Practice Makes Perfect: A Fake Fiancée Romance Read online

  Practice Makes Perfect

  (A Fake Fiancée Romance)

  By Morgan Rae

  2017 Copyright © Enamored Ink

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  CHAPTER ONE: DAMIEN

  What is it about rock-n-roll that makes people so horny?

  My vanity rocks rhythmically against the wall of my dressing room. She’s moaning while her nails dig into my back as I thrust hard inside of her. Sweat drips down my bare chest and my pants hang halfway off my hips, the belt buckle clicking against the dresser.

  Maybe, if I had a drop of insight and the ability to separate myself from the situation and watch like a ghost from above, I’d be able to see how depressingly cliché this is. All it takes is a little internal inventory to see that I’ve become boring over the past couple years. I’m a workaholic; I live and breathe and dream in beats and rhythms. If I’m not playing the strings of my guitar, I’ve got my fingers deep inside a gasping groupie. The tabloids love to wax poetic about my twisted little conquests and, right now, I’m feeding right into it. But Marian moans like an angel when I pivot my hips just right and hit that sweet spot inside of her. Fuck if it doesn’t feel good to be a stereotype every now and then.

  No matter who I’m inside, for me, it’s always about the music. Even when my reputation unravels like a poorly knit sweater behind me, my music speaks for itself. Beyond the backstage, through the curtains, a sold-out amphitheater still pounds with the applause of thousands of fans who can attest to that. The electricity of the show still hums through my veins and I find myself compelled to harmonize with the crowd. I plunge my cock deeper inside Marian to the tempo of the applause. We’re fucking in quarter notes.

  Her palms smear my mirror as she braces herself against the vanity. “Oh God, just like that,” she whimpers. In the mirror I see her eyes shut tight in pleasure and her mouth falls open in a long, drawn out moan. My long dark hair falls around my face like a curtain. I have sharp features, iceberg blue eyes, a Nordic nose, and arms strapped with muscle. A tattoo of a flame bursts up my arm, another tattoo in the shape of an X rests over my heart. This is a body I’ve spent a long-time perfecting, sculpted under the guidelines and instruction of my manager and record company. I am the face of ResurrXtion and I have to look the part.

  She’s getting close to her climax, but I’m not finished with her, not yet. I’ve always been a sucker for a slow-build crescendo. I pull out of her and my erection points skyward, wet with her need. “Turn around,” I command.

  Marian does as she’s told. Like many of my fans, she’s alternative, her dark hair stained with pink tips, her ears punctured with rings. She’s an hourglass of a woman and I love her curves. I want to see the full visual when I cum. In a single movement, I lift her and set her down on desk of the vanity. She wets her lips and her eyes sweep over me hungrily. I’m familiar with that look, that holy-shit-I’m-fucking-the-lead-singer-of-ResurrXtion look, but I can’t say I’ve ever gotten used to it. I’m not ashamed to admit it’s a major fucking turn on.

  I watch her face as I ease myself back inside of her. She’s hot, tight, and so slick. Her eyelids flutter shut as she sighs deeply.

  I demand her full attention, I grip her hair tightly and force her to look at me as I pound her against the vanity mirror. “You’re sexy as hell,” I tell her. I can hear the grit in my voice. “Do you know that? You’re a bloody masterpiece.”

  “You’re…so hot…” she says between my thrusts. Her nails dig into my bare shoulders hard enough to leave marks. It’s not a proper fuck if someone gets out unscathed, so I respond in turn. I bite the soft flesh of her throat before working red hickies into her tits.

  She cries out. The vanity clicks in rhythmic beats against the wall. I listen to everything, the skin slapping against skin, her gasps in time with the thrust of my hips. I’m losing myself to the music of our bodies in harmony. My balls grow tight against my body and I’m on the edge of release, but I hold back. The OCD part of me won’t let me get off until she does first. I need to finish what I started.

  “Open your mouth,” I tell her. When she does, I stick my fingers in her mouth and shove them in to the knuckle. She doesn’t gag, she just looks at me with those preciously lustful eyes. “Suck,” and she does, so lewdly it makes my cock twitch inside of her.

