Curve Struck (A Celebrity Stepbrother Romance) (16 page)

Wrung out, she started to sag. Kissing along her shoulders, one hand still around her throat and the other still braced against her torso, he gently removed himself from inside her and guided Melanie over to the bench.

Sitting down with her, he had Melanie rest her back against his chest, his hands massaging her thighs and breasts as he whispered delicious, wicked promises.

"I'm not letting you out of my bed today," he threatened sweetly and planted a kiss at the corner of her jaw. "I'm going to devour that pink pussy of yours, licking and nibbling at it while I put the toy inside you again, my fingers buried in your ass. I'm going to fuck you with your ass up in the air, your fingers on your clit. Then I'm going to fuck that sweet, round mouth."

Melanie responded with a moan of consent, her mind untethered as he carefully led her out of the shower and dried her off, another towel wrapped around her as they ascended the stairs to his bedroom and he made good on every dirty promise and more.

They never made it to the garage for the drive along the coast at sunset. When morning came, she lamented the lost opportunity for that quiet moment in the outside world together as she woke to her phone ringing from down the hall and her name plastered on every celebrity gossip site the internet had to offer.

"Mel, don't pick that up."

Holding her robe shut with one hand as she reached for her phone with the other, Melanie turned to find that Declan had followed her down the hall, his own phone disappearing into the pocket of the running pants he had slid on after leaving his bed at the sound of someone calling her cell.

Her phone had stopped ringing before she could grab it. It started up again, the default ringtone playing. Everyone she considered friend, family or a good colleague had his or her own ringtone. The default tone playing meant it was a stranger calling.

"Why?" she whispered even though she was pretty certain of his reason for issuing the warning.

His mouth flattened, his head cocking to one side.

"Has it started?"

"Yes," he acknowledged, his fingertips brushing absently against the pocket into which his phone had disappeared.

Stepping forward, Declan wrapped his hands around her shoulders, pulling her closer as he kissed her forehead. Lost in his comforting presence, she barely felt him slip the phone out of her hand and stuff it in his other pocket.

The kiss was duplicated on her lips, its nature chaste and nurturing, like she needed him to handle her gently.

Maybe she did.

"I'll make us breakfast," he suggested. "It'll take about thirty minutes unless you want me to build in more time."

She shook her head. "That's plenty of time for me to shower and dress."

A final kiss, this one holding her against him, one hand cradling the back of her head as he coaxed her lips apart, and then he disappeared down the stairs.

Alone in the bedroom she had yet to sleep in, she could feel her tablet and computer sitting out of sight in the backpack on the dresser behind her. Eyes cast toward the floor, she moved to the dresser and pulled out clean undergarments. Keeping her gaze averted from the temptation of her electronics, she dipped into the closet, grabbed the first top and bottom she saw then escaped to the shower in Declan's bedroom.

Twenty minutes later, Melanie made her way downstairs. Declan was talking, the conversation one-sided and his voice low and tight. Rounding the corner to the kitchen, she saw him with his back to the island. The ingredients and cookware for breakfast were laid out, but otherwise untouched.

"I don't care what's being said," he ground out, his shoulder muscles visibly rippling with irritation and his grip on the cell phone tightening.

Melanie pulled back to where she could still hear him but would not be in his line of sight if he suddenly turned around.

"If you care, then I need another agent."

She backed further away, his voice trailing off as she tiptoed to the staircase and made her way upstairs to her bedroom. Out came the tablet. She thumbed it on then pulled up the browser and entered Declan's name. She read the first "top news" article from Celebrity Zone, her name included in the first paragraph and the byline that of Corbin Dash, the awful "journalist" who had reportedly been fired by the gossip site for trying to bribe her.

She blinked rapidly as Dash described her appearance based on his prior run in with her, suggesting but never directly stating that she had offered him inside information about Declan.

Ready to puke, she typed her name in the search filled. Nausea filled her as she looked at the Twitter feed. There were photos being posted from sets she'd worked on where people had taken unauthorized behind the scene shots. Not only were the comments and retweets horrible, but many of the details were wrong. One image had her staring at something, her focus intent, a smile on her face. That one was listed as being from the alien film she'd just finished and purportedly her ogling Declan, but the picture was from two films before that. She recognized the shirt and had only owned it for a short time before it was ruined on set.

