With His Consent (For His Pleasure, Book 13)

With His Consent (For His Pleasure, Book 13)

By Kelly Favor

© 2012 All Rights Reserved

Bryson had just punched Dale Nolan, and there was no taking it back.

Scarlett was frozen in shock, as time seemed to slow down and then come to a standstill. Dale was getting to his feet, with help from the crowd. “Do you have any fucking clue who you’re dealing with?” he said to Bryson.

Bryson was breathing heavily, shoulders hunched, as he stared back at Dale, the leading actor in Bryson’s soon-to-be made first film. Dale Nolan, who he had just publicly humiliated—who just happened to also be one of the biggest names in Hollywood.

“All I know is what I saw,” Bryson said. “And you have no right to—”

“I have every fucking right,” Dale replied, and jumped forward to attack Bryson.

Scarlett screamed and tried her best to get in the way, but by that point, at least half a dozen others had decided to get involved.

Suddenly, Scarlett was shoved or pushed from behind and the next moment, she was sprawled on her hands and knees as someone’s drink sprayed across the floor. She heard people swearing and shouting and then the unmistakable sounds of punches being thrown.

She looked up in time to see Bryson wrestling with a large bearded man and then another guy punched Bryson in the face from the side. Bryson turned and punched the person who’d just hit him, sending that man to the ground as well.

Now other people were fighting.

The whole thing made no sense —but Scarlett had been around enough violent men (and a few women) in her life to know that those types didn’t require much of a reason to punch and kick things.

Before long, there were probably six or seven bouncers jumping into the melee and separating the combatants. When they got to Dale Nolan, one of the bouncers—a tall African American man with shoulders the size of a professional football player—spoke to him for a time. Dale said a few things, pointed at Bryson and then the bouncer turned and his cronies followed.

A moment later, they were escorting Bryson toward the exit in a phalanx, ensuring nobody would get to him and that he couldn’t escape.

Scarlett scuttled after them, not sure what else to do. She saw Eliza Johnston nearby, watching everything with a rather enigmatic expression on her face. The famous actress might have been almost amused by the whole scene, but Scarlett wasn’t sure.

When they got to the exit, the bouncers pushed Bryson out the door and into the street, where he stumbled but managed to keep his footing.

His eye was beginning to swell and bruise where the stranger had hit him during the bar brawl.

“Don’t ever think about coming back here, dipshit!” one of the bouncers shouted at him.

Bryson smiled. “Thanks for the kind words and the hospitality. I won’t forget it.”

The bouncers gave Bryson one more menacing look, and then made their way back inside.

Everyone in line waiting to get into the club just stared, mumbling and murmuring amidst themselves.

Scarlett walked over to Bryson. He was touching his eye and squinting.

“Jesus, Bryson,” she said when he turned his head, giving her a good look at his face. His eye seemed to be swelling up more by the second, the bruise an angry swirl of purple, red, and pink. “Does it hurt?” It was mostly a rhetorical question. Of course it hurt.

Bryson laughed. “Nah. But I guess I’m not going to be making the cover of Variety anytime soon.” He started to slowly hobble down the road.

“Why are you limping?” Scarlett asked, alarmed. She wondered if maybe he needed to go to an emergency room.

Bryson shrugged. “I think someone kicked me in the leg. Maybe it was Dale.”

“You shouldn’t have hit Dale in the first place,” she told him, trying to keep pace.

Even limping, Bryon’s strides were longer than hers.

He turned and looked at her, an incredulous expression on his face. “Are you kidding me? I shouldn’t have hit him in the first place? That guy had his hands all over you. You should be thanking me!”

“Dale was in character, Bryson.”

“What?” he scoffed. “Don’t make excuses for that asshole.”

“I’m not making excuses.”

Bryson shook his head. “And here I thought I’d gone and stood up for you.

Turns out you actually approve of being groped by that douchebag.”

Scarlett stopped and glared at him. “Hey.”

He stopped and squinted at her. His bad eye was so swollen now that he was having a hard time seeing through it. “What?”

“I don’t approve of being groped. But I happen to know he was in character—

Dale Nolan’s notorious for doing that sort of thing, and if you’d spend even thirty seconds talking to me in there tonight, I’d have told you.”