  I pull my hand back and reach between us so I can play her sex. I find her clit and flick it again and again, as though I’m strumming the strings of my guitar. She cries out, her fingers curl around the top of the mirror as she arches into me and yells my name.

  “Damien!”

  There’s a heavy knock on the door, interrupting my jam.

  “Not now!” I growl. Marian squirms and licks the post-show sweat off my chest, bucking into my hand.

  The knocking only grows louder. “Damien, need you out here. Pronto.” The voice belongs to my brother from another mother and ResurrXtion’s drummer, Randall Ray.

  A tingle shoots up the back of my neck. Randall is a stone, if there is worry in his voice, it must be serious.

  I pull out of Marian, cup her face, and tell her, “I have to see what he wants.”

  “Do you want me to go?” Her eyes are wide and doe-like . Why do I love corrupting the innocent ones?

  I shake my head. “No. I want you. Right. Here.” I kiss her hard on each word. She moans weakly when I taste the inside of her mouth.

  Another impatient knock on the door. “Damien!”

  I hand Marian a robe to cover herself. I yank on a pair of painfully tight pants and glance at Marian to make sure she’s decent before I open the door.

  Randall is wired. His curly hair is all over the place, as though he stuck his finger in an electrical outlet. He shifts back and forth on his lankly limbs.

  “Can I help you?” I ask curtly.

  Randall glances over my shoulder. When his eyes hit Marian, he opens a palm in a wave. “Hey there.” he says warmly. She tightens the robe around her chest. His voice has a light shake in it when he turns back to me. “It’s Martin.” He lifts his phone to my face so I can see his last text. It’s from our agent, Martin Mitchells, and it’s all in capital letters: WE NEED TO TALK. NOW.

  Shit. This can’t be good.

  “So much for the honeymoon,” I mumble as I rake my fingers through my thick hair. “Let’s get the equipment packed up.”

  CHAPTER TWO: NANCY

  Antonio is tall, dark, and dreamy. He’s wearing nothing but faded jeans with his long hair pulled back as he goes through his morning routine. He’s a glass of cold water on a hot summer’s day and he could probably melt ice on those abs, too. Not that I’m staring, I’m working. It just so happens that my job description includes keeping two eyes on Antonio’s stacked-to-all-hell body while he waters the lush Beverly Hills lawn.

  My name is Nancy Harper and I’ve spent the last twelve years as a paparazzi reporter, making it my business to get into everyone else’s business. Not just anyone’s, but the A-listers of Hollywood. The high rollers, award winners, and bad boys of the music industry. I’ve watched them rise, I’ve watched them fall, I’ve watched them everything. Sometimes it’s exciting. Every now and then, I get a good one like a drunken actor passed out in his front yard or an illicit affair with the nanny. Or, if I’m really lucky, there’s the infamous nip-slip.

  Most of the time, however, my days are spent eating lukewarm burritos while I stakeout an empty house and obsessively refresh Twitter for hours. Stalkers can’t be choosers. It’s my lot in life to be a voyeur, constantly peeking over the fence where the grass is far greener, the hous
es are worth four times my yearly pay, and plastic surgeons make house calls as often as dog walkers. Ah, the life of the rich and famous, must be nice.

  Of course, it’s hard to complain when Antonio is giving me something so nice to look at. The Burton house is a daily stop of mine and I’ve since become familiar with Antonio, the Burton’s housekeeper, who does a little bit of everything. My Honda station wagon stinks of burnt plastic and greasy fast food and the muscles of my lower back have completely locked up from being immobile for so long. But at least, for a moment, I can stare out my window and daydream about what it would be like to catch that bead of sweat on Antonio’s stomach with my tongue. I imagine those strong arms throwing me down on the freshly cut grass before his full lips cover my own.

  I’m so deep in my fantasy that it takes me a second to realize he’s looking right back at me. Oh crap. I sink deeper into my seat, but it’s too late, I’ve been spotted. Instead of throwing a brick at me, he calmly turns off the hose and swaggers over to me. He leans one arm on the top of my car, smiles like a panther, and taps the window.

