Hollywood Princess (Hollywood Royalty 2)

I shake my head, thinking about Cori’s words. One shot. “Like fuck there isn’t,” I say louder than I want to. Her eyes fly up to mine, and I watch as anger fills her eyes.

“You really want to fucking talk about this?” Her voice roars. “What do you want to talk about exactly?” Her voice softens and then gets louder with the next question. “Let’s talk about the fact I asked you to kiss me, and you said, and I quote”—she brings up her hands to do the quotation marks—“‘I can’t.’”

“Yeah, you’re fucking right, I can’t!” I shout back.

“I get it, okay?” she says, throwing her hands up. “I get that you don’t see me like that. I get that it was so hard to kiss me, but you had no problem fucking Stacey in the hotel gym now, did you?” she roars out the last part. “I’m not your type; I get it. Trust me, the message has been received loud and clear.” I don’t even hear the rest of her rant. The only thing I catch is I fucked Stacey in the gym.

“What are you talking about?” I ask in a whisper.

“Please spare me,” she scoffs. “I heard her,” she says. When I look at her, I see big tears forming in her eyes, but she blinks them away. “I was in the bathroom stall, and I heard her come in, and she told someone that she fucked you in the gym last night.” The lump I had in my throat before suddenly becomes bigger. It becomes so big I can’t say anything. My mouth just opens and closes, so Kellie continues, “I’m sorry I put you in that position.”

“I never fucked her.” The words finally come out, my voice heavy with anger. “I never laid a finger on her.”

“You don’t have to do this.” She shakes her head. A tear finally falls, but she wipes it away as fast as it came. “You can do what you want with whoever you want.”

“I never even touched her. She was in the gym, and she came on to me, but I turned her down.” I watch her face, and I watch her eyes. What Cori said finally snaps into place. I have one more shot with her. “When you asked me to kiss you, I said I can’t. I never said I didn’t want to.”

“It’s the same thing,” she fights back.

“It isn’t,” I finally say, the days and hours of frustration rising to the surface. “I couldn’t kiss you in that bar because I knew it wouldn’t be enough.” The weight on my chest suddenly lets up a bit, her mouth opening. “I knew that if I kissed you that one time, it wouldn’t be enough, and I would want more. I would want to bury my hands in your hair.” I laugh at the irony of me trying to stay strong and fight this. “I didn’t just want to kiss you last night in that bar. I wanted to own you, claim you, make you fucking mine. I wanted to get lost in the kiss I know I will never, ever forget. A kiss I know the minute it happens will be over for us because there will be no other.”

“I …” she says softly, her brain trying to wrap around the words, and then my brain stops working. My head doesn’t listen to the side saying just do your job. Instead, it listens to the side that says make her yours. I walk to her, her eyes going bigger and bigger as I get closer and closer. “Brian.” It’s the last thing I let her say because my hands are in her hair, and I tilt her head back, finally giving in to the months and months of aching for her, the months of wanting to taste her when I knew I couldn’t.

Her mouth opens when I finally touch my lips to hers, her hands going to my face as she tilts her head to the side. Her tongue finally slides with mine, and our groans are swallowed by each other. Her hands move from my cheeks to my hair, and then finally, her chest is flush with mine. The kiss goes from soft to full-on need. Our heads move side to side to get deeper, to get more. It’s not enough. I knew it wouldn’t be enough. I knew that with one taste, one touch, I’d be gone. I pull away from her and see her chest rising and falling, her nipples now poking through her shirt, but it’s the whisker burn that she has around her plump lips that I’m staring at. “See,” I whisper, trying to get my mind to finally catch up to what is happening. “Do you see now?”

“You didn’t fuck her?” she asks me again, and I shake my head.