Forcing Gravity Page 18

  “I have to be back on set in a few hours, so maybe,” Jase answered distractedly. “Why?”

  “Mom’s stopping by later, so I figured you’d want to stick around.”

  “Maybe. We’ll see,” he answered quickly.

  I looked up to watch Nora walk away.

  “Logan,” Jase said after a few seconds.

  I looked down at my plate, plucked a chip from the pile and chewed it thoughtfully. “I’m fine,” I said, keeping my eyes down. “I’m just not used to people hitting on my dates while I’m actually out with them.”

  “That won’t be the last time it happens, but I can assure you, when I’m with you, I’m not paying attention to any other girls.”

  Yeah, but what about when you’re not with me? My mind went to the make-out twins once again. He might not have acted on anything, but he’d definitely flirted with them.

  I looked up at him. He seemed sincere. “Okay,” I finally said, knowing I needed to trust him.

  He watched me pensively for a few minutes. “I’m sorry,” he said again.

  I shook my head, as if shaking off the experience and simultaneously letting him know I didn’t want to talk about it any longer.

  As we were leaving the café an hour later, Jase took my hand and smiled at me. I smiled back for half a second before we were assaulted by flashbulbs, and I dropped Jase’s hand like it was on fire.

  “I thought you two weren’t dating,” Rodney said, walking backward as he snapped pictures of us. Four other photographers were surrounding us, asking questions, but his were the only ones I heard.

  “We’re just friends,” Jase said calmly, and I stifled a laugh.

  “Yeah, we’re just friends,” I echoed.

  “I thought you didn’t know him, Logan,” Rodney taunted after us. “But here you are at his mother’s café. Funny isn’t it.”

  I turned around. “You know, it was the funniest thing, Rodney. I just met him this afternoon when I randomly stopped in here for lunch. Ironic, huh?”

  “Yeah, really ironic,” he chuckled, as we ducked into Jase’s car.

  I needed to head back to school, and he needed to head back to the set, but there I was getting into his Maserati, and he wasn’t stopping me. Before Rodney and his friends could snap any more pictures, we tore out of the parking lot, leaving a cloud of dust in our wake. I wasn’t sure where Jase was heading, but he was getting there fast.

  Then I realized why. The paparazzi were following us.

  “So your mom owns that café?” I asked, as Jase expertly maneuvered his car through Brentwood.

  He nodded as he watched the road. “My parents actually own five of them in L.A., but this is the original. My mom opened it about ten years ago, and then she and my dad franchised the rest over the years.”

  His mom sounded cool, and I thought I might want to meet her, but apparently that would be happening another time.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, as Jase twisted and turned his way through Brentwood. I knew he’d grown up there, so he knew the area well, but we still hadn’t lost the black vehicles that were trailing us, and I realized we were heading toward the Pacific Palisades.

  “Shit,” he hissed, glancing in the rearview mirror and not answering my question.

  I looked behind us to see we were still being pursued.

  “Take a left here,” I commanded, and Jase didn’t hesitate. He just turned.

  I continued to give him directions until we were at the entrance to my mother’s estate. I quickly gave him the gate code, as the paparazzi stopped their SUVs and raced toward us on foot. We were inside the gates just as they reached us, and by the time they got their cameras out, we were already halfway up the long driveway.

  “Where are we?” Jase asked, looking up at the monstrous house looming before us.

  “My mother’s house,” I explained.

  “Whoa,” Jase said, slowing the car down as we approached the front of the house. “Your mother’s house?”

  I could hear the panic in his voice. He thought was too early to meet the parents, and he was right. Thankfully, my mom was out of the country, and she’s given Julio and Mrs. Grable paid time off, so the house was empty.

  “She’s in Ireland,” I told him, and his whole body relaxed. “And she doesn’t bite – much.”

  Jase gave me a weird look.

  “Oh, come on,” I said, elbowing him. “You looked about ready to shit yourself just thinking about meeting my mom.”