  My Honda is ancient so I have to actually roll the window down. I lower my sunglasses on my nose and clear the morning crud from my throat. “Morning.”

  “Good morning, Nan,” he smiles. “Had a long night?”

  “I’m a night owl,” I flash him a pretty smile in return.

  “You know we have to stop meeting like this,” Antonio says. “The Burtons have asked before about my strange friend who drives up in her terrible car.”

  “It’s not a terrible car. Just an old one.”

  “Nan.” The humor has left his voice. “This is my job. If the Burtons knew how often you drove by…”

  “So give me something good. Then you’ll never have to see me again.” His eyes darken a little, so I press. “Roger Burton is a former rock star, for god’s sake. I know you have some good dirt on him. An affair he’s covered up, maybe. No one has to know you told me.”

  “No mistresses,” Antonio says firmly. “But I do have a name for you.”

  Antonio motions to the yellow legal notepad I keep on my dashboard for quick notes, I hand it to him with a pen. He scribbles something then tosses the notepad through the window back at me. I lift it and examine the phone number written under the name, Celia Sunders.

  “What’s this?” I ask.

  “Casting director,” he replied. “I water her lawn from time to time. I overheard her on a business call the other day. She’s putting together a new reality show.”

  I feel a tingling sensation rush through me as I inspect the number. I have a lead, a clue, and I’m itching to put the pieces together.

  “Reality shows are a dime a dozen. Why am I interested in this one?”

  “Because this is real off the books stuff. You have to be ‘in’ to get an invitation. Understand?” He lets out a sigh at my blank expression. “Look. Word on the street is, they’re setting up Damien Blaze. Some big act to sell records for his new album but you didn’t hear it from me.”

  I bite my lip. My need to be the first to get the scoop on the Burtons has suddenly been doused by my burning curiosity to learn more about this secret show. Damien Blaze is a top-charter in the rock-n-roll world and, recently, a publicity train wreck. This sounds too good to pass up. “Thanks for the tip.”

  “Good. We are done here, yes?”

  Despite myself, my gaze falls once more to his abdomen. Antonio’s smile lifts his eyes and asks, “You want to touch them?”

  It’s been nearly ten years since I had anything between my legs that didn’t vibrate and it’s showing. I let the offer hang between us for a moment but I know better. Antonio is part of that other-side-of-the-fence world. Celebrities are like lightning, bright and beautiful and utterly unattainable. Better to leave the gods in Olympus and keep my toes on solid ground.

  “Maybe next time,” I tell him.

  He barks a laugh. “You’re a crazy woman, Nancy,” he tells me as he turns to walk back to the lawn.

  “Hey!” I hold up my empty soda bottle. “Do you mind throwing this out? There’s no street recycling.”

  He rolls his eyes, takes it, and heads inside.

  My eyes linger as he leaves. His perfectly sculpted body steps across the perfectly manicured lawn and into the beautiful old house.

  Yes, it must be nice.

  Luckily for me, I don’t have to leave a lot to the imagination. I slipped a digital voice recorder in the soda bottle and soon I’ll know everything that’s going on in the Burton house. Those little babies are a trick of the trade in our world. Plant a tiny, one-shot microphone on the person you want and you’ll get a good two to three hours of voice recording, transferred wirelessly to your computer.

  The technology age is a bitch for privacy, but great for my line of business. I shake the dreamy haze from my brain and gun my Honda forward. It shudders and jerks before glugging ahead as I wind through LA’s twisting cliffs. In my hand, I clutch the notebook. I’m now a woman on a mission.

  “Call Jack Raleigh,” I tell my iPhone over Bluetooth.

  It rings over my car speakers before my boss’s voice comes through. “What’ve you got for me, Nan?”

  “Jack,” I say as I flip my notebook over again to glance at the number. “I think we’ve got the story of the year.”

  CHAPTER THREE: DAMIEN

  They’re talking about me like I’m not here.

