Diva (Ironclad Bodyguards Book 2) (19 page)

He watched as she strummed out a few more lines, exposing herself to him in a way she didn’t expose herself in front of the festival ravers. In the end, she wimped out and omitted the angsty middle verses, and went straight to the end.

“
You say I’m a kid, but maybe I’m grown up enough to see…
” Her voice held the note as her fingers searched for the last chord. “
That sometimes what you didn’t want/is exactly what you need.
”

She put down her guitar and made a face at him to cover her tumultuous feelings. “
See
and
need
don’t rhyme. There’s an extra d.”

A faint smile. A twinkle in his eyes. “Yeah, but you love extra d.”

She laughed as he leaned to kiss her, one of his hands resting on her leg. He tasted like pizza and lemon Pellegrino, and smelled like clean, warm bodyguard fresh out of the shower.

“I do love extra d,” she admitted when they pulled apart. “Especially your extra d, which is extra thick and extra hard.”

“You’re extra dirty.”

“Not as dirty as you.” It was easier to talk about sex than the other things she’d come to feel for him. She hugged her knees to her chest, feeling stripped by his closeness and steady regard. “Thank you for tonight. It was…memorable.”

“I try to be memorable.”

He’d just be a memory one day. All their carnal hookups would be a fleeting collection of memories, a few magical weeks in time. She couldn’t bear to think of that right now. He sobered. He must have been thinking about it too.

“This thing we’re doing…” He cupped her face. “This is so against the rules, kid. They’re going to fire me over this. All those years working my way to the top of my field…”

“They’ll never know.” She put her hand over his. “I promise I’ll never tell anyone. I swear.”

“Whether you tell or not, it happened.”

Her expression hardened to match his. “Are you going to be all honorable and make some big, guilty confession to your boss?”

“I try to be honorable.”

She put her guitar back in its case. “Don’t be honorable over me,” she said. “I’m a twenty-year-old raver with pink hair. I’m not worth it.”

“Don’t say you’re not worth it.” He moved the pizza box to the other bed and gathered her in his arms. “I want to tell you something.” His voice deepened with feigned dramatic resonance. “I want to tell you something about life.”

“Ooh, life.” She mocked so she wouldn’t start bawling. Why did she go weepy every time he held her?

Because she didn’t have any other love in her life.

Wait. Fuck.

Love?

You love him, Lola. Just tell him. Admit it.

Five miserable years of partying and posturing and fucking guys she didn’t even like, when she could have been with a man like this. An honorable, tender, intelligent man who cared enough to teach her about life.

He cradled her against his chest and rested his chin on her temple. “I know I’m going to sound all parental and uptight when I say this—”

“Which is how you always sound, so whatever.”

“So, whatever. My wise advice is that you’re worth exactly what you believe you’re worth. Do you understand what I mean?” He repeated it again, like she might not have heard the first time. “You’re worth exactly what you believe you’re worth. Not just monetarily, but emotionally. If you let people belittle and use you—”

That made her sit up in irritation. “You think I let people use me? I don’t. I use them.”

“I know you do. It’s a powerful defensive weapon. But it’s still a defense.” He tilted her face up to his, and she knew she looked defensive as hell. “Underneath your Lady Paradise persona, I know you’re unhappy. You’re afraid the next album, the next festival, the next hair color won’t be good enough.”

“Fuck you,” she muttered. “You don’t know anything.”

He pulled her close again, stroking fingers into her nape so goosebumps rose on her skin. “It doesn’t matter. I wasn’t even talking about you. I was talking about me. My past. My regrets. In my last career, I let people manipulate me into being less than I was.” His slow sigh ruffled her hair. “You’re worth exactly what you believe you’re worth, Lola. That’s the only advice I feel qualified to give.”

His quiet voice made her heart ache. When she said
Fuck you
, she really meant
I love you
. He probably understood that. She curled her fingers around his muscled arm.

“How long did you do the porn stuff?”

“Too long.” He sighed again. “I did five hundred and sixty-three shoots, which turned into God knows how many movies. I fucked hundreds of women on camera, made friends with a lot of them, watched them succumb one after the other to depression, drugs, and shitty relationships.”

She sat up to look at him, but he wasn’t there. His tortured gaze was trapped somewhere in the past.

“So many of them hated themselves. That’s what got to me in the end. At first, I convinced myself it was okay to trash those women on film, hurt them, hold them down and degrade them, because it was all just business. A performance. But by the end…”

She slid her fingers down to hold his hand. “What happened? I mean, what happened to make you decide you’d had enough?”

He gave a soft, sad laugh. “My conscience happened. I had a friend, a beautiful woman I worked with during the final two years. We grew close because we had a lot in common: big, crazy families, L.A. upbringing, a growing aversion to the business. But once you’re in porn, it’s hard to get out. The money’s good, the lifestyle’s flexible, and the producers always pressure you for one more shoot. Rayna wanted to get out but she didn’t know what else to do. She didn’t think she was good enough…”

His voice trailed off.
You’re worth exactly what you believe you’re worth.

“She got into drugs to cope with the lifestyle,” he said, continuing his story. “She drank herself to sleep every night, or took pain pills to come down from whatever stimulant she’d taken. We used to have long, emotional talks, but that side of her disappeared until she was only a shell of her former self. I pleaded with her to rehab, to get out, but she was so sunken in despair and self-hate by that point…”

“And you were too.” She could hear it in his tone. “What happened to her?”

He shook his head, staring down at their hands. Lola didn’t press for clarification. She could imagine the rest. She could imagine his helpless guilt as he watched his friend throw away her life. She could imagine him quitting porn and starting a new career, a career where he could be the protector instead of the assailant. Where he could prevent people from harming themselves through addictions and destructive behaviors, rather than be complicit in their spiral.

