A Starlet in Venice Read Free

all down Simona’s front, from her nipples to just above her belly button. I ached for poor Simona, though my sympathy seemed somewhat misplaced. Simona didn’t look afraid at all.
    Her expression became more nervous when Liam brought a vibrator towards her, and plugged it into the wall. “ Signor ,” she begged, and Liam laughed.
    “What are you pleading for?” he asked her, but she didn’t speak. She didn’t take her eyes off the vibrator.
    The guy clad in black handed Liam a roll of duct tape, and Liam efficiently taped the vibrator so that it would nestle against Simona’s folds. “Oh, you are in for it now,” he said in mock sympathy as he tuned the vibrator on.
    She squirmed. She flinched. She moaned and shouted and cried and she climaxed, again and again, until her body was coated in a sheen of sweat. Along the way, Liam had used a riding crop and flicked away each of the clothespins, but though it looked like it hurt, Simona barely seemed to register it. She was in a different place; a place where her body was racked by orgasms, and she was powerless to resist.
    I couldn’t stay to watch anymore. I couldn’t watch Liam cradle Simona in his arms as she fell apart. I fled back upstairs, and to the safety of his apartment.

Chapter 3
     
    Liam:
    Some days, Tia was early and just went straight up to my apartment. She usually texted me when she got there, and so, as I always did, I had my cell phone in the pocket of my trousers, like some kind of eager teenager waiting for the hot girl to acknowledge him.
    I might have been in love with Tatiana Cordova.
    But she hadn’t texted this evening, and I caught the elevators upstairs to my penthouse apartment located right above Casanova.
    She was sitting on the couch, wearing a faded sweatshirt that said ‘ London’ on it, and an old pair of jeans. No makeup, her hair in a ponytail, and she was still so beautiful she took my breath away and made my heart lurch.
    The first time Tatiana came over to my house with no makeup, I knew that she considered me a friend. Tia was an actress; she was always carefully combed and made up and primped. The day she felt comfortable enough with me to not bother with any of that stuff? That was a good day.
    She held a glass of wine in her hands, and she was just staring at the liquid, her expression pensive. “I didn’t know you were already here, rabbit,” I said, coming over to hug her. As always, the scent of her perfume washed over me. She smelled like the roses that my parents planted in their tiny garden, wild and fragrant and free.
    She smiled at me, but something was off.  I thought I’d ask her what was wrong, but Tia was pretty private. She’d tell me if she wanted. “Do you mind if I shower?” I asked. “I’ll be quick.”
    She nodded.
    ***
    As I’d done several times in the last year, I was kicking myself on the ass for that ‘I want to be your friend’ comment. Not because I didn’t want be her friend, but because I wanted more. I wanted everything from Tatiana Cordova.
    I wasn’t proud of it, but I jerked off in the shower. It was something of a survival strategy. I’d met Tia last December. We’d agreed to be friends, but as time went on, I found myself falling in love with her. And because I was in love with her, I wasn’t going to sleep with anyone else. I’d slept with a lot of women in my life, but every woman in my bed got my undivided attention as long as she was there. Which meant celibacy, and it was killing me. Especially when Tia was just a few steps away, soft and warm, and all I wanted to do was draw her into my arms and never let her go.
    I watched my come coat the shower walls, and I groaned silently.
    ***
    “I opened a bottle of wine,” she said when I came out.  
    “You didn’t eat dinner, rabbit? It was in the refrigerator.” I pulled out the stew and put it on the stove to reheat. Tia couldn’t cook, and I always made dinner the nights she came over. When she was on set, the