  He threw his hands up in defense. “Um, yeah, she’s Alana Davis! Of course I’m freaked out to meet her. I’m not sure I would have shit my pants, but it would have been a close call.”

  “Eww, Jase. That’s gross.”

  “You’re the one who said it first,” he defended.

  I realized that I probably wasn’t being as ladylike as I was supposed to be, but that was how I was around guys. I couldn’t help it. Maybe I needed to work on not being so brash. I could save that for guys like Ethan and Garrett.

  “Come on, let’s go inside. We can hide out until the photographers leave.”

  “They’re not leaving,” Jase said, as he got out of the car.

  “What do you mean?”

  “They’re going to stay out there and wait for me to come out, because pretty soon they’re going to figure out whose house this is if they don’t know already. They’ll want to see if they can catch us doing something photograph worthy.”

  I shrugged and attempted to look nonplussed as I walked up the front stairs. “So what. We’re friends. We told them that. We just won’t let them see anything else, and we’ll stick to our story.”

  “No touching in public,” Jase said, as if I already didn’t realize that.

  I cringed as I let us into the house. It was the first time I really thought about how dating a celebrity would negatively affect my life, but I figured I could deal with being platonic when eyes were on us. It was better than ending things with him. That was for sure.

  As soon as we were inside, his arms encircled my waist from behind, and he pulled me against his chest.

  “You okay?” he whispered, his lips against my ear.

  I nodded as the realization that I’d just been a part of my first paparazzi chase hit me. The adrenaline I’d felt as Jase has twisted and turned the car was still coursing through my veins. I turned and faced him, my hands going to either side of his face. I took a few seconds to look into his bright green eyes fringed by dark lashes before I crushed my lips to his.

  My hands slid into his hair, fingering the thick strands as his lips worked against mine in tandem, his tongue pressing against mine, his firm body flush to mine.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked, but it came out muffled.

  “Stop talking,” I said, as I pushed him back toward the elevator, not wanting to bother with the stairs.

  When I pushed him inside, he broke the kiss and looked around in awe. “You have an elevator in your house?”

  I shrugged. “My mom likes extravagant things. She has money, so she spends it.”

  I hit the button for the third floor before I turned my attention back to Jase, suddenly embarrassed that I’d been so aggressive, but I couldn’t help it. Adrenaline and that boy were a dangerous combination.

  “Where are we going?” he asked, as the elevator stopped on the top floor.

  “What time do you have to be back on set?

  He looked at his watch. “Two hours.”

  “Plenty of time,” I said, as I pulled him down the hallway toward my bedroom, knowing I had every intention of pushing my studying back to that evening. I just wouldn’t go out with Ethan like I’d planned. I wasn’t really in the mood to go clubbing anyway.

  “What’s gotten into you, Logan?” Jase asked, a smirky smile on his face, as he realized what I was doing.

  I pulled off my tank top and flung it on the floor. My jeans followed and landed in a heap at my feet. I stepped out of them and toward quite possib
ly the sexiest guy I’d ever known in just my bra and panties.

  “You.” I stopped in front of him and ran my hands up the hard planes of his chest. “To many clothes,” I murmured.

  “What are you going to do about that?”

  I grinned as I pulled his t-shirt off over his head and shook my head in awe of the shear magnificence of his chest before my lips descended on his bare skin, kissing and sucking and teasing. Jase groaned involuntarily as my lips surrounded his round, flat nipple and my tongue darted out. Ever so softly, I closed my teeth around the tip as my hand moved to the growing bulge in his pants. I ran my hand up the length before I cupped him and squeezed gently.

  Jase’s breath came in shorter pants as I massaged him and continued my oral assault on his chest. Then with both hands, I unzipped his jeans and let them drop to the floor. His boxer briefs followed, before I dropped in front of him and took him into my mouth, sucking him deeply and moving my tongue in a synchronized rhythm that I could tell was driving him crazy.

  Jase suddenly hissed and jumped back from me.

