Command Performance Read Online Free PDF Page B

minutes later with a mixture of misery and frustration. He followed soon afterward as the noises from the play room started to escalate. Moans, rhythmic impact sounds, excited screams.
    Mireille Durand. He’d have to get her number and set something up. Something very photo-worthy and public. She was sweet and cute, and seemed like a nice person.
    Hell, he hoped this worked.

Chapter Three: Smile
     
    Miri was nervous enough without her father glowering at her from the living room. Breathe. Breathe. Damn, she couldn’t breathe. She blamed it on the industrial-strength shaping undergarment under the gauzy, floor-length, jade-colored gown she wore.
    How about those drinks, Mason had asked when he called the week before. But not drinks at a bar or restaurant. Mason Cooke was taking her to the Golden Globes. “There’s a bar there,” he said. Like she needed some motivation to attend with him besides the fact that it would be the most exciting event of her life. Mason’s publicist called, and then Miri’s agent, and then Mason’s studio’s stylist was knocking at her door with a truck full of designer gowns. There had been a week of fittings, consultations, hurried calls from Mason checking that everything was going okay.
    She had dreamed of him every night, drawing heavily on her memories from the set. She didn’t dream about Mason’s character raping her though. She dreamed about Mason kissing her hard, pressing against her and holding her down. Not in violence, but in passion. In her dream, the feel of him was so vivid, so palpable that she almost believed he was in bed with her. She felt some tactile memories very specifically, like the scrape of his stubble across her jaw and the warmth of his skin. Beyond that, she had a vague sensation of him making love to her in a dreamlike way. Or almost making love to her. She felt the hardness of his cock in her dream, and yet she sensed a calm, genial softness as well, to take all the fear away. Why would she be afraid of him? In her dream, she couldn’t remember. To her disappointment, she always woke before she reached any kind of release, and she’d stare at the ceiling in the dark, dazed.
    Don’t think about that now, you sex-starved wanton. Miri paced. With the girdle, she couldn’t sit down anyway. Mason was late, but then they didn’t live anywhere near his posh Malibu address. Miri needed to get her own place. It was on her to-do list once the second wave of her career took off.
    “Watch out for him,” Peter Durand intoned for twentieth time. “You think he’s a nice guy, but I know better.”
    “Dad, you realize I’m twenty-four.”
    “I don’t care. Be on your guard. If he wants to take you to any parties afterward, you say no and come home.”
    “Okay. Whatever.”
    “I’m serious. You have no idea what goes on at those parties. Drugs and sexual depravity.”
    She noticed he didn’t mention alcohol. Hypocrite. Miri looked out the window again.
    “I know you’ve seen the stories about him,” her father persisted. “Don’t they worry you?”
    “Those stories are hardly ever true, and even if they are, who cares? We’re going to the Golden Globes, not some orgy or whatever.” Miri could hardly believe she’d said that word to her father.
    Neither could he. He stood and strode over to her. “You might not care, but I do. This town ate your sister alive—”
    “I’m not my sister. When are you going to get over that already?”
    He paled. “Never. I’ll never get over it. And I won’t lose you too.”
    Miri pushed past him and shut herself in the bathroom, wobbling for a moment on her heels. Breathe in. Breathe out. I can’t breathe. Her father was suffocating her, slowly but surely. She looked in the mirror, adjusting her dangling diamond earrings. Loaners, via Mason’s stylist. A diamond choker and bracelet completed the stunning set. Her light blonde hair was done up in a twist with some spiral tendrils falling loose. She looked