Dishing the Dirt with Avalon Granger
It doesn’t always fall into your lap. Sometimes, you have to call in favours. Offer tricks for treats. Do those enticing little erotic dance steps that make everything run smoothly in the wicked weird world of Hollywood. You know what I’m talking about. Whispering, cajoling, making all sorts of compromising promises: ‘I’ll stroke you, if you stroke me.’
But every once in a while, a tip – a glorious, lip-licking tip – presents itself naked and ready in your doorway. And all you have to do is lead it to the bed and spread it out on the satin sheets. Make love to it slowly, carefully, and it will tell you all the secrets it knows.
If I say that I spent the last week ensconced in my luxurious queen-sized bed, will you, dear readers, understand the size of the tip I have for you? The sweetness that lingers afterwards at such a find is still clouding my head and making me feel lazy, giddy, like a blushing new bride.
Ah, but you know me too well, don’t you? Avalon Granger no longer blushes.
Alex started to laugh. Sometimes, Avalon wrote columns that were chock full of Hollywood dirt. This generally happened when public relations teams agreed, either verbally or through press releases, to reveal something sizeable about the private life of a movie star, like the birth of a new baby or the landing of a great job. Avalon hated those columns. When a celebrity’s PR team was willing to go public with news, by the time Zebra heard about it, most everyone else had as well.
But if Avalon snagged herself a really good bit of gossip, something she could not only sink her teeth into, but drag her long fingernails down the back of, she generally bragged about her skill for a little while. That’s what she was doing here.
New film on the horizon. A DD Production. That’s Deleen DeMarco for those of you who missed Paradise Lounge and Twisted. (And if you did miss those movies, you might as well turn in your passport and move back to whatever hole you came from. You simply don’t belong here.)
The set is closed. The gates are locked. The lips are sealed. Ha. Ha. Aren’t they? Isn’t that how it always is on a DD production? Ah, not when Avalon gets her mind fixated on a distant prize. I have news, my pretties. I have secrets to spill. Pull up a chair, pull down your panties, and get ready to hear what I have to say –
‘Alex,’ Jessica interrupted.
He looked up, startled, as if she had caught him reading a dirty magazine while playing with himself. Without seeming to notice, the blue-eyed intern reduced him to a stuttering schoolboy, yet there was no reason for this transformation. She wasn’t in your face like Avalon or game-playing like Marina. All Jessica seemed to expect from him was guidance. He should have been able to give her that without being flustered.
‘I want a real assignment,’ she said, and he leaned back in his chair and adopted what he hoped was a patient, listening expression and not a ‘I want to jump your bones’ look. ‘You said yourself that what I’ve been turning in is good.’
‘It is,’ he agreed, nodding. ‘You’re doing an awesome job.’ Christ, he sounded like a teenybopper.
‘So give me something else.’
While listening to her talk, he saw in her eyes that she was hungry. Not jaded. Not trying to get something from him that she didn’t deserve. Just hungry for work and filled with a desire to prove her abilities, not only to him, but to herself. He found that clean, sweet quality pulled hard at him inside.
‘Let me look in my files,’ he promised her. ‘I’ll see what I have.’
* * *
When Jessica returned from working upstairs in the ad room, Alex said, ‘You told me once that you’d heard Todd’s band, right?’
Jessica nodded, wondering where her boss was going with the question.
‘We’d like to put a review of the next show into the paper, your standard concert write-up. But we’re all so close here, it’s difficult to get someone to write something impartial.’ He hesitated, trying to explain what he wanted from her without making it seem deceptive. ‘Not that I’d ever want you to slam him, but at least you can give your honest opinion without being afraid of –’
‘Breaking my heart,’ Todd cut in, entering the office and seeing the press pass to his concert dangling from Alex’s fingers. He batted his long eyelashes at Jessica, and she suddenly recognised him as Elvis from the Halloween party, where his gold shades had hidden the greater part of his face and extra padding had distorted his lean physique. ‘Love me tender,’ Todd sang to her, ‘love me true, all my dreams fulfil. Don’t diss me in your review, or you, I’ll have to kill.’ When Jessica laughed, he looked as if he were ready to continue singing, now getting even more into character.
Avalon, perking up from her desk, interrupted him. ‘If he were that good, he wouldn’t still be working here.’
Todd looked momentarily hurt at the comment, but then seemed to shake it off. ‘And what about you?’ he asked. ‘If I’m some sort of hack, what does that make you, sweetheart?’ he purred, as if giving her a compliment.
‘A pro,’ Avalon said.