  Which is something I should be accustomed to by now. Once I hit mainstream as Damien Blaze, lead singer of the band ResurrXtion, I relinquished part of my identity to the people around me. My promotional team tells me what clothing brands to wear. My agent tells me when and where I’ll be playing. My popularity lives and dies by my record sales. I sweat sex, fame, and rock-n-roll. Look up the definition of a rock star in the dictionary and there’s a good chance you’ll see my face.

  At least, that’s what my agent Martin Mitchells thinks. Honestly, I’m happy to keep the façade going as long as it gets me gigs. Truth is, ResurrXtion has sold multi-platinum in the UK and Japan, as far as I’m concerned, I’ve earned the right to be a little fucking difficult to work with.

  My skull ring leers back at me as I lift a finger. “If I can interject.”

  Martin and Randall both give me muddied stares, like I’m some hound that just learned how to talk.

  “You can stop pitching your reality TV shtick,” I say. My composure shocks even me. I’m not arguing, or blowing up, I’m just stating facts. “I’m not going to humiliate myself for your amusement.”

  “Damien Blaze only humiliates himself for his own amusement,” Randall Ray jokes. Randall Ray is my band-mate, my partner in crime, and is supposed to be providing me back up right now. Unfortunately, he also thinks he could’ve been a stand-up-comedian in another life and no one has the heart to tell him there’s a time and a place for his bad jokes.

  “Think about it,” Martin says, which is code for he doesn’t want me to think about it. “This is about your image, Damien. You have to take your ego out of the equation. We’re using Destination: Desire as a platform.”

  “A platform for what?”

  “A platform to win your fans back.”

  I hiss through my teeth. “My fans don’t need to like me. They just need to like my music.”

  My words send Martin off the deep end and his Irish-pale face gets as red as his ginger hair as he huffs and puffs and fumbles with a pen holder on his desk. “That’s not…this industry doesn’t work like that, Damien. You should know that by now. Your record sales have dropped dramatically every time a fan comes out with another backstage saga.”

  "So groupies love me, big deal."

  "For the last time, we don't call them groupies anymore. They're fans." Martin adjusts his glasses and wipes sweat from his forehead. “Being a bad boy was good, Damien,” he says, “but you’ve gone beyond that. The way you’re acting now, it’s like you don’t give a shit a
bout anyone or anything, including yourself. I don’t know if this is some self-destructive cry for help or if you’re just being an immature brat, but you have to cut it out. Otherwise, you can kiss your solo career goodbye.”

  I curl my fingers at my lips. Martin is losing his temper, which makes me dangerously close to doing the same.

  “Forget it, Martin,” Randall Ray cuts in from his spot in the chair beside me. Randall Ray is the voice of calm and reason between two thunderstorms. “Damien isn’t cut out for something like this. Come on, you expect him to spend a month being monogamous? Dating one woman? He’s a hungry wolf, man. You can’t tame that.”

  There’s a cold prickling at the back of my neck. It isn’t rage, but not quite guilt or shame, either. Nonetheless, Randall’s words cut me to the quick.

  A knock on the door distracts everyone. The door creeks open and a blonde with an angel face peeks in. "Hey," she says while wearing an apologetic smile. "I don't mean to interrupt, but—"

  "Daddy, ice cream!" A tiny head pops in, the spitting image of the woman above her, like a blonde totem pole.

  "Five more minutes, baby," Randall says.

  Lacy is Randall's wife and our version of Yoko Ono. I should hate her for breaking up the band, but I don't. She's a wonderful wife to Randall and they have a beautiful little girl who calls me “uncle.” Lacy walks in with her daughter on her heels and her hand on her belly.

  Randall Ray is leaving rock-n-roll to have a family. I can't blame him, if anything, my heart pangs with longing. I told myself long ago that I would do anything for my rock career. Now, I wonder if I didn't pass up the chance somewhere down the line for something more.

  Emotion tightens my throat and I grip the arms of my chair a little tighter. I’m glad for my tinted sunglasses, they keep my face an unreadable mask.

  “Okay,” Martin sighs. “Fine. It’s fine. We can go back to the drawing board on this one.”

  “I’ll do it,” I blurt out.