Cherry Bomb: Forbidden Bad Boys Read online

  -3-

  Felicity Caine

  Screw him!

  Seriously, screw Dare Wilde. Going to bed with him was never part of the plan, but then nor was engaging in any sort of physical contact besides a hand shake. My rage burns beneath my skin, making me simultaneously too hot and frozen to the core. He was essential to the plan, without him… I don’t know if there’s a way to accomplish this without him. I guess I need to find another bad boy, another sinner I can sham an association with. But anyone else is going to be lesser, a pale imitation of society’s favourite movie villain.

  Why fake it when you can have me for real?

  Because I’m not looking for dependency, that’s why. I’m not interested in swapping one set of manacles for another, or bodily fluids for that matter. I’m not seeking an illicit thrill, only a means of managing my access into adulthood. At my age I should not need to ask permission to use the bathroom.

  I march the length of the hotel corridor three times before barging into our suite to face whatever storm is waiting. For a second it seems as if everything is fine. Flo is perched on the edge of the couch, painting her toenails while a late night talk show blares in the background. However, a quick look right dispels any notion of normality. Kurt is present too. His silhouette framed against my bedroom door.

  I should probably demand to know what he was doing in there, but the answer will most likely be either a grunt or a grilling. If I don’t press, then maybe he won’t press either.

  “Checking there were no monsters under my bed?” Okay, I had to say something.

  “That’s right.”

  “And?”

  “A couple of fluff bunnies.”

  I like Kurt, even if I resent his constant presence. He keeps us safe, and most of the time he blends seamlessly into the background. He’s straight with us too. There’s no guess work involved, no multiple agendas, no manipulation. If he says jump, it means he wants you to and for a good reason, not just because he gets hard from jerking your chain. He’s a good guy—honest, polite, and incorruptible. Shame I can’t say the same thing about the other two figures who emerge from my room: our manager and our mother, proving yet again that I have no bloody privacy.

  “Where were you?” Warren asks, plastering a stiff smile across his botoxed features. He’s probably aiming to inspire trust. I stopped trusting him when I realised how badly he was stiffing us for fees. Not that mummy dearest is much better on that score. As long as we’re managed by Warren West and Associates, she gets a better cut of our earnings than we do.

  “Answer him, Felicity.”

  “Scoring,” I say, purely for the thrill of watching their eyes bulge. I might not have been out shopping for what they’d consider hard drugs, but that’s only because they haven’t tasted the class-A narcotic that is Dare Wilde. Having my plans thwarted, and then being dismissed by him doesn’t alter the fact that his kiss was far and away the biggest thrill I’ve ever experienced.

  I wouldn’t mind going back for more...I totally would return for more, if the stakes weren’t so bloody high.

  For one flighty second I’m tempted to blurt the fact that he offered to let me ride his stick, but I bite my tongue hard. I’m not ready to reveal my hand, even if it’s currently empty. Besides, I don’t want to give up on Plan D yet. Dare Wilde is still what I need, even if he doesn’t need me. Maybe if I’d actually offered him something in return for his co-operation, instead of just figuring he’d go for it because he gets off on creating havoc.

  “Don’t even joke about that.” My mother storms across the room and shakes me. “If you were caught, your career would be over. Your sister’s career would be over. Everything Warren and I have built for you would be ruined.”

  That they built, like I had no part in it. I haven’t seen either of them literally working their arses off a millimetre at a time. Neither of them have calluses on their fingers from strumming guitar or constant tinnitus from the overuse of headsets. I wonder if she realises how much she tempts me to rebel with words like these. How close she pushes me towards no longer giving a shit.

  If I destroyed everything now, I would still walk away a rich woman. But the truth is that I don’t want to destroy it. I want to keep acting, keep making music, keep working. I’d just like to do it on terms I actually agreed to. Expecting me to adhere to the tenants of a decade old document drawn up to keep a child star in check is moronic when I’m an adult.

  “We’re at a critical juncture. You need to be sensible. Keep a level head, darling.”

