Free Shooting Star (Beautiful Chaos) by Arianne Richmonde Page A

swung open, revealing a mindboggling array of bottles—like something out of a Bond movie. Jake poured a couple of Cokes, clinked in some ice and slices of lemon. I tucked my knees under me and wondered what he wanted to talk about. My character, Skye, no doubt. Jake—a one-track mind: the Movie, with a capital M.
    He sat down, close enough, but making sure he wasn’t touching any part of my body. His erection had calmed down and I had that niggling question again; had I imagined it? He had his “I’m a Director” look on again.
    “Look, Star,” he began.
    “I’m looking,” I retorted childishly. “And I can’t see the freaking wood from the trees. You’re giving me double messages, Jake. You think I want to be here as your prisoner? I could be in a hotel with my friends having fun, not alone here where the only person—I mean creature—that pays any attention to me is your dog!”
    “I don’t know how to deal with you.” He took a long slug of his soda. Was he abstaining from booze for my sake? “You’re disarming me. I’m trying to be professional and I’m finding it extremely difficult the way you’re . . . you’re . . . look . . I don’t want to hurt you.”
    “Ha! They warned me that you were a player but nobody filled me in about your arrogance. Hurt me? Star Davis? I don’t fall in love, Jake. Least of all with directors.”
    “Then why are you acting all wounded when I don’t pay you more attention?”
    He had a point. “I . . . I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    “This business is a lonely, dog-eat-dog one, and people are out for your blood. I’m just trying to protect you, Star. Like you pointed out earlier, you’re only nineteen.”
    “Oh yeah? Like you’re not one of them? You want my blood just as much as the next person. Last I heard, all you cared about was getting a great performance out of me and that there’s no way we can be friends!”
    “You think we can be buddies when you run around in tiny little skirts—your exposed legs all long and golden, your sexy little arse cheeks peeking out all over the place? Oh, and naked as well! With your beautiful tits in my face? Don’t you get it, Star? Course I want to fuck you! Any straight man would. All day long, all I think about is sex. With you. But we simply can’t go there!”
    I felt my stomach flip with triumph. Excitement. I’d got to him! I felt powerful. Like holding a great hand of cards, I knew I could win this game. “I’m sorry,” I said, putting my hand lightly on his thigh. I could hear the pattern of his breath was uneven and when my eyes strayed to his newly tented shorts—that comforting telltale sign—it sent a tingle between my legs. He desired me. And his desire was turning me on.
    “We need to talk—get to know each other a bit better. I’m sorry I haven’t handled things so well, it’s just . . . I find you disconcerting.”
    “Disconcerting?” I played the innocent.
    Then he said between gritted teeth, “Do you always get what you want, Star?”
    “ You’re a person who gets what he wants,” I answered, “you should understand. But there’s one difference between us: I had to fight for my privileges but you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth.”
    He laughed. “The spoon was pretty bloody tarnished, I can tell you.”
    “Oh, yeah. Your dad’s one of the richest producers this side of Hollywood, and your uncle and grandfather are Academy Award winning directors with a list as long as my arm of hit movies. Tough life, Jake Wild.”
    He shook his head, an ironic smile tilting up his lips. “It wasn’t all roses I can tell you.”
    It was true. Who was I to decide who he was? I hardly knew the guy, except what I’d read in the papers or heard about through friends. “What about your mom?” I asked, “you see her much?”
    “My mother?” His face changed to an expression of disgust—no, more like ‘disappointment’—a sad flicker of his