All Over You

All Over You

A
Devoured
novella by

Copyright © 2012 Emily Snow.

All Rights Reserved. No reproduction without
written permission.

ALL OVER YOU

Emily Snow

Copyright Emily Snow 2012

Published at Smashwords

“You’re leaving?” a hoarse, feminine voice
demands, breaking the silence in the dark hotel room. Every muscle
in my back goes stiff, and I pause where I’m standing a few feet
away from the bed and the naked woman lying in it. A moment passes
before I give her a curt nod. Yanking my black tee shirt over my
head, I sit down on the edge of the hotel mattress and shove my
feet into the motorcycle boots she’d taken off me earlier on my
order.

“Got a shoot in the morning,” I tell her, my
voice bored. But even if my band wasn’t doing a music video this
week, I wouldn’t stay with her. After we were done, and she’d
closed her eyes, falling asleep, I’d come up with a plan. Unravel
those hands from the hotel bed posts and sneak out unnoticed. Now
that she was alert again and staring right at me, that strategy was
blown to shit.

The woman sighs as she nudges her knee back
and forth across my lower back in an attempt to get me to look at
her. I don’t. “That’s too bad, Mr. Wolfe. I thought we could go for
round three,” she says suggestively.

The mattress squeaks, and I know she’s
grinding her hips into it. I let her do this for another ninety
seconds before I turn around, slowly. She’s kicked the rumpled
sheets away from her petite body, and her legs are spread apart,
inviting me in. Arching her back upwards, she strains against the
satin binds, biting her bottom lip and moaning softly.

Cocking my head to the side, I quirk the
corner of my mouth. “Not tonight.”

“Why not?” she asks, her voice taking on a
pout. The sensuality doesn’t extend to her dark eyes. They’re giant
and desperate and only make me more intent to leave this hotel room
and take my ass back home where nobody would question me.

“Look, Megan—”

She gasps, just like I expect her to. “Mara,”
she corrects me. “My name is Mara.”

I know that—I don’t forget names of the women
I tie up—but I give her a sardonic look. Narrow my hazel eyes into
thin slits. “
Mara
, I don’t do overnights.”

Or relationships because my ex-wife would
rip anyone I tried to be with to pieces
.

Mara turns her head, and her inky black hair
falls around her flushed face and the piles of pillows bunched up
beneath her head. She focuses her gaze on something across the
room, and I follow it to a trio of oil paintings hanging several
inches over the flat screen TV. I hear her breathing heavily, deep
drags in and out of her pierced nose. There’s this part of me that
wants to feel a pull toward her. That wants to turn back around and
crawl back in bed and completely own this woman, even if there’s
that risk of Sam going apeshit.

Instead, when I turn my eyes back to Mara, I
reach for her wrists, skimming her palms with the pads of my
fingers as I loosen the fabric and pull it over her hands. Her skin
is still slick, and when she rolls to her side to turn completely
away from me, the strap prints on her ass—just below her back
dimples—are vivid, despite the dim lighting.

I watch her sides expand as she breathes, the
way the flowery tattoo that completely covers it moves up and down.
“You won’t call me again, huh?” Mara asks.

Normally, I don’t explain. There’s no reason
to when we both know the answer—Mara’s a groupie and I’d been clear
about what she was to
me
at the beginning of the evening, as
I blindfolded her. But for some reason, I say, “No.” I trace my
fingertips across her hips. She shivers, a tiny gasp coming from
her throat, and I add, “I’ve got no plans to ever call you
again.”

She nods. “Didn’t think so. Thank you . . .
Lucas.”

I leave the room—a room that I’ve been to
more times than I can count—wearing a bored look. In the elevator,
a tall blonde looks up from the man she’s groping to give me a
long, hard onceover. Her green eyes go wide as she mouths my name,
and my lips twitch, but I say nothing. When I exit out the back, to
where my car is waiting in its usual spot, the night guard inclines
his head, giving me a polite and goddamn knowing smile.

“Have a wonderful evening, Mr. Wolfe.”

Yeah, real wonderful.

***

I’ve always been a fan of early mornings—the
workout and long shower and writing—so I’m wide awake, playing my
guitar, when my assistant shuffles into my music room a few minutes
after eight the next day. She slams a few plastic bags down on the
carpeted floor, cursing and barely missing a signed guitar that
cost more than her yearly salary. My eyebrow shoots up, but I don’t
stop strumming.

“I’ve got a punching bag downstairs,” I
suggest. “I’d rather you beat the shit out of it before you wreck
my house.”

She gives me a dark look before she begins to
dig through the bags, looking for something. “Go screw yourself,
Lucas.”

“Not very sisterly.” Sitting the Les Paul to
the side, I lean back in my leather chair—so far that the front
legs come off the floor—and glance across the room at my younger
sister. Red faced, with black and blue hair, Kylie looks like shit.
When I tell her this, she shoots snorts.

“Thanks for the compliment.” She finally
finds what she’s been searching for and comes over, plunks a
rectangular pink cardboard box on the music bench a few feet away
from me and gestures to it grandly, blowing strands of hair out of
her eyes. “I brought you breakfast. Enjoy.”

“Donuts,” I reply sarcastically. “Yum.”

She sits on the bench, throwing open the box
and digging in. “You don’t have to be a dick all the time. Or such
a picky eater.”

Now I snort. “Says the picky girl who won’t
even touch cheese.”

Kylie ignores me, focusing instead on the
schedule for today. “You’ve got the shoot at”—she rolls her dark
eyes, drags out her iPhone, and punches the screen a few
times—“10:30. Three or four days . . . as long as everyone
cooperates.”