She laced her fingers through his. “What happened to her wasn’t your fault.”

“Oh, I was part of the problem.” A muscle ticked in his jaw. “The things I did to her on film, to all those women, day after day, year after year… That’s why I can’t stand the idea of you watching, or anyone watching. I can’t stand that I made films for so long. When I turned to drugs to perform, and alcohol to sleep at night, I already knew how that story ended.”

Lola stared at him. Uptight, upright Ransom using drugs and alcohol? She couldn’t imagine it. The idea of him high or drunk, outside his iron edifice of control, terrified her.

“So instead, I decided to change my life,” he said. “I decided I was worth more than fucking for money. I got clean, shaped up, and applied for an entry-level position at Ironclad. I was honest with my boss about my past. I told him I wanted to make amends, that I wanted to help people. I worked my way up through the ranks, proving myself client by client. Now here I am.” The faraway look went away, and her stern bodyguard was back, restating his brisk advice. “You decide what you’re worth, Lola. No one else will do it for you. If it was up to those assholes I worked for, I’d still be pumping out porn flicks today.”

“Literally pumping them out,” she said mournfully. “I’m sorry I watched some of them. I promise I never will again.”

“They’re bullshit. They’re not sexy. They’re…”

Again, he didn’t finish, and Lola understood why. Some things were too awful to describe. Instead she pulled his face to hers and kissed him, a long, slow kiss to take on his sadness and make it one more thing they shared. When she pulled away, he gazed down at her, a frown marring his handsome features.

“Be careful.” He smoothed his fingers over her cheeks. “Don’t get too attached to me. There are better things in store for you than an ex-porn star on the bad end of thirty.”

She brushed his warnings away, along with his fingers. “I don’t care how old you are, or that you used to do porn.”

“You missed the important part of that sentence. There are better things in store for you.”

She almost scoffed and said she’d never find anything better, that there was nothing in store for her because she was a fucking mess. But then she remembered
You’re worth exactly what you believe you’re worth
, and she kept the words inside and kissed him again.

“I like being with you,” she said when they parted.

“I like being with you too, but there’s no way forward for us. I’m too old and you’re too crazy.” He grimaced as she straddled him. She could feel his cock rising to life, even after their weighty conversation. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, holding her hips when she tried to grind on him.

“I want you to hurt me. I want you to use me like a filthy gym sock.”

“No. I care too much to do that to you. And you should care too.”

“But I don’t.” She kissed along the line of his jaw, and licked his delicious, square chin. “So what’s wrong with me?”

He gave a helpless laugh. “What’s wrong with you? Besides your nymphomaniacal tendencies?” He pretended to look her over, amusement and reproach alternating in his gaze. “Well, you have pink hair, which I guess is fixable. You can be a little headstrong at times, and difficult to get along with.”

She gave him a dubious look, since he possessed both the latter qualities. He relented and let her snuggle her hips against his cock.

“Maybe nothing’s wrong with you,” he said. “Maybe you just need to grow up. Although I’m pushing forty and I still feel fucked up a lot of the time.”

“You hide it well.”

“With other people, maybe. Not you. You make me forget that I’m supposed to act like a responsible and professional person.”

“Responsible and professional is boring,” she whispered against his ear, then closed her teeth on his earlobe.

He groaned. “Wait. Hold on. A condom…”

They scrambled to undress, and Ransom rolled on a rubber as she lay back on the bed. “Do you mind if I don’t stick it in your ass this time?” he teased. “For once?”

“You can stick it wherever you want,” she said, and he eased into her pussy with a stretching, delicious heat and warmth. He was so big and powerful, so intent in his possession.

“Yes,” she said, clinging to his shoulders. “Yes, please, please, please…”

“This has to be the last time.” His unwelcome words came out on a gasp. “I mean it, Lola.”

“But it feels so good.”

“Exactly. It feels too good.” He stopped inside her, gazing down at her as she swiveled her hips. “You could ruin my life in so many ways.”

“Mm. Ruin me,” she begged.

He made a rough sound and fucked her harder. His abs moved over her skin, his huge body pressing her to the bed. Her legs flailed and her back arched as he hit that spot, that spot,
that spot…

“Oh my God. Please, yes. Please more.”

“Lola…” His voice shook. His body possessed hers with carnal ferocity, even as he gazed down at her in resignation.

“I’m worth it, aren’t I?” she whispered, pulling him closer.

“Jesus, yes.” At last, he seemed to surrender. “God fucking help me. You’re worth the world.”

*

Ransom spread his
fingers in the plush purple carpet and started on his second set of push-ups. Road vibration tickled his fingertips as they made the long trip from northern Italy to Spain. After a couple festivals in Spain, they’d fly to the United Kingdom and Scandinavia to finish the tour. They were heading into the second and final month, which was probably for the best, not that he wanted to say goodbye to her.

The thing was, if he didn’t say goodbye to her soon, he was going to start believing they had a future together, and that was a dangerous idea to entertain.

He cocked his head and listened, but he couldn’t hear anything but travel noise as he began his third set of push-ups. Travel noise was good. Yelling was bad. The Lady Paradise tour bus had become a very tense place since Don and Lola’s most recent argument. The thunder outside seemed to underline Lola’s stormy working relationship with the tour manager. At least someone else was the bad guy in her life now.

When his arms burned, Ransom left off with the push-ups and sat on the couch to check his emails. He was already getting notices from Ironclad about possible future assignments. Dissolute actress up for an Oscar, difficult-to-control boy bander heading out on tour, even a corporate bigwig who needed to be escorted around Bangkok so he didn’t get himself into trouble. Wow, the owner of
that
corporation had a thing for underage prostitutes?