* * *
So Dashiell hadn’t gotten back into the daily grind of working at the paper. So what? He wasn’t actually needed there in person, was he? The staff members knew well enough how to run things without him. They didn’t need him breathing over their shoulders. Hell, that’s what Alex was there for. Dashiell could peruse the final lay-outs late on a Thursday night, stopping in after an evening spent drinking at Dream Maker or dancing at The Queen of Hearts. Make minor edits or suggestions, just for the heck of it, and then wait a whole week before he had to do it again.
With an embarrassed pang, he remembered the fact that while in Europe he’d actually been excited about coming back to the paper. Obviously, he had forgotten how boring he found the work. Others in the office seemed to thrive on it. When he did stop by, he saw Alex intent on the phone, Avalon reading emails at a furious pace, Josh convincing someone to place a larger ad than the person had intended. And although the staff were all working, they also seemed to be enjoying what they were doing.
In truth, Dashiell was enjoying himself as well. Enjoying the sweet way his cock fitted inside the nubile young dancer he’d picked up the night before. Usually, he would go to a fancy Beverly Hills hotel with a girl, or occasionally back to her place, not interested in letting people know where he lived. But this was different. Because this girl already knew where he lived and who he was.
That’s because she was Marina.
All right, so fucking his managing editor’s very recent ex-girlfriend might not have been the smartest thing in the world, but it honestly wasn’t Dashiell’s fault. He hadn’t recognised her in the dim light of Sammy’s Mango Hut, and when he’d finally figured out who she was – the realisation dawning on him that she didn’t simply have a familiar face, she had a face that he had been introduced to countless times – it had been too late. She’d already been bouncing on his cock in the front seat of his truck.
And, oh, did she know how to bounce.
With her thighs parted, she’d rocked back and forth, letting the shaft of his cock almost all the way out of her pussy, pulsating her muscles on the rounded head and making him groan. Tighten and release, squeeze and hold. There was no better feeling than that, those welcoming embrace-like grasps of her cunt muscles as she contracted. He could have done that all night, just fuck and fuck, coasting in that delirious place of almost-coming. Making it last.
Yes, once he’d recognised her, he found that he had a few issues with the situation. Dashiell might be oversexed and under-conscienced, but he was not stupid. Somewhere in the back of his mind he’d wondered what she was up to. The girl definitely had an ulterior motive for being with him, aside from a simple desire to get off. She had to have known exactly who he was when she’d approached him at the bar, shaking her shimmering curls out of her comely green eyes and daring him to do a Zanatini with her.
‘A what?’ he’d asked, intrigued not only by the name of the drink, but by the way she was pressing her gorgeous hips up against him in the crowded throng congregating at the bar. Even with the crush of customers around them, she didn’t have to be quite that close. He could feel the heat of her body through the thin little skirt she was wearing, and it made him want to slide one hand into the split of fabric at her thigh and touch her naked skin above the visible band of her stockings.
‘Zanatini,’ she’d repeated. ‘It’s a Martini with a Xanax stuffed inside of the olive instead of a pimento. I know the bartender. She’ll make one for each of us if I ask.’
A Xanax was a prescription pill used for panic attacks and nervous disorders. It calmed users down right away. Dashiell had no need for this sort of medication, but he’d done the drink with Marina for the hell of it, because he hated to back away from a dare. That was also probably why he’d ended up fucking her, feeling no pain, no sense of morals. Once he’d realised who she was and understood that they’d crossed that sexually dangerous bridge there was no reason not to have a little fun. After a quick yet satisfying sexual ride in the parking lot, he’d driven her to the apartment where they’d spent the rest of the night in various unusual clinches.
Now he reached one hand up, twirling his fingertips through her jumble of curly blonde hair, and she tilted her head and played coy with him. With her pale green eyes and flushed pink lips, she had a doll-like innocence to her that Dashiell found extremely appealing. Especially since it was obvious from the way that she moved that she wasn’t the least bit innocent at all.
Then she did one of his all-time favourite tricks that made him stop thinking of anything except the outrageous fuck they were sharing. Lifting his hand in hers, she daintily drew two of his fingers into her warm mouth and sucked on them. The wetness and the pressure felt exquisite, mimicking the way her pussy squeezed and released his cock. Heat, wet heat, caressed him. Fuck, but she was good. Was this why Alex always had those dark circles under his eyes? From nights spent doing it like this? And, if so, why in the world had the two broken up? The girl was too talented to discard over emotional matters, wasn’t she?
* * *
‘A Zanatini,’ the lithe brunette bartender told Avalon. ‘That’s what he had.’