  I looked up in surprise, expecting him to be mad. Had I been too rough? Did he not like that? No, he was breathing hard and watching me with dilated eyes.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, not sure what to do next. Did he want me to stop or go?

  “I, ah, I just don’t want to get to a point where you do something you’re not ready to do,” he said quickly, but I could tell he hated the distance between us. “I can tell that you’re a little over-excited, and while that’s really cool, I don’t think I can stop if you keep doing what you were doing.”

  “That’s okay,” I said, sitting back on my knees. “Come back over. Please.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked, and I could tell he was praying I wouldn’t say no.

  “Yes,” I said definitively, but he didn’t move. So I stood and crossed the room to him. “Sit down.”

  He sat on the edge of the bed, so I angled my legs on either side of him. He looked up at me reverently, as if I was the most beautiful woman on earth. I loved when he looked at me like that. It gave me a heady sense of power. Pressing down on his erection made him inhale deeply, so I started to move my hips, adding a little friction between us.

  “Logan, seriously,” he said, as he closed his eyes. “You don’t know what you’re doing to me.”

  I laughed lightly as I watched him react to my movements. “Yes, I do,” I assured him. I might be inexperienced, but I wasn’t naïve. “I want this. I want you.”

  As my lips met his again, he started to react to my movements and become an active player in my little game. In a flash, I was on the bottom and he was looming over me. He pressed himself between my thighs, so I wrapped my legs around his waist and welcomed him closer.

  “Are you sure?” he asked, as his hand snaked up my thigh in a long, slow and steady path that drove me slightly insane.

  “Yes,” I said softly, as his fingers moved my panties to the side and slipped inside, stroking me gently. I inhaled deeply, throwing my head back against the bed as Jase watched me thoughtfully.

  “Are you sure?” he asked, again as he slipped another finger inside of me and his thumb started massaging my most sensitive spot.

  Yeah right, like I could say no at this point!

  “I’m sure,” I said, my breath coming in shorter and shorter bursts as his fingers moved more rapidly in tandem with his thumb. “Holy shit.”

  I covered my eyes with my hands as everything inside me started building higher and higher with each movement he made. I arched my back and pressed against his hand, craving more, wanting the friction, needing the release.

  But then he removed his hand. I protested and looked up at him. All he did was smile his secret smile as he pulled my panties down. Then before I knew what was happening, he lowered his head and spread my legs apart.

  Suddenly, his tongue was on me, kissing and sucking and licking, darting rapidly over just that right spot that drove me crazy, as he built me back up even higher. I squirmed below him, craving release so badly, but never wanting him to stop what he was doing. It was the single most pleasurable experience of my life.

  Then he inserted his fingers back inside me, and I exploded around him, covering my eyes yet again. A groan of pleasure escaped my lips as the tremors shook me, but Jase didn’t stop. He made it last and last, as I thrust upward toward him and bit my lip to keep from calling out again. Then slowly, he brought me down from my high.

  His lips were suddenly at my ear. “You okay?”

  “Uh-huh,” I said, slightly embarrassed by my reactions. I’d never gone that far with a guy before, and I had no idea I’d react that way.

  He chuckled and kissed my cheek.

  When I was able to recover enough to look at him, I found him looking down at me and smirking.

  “What?” I asked, my cheeks instantly coloring. I panicked, afraid that I’d reacted all wrong.

  “You are incredibly sexy,” he said, his finger trailing down my jawline.

  I couldn’t help but smile back at him. He was so proud of himself. Well, two could play that game. Without a word, I pushed him onto his back and set out to finish what I’d initially started.

  -14-

  “Who is Jason Brady, and why is there a picture of you with him on the Internet?” my dad asked when he called me on Saturday morning.

  Uh-oh.

  I’d just walked in the door, having just gotten back from Jase’s house where I’d stayed the night, so I was in a particularly good mood, but it was in danger of being deflated by what my father had just shared.

  “Hi Dad,” I said cheerfully and groaned inside.

  I knew that picture of Jase and me coming out of his mother’s café was going to surface at some point. I just didn’t know it would happen so quickly. I wondered if anyone else had seen it.

