Perfect Ten! - A Romance Super-Bundle

Our Neighbor’s A p**n Star!-5

“Wait a minute.” Barb gasped at last. “What did you mean, 'You, too?'”

“Well, apparently you're not the only person in the Shroyer household who finds me attractive.”

Barb stared at her blankly. “Nate?”

“He recognized me as soon as he saw me,” she confirmed. “And when he let that slip, I'm pretty sure he wanted to die.”

Barb took a deep breath. “Well, I'm not naïve enough to think that boys aren't going to watch p**n. I suppose I should be glad that what he did watch was high-class.”

Absurdly, she blushed at the compliment. “Thanks.”

“So, you're retired?”

She nodded. “From films, at least.” She grimaced distastefully. “I got a bellyful of sucking c**k and licking p***y on-camera. If I ever do that again, it'll be for me, not for my bank account.” She suddenly realized that she wasn't talking to someone who was in the adult-film industry, and blushed. “I apologize for the language.”

Barb waved it away with a flip of her hand.

“So...” Heather tried to frame the question tactfully. “How did you come across my movies?”

“It was about three years ago,” the older woman said. She leaned back in her chair, and Heather was again struck by her dark-haired beauty. I hope I look that good when I'm pushing forty. She felt an old, familiar stirring in her belly. Oh, Lord. Now is so not the time.

“Nate's father and I had split up.” She made a disgusted noise. “I had told him I thought I was bisexual, and he completely lost his s**t. By the next day, he had packed a suitcase and was halfway to Sioux Falls.

“But that didn't actually take care of the problem.” Heather nodded her understanding. “And in this town...” She shook her head. “I've got high visibility here. My face is plastered on a good chunk of the advertising space in town, for my real estate business.”

“And a very pretty face it is,” she said. She let her hand fall, not quite casually, on Barb's hand.

“Thank you.” To her immense amusement, the older woman blushed scarlet. Idly, Heather wondered if the color went all the way down to her breasts, and what they might look like if she peeled off the light cotton blouse she was wearing.

“Anyway, I didn't have the guts to look for a female lover. And with a teenage son in the house, recording steamy movies off of Skinemax or pay-per-view didn't seem like a smart option.

“So I started trolling some of the adult video websites. It didn't take me long to notice Sweet Seduction. The production values were higher. The actors were more attractive. The stories actually had plots.”

“Jake always did aspire to be more than just another guy selling T and A,” she agreed with a wry smile. “Though he doesn't mind making a quick buck when he can.”

“Well, I noticed you right away. Your body, your eyes, your face. The way you seemed to command a room.” Barb looked down at her fingers, which were crumbling a cookie into tiny pieces. “I'll admit it. I fantasized about you. Some of the films you did...The Seduction Of Rose Red, Heather and Antonya, The Erotic Adventures of Helen of Troy...”

Heather snickered at the last one. “That one was fun. But you'll never convince me that a Greek princess was blond.”

“Who cares?” Barb shot back. “That scene with Helen and her handmaidens in the bathing pool was hot.”

“And The Changing?”

“God.” Barb shivered happily. “That one turned me on so much. It's like it spoke to me, you know? The way Heather – not you Heather, but the movie Heather – fought against being a lesbian. But by the end, she was in control of her own destiny.”

“So are you a lesbian?”

Barb shook her head. “No. I mean, I like men. A lot.” Her grin was wicked, and Heather wondered if her unlamented ex-husband had ever seen that expression on her face. “But I think about women, too.” She gave a sad shrug. “So I guess I'm bisexual. Not that I'll ever have the chance to find out,” she said bitterly. “Not in this town.”

Heather raised her eyebrows. “You could.”

“Yeah. With who?” She blinked as she finally understood Heather's words. “No. No way. You mean, you are?” She suddenly stammered. “I'm sorry. That was completely rude. But I always assumed...” She trailed off, as if she were unable to put her thoughts into words.

“You thought I was a straight woman doing lesbian p**n because I needed the money?” Barb nodded. “Well, I don't deny that 'gay for pay' has its charms. But for me, it was never an issue. I walk on both sides of the street.”

Even as she finished speaking, she tried to suppress the feeling of excitement inside her. At the same time, another, saner part of her mind was telling her that this was a terrible idea.

She's already said that she isn't looking for a relationship, Heather Anne. Don't try to persuade her because you're lonely and horny.

But the old familiar heat was coiling through her belly, warming her groin, making her breasts feel hot and heavy inside her sweater. She wanted Barb on top of her, kissing her, licking her, caressing her...

For the past eight years, ever since she had stopped trying to be a “real actress” and had switched to adult movies, her love life had been caught in a vicious spiral. Either she went out with men and women inside the industry, who were usually insufferably self-absorbed and filed with rampaging egos that would make Donald Trump look shy and discreet, or she went out with people who, while not part of the adult film process, nevertheless knew who she was and had impossible expectations about how she might act, either in the bedroom or out of it. For all its size, Los Angeles was still strangely insular, and by the time she did her first feature film for Sweet Seduction, her face was too well-known for her to have any chance of anonymity there. So the men (and women) she dated expected the sort of over-the-top s****l romp that only happened in the fevered imaginings of teenage boys or the people who wrote her scripts. By the time she was twenty-four and had won her first AVN award, she had practically sworn of dating altogether.