Avalon shook her head as she took notes. Whatever Dashiell was getting himself into would never make it in the final edition of her column. She knew that. If Alex wouldn’t let her write about the trio of sexually adventurous bartenders, there was no way in hell that he’d put in this new bit of gossip about Dashiell doing drugged drinks. But she still couldn’t help herself from keeping tabs on him…and on the other staff members. If there was information to know about, then Avalon felt it was her duty to hear the scoop first. Besides, it always paid to have a bit of dirt on people. You never knew when information would come in handy.
‘Have you tried one?’ Lily asked Avalon next, moving quickly behind the bar as she spoke.
‘Not my style,’ Avalon said. ‘A downer drug mixed with alcohol. Why would you ever come up for air? I’m a tequila sort of girl, myself.’
‘I know that’s what you drink,’ Lily murmured, quickly sliding Avalon a shot in a salt-crusted glass with a floating wedge of lime. ‘But what is your style?’
It was in Avalon’s head to say, ‘You are,’ slipping her hand on to the stunning bartender’s and letting her feel the weight there. The light pressure. No, she didn’t need to trade sexual favours for the tidbits she was receiving, as long as she kept the flirtation on high. But she did occasionally sleep with her sources, when the mood struck her. Today, Avalon said, ‘You tell me what you think the answer is next time I stop by. If you’re right –’ She let the sentence hang there, unfinished, so that the bisexual bartender could fill in the rest of the statement however she wanted to. Always leave people wanting more. That was Avalon’s favourite way to play the game.
But sometimes, something happened to change the situation. Sometimes, the other player had a few tricks of his own. Or, in this case, her own. Lily wasn’t ready to let Avalon leave so quickly. Moving around the bar, she took the shot glass from Avalon’s hand and had a small sip herself. Then, licking her lips, she pushed up on the barstool and locked eyes with Avalon, waiting.
Maybe Avalon didn’t want to play a game right now. Maybe what she wanted to do was kiss this pretty girl. Stranger longings had filled her before, and she’d always taken care of them.
‘There’s more to tell,’ Lily said softly, offering up the one bit of power that she had. For Avalon, secrets were the best foreplay of all.
‘Then tell,’ Avalon whispered, coming to stand between Lily’s spread thighs and kiss the girl’s lovely white skin at the base of her neck. Oh, she smelled sweet. Some exotic perfume that had faded to a final musky note. Avalon licked and then nuzzled her mouth against the bartender’s skin, waiting for the girl to keep talking, but there were several moments when the two women were totally silent. Enjoying the pressure of each other’s bodies, paying attention to the sounds and the scents and the warmth of one another.
‘She wasn’t just a dancer,’ Lily final murmured. ‘Some fluttering waif in a show downtown. She was somebody you know.’
Now Avalon started to undo the buttons along the front of Lily’s black leather vest. Since the bar wouldn’t be officially open for another hour, there was no need to worry about being caught, and the two knew they could take their time. Avalon easily unhooked the last button and slid open the leather vest, revealing Lily’s amazing breasts captured in a fuchsia lace bra. Another sleight of hand and the bra was open, and Lily was waiting.
Quickly, Avalon bent and kissed one breast and then the other, trailing her fingertips across Lily’s nipples so that they stood up hard. She pinched Lily’s nipples lightly and then a bit more forcefully, and the girl made a husky sounding ‘yes’ to let her know that’s what she wanted. But Avalon knew. She always knew. Lily was someone she could read with ease. Start with a little kissing, a bit of teasing fingerplay, then get down to business.
On a familiar route, she tricked her tongue along Lily’s collarbone, tracing along the delicate beauty’s skin until she reached the hollow of her throat. She kissed Lily here, then nipped lightly at her skin, understanding that soon she’d be leaving marks. She wouldn’t be able to help herself. Once they started really going at it, Avalon was going to lose control. Tonight, Lily would be sporting an array of lovebites while she worked.
‘Oh, that feels good, Avalon,’ Lily murmured, shifting her hips on the barstool as her clothes suddenly felt constraining. ‘It’s been too long.’
Weeks. Several weeks. Not an eternity in most people’s schedules, but the way Avalon and Lily connected was special. They had a perfect sense of timing. Lily knew the exact point to stop playing the receiver and start acting, her own hands undoing the zipper at the side of Avalon’s dress, helping the columnist out of her clothes.
‘So tell me,’ Avalon purred when she was down to her matching bra and panty set, her mouth making a wet trail from Lily’s breastbone towards the waistband of the bartender’s painted-on jeans. She undid the row of buttons on the 501s and pulled them open, revealing no panties beneath. Such a naughty girl.
‘Tell me who…’