  “Logan,” my dad said sternly. “Why am I finding out online that you’re dating someone new, who is apparently a ‘mega-celebrity’.”

  Jesus. He was pissed.

  I thought quickly. Maybe I could tell him Jase and I were just friends. It was the party line we were using with the paparazzi. I could tell my dad the same thing. Then again, I didn’t want to lie to my dad. I’d never lied to him before about a boy. He deserved to know the truth.

  “What site are you looking at, Dad?” I asked, as I logged on to the Internet. I needed to see for myself what he was seeing.

  “HWoodBuzz.com has the most detailed article, but there are about five other sites with a similar version of the same picture and some sort of caption all saying relatively the same thing. Here let me read some of them to you.”

  “Dad. Come on,” I pleaded, because he sounded really mad.

  “No, Logan, I won’t ‘come on’. My daughter’s name is being dragged through the mud, so forgive me if I don’t let it roll off my back.”

  I let my head fall back against the cement wall behind my bed. “Fine. Read them to me.”

  He cleared his throat. “‘It looks like Alana Davis’s daughter is making the rounds in Hollywood, and her next stop is mega-star Jason Brady.’ ‘Garrett Lewis’s ex dates his co-star. Scandal on the set of Vacation From Hell.’ ‘Jason Brady, fresh off of his break-up with Chloe St. James seems to have found a new love interest. He was spotted earlier this week leaving a café in Brentwood with Logan Kessler, daughter of the famed Alana Davis and ex-fling of Garrett Lewis’. Those are just a few of the more detailed ones.”

  I quickly skimmed the article on HWoodBuzz.com and found it to be fairly factual, aside from the mention that I dated Garrett, but apparently everyone was going to chalk that up to the truth. Most of the article talked about Jase’s history with Chloe, some films he’d been in and included speculations on how we could have met. There were some additional brief tidbits about me being Alana Davis’s daughter and how I was a freshman at USC, but that was it. I honestly didn’t think it was that bad. We weren’t even holding hands in the picture. W
e were smiling and talking, and we honestly looked like two friends. There was no proof of a relationship anywhere. The sites were just guessing at what they were seeing.

  “Logan?” my dad said after I’d been silent for a few minutes.

  “Yeah.”

  “How do you know Jason Brady?”

  “I met him through Garrett. They’re doing a film together.”

  I figured brief answers to his questions would be the best route to take.

  “And how famous is he?”

  My dad didn’t see many movies. They reminded him of my mom and their past, so he pretty much just abstained from seeing them. He honestly had no idea who Jase really was.

  “Very famous. He’s possibly up for an Oscar for a movie he did earlier this year.”

  My dad sighed. “Is he a nice guy? What do you know about him?”

  I knew he was going to hang up with me and Google Jase, so I figured I’d better start sharing. Better for him to hear the truth from me.

  “He’s great, Dad, really. He’s sweet and caring and not at all full of himself. He also loves cotton candy, Thanksgiving, and lazy rivers. And he goes by Jase, not Jason.”

  “Lazy rivers?” my dad questioned, picking up on that one detail that I’d shared.

  I smiled. “Yeah, you know, at some resorts they have those manmade rivers in the pool area where the water flows and pushes you along in an inner-tube. It’s super-relaxing.”

  “I’m sure it is. So, are you dating this Jase Brady, or are you really just friends with him?”

  I sighed. “We’re dating, but it’s a secret, okay?”

  He laughed, and I took it as a good sign. He was warming up. “Who would I tell?”

  “I don’t know – Mom. Sasha.”

  “I will not tell your mother, Logan. You should know better than that. She’d jump all over this news, so you’d better hope she doesn’t see these articles.”

  He was right. My mom would have an absolute field day with this story. It would make her year.

  “I’ll just deny it if she sees it. Jase and I are keeping this strictly private. The tabloids can speculate all they want, but they won’t see us as anything more than platonic friends in public.”