Which made the possibility of a relationship with Barb all the more appealing. Yes, she had seen her movies. But there was still something inherently innocent about her. It was clear she wasn't expecting her to be a s****l superwoman. Perhaps it was her open admission to being inexperienced where women were concerned. Whatever it was, she was strangely drawn to her.

And it didn't hurt that the older woman was hotter than hell. She had the sort of body and facial structure which would have had Jake and others in his position lining up to bid for her services.

She shook her head in disgust. To compare Barbara with other adult actresses demeaned her.

But to have her in bed, that would be wonderful. Their eyes caught. Heather wasn't sure what Barb saw in hers. But looking into her dark brown eyes, she saw friendship, a little fear, but also desire. Their fingers twined together. Heather felt the balance begin to tip. The passion was there, waiting only for one of them to make the first move. She could feel it in her breath, in her heartbeat, in the way that her blood pounded where her thighs met...

In the sudden silence, the sound of the garage door sliding open was jarringly loud. Heather thought he heard Barb utter a muttered curse, just before Nate walked into the kitchen through a door which, she assumed, connected the house with the garage.

“Hi, Mom,” he said. He tried to cover a start as surprise as he recognized Heather. “Hello, Miss McCormick.”

“Hello, honey,” Barb said, as her son kissed her cheek. “How was the movie?”

“Really good. I thought it was going to be another stupid alien-invasion flick, with explosions and stuff, but it really made me think.”

“Cool,” Heather raised her brows in interest, inviting Nate to go on. Encouraged, he sat down at the table with the two of them, sipping from a huge mug of iced tea he poured for himself.

As they discussed the movie he had seen, the conversation shifted to other movies, then to books. Heather took the opportunity to examine mother and son.

They were both very attractive. Perhaps she had become jaded in southern California, where anyone who was anyone had cosmetic surgery, whether it be breast implants, liposuction, botox, or any one of dozens of other choices. But the Shroyer family certainly didn't need any improvement. Now that he wasn't apologizing for letting slip her stage name, Nate was relaxed and at ease, with an air of rugged farm-boy competence, although he was a bit wide-eyed at finding her at his kitchen table. Heather could imagine that his mind was rapidly churning, wondering what she had told his mother.

And Barb? Heather sighed inwardly. Barb reminded her of a leading actress on a network sitcom. The sort of woman who could prepare a meal for eight, and then turn into a wildcat in bed at night.

“It's snowing,” Nate remarked, during a lull in the conversation. He used the some tone a person in California might use to say, “The sun's shining.”

“Really?” She hopped up and scampered to the window. Fat white flakes were spiraling lazily out of the sky. Already they had laid a dusting of white on the black asphalt of the driveway.

She heard a snicker behind her, and turned with a smile. “Laugh it up, Nate. I haven't seen snow fall since I was eighteen years old.”

“And when was that? Last year?”

“Oh, you silver-tongued devil,” she retorted, smiling at the compliment. “I'm sure you have the girls just knocking down the door to get at you.”

He shrugged, suddenly becoming very interested in the cookie he was eating. “Not right now,” he muttered, the tips of his ears turning red. Heather blinked, opening her mouth, then shut it as she caught the slight shake of his mother's head.

“Well, I should be going,” she said with false cheer. “I've taken up enough of your day. Barbara, it was lovely meeting you. And Nate, relax. A good-looking man like you won't be single for very long.”

*****

“I like her,” Barb said as the door closed behind Heather.

“She called me a man,” Nate grinned. At his mother's raised eyebrow, he relented. “Yeah, I like her, too. She's smart and she listens when other people are talking.”

“Attractive, too,” she felt compelled to point out.

“Well, yeah, Mom. But she's got to be close to ten years older than me. Shouldn't you be telling me to look for a girl closer to my own age?”

“I wasn't suggesting that you ask her out on a date, Nathaniel.” She shrugged, trying to put aside the unexpected spasm of jealousy she felt when she pictured the two of them together. “But I don't see that it matters. If you aren't going to try with girls your own age, I think Heather is safe.”

Her son groaned at the broad hint. He had gone out with several girls over the last few months, but few of his efforts had resulted in even a second date. “Mom, I've tried. But the girls here...all they want to talk about is who said what about who online, or who's going to win the game between Rapid City High and Central High, or some stupid reality TV show.

“None of them have any ambition. Even the ones who are going to college next fall seem to be doing it just for something to do for the next four years.” He raked a frustrated hand through his hair, then smiled. “You set a terrible example, you know,” he teased. “If you had been an ordinary housewife, who stayed at home and baked cookies and gave me four or five brothers and sisters, that's the sort of woman I'd be looking for. Instead, I want a smart, ambitious woman who wants to change the world.”