Breaking Hollywood (6 page)

She held out a key card. ‘OK, here you go – the suite next to the penthouse. I’ve put your clothes in there so you can get a shower without the risk of the photographer
attempting to jump your bones. The room is booked for the night – it was in your rider – so you can hang here if you want.’

Zander shook his head. ‘Nah, I’d rather get home. There’s a nine p.m. meeting in Venice.’

Three AA meetings a week. That was the price of keeping the weight down on the sober side of the seesaw of addiction.

‘I’m humbled by your commitment, oh Master. So, tomorrow. You have fight training at ten. I’ll swing by around nine thirty and pick you up.’

In the lift, Zander held up his fist and she bumped it, before he disembarked at his floor and left her to descend to a date night. For a moment, the melancholy returned.

When was the last time he’d had a night out that didn’t involve a room full of strangers with a story of addiction?

But that was the rub. After a lifetime of wasted nights, he’d had to make drastic changes when he kicked the booze. No more bars. No more clubs. No more strip joints. And if he avoided all
of those, there were no more rehabs or jail cells. Most of the time, it seemed like a fair deal.

But tonight? He could swing by and see Davie, but he’d just get in the way at the studio. And he didn’t want to crowd Mirren. Last night – Chloe’s birthday –
he’d headed over to her house early evening and ended up eating hot dogs on the beach with her and Logan. He didn’t want to infringe on their space two nights in a row.

Maybe he’d call the guys and see if they were up for poker. Always a loner, he didn’t have a close group of friends, but the closest it got – other than Mirren and Davie
– were the guys he hung out with at the beach. They’d catch some waves. Sometimes rack up the poker set and pass the night betting with dimes. Don Michael Domas, star of
Call
Me
, the sitcom that was pulling in the highest ratings since
Friends.
Lee Vandan, male model, who worked catwalks and photo shoots a few times a month so that he could spend the rest
of his life catching waves in front of his beach shack near Zuma. Josh Wilson, a writer who’d polished the scripts of half the best action movies of the last year, earning him cheques,
instead of credit. He didn’t care. Zander was fairly sure he’d found the only three guys in Hollywood who would rather hang at the beach than on a film set. Suited him just fine.

The door beeped as he used the key card to enter, and he headed straight for the shower, peeling his clothes off as he went. He set the temperature to the midway point and climbed in, glad of
the warm jets hitting his skin from the rainfall showerhead.

For a few moments, he stood there, letting the chaos of the day wash over him, a tight knot of anxiety gradually unfurling. If he made it quick, he could be home in less than an hour, an hour
out on the board, food and then meeting.

The sensation of a movement near him made him flick open his eyes, every muscle in his impeccably toned torso and arms tensing straight into defence mode.

As soon as he realized who’d come to the party, a very different muscle sprang into action.

Adrianna Guilloti had opened the glass shower door and stood there, utterly naked, except for eight-inch stiletto sandals and a gold chain that dipped between her high, generous breasts.

A long, glossy plait of sleek black hair, parted in the middle, fell down her back. Her rosebud nipples were erect, and a thin line of dark pubic hair was a tantalizing reminder of a weekend of
highs that no drugs or booze had ever given him.

The dark red of her lips broke into a languid, irresistibly beautiful smile.

‘I heard you were here today. Thought I’d see how my investment was doing.’

As she stepped out of the heels and into the shower, Zander reached one hand round her neck and pulled her face to him, the hot jets of the water no barrier as he kissed her hard, his tongue
searching, tasting.

After a few moments, their breath in perfect synchronicity now, he stood back, gently raised her hands above her head and pressed them against the glass.

‘Don’t move,’ he whispered, as he reached for the soap. He started at her neck, slow, smooth, tender strokes, then down across her breasts, her waist, leaving a trail of
musk-scented foam.

When he reached her taut stomach, he fell to his knees as she opened her legs. Teasing, he moved downwards, soaping her inner thighs, her calves, her feet, before rising again and slipping the
soap between her legs.