  Got to love the way she tacks an endearment on the end, as if that proves she has my best interests at heart. We’re still contracted by the Chinchilla Corporation for another two years. I don’t know if I can cope another two weeks. Unlike my mother, I’m praying they decide against making another season of the Caine Chronicles. Being dropped right now would be a godsend.

  “I’m going to bed,” I announce. “That’s if you’ve finished going through my room.”

  “We weren’t spying, darling. There’s no need to sound so peevish. We were trying to find out where you were.”

  “I wasn’t in there.” And it’s not as if I’d have deliberately left clues behind.

  “You shouldn’t go out alone. We agreed that, Felicity. It’s too dangerous. You should take Kurt.”

  “Maybe I was doing something I didn’t want Kurt to see.”

  “Now you’re being bratty,” she chastens. “Honestly, do try to behave like the adult you keep telling us you are.”

  I seriously require emancipation from this woman. She may be my mother, but that doesn’t mean she gets to own me for life.

  “Where were you, Felicity?” Warren asks again, as I near the bedroom. His voice is whisper soft, a lulling sigh compared to my mother’s shrieking. I used to think that made him the lesser evil, but the truth is that he’s simply cleverer than she is.

  “None of your fucking business,” I tell him. I don’t know what he’s more surprised over, the fact I answered him or that I swore while doing so. I slam the door and bolt it on the inside before he attempts more invasive interrogation techniques. If we weren’t six storeys up right now, I’d contemplate leaving via the window, catching a cab back to the club, and re-opening negotiations with Dare Wilde.

  Come and find me again when you’ve checked out of Sweetsville.

  He may as well have said, “Call when you’re ready to trade in your V-card.” Shit! It scares me how much the thought of getting intimate with him excites me. Dare Wilde, the ultimate bad boy. We’ve all fantasized it. It’d be like a night out with Satan: reckless, hedonistic, and awesome while you’re living it. The aftermath, though. I’m not sure you’d want to live through that headache.

  No, sex is not what I want from him. I’m not about to sacrifice my virginity to a man who isn’t going to value it. I don’t want anything real from him. I just want us to be seen together doing something innocuous like sharing a cab, something that will provide fodder for folks with fertile imaginations, and that they can dedicate a few inches of newspaper column to. I just want to insinuate I’ve hit the cusp and my innocence is not long for this world.

  Damn him! It’s not as if such an association would’ve cost him anything. It’d play into the image he’s already fostered as the ultimate villain. It could have solved all my problems though.

  Chinchilla are all about squeaky-clean, spunky wholesomeness. It’s their brand. It’s their promise to their audience and their parents. Their programs are rife with stereotypical do-gooders. Everyone is happy and has bright white teeth and traditional parentage. Nothing is ever crumpled, and the dark underbelly of society doesn’t exist. This means, any kind of association with bad boys of Dare Wilde’s ilk can’t be tolerated. It puts their squeaky-clean image in danger. Flo and I have already reached the point where we’re liabilities. We’re no longer easily-controlled children. We’re adults. We want to do things that other women our age enjoy, but none of that’s appr
opriate. Hence Kurt’s constant presence as a one-man, teen-star crisis aversion unit. Sure, he’s officially our bodyguard, but we all know that’s not his main function.

  Flo knocks and joins me in my room through the adjoining bathroom. “Outcome?”

  I shake my head.

  “Bugger.” She perches on the end of my bed. “Maybe it’s for the best.”

  “How is still being tied to Chinchilla for another two years a good thing?”

  “We still don’t know if that’s going to be the case. They might choose not to go ahead with another season of the Caine Chronicles. Everyone knows we’re on the cusp of outgrowing our fan base, and it’s probably better to bow out now, while we’re at the top of the curve.”

  “Better for who? If they cancel the chronicles, they risk losing that audience, and there’s no guarantee of hooking them with whatever alternative they replace it with. Another season might be risky, Flo, but it’s too lucrative to say no to while we’re still being goody-goodies and doing as we’re told.”

  “We could just not turn up when they start the next round of filming.”