Several someones were doxxing her on Twitter and Facebook, posting her home address and phone number so she could be harassed. All of the accounts that originated the photos and her private contact information had been created the day before. The only profile she recognized as real was the photographer's assistant talking about what a bitch she always was on the lot.

She exhaled, wondering what the hell would be on her voicemail and in the text messages. Declan had been right to coax the phone out of her hands and pocket it. It was bad enough reading such vile comments on a public forum. Having them directed to her phone would be so much worse.

"Fuck," echoed in her chest as she put the tablet in the backpack and made her way downstairs once more.

Entering the kitchen, she found Declan absorbed in finishing up a fruit bowl while an omelet cooked on the stove top. She slid onto one of the stools on the opposite side of the island counter and shoved her hands between her thighs to hide their nervous shaking.

Putting the knife down, Declan wiped the fruit juices from his fingers and reached out to touch a lock of her hair. He cocked one dark blond brow in her direction.

"I remember a much longer drying time yesterday."

Her hair was far from dry, but it would normally be saturated after just a few minutes out of the shower. Of course, she'd exited the shower twenty-five minutes ago when she expected breakfast to be almost ready instead of not even started.

Shrugging, she reached forward and stole a slice of melon from the fruit bowl. Biting off a chunk, she forced a smile to her face then slowly chewed. Declan's mouth quirked but he turned his attention to the omelet long enough to cut it down the middle and slide the two halves onto plates.

He put one plate in front of her and the other next to her, then grabbed two glasses and filled them with a fragrant, pale tea and ice cubes.

"I ordered a new number and phone for you," he said before stuffing an overflowing forkful of omelet into his mouth.

Morbid curiosity had her itching to have her current phone returned, but she said nothing.

"Was there any message from my mom?" Melanie asked, guessing that he had looked.

"No," Declan answered quickly. "But Cammie wants you to know you have her ear whenever you need it."

I could use a lot more than her ear, Melanie thought as she glumly forced some of the food into her mouth, chewing and swallowing but never actually tasting the meal he had prepared.

She put the fork down and swiveled on the stool enough that she didn't have to torture her neck to look at Declan.

"I don't need a new phone or number. It will die down soon enough. Somebody's bound to overdose, wrap their car around a telephone pole, check into rehab, cheat on their spouse or whatever else happens in an average Hollywood news cycle."

He didn't reply immediately. Instead he speared one of the strawberry chunks from the bowl and popped it in his mouth. Melanie waited, patiently pushing parts of the omelet around her plate until he answered.

"At least let me delete and block the messages that have already come in."

"I'm a big girl--" She stopped, almost choking on her words. That she was a "big girl" was apparently the entirety of her problem. Clearing her throat, she continued. "I've heard it all before. Dealt with it all before. I'm an old hand at being insulted."

Sadly, that was true. She'd been told by complete strangers more than once that she shouldn't even exist because of her weight, that she was a drain on the world, and, horribly, that she should kill herself immediately instead of the slow suicide her weight presented.

The only difference between the last nineteen or so years of her life -- ever since she entered grade school -- and what she had seen online that morning was that people had become creative in describing exactly how she should perish, their nastiness unfettered as they hid behind their phones and computers.

"Mel, I don't want you hurt by this--"

"I told you," she interrupted. "People have been hurting me for a long time."

A joke about thick skin died before it could reach her lips. None of this was funny. It was old and it was tired and she wished people would grow the fuck up.

"It's a lot to take in at once."

"So am I." The words slipped out, old defense mechanisms kicking in even if she didn't want to play any of this off as amusing.

Frowning at the joke, Declan curled one hand around the back of her skull and leaned in so that their foreheads touched.

"I want all of you Mel. Don't put yourself down. And I don't want the things these vile people are saying make you pull away from me."

Pull away was exactly what she wanted to do and her head reflexively rebelled against the hold he had on it.

"Don't," he said and then his mouth covered hers.

Her lips parted. She could taste the strawberry he'd just eaten and a little of the onion and peppers from the omelet. She closed her eyes, yielding as the kiss deepened. His other hand came up between them to rest lightly on her collarbone, the fingers moving in a soothing pattern.

She could forget the world when he was touching her like this. Forget the hateful slurs, the death threats and the suggestions she do the world -- and her lover -- a favor and kill herself. But they couldn't just keep touching one another until the furor died down.

