “I told you when you moved to LA you couldn’t shoot anyone else!”

Nicki snapped out of her hypnotic trance which had been caused by watching the blood-clouds in the pool float toward each other and then merge until there were no clouds, only blood—gallons and gallons of blood. A pool full of the red stuff.

“I didn’t shoot him!” Nikki wailed. “I found him.”

“Where are you?” Cici barked. The rustle of sheets and covers in the background was accompanied by Ted’s baritone voice, most likely asking what kind of trouble Cici’s wayward niece had managed to get into this night.

“His house.”

“Of course you are,” Cici said. “Did you call the police?”

“No,” Nikki said. “I called you first. I wasn’t sure, so I called you. I can call the cops now—”

“Don’t!” Cici blurted. “I’ll call Howard and have him deal with the police. Better to have an attorney call them.”

The garage door on the other end of the line rattled to life.

“Wait,” Cici said, breathless. “You found him? You’re at his house? Are you—
safe
?” Cici whispered the last word as if any homicidal intruder might overhear her side of the conversation through Nikki’s iPhone.

With her aunt’s question, Nikki’s eyes darted from shadow to shadow and palm tree to bird of paradise in Jeb’s gargantuan backyard. A shiver shimmied down her spine and her stomach tightened into a harder knot.