Bryson sighed. “So you’re saying I punched a character that Dale was playing—

not Dale.”

“That’s right. He was doing his thing and I played along with it.” She crossed her arms over her chest, daring him to contradict her.

“Well, I think that’s ridiculous.”

“No more ridiculous than you hauling off and punching your leading man when Max Weisman’s been itching for a reason to fire you.”

Bryson turned and began limping back down the street. “Fuck Max Weisman.”

“You need to apologize to Dale,” Scarlett said, hurrying after Bryson.

“No way. I don’t care if he was in character, Scarlett. I’m not apologizing.

You’re my assistant and he shouldn’t have been --” he stopped.

“Shouldn’t have been what?”

She looked in his eyes. He was looking back at her with a fierce protectiveness that made her heart speed up. She hadn’t realized before just how expressive Bryson’s eyes were, and it surprised her.

He blinked and looked away, as if something had made him uncomfortable.

“You’re naïve about the film business—and clearly star struck,” he said, finally. “And obviously Dale took advantage of that.”

“I’m naïve?” she laughed. The thought was preposterous. Scarlett had been called a lot of things in her life, but naïve was definitely not one of them.

“Yeah.”

“You don’t know a thing about me or what I’ve been through.”

“Maybe not, but—”

“But nothing,” Scarlett continued, pointing at him. She pressed her finger against his chest. “You’re the star struck one, fawning all over Eliza Johnston from the second she batted her little eyelashes at you. You left me, dropped me and ignored me when I went out of my way to show up at this stupid thing for you tonight.”

He stared at her for a long moment. His eyes blazed with anger, and for a second, she thought he was going to yell at her. They were standing so close she could see every detail of his face – the tiny scar on his forehead, the slight stubble on his cheeks, a small scratch on his jawline. A scratch he’d gotten defending her.

Her heart sped up again, even faster now, and for a moment, she had the crazy thought that Bryson was going to grab her and kiss her. But just like that, the anger dissipated from his eyes, and he shook his head. “Shit,” he said, running his fingers through his hair. “You’re right.”

“I know I’m right.” She put her hands on her hips and glared at him.

He smiled that charming smile of his. “Forgive me. I’m an idiot.”

“You don’t make it easy to like you, Bryson.”

Then why did you just want him to kiss you?

“I know I don’t.” He looked down at the sidewalk. “But I swear that if you don’t give up on me, I’ll eventually make this all up to you, Scarlett.”

Scarlett wasn’t sure why, but for some reason she actually sort of believed him.

She sighed and shook her head. “You need to make things right with Dale.”

“I’ll think about it.”

They walked a couple of blocks together, looking for a taxi, but every one that passed by seemed to be taken. After a while, they came across a street vendor selling roasted peanuts, and Bryson bought a bag for each of them.

The vendor gawked at Bryson’s black and blue eye.

“This is just makeup,” Bryson told him, winking at the guy with his good eye.

“I’m working on a movie.”

The vendor didn’t reply, just gave them their peanuts and took the cash.

“This will keep us fortified in case we have to walk all the way home,” Bryson said, handing Scarlett a bag.

“Great,” Scarlett said, taking a peanut out of the bag and popping it into her mouth. “Walking all the way home. A perfect end to the perfect night.”

Bryson shook his head. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll figure a way to get us out of this.”

“Out of walking home? Or out of the whole Dale situation?”

“Both.”

“Good,” she said, chewing on a delicious roasted peanut. “Because if you get fired, so do I.”

“Scarlett.” He slowed down and grabbed her hand. She turned to him, and couldn’t help but notice how when he looked into her eyes, she got tiny little flutters in her stomach. Something she hadn’t felt in some time.

“What?” she said.

“I’m really sorry about the way I’ve treated you since the beginning of this whole thing. I know I’ve been kind of flakey. But if they let me stay on as director, I’m going to do a better job. I’ll make sure to keep you in the loop and involved from now on.”

“Thanks,” she said.

“I mean it.” He moved closer to her.

