I love women. I love sex. I love money. I love hot, wild nights with no promise of a future, because a future is one thing I don't have. I'm twenty-eight years old. I won't live to see thirty, and I don't care. Or I didn't, until her.
Nobody plans for a life like this. Some of us just end up here.
They call me Lucky, though luck has never been on my side. Before I met Q, my life was a big, twisted mess. Never enough money, never anyone to trust. No way out. With Q, the shame and fear disappear. Instead I feel pure pleasure, and that's something I've never had before. But if what I've just learned is true, we'd better enjoy every second together while we can...before our time runs out.
BEAUTIFUL LIAR was previously published as Porn Star
*Please note the following review was for the previously published edition*
Can I be bluntly honest with y’all right now? Originally when I signed up to review Porn Star it was based off the name only. With a title like that, this book whore just new that I had to read this book. Then I read the description and knew I made the right choice because I had a feeling it was going to be so much more than those first thoughts of “oohh a porn star book”. And it was. The way the story between Quinn and Elly unfolds was set at the perfect pace, we get to see more than one side to these characters, especially Quinn. He is an asshole, but one I personally couldn’t help but love. Elly has her own past, but I really enjoyed her strength and character more than I thought I would. This is a book that you can’t base your assumptions on the name alone, because if you do and chose to not read this one, you will be missing out on a great book.
“So it’s true? It’s not
a con? This job really pays a million dollars? For…sex?” she rasps.
“You think I’d admit it
if it was a con? What did the ad say?”
Her delicate jaw flexes
for a second.
“One
million uninhibited reasons to take a leap.
One
million chances to earn a keep
One
million to give in to the carnal
Are
you brave enough to surrender,
For a
payday to remember?”
It speaks even more to
her desperate state of mind that she remembers the ad verbatim.
I remain silent and wait
for her to speak.
“So…assuming it’s not a con, how will this work, then?”
“If you pass the next
few tests, and I decide you’re a good fit, you get the gig. You’ll receive one
hundred thousand dollars with each performance.”
“So…ten
performances…over how long a period?”
“Depending on how many
takes are needed, anywhere between three weeks and a month. But I should warn
you, it’s hard work, Lucky. If you think you’re just going to lie back and
recite the Star Spangled Banner in your head, think again.”
Her fingers drum on the
table, the first sign of nerves she’s exhibited. “I…I won’t be doing
anything…skanky, will I?”
“Define skanky.”
“This is going to be
straight up sex. No other…bodily stuff? Because that would a firm no for me.”
My mouth attempts
another twitch. “No water works, waste matter or bestiality will be involved in
the performances.”
Her fingers stop
drumming. “Okay.” She waits a beat, stares straight into the camera. “So when
will I know?”
I hear the barely
disguised urgency and I rub my finger over my lip again. “Soon. I’ll be in
touch within the week.” I’m not sure exactly why I want to toy with her. But I
sense that having her on edge would add another layer of excitement I badly
need.
When she opens her
mouth, I interrupt. “Goodbye, Lucky.”
A passing thought about
the origin of her name is crushed into oblivion. I press the remote to summon
the bodyguard to escort her out, and I leave the room.
In my study a few
minutes later, I bring up the screen on my desk and activate the encrypted
service I need. I open the application and within minutes, the members of my
exclusive gentlemen’s club are logging in.
My email is short and
succinct.
The next Q
Production is scheduled for release on 20 May 2015.
Limited to
ten members.
Bidding
starts in fifteen minutes.
I start the countdown
and rise to pour myself a neat bourbon. I swallow the first mouthful with two
prescribed tablets, which are meant to keep me from going over the edge,
apparently, and stroll to the floor to ceiling window. I look down at Midtown’s
bumper-to-bumper traffic. This mid-level penthouse is one of many I own in this
building and around New York City.
Technically, I don’t
live here. I only use it when volatile pressures demand that I put some
distance between the Upper West Side family mansion and myself. I would never
stray far for long. For one thing, I’ve accepted that my family would never
leave me alone.
I know what I know. So
they’ve made it their business to keep me on a short leash. But with over three
hundred properties in my personal portfolio, and a few thousand more under the
family firm’s control, there are many places to disappear to when the demons
howl.
Today, the Midtown
penthouse is my temporary haven.
I turn when the timer
beeps a one-minute warning.
I return to my desk and
adjust the voice distorter. When the clock reaches zero, I click the mouse.
“Gentlemen, start your bids.”
My words barely trail
off before the first five bids appear on the screen. Sixty seconds later, the
total bid is at a quarter of a million dollars. I steeple my fingers and wish I
were more excited. The money means nothing. It never has. It’s the end game
that excites me.
My mind drifts back to
Lucky. I turn the gem of her elusiveness this way and that and admit to myself
she has potential.
I want to take a scalpel
to all her secrets, bleed them and soil my hands with the viscera. I also want
to fuck her until her body gives out. Right in this moment, I’m not sure what I
want more.
So I concentrate on the
numbers racing higher on the screen.
Half a million. One
million. One point five.
My phone beeps twice. I
pick it up and read the two appointment reminders on the screen.
7pm – Dr. Nathanson. My shrink.
9pm - Dinner
with Maxwell.
I re-confirm the first
and delete the second.
Cancelling dinner with
Maxwell will bring a world of irritation to my doorstep. No one cancels dinner
with Maxwell Blackwood. For a start he’s one of the most powerful men in the
country.
He’s also my father.
Yeah, my name is Quinn
Blackwood, heir to the Blackwood Estate, only child of Maxwell Blackwood and
Adele Blackwood (deceased). My family owns a staggering amount of property
across the eastern seaboard of the United States and a few in the west.
According to the bean counters, I’m personally worth twenty-six billion
dollars.
But tangling with my
father in hell is what I live for. Have done since I was fifteen. So I ignore
his summons and watch the stragglers fall away until I’m left with the top ten
bidders. The bids wind down, and within the space of half an hour, I’m just
under two million dollars richer.
I spot the familiar name
of the top bidder and I sneer. Taking his money on top of everything else is
darkly satisfying.
Once bidding ends, I
close down the application and call up another list. Dozens of charity websites
showing pictures of starving children flood my screen. Within minutes, fifty
charities are the grateful recipients of two million dollars.
I may be Quinn Blackwood,
occasional user of prescribed meds to keep the demons in check, who moonlights
as Q, porn star to an exclusive
few who pay millions for my work.
And I may be an unhinged
asshole with serious daddy issues.
But no one said I wasn’t a giver.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Zara Cox has been writing for almost
twenty-five years but it wasn't until nine years ago that she decided to share
her love of writing sexy, gritty stories with anyone outside her close family
(the over 18s anyway!).
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