She gasped as he found her clitoris and massaged, transforming the gasp into a deep groan of indescribable pleasure. When he could sense that she was on the cusp of coming, he stopped, dropped
the soap and let the water rinse over her as he leaned in and kissed her stomach, the creases between her thighs and her pussy, and then . . .

Her whole body shuddered as his tongue slipped inside her, licking, darting, the waves of her orgasm making her bite down on her bottom lip to stop the scream.

Only when the ecstasy ended did she fall to her knees, legs weak, to join him. Now she was in charge as she pushed him back, forcing him to sit on his ass, his back against the tiled wall of the
double shower. Adrianna manoeuvred on top of him, straddling him, her nipples directly in front of his face as she climbed onto his dick and slowly lowered, then raised, then lowered, then raised .
. .

With every movement she clenched her pelvic muscles, squeezing the throbbing cock inside her, her hands in his hair, pushing back his head.

‘I think you’ve missed me, no?’ she murmured, her tone almost threatening.

Her voice just made his dick even harder. His hands went round to her ass, his fingers digging into her buttocks as she rode him, saying nothing more until he came inside her with a ferocity
that sent another wave of orgasmic ecstasy coursing through her.

Blissfully satisfied, she slid off him, letting her perfect butt cheeks rest on the floor between his legs.

‘I missed you,’ he confirmed, smiling as he leaned over to brush the long, black strands of wet hair back from her stunning face. it was as close as they’d ever got to
emotional intimacy. Their brief time together a few months before had been about nothing but pure, raw, incredible sex.

Reaching up, Adrianna slammed off the shower lever, stopping the water, then pushed herself up onto her feet, before holding out her hand in invitation.

Zander got the message. Still wet, he followed her out of the shower and into the suite, where he saw the trail of clothes she’d left on the way to the bathroom. after leading him to the
bed, she pushed him downwards. There was no resistance. only when he was flat on his back did she climb on, and instinctively his arms came to either side of her neck as he kissed her again,
feeling like an alcoholic who had just opened a bottle of bourbon and couldn’t stop tasting. This was such a bad idea. She was dangerous. She was wild. She was married to a guy who could have
his balls for breakfast. But she was absolutely fucking incredible.

Eyes glinting with sheer sexiness, she pushed his hands away, in charge now, a very fixed idea of what she wanted. Her mouth went round one of his nipples, her hand round a cock that was coming
back to life. As her teeth bit down, he groaned at the exquisite contrast of pleasure and pain, the sensory overload forcing his teeth to clench and the hairs on his body to stand on end.

With the agility and flexibility of a gymnast, her toned olive thighs moved across him, and he felt her pushing his hands above his head and holding them there. He opened his eyes again to see
her face was now above his. She lowered towards him, took his bottom lip between her teeth and bit hard, drawing blood.

He was past making a sound. Way past it. Instead, he closed his eyes again and let her work her way down his body, biting, sucking every inch of the six-pack that wore her creations on
billboards across the country.

S&M had never been his thing. And he’d never been into submission. But this was more than that. This was letting her take him somewhere else, feeling sensations that he’d never
encountered before.

In-fucking-credible.

It was still a bad idea. A really bad idea.

But as her mouth went round his cock, he surrendered, ever aware that most of his favourite moments in life had started with really, really bad ideas.

‘You Give Me Something’ – James Morrison

Sarah

The paps’ flashes momentarily blinded her as Sarah drove through the gates of Davie’s Bel Air mansion. They’d been in permanent residence there since Jizzo
Stacks had popped his cowboy boots live on air on Davie’s first show. What. A. Nightmare.

The studio had descended into chaos; paramedics had been summoned, all to the soundtrack of Carmella Cass screaming at Jizzo to wake up. At the beginning of the show, the ratings were good. By
the end, there wasn’t a late-night viewer in the country who wasn’t watching, alerted by a social-media buzz so loud it could have woken the dead. Except – oh, the heavenly irony
– Jizzo. He remained very firmly on the other side.

It was one of the things that Sarah found hard to stomach about living here. Every wail of human pain and tragedy was a story, played out in the media as if it were the Lifetime movie of the
week instead of someone’s actual life.