  “Yeah, and get done for breach of contract. Using Dare’s the only way to achieve what we want while minimizing the risks.”

  “He turned you down,” she reminds me.

  “Then I need to find a way to persuade him otherwise.”

  Flo sighs and scratches her head. “Just don’t do anything dumb, okay? I don’t want to have to retire before I hit twenty.”

  I hug her. “That’s not going to happen. I’m not going to do anything that we can’t bounce back from.”

  -4-

  Dare Wilde

  4AM is a fucking ugly hour of the morning. I wake with an unbearable thirst, and immediately neck two pints of water, but the liquid fails to quench anything. It just necessitates an arduous trip to the bathroom.

  I know what’s irking me as soon as I finish pissing and my dick makes an immediate rise. It’s still spoiling for a taste of Flicka Caine. It wants to know if her nipples are berry-flavoured too.

  It thinks I was hasty with my decision. That it wouldn’t have cost me so much, and we could have had fun. Evidently it wasn’t listening to the part where she outright detonated any idea of us fucking. The only place any sort of frisky business between us two is going to take place is inside my head.

  Good thing I have a fertile imagination. Nevertheless, a little visual aid is more than welcome. I haul the laptop over to the bed and spend the next two hours watching her shimmy her way through a series of bubble-gum tracks. She’s far too innocent. Not a child by any means, but dressed in way that masks the fact she’s all grown up. I watch four full episodes of the Caine Chronicles, by the end of which she and her twin sister have ceased to look anything alike. Flicka Caine is full of fire. You can see the coals banked behind her eyes, and hear the desperation in her voice when she hits the high notes. If not for the fact I’d damped my senses with enough alcohol to down an elephant, I ought to have sensed that time bomb ticking away inside of her when she was squirming upon my lap. Flicka is going to explode. It’ll happen soon; the fuse is already lit. In seeking me out, she was opting for a controlled detonation. Now the bang isn’t going to be nearly so pretty.

  I fucking love fireworks.

  I like making them happen.

  And while I refuse to be anyone’s mistake, I think Felicity Caine is about to become the biggest one of my life.

  Allowing her to walk away, or sending her packing, whichever it was, is not the finale of our relationship. This thing between us is only just beginning.

  On that note, I freeze frame her image. My dick's so hungry for stimulation now that it weeps all over my hand as I stroke its length. I’m going to shoot all over her pretty face and tits, tits that are high and round and exactly the right degree of perky. I picture her nipple in my mouth, and drive myself wild with the memory of her taste and the scent of her skin. She’s so pure; I doubt she’s ever had a guy come over her before. In fact, I’d lay money on the woman still being a virgin. Chinchilla probably have that written into their stars’ contracts. “Must not put out, unless you want to be kicked out.”

  That notion gets me chewed up and tetchy in all sorts of interesting ways. I despise the idea that a corporation should have that much sway over her life and personal decisions. On the other hand, I gleefully picture our next meeting and asking her if she’s ever been spunked over. I anticipate the rush of blood to her cheeks, the spread of scarlet across them as she opens her mouth in mortification, then the sting of her palm when it connects with my face.

  I’ll deserve it, and I’ll enjoy it.

  My dick throbs over the sheer possibility.

  I’m a sick bastard, it’s true. But I happen to like making things sticky.

  Not that our paths are supposed to cross again. We move in different circles. That’s the whole point. That’s why she’s intriguing… Why I feel drawn. She’s forbidden fruit, off limits. But I’m Dare Wilde. I don’t accept boundaries. I rarely do what I’m supposed to do.

  She’s already supposed to be a thing of the past, but my dreams are all of the future.

  The wise thing to do right now would be to slam the laptop lid closed, and work on forgetting that she ever approached me. To stay well away from her and her coming fireworks display.

  Ain’t gonna happen.

  She’s under my skin, and has somehow imprinted herself and the taste of her cherry lip gloss onto my psyche. Right now she’s taking a leisurely stroll around my innards, poking her way into all the areas of my life she has no right to invade.