At some point, the outside world would get in.

It always did.

Near the end of the first week of Shayna outing Melanie and Declan to the public, the Hollywood pundits began wondering what the relationship meant for Declan's career. Photos were dredged up from archives -- not of Melanie but other women who had mortally sinned by gaining weight. The talking heads mentioned the wives of other Hollywood hunks. Some of the women had been dumped and divorced when the weight began to pile on, others had been hidden away so that the public seemed to have forgotten that their favorite star even had a spouse.

One morning host after another brought attorneys on to talk about celebrity pre-nuptial agreements designed to address the issue of wives staying slim to avoid hurting their husbands' acting careers. Other so-called experts assured the public that all of the attention and hate suddenly being thrown Melanie's way was the cost of doing business in Hollywood -- that everyone associated with a celebrity was open to inspection.

Bullshit, bullshit and more bullshit!

Melanie stabbed the off button on the remote as Declan came out of the bathroom after a shower he had tried to talk her into taking with him.

Seeing the remote on the bed, he picked it up and tossed it into the trash can before dropping the towel enticingly wrapped around his hips and crawling onto the bed. She knew the look in his eyes, the mischievous curve of his lips. It sparked heat inside her, just as he intended, but she put her hand against his forehead before he could curl his gorgeous, naked body up against hers.

She nodded at the television she had just turned off. "You can't sex your way out of all this, Declan Bain."

For a few flashing seconds, he looked shocked, scandalized, insulted even, and then he smiled again.

"I'm not trying to. I need you, Mel. You can't begin to imagine how much of me I've been holding back for so long..."

She raised a skeptical brow as he trailed off.

"You know what I mean."

She shook her head. She truly didn't have the slightest inkling. Granted, they'd gotten incredibly inventive the last week -- where they had sex, how they had sex. But not once had it felt sordid or dirty.

"I'm saying a man can't do what I've done with you without putting certain thoughts into a woman's head."

Now he was confusing the hell out of her.

"Thoughts?"

"You know," he went on with a groan. "Long-term thoughts. Forever thoughts."

She laughed, shaking her head again. The acts they'd accomplished didn't give her those kinds of thoughts, it was the look that would flash across his face at certain times during those acts or later when he was holding her or tenderly tending to her body after he had ravished it.

Even, as weird as it seemed, that habit he had of stroking the bridge of his nose at certain moments. She had never seen him do it on set or any interview. He did it at the sweetest of times and seemed embarrassed when she caught him.

"Who's to say I'm not using you as my boy toy?" she asked, trying to steer the conversation away from "forever."

For a second, he scowled at her. Then he dipped his head, evading her hands so he could seize her hips and pull her to the center of the bed. He straddled her, his knees against her hips and his hands planted alongside her shoulders as he looked down at her, his expression entirely earnest.

"I'm being serious, Mel. You're the only woman I've ever woken up next to, let alone every morning for a week. You're the only woman I've ever..." he paused, his cheeks spotting a dark red before he finished. "The only woman I've ever masturbated to when I thought I couldn't have you."

"I think you just obliterated the TMI barrier," she laughed, shocked by his admission.

Leaning back, shameless in his nudity, he planted his hands on his hips and cocked his head at her. "You know, I caught more than the eye rolls you were always throwing at my reflection."

He closed his eyes, his expression subtly altering piece by piece, his skill as an actor and an observer of people undeniable. He started with the slightest parting of his lips, then a hint of a drawn brow, next came the softest flare of his nostrils and then he opened his eyes and finished the look.

Melanie had felt her face mimicking him mimicking her with each change. She finished with him and felt like she'd just had one of those heart paddles they showed in the medical dramas on television applied to her chest.

"Oh," she murmured, emotion surging inside her. "Did I really look at you like that?"

"Yeah," he said, his face shifting to reclaim his own emotions.

All that time on set she'd been telling herself it was a celebrity crush. She couldn't hide behind that lie any more, not to herself or to him. It was weird how just making the face tricked the body into feeling everything she had felt all the other times she had worn that expression.

"Wow," she murmured again.

"Yeah," he agreed and delicately draped his body over hers.

Hooking her gaze, he kissed the tip of her nose.

"How about we quit fighting the feeling and enjoy it?"

"Agreed," she said, angling for a better kiss and forgetting, for a few hours, that life was never that easy.