And yes, she realized that was hypocritical, having spent five years on a UK tabloid crime desk, working for the
Daily Scot
, door-stepping victims and reporting carnage in all its
bloody grime and glory.

Somehow, that was OK there. That was reporting the facts. Here, everything was so wrapped up in drama and ulterior motive that it was difficult to separate the real from the performance. And
that was never more obvious than in Davie’s life.

What were they now? Lovers? Yes. Exclusive? Absolutely. But they weren’t in an open, official, publicly acknowledged relationship. The reticence was all on her side, but she suspected that
was largely to do with the fact that Davie was used to getting everything at the snap of his TV-mogul fingers. He was definitely a live-in-the-moment, go-for-it, why-wait-for-anything kind of guy
who needed the world to be his and he needed it now. And he had the cash to pay for it.

She’d never be comfortable with that level of fame and power, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to be. It was only six months ago that she’d moved here from Glasgow, after coming
over initially to chase down a story on the relationship between Mirren, Davie and Zander. The last thing she expected was to fall for Davie Johnston, quit her job and move here, but that’s
what happened. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to move in with Davie and live the Hollywood dream of fame and fortune – it was certainly what he wanted – but in truth,
the thought made her skin bristle.

She wanted to make it on her own. On her terms. And whether he liked it or not, that had to happen before she became nothing more than Davie Johnston’s other half.

The freelance work, fluff pieces on the size of Kim Kardashian’s arse or Charlie Sheen’s legal bills (both of which appeared to be comparatively huge), paid her rent, allowing her to
concentrate on the stuff she really wanted to write. Beneath the glitter and the glitz, there was a darkness, a downward spiral of a city that survived on drugs, spin, hype and manipulation.
Nothing was real here. Nothing. And it fascinated her. There had been hundreds of Hollywood bios done before, but Sarah was writing hers from an outsider’s perspective, one that wasn’t
swayed by personal experience or lust for fame or power. She just wanted to tell the story, to look behind the Hollywood curtain and explain why a beautiful girl like Chloe Gore, born to wealth and
privilege, could end up dead at eighteen. She wanted to explore why the industry supported twenty-one-year-old brats who thought their music success gave them an unlimited platform of entitlement
and invincibility. And why fame-seekers in a reality world that was based on zero talent were prepared to – literally – exploit and risk their own lives for another million
‘likes’ on Instagram or Facebook.

It was a warped world, and the biggest irony of all?

In loving Davie Johnston, she was dancing with the devil. He had been the biggest manipulator of all, the king of reality TV and the Pied Piper to legions of wannabes who would do anything to
achieve the fame they craved.

Last year, Davie had been accused of plotting with one of his young reality stars, Sky Nixon, to stage an overdose to push up ratings for their show. It had backfired spectacularly when she
almost died and Davie almost lost his career.

Sarah believed he’d learned his lesson, but who knew? And who could ever have predicted that she’d fall in love with a guy who stood for everything she despised?

The sprinklers on Davie’s manicured lawns did an elaborate dance as she wove up the twisting drive to his $40-million baroque mansion.

As she parked on the beautiful forecourt, next to a fountain that shot jets of water five feet in the air, she spotted him leaning against the open door frame, coffee in hand.

It was an appealing visual. He had no top on – always a winner, especially when you have a body that’s been pummelled and shaped by a former US Olympic-team boxing champ who takes
his job very seriously.

This was a nightly ritual when she was heading out downtown. She’d swing by, grab a coffee and touch base. It grounded her. Made her smile. And it also ensured that – should she be
massacred on the streets by some lowlife during the night – someone would report her missing. Every cloud.

A knot of tension evaporated from her shoulders as he flashed her an easy smile. ‘Hey, babe, come take me away from all this.’ On TV, his accent was softly Scottish, but speaking to
her now, he’d slipped back into the broad Glasgow burr of his childhood.

‘Sure,’ she replied, grinning as she strolled towards him. ‘I can offer you a night watching lowlife drug dealers off Sunset, a visit to a fast-food joint or an afternoon at my
Marina del Rey apartment. But please don’t bring a cat, because there’s no room to swing it.’