Meaning Sinjin’s not messed up out of his
mind and Wyatt’s not fucking everything on set with a pussy. I nod,
suddenly aware that this shoot’ll probably take a good week or two
just because my band can’t get their shit together long enough to
make a decent video.

I clench my fist for a moment, before
shutting the notebook I’d been working in before my sister showed
up. Sensing my irritation, Kylie gives me a forced smile and pats
my hand. Hers are sticky with donut icing, and my mouth drags into
a frown.

“I’m sure it won’t be too bad.” But even as
she tries to cheer me up, it’s easy to see that she’s still
agitated. I wipe the back of my hand on the inside of my shirt and
cast her the most pleasant look I can muster.

“You remember the last shoot, right?”

Kylie cringes but recovers fast. “I’ve heard
they got a pretty actress for you to pretend sleep with.” Her voice
takes on that high-pitched tone people use to lure their kids to
the dentist.

“I’m jumping for fucking joy.”

“God, you suck. Too bad they can’t get a body
double for you,” she says, reaching out to wipe her own hands down
the front of my shirt. A low growl releases from the back of my
throat and she looks up into my eyes, laughing—a genuine one. Then,
Kylie stands, digging in her giant bag as she walks to the door.
“Going to drop your laundry off at the cleaner and pick up your
lame-ass groceries.”

“Could you possibly sound any more miserable
about that?” I ask.

She spins and grins widely, a cigarette
dangling from the corner of her lips. Oh yeah, she’s pissed—she
hasn’t touched one in months. “Give me a raise and I’ll sound as
cheerful as you want.”

I don’t remind her that she makes twenty
bucks an hour because all she’ll do is give me shit and a million
reasons why she deserves more.

When she comes back with bags of groceries
and a dry cleaning receipt an hour later, I’m dressed. She looks
less irritated than she did this morning, so I don’t bring it up as
she drives me to the set where day one of shooting will take place.
As we walk into the studio together, it’s obvious this is the last
place she wants to be right now. She lags a few steps behind me,
dragging her feet and making an annoying scraping noise across the
concrete.

“Do you have somewhere to be?” I demand
impatiently, tossing a glare over my shoulder at her.

Her face scrunches into a painful expression.
“No, I just—”

“You’re running late,” a deep voice says, and
before I turn to face Wyatt, I don’t miss the way Kylie’s face
flushes. Not this shit again.

“Right on time,” I say, turning sideways so
that I can look between the two of them. Kylie glares down at the
floor and mumbles something and Wyatt’s shit-eating grin suddenly
doesn’t seem so relaxed when he walks closer to us, cell phone in
hand.

And as I stand here, caught between a decade
of push and pull between my best friend and little sister, I feel
sick to my stomach. I feel like the biggest hypocrite who’s ever
lived.

“Where’s this actress I’m supposed to pretend
screw?” It’s the first thing that rolls past my lips, but
apparently it does the trick. Kylie looks up, grinning, and Wyatt
rolls his eyes and goes back to sending messages. Probably to a
woman because that’s the way he and Kylie operate. They’re
together, they break up, and then they date—or in Kylie’s
case—marry other people. Over and over again.

As I stride in the direction of my personal
dressing room, I cast one final glance over my shoulder at my
sister and Wyatt, whose faces are inches away from each other and
flushed with anger. They’re bitching at each other in hushed tones
and when I turn the corner, I realize that there’s this twisted
part of me that’s thankful for Sam—thankful that my ex is screwed
up to the point of keeping me out of relationships.

I’ve never worked on a music video shoot.

No, scratch that. I’ve never worked in
wardrobe for a shoot
period
, or been inside of an actual
studio for that matter. And now that I’m here, I’ve got to admit
I’m nervous. Like what the-hell-was-I-thinking-when-I-accepted-
this-job nervous.

“Where’s that costume, Sienna?” Amber, my new
boss, calls over her shoulder impatiently. She’s across the tiny
room, bent over a small desk that looks like it belongs inside of a
dorm room instead of a wardrobe department, studying a set of
handwritten notes.

I swipe my damp palms down the front of my
jeans and pluck a pair of lacy boy shorts and a camisole from the
end of the costume rack and turn to face her, holding it up high
for her to appraise them.

She purses her thin, glossy lips together as
if she’s strongly considering what I’ve picked out for the blonde
actress who’d be starring in “All Over You” as Lucas Wolfe’s love
interest. Finally, she shakes her head from side to side. “Not
going to work. This is a Your Toxic Sequel music video, honey.
You’re going to have to be a
little
more creative.”

I start to ask Amber what exactly does she
mean by a little more creative but then she shoves herself from the
desk. She takes four short strides over to me, nudges me aside and
skims through the rack of lingerie that consists of everything from
sweet Fredericks of Hollywood numbers to Agent Provocateur to
fetish pieces. When Amber steps back, she drops what looks like two
ropes of pleather into my outstretched palms and gives me a
triumphant smile.

I hold the fabric in between our faces,
examining it. Automatically, the corners of my mouth drag into a
frown because this is a sorry excuse for a bra and panties.

Hell, I feel naked just holding it.

Crossing my arms over my body so that the
underwear are tucked behind me, I glance down at Amber, who’s still
shorter than my five foot ten in her high-heeled boots, and say, “I
think a softer look would work better. I mean, “All Over You” is a
love song, right?”

A dirty, sexy love song about a one night
stand that had the potential to be so much more. The other night my
roommate and I had watched a lyric video of it on YouTube, and just
listening to Lucas’s voice had stripped me down.

Had left me wanting exactly what he was
talking about, though I don’t think I’d ever admit that to
anyone.

Amber gives me a frosty smile before stalking
back over to her makeshift desk, her high-heeled boots grinding on
the concrete floor. She shuffles through her paperwork before
glancing up to give me a look. “Those go to the actress,
Sienna.”