Havana Adams - Remember My Name

Not that this was an unusual occurrence but curious in spite of himself, Alex threw aside his phone and flicked the volume up with the television remote. Now he spotted that the TV was on Z News, a Hollywood celebrity news channel, which seemed inescapable wherever one was in the world. The presenter was in full flow.

“And Hollywood buzz is saying the Alex Golden is out and Max Maguire is in for the big budget adventure trilogy Defender , we’ll have more on this breaking story as it comes in.” For a moment Alex was frozen as the photograph of Max Maguire flicked off the screen to be replaced by another image as the presenter moved on. He flicked the TV back to silent, noting in a beat that the tension in his neck was back.

Alex had never been especially competitive, but Max Maguire infuriated him as few others could. Somehow he seemed determined to cast himself as ‘The New Alex Golden’ and in recent months they had butted heads and wound up in talks for the same roles. Not that he needed to compete for scripts but something about Max unsettled him, not least that he was five years younger than him. Alex had been determined to land the title role in Defender , a trilogy of films from Australian director Cole Sidney that seemed likely to do for sci-fi what Lord of the Rings had done for fantasy. The buzz was immense and he had assumed, after a chat with the director, that the arrival of an offer was a mere formality. The azure blue of the sea that had been so calming now had little effect on him; all he could feel was the onset of a pounding headache. He would have to call Avital.

He pushed himself off the sofa, just as Isabella emerged from the bedroom, now naked beneath a sheer silk wrap.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” she pouted at him, this time with a hint of the mischievous smile that made men go weak. Alex grimaced; he hadn’t time for Isabella, not now. He turned his back on her, reaching for his mobile phone.

“I have to call Avital.” He tapped at Avital’s name in his speed dial list, even as he could hear the faint slap of Isabella’s bare feet against the floor as she moved towards him. As he was about to connect the call, he felt a whisper of silk, followed by her naked breasts, pressed against his back.

“Do you have to?” she asked, though it wasn’t really a question. She’d already traced her cool hands around his narrow waist and up his chest to his arm before gently squeezing his bicep. She took the phone out of his hand and threw it onto the sofa, where it landed silently on the thick pile of cushions. Then, she snaked her arm around his waist again and pulled him around to face her. Isabella pressed herself against him, pinning him to the cabinet behind them. Her tongue flicked out to lick her bee-stung lips and Alex followed the movement with a hungry look, already diverted from his plan; Avital could wait. She leaned in and teased his lips with her tongue and then, in that way that she did, she kissed him, hard. He’d always been struck by the forceful, almost masculine single-mindedness that Isabella brought to sex; how she always made sure to take her pleasure first. But tonight it seemed her earlier bad mood was forgotten and it was all about him. She kissed him again, her tongue fighting with his, biting his lower lip roughly and then she leaned down to lick his nipple, before slowly sinking to her knees. Freeing him from his swimming shorts, she made a deep appreciative noise in her throat as she gripped him tight before slowly starting to stroke her hand up and down. As she bent to kiss the tip, she looked up and winked at him and Alex gave a short, breathless bark of laughter.

Isabella Murada on her knees with his cock in her mouth; that truly was a million dollar shot. And movie star or not, Alex was still man enough to appreciate it.

Later, as they lay in the massive bed on 750-thread count Egyptian cotton sheets, the windows thrown open so that the silvery white light of the full moon flickered into the room, Alex watched Isabella sleep, as she always did, naked on her back. One arm was flung over her head and the other rested low on her abdomen. Even in sleep she looked ready for sex. He would miss her, he thought. Isabella was a smart girl and in a town defined by transactional relationships, where everyone used everyone, Alex understood her desire to be with him. She had left a Spanish millionaire for him and though the sex was good, great even, Alex wasn’t so arrogant as to think that was the full story. Isabella was 28, in model years practically middle-aged. She was a woman looking for her next step, she wanted to make the crossover from model to actress and she’d decided that he was her ticket there. He hadn’t minded really but somehow this afternoon, he’d realised that he was bored, that he needed something new, some new challenge. He needed to shake things up and as every model that had gone before Isabella had learned, when Alex moved on, he was gone. The shift was brutal and immediate and Alex had perfected a principle of never going back and never looking back. He never hooked up with his exes, never revisited fields that he had already ploughed. There’d be a gift, one phone call – the mark of the English gentleman that he was – but when it was over, it was over. Isabella must have sensed his boredom.

“You and me, we’re good together,” she had reminded him earlier, as she had sat astride him, still panting. And Alex had smiled. But once they were back in LA he knew they’d be over. He’d made a life of loving and leaving women. There was no reason to change his ways now.

CHAPTER 2

“Harder, do it harder.”

Three days later and half a world away on a bright London morning, Talia Blake was woken by this loud, rasping instruction and she blinked with disorientation even as her bed was shaken, beat after beat after beat, by a pounding from the room next door.

“Oh for fuck’s sake. Nina!” Talia yelled in frustration as she snapped awake and sat upright in bed gritting her teeth, even as the lovers came, apparently simultaneously, in the kind of crescendo of banging and squealing that would make a philharmonic orchestra proud. Not for the first time, she wondered how it was that she always managed to land herself with nymphomaniacs for flatmates. As the aerobics finally subsided, she glanced at her bedside alarm clock: 6.15am; she could still have another half hour in bed. She snuggled down under her thin summer duvet and tried to find a comfortable spot as another squeal rang through the dividing wall. Nina and her gentleman caller were going for an encore performance.

“Shit,” she muttered under her breath and, with a muted scream of frustration, Talia gave up on sleep. She kicked the duvet aside and swung her feet onto the floor. She looked down at the improbably high, attention-grabbing scarlet Charlotte Olympia platform shoes which she’d kicked off last night before falling into bed. Reaching down to grab one of the pair, she banged it hard against the wall giving four hard knocks. It had little effect and the sound of frantic lovemaking continued unabated, if anything getting louder.

Nina had once told Talia with a degree of pride that she was sure she could fuck through an earthquake. Talia was sad to report that she now knew this to be true, probably. To think after her last two disastrous flatmates, she’d deliberately sought out a single roommate. Talia thought longingly about the day when she would finally have a place of her own. She wished she could afford to rent alone or better still, buy a flat of her own. Perhaps it was her Only Child Syndrome rearing its head but so many mornings she longed to lie in for as long as she liked, she longed not to have to race to the shower, not to be confronted by mess that wasn’t hers, she longed not to be confronted by evidence of other people’s sex lives.