  She has no right to inveigle her way into my thoughts at all.

  The Big Wilde says otherwise. He’s still set on blowing a wad all over her pixelated face.

  Fuck, I’m a mess over this girl, and there’s no logical reason why I should be. She’s hardly the first damsel that’s washed up at my door seeking something for nothing. Everybody wants something, but we only value the things we have to fight for.

  I won’t do Flicka Caine’s bidding. I won’t pretend to be something I’m not, but I’m plenty ready to be authentic. At least that’s what my booze-addled brain thinks. Let’s face it: it’s late, I’m half-cut, and all she is to me is a pretty focus to pop one off to.

  There’s nothing deep occurring here; nothing to get hung up about or fret over.

  I’m going to finish my seedy wank and go back to sleep with a smile on my face. By the time I wake, I’ll have forgotten she managed to claw her way into my heart for a millisecond. This is just a 4A.M. moment.

  I ignore the fact it’s now nearer to six. The sentiment stands. Flicka Caine is glorious wank fodder. She’s a dirty secret pleasure, and never has to be more than that. Another minute of concerted wrist action and I push myself over the edge.

  Twenty seconds of life never felt so good.

  -5-

  Dare Wilde

  It’s 2P.M. when I’m rudely wakened by the arrival of the League of Ungentlemanly Gentlemen, led by my brother and his erstwhile sidekick, hotshot director Jason J. Jones. I can’t say the visit is unexpected. The guy’s been hounding me for months over his latest flick. He wants me to work my bad boy charm on his audience. Me, I’m sick of doing the same old, same old. Apparently that’s a problem for everyone else, hence the home-visit.

  “You’re supposed to hash this shit out with my agent,” I snarl as some fuckwit peels back the curtains allowing a vile amount of sunlight into the room. I have fucking black-out curtains for a reason.

  “Jace and Monty came to an accord an hour ago.”

  “Shit!”

  I lift my head from the pillow only for it to immediately split in two. Luckily, Lorne’s on hand with a couple of plink-plonks and a glass of anti-head-fuck juice. Hell knows what he puts into it. I prefer not to know, and have the sense not to ask.

  “Get up, get dressed, let’s talk, little brother.”

  I flash Chase the finger.

&n
bsp; “You might want to open a couple of windows too. It smells like a brothel in here.” His nose wrinkles at the miasma of my early morning booty call. Chase doesn’t wait for me to comply. He throws the window open, allowing the London traffic fumes to waft inside. Marvellous. I’ll take the smell of my own spunk over car exhaust any day.

  “Mind if I borrow this?”

  Chase scoops up my laptop before I make a response. The bastard never did respect my property. He heads out into the lounge.

  “What the hell have you got all over the screen and keys?”

  “Jizz. Obviously.”

  “Don’t be fucking sick, Dare.”

  That’s the problem with my family. They just can’t tell when I’m spinning them a yarn, and when I’m serious.

  “Shout and I’ll bring you the Kleenex through next time,” Lorne hollers. “It’s not like I couldn’t hear you greasing the pole.”

  It’s kind of him to offer, but I’m good with where I sprayed. “The screen wipes are in the drawer by the coffee maker.” I helpfully yell. “While you’re there, make me a brew.”

  “I’m not your fucking housemaid,” Chase responds. He might not be, but Lorne totally is my maid service. Nope, my dear brother is just the bastard here to strong arm me into signing onto a film I have zero fucking interest in. Unsurprisingly enough, a few seconds later I hear the clank of mugs being pulled from the dishwasher and the sound of the kettle being boiled.

  I make them wait twenty minutes while I shower and pull on some clothes. It gives Lorne’s patent hangover juice time to clear my head. If I’m going to be cajoled into doing this film, then I’m at least going to negotiate terms my accountant will like.

  I nod good afternoon to the scum assembled in my lounge. Lorne’s the only one who doesn’t offer me a dazzler in return. That’s because he’s the only genuine guy in the room. The rest of them crawled out of some Hollywood cesspit around a decade ago.