The night had gotten chilly, and she could feel the warmth of his body heat. She looked up at him, inadvertently licking her lips, wondering again what it would feel like to kiss him. And why was he looking at her that way?

For a moment, she was certain he was going to lean in and kiss her, and in that split second she would have let him—might have even liked it.

But just then he broke his gaze from hers and said, “Hey, there’s a taxi.” He waved his arm and stepped off the curb. “Taxi!”

The cab slowed down to a halt next to them, and Scarlett was surprised to feel a disappointed, hollow feeling in her stomach at the sudden turn in events. Bryson opened the door and motioned her in.

Scarlett got inside and told the driver her address. Then she looked at Bryson.

“We can share a cab,” she told him.

He shook his head no. “I need to clear my head and walk for a while more,” he said.

“Are you sure?”

He nodded. “Thanks again for coming with me tonight.”

“You’re welcome, Bryson.”

He shut the door and slapped the rear of the car once. “G’night, Scarlett!” he shouted.

The taxi pulled away and she looked back once. Bryson was standing on the sidewalk, watching her go. When she turned to the front again, she could sense that he was still there, watching them drive out of sight.

***

Scarlett woke up to her cell phone buzzing. She rubbed her eyes as the phone rumbled on the nightstand next to her bed.

Her brain was foggy. But not too foggy to remember the way Bryson had been looking at her when the cab drove up at the end of the night.

As Scarlett groped for the phone, she realized that she’d gone to bed the previous night thinking about Bryson, and now woken up still thinking about him.

That put her slightly off kilter when she answered the phone. “Hello?”

“It’s Hunter.” He didn’t sound pleased.

“Is everything okay?” she asked, the words barely escaping her throat.

“I think you know the answer to that.”

She sat up in bed, trying to compose her thoughts. “Let me explain what happened. It’s a big misunderstanding—”

“You need to come to my office by nine o’clock. And bring Bryson with you, do you understand? Don’t be even a second late.”

“Why do I have to bring Bryson? Can’t he come on his own?”

“We can’t find him.” Hunter’s tone was ominous. “Is he with you, by chance?”

She sat up straighter, as if guilty of something. “No! No, he’s not with me.”

“Well he’s not answering his goddamn phone. Maybe he’ll answer if you call. I don’t know, Scarlett. What I do know is that if Bryson isn’t in my office by nine a.m., he may as well hop on the next flight back to L.A.”

“Got it. I’ll find him.”

“Good.”

And then the phone went dead.

She was up and out of bed in seconds. She took the quickest shower of her life and got dressed in a soft charcoal pantsuit. A quick swipe of mascara and lip gloss and then she was out the door to grab a cab. As she went, she tried Bryson’s cell.

He wasn’t answering.

She hailed a cab and directed the driver to Bryson’s apartment building. She was sweating and anxious, checking the time on her phone incessantly, and then calling his phone again and again.

The driver continually glanced back at her. “You need another pair of hands,” he joked.

She tried to grin appreciatively. “If only they sold those at Target.”

This seemed to confuse him. “Sold what?”

“You know, hands.”

“Why would they sell hands at Target?”

Scarlett sighed. Nothing was going right this morning, she thought, including her feeble attempts at humor.

The taxi let her off at Bryson’s building and she asked the cabbie to wait and keep the meter running.

When she got to the concierge’s desk, she told him it was an emergency and she needed to get up to Bryson’s apartment. The concierge seemed less than impressed. “Is this a medical emergency?” he asked sarcastically, like he knew it wasn’t and was used to crazy women showing up demanding to be let up to see unsuspecting men. “Should I call the police?”

“No, no—of course not,” she backtracked.

He called up to Bryson’s apartment and got no answer. “Sorry. Nobody appears to be answering at this time. Can I take a message for Mister Taylor?”

“Did you see him leave this morning?”

“I’m afraid I can’t answer that,” the concierge replied.

“This is important. Mister Taylor’s job depends on me getting in touch with him.”

The concierge shrugged. “My hands are tied. I can take a message—”

“We need to go up to his room and knock on his door.”

The man was implacable, bored and disinterested in her frantic pleas. “I need to attend to my position, so I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

“Listen, sir --”

“I’m going to have to ask you to leave now, miss.”