“Wow.”
“The press went after your folks, huh? Got mine too, the bastards.”
“Oh, jeez. Whatever. That’s minor compared to an FBI raid. Didn’t see that coming. So, what happens now?”
“I deliberately avoided M until we had a chance to talk. In one of his fifty texts, he pressed us to go public and I wasn’t sure what you’d think about that.”
“You weren’t’ sure what your fiancée would think, or you weren’t sure what your assistant would say?”
“Both. This isn’t how we thought things would go. If Perry lets Alan go down, and no one would fault him if he did, that probably means the movie is toast. I don’t care one way or the other, but Phae gets screwed big time, and Joann, well, we already don’t give a shit about her.”
“Sweetie. That’s all Gideon stuff and honestly,” she mimed, “with one hand behind my back and a dead battery. Understand?”
“You’re right. Whatever. Gideon Shaw is on his own.” He snickered. “Let’s take that sparkler you’re wearing out for a spin and get you some clothes. And some food. I’m feeling an In and Out burger for lunch.”
She started running for the door, laughing at his amused expression. “Animal fries, a chocolate milkshake, and I’m in!”
One Week Later …
A dinner roll went whizzing by his head, landing on a counter behind him. “I said I needed some peace … not asked if you wanted a piece.”
“No use in crying foul, babe. You asked for it.”
Yes, she had to admit. That was undeniably true. They were on hyper drive with the clever wordplay, both finding it endlessly amusing to turn practically every word and phrase into something lewd and suggestive. As she was setting the table for dinner, she’d casually remarked how much she was looking forward to their road trip. The peace she referred to by getting away from it all quickly morphed into a piece. Of ass. Hers. The result had been an overcooked chicken and a pan of biscuits that could double as weapons because they were so hard.
She wasn’t complaining. At all. Why would she? It was thrilling to have a seriously hot and sexy guy trying to get inside you morning, noon, and night. In the span of one week, she’d had more sex, and in more unusual places, than should be possible. And it wasn’t all him, either.
Just the other day, she’d taken him by complete surprise while he was building her a pergola at the WeHo house. She’d been watching from the kitchen window while he got all sweaty swinging a hammer. Ate an entire Dove bar in the process. When the t-shirt came off, she was out the door in seconds.
Marching right up to him, she’d taken the hammer from his hands, dropped it on the ground, taken him by the hand, and dragged him inside. Where prying neighbors couldn’t see.
Unbuckling and removing his tool belt had been all kinds of sexy. But going to her knees to concentrate on the zipper and button of his jeans had been hotter than hell.
His hip tattoo got all her attention that time. Once she got his pants off and he was stark naked with a ferocious hard-on, she let her fingers, lips, and tongue get intimately acquainted with the sexy ink. It was in the right zone, after all.
She found out a helluva lot about the black tribal marking that time. Like how it swept over a hip, down his groin, and seemed to disappear in the hair that framed his penis. But the surprise was how low and far the ink went. Like right into the seam where thigh joined torso, curving lower until the pattern abruptly ended near his balls.
That had to have hurt, so like the wanton little fiancée she’d become, Paige set about making his poor shlong forget the trauma of a tattoo gun. And she wasn’t sure which one of them liked the occasion more. Her or him.
It came as something of a surprise to realize that with Edward, she eagerly went down on him—no excuse needed. She just liked it. A lot. After all, his shaft was a masterpiece, and it took about ten seconds to realize that when she got into it, it was all kinds of hot to suck him off to completion. Nobody came like he did—not in the movies, not in books, and not in any porn she’d seen.
Shoving the pan of useless, overbaked chicken aside, she wiped her hands on a kitchen towel and sneered playfully.
He was trying not to smirk, but it was useless. Wrapping her in a big hug, he reached for her ass and squeezed. “Come on, frowny face, admit it. Dinner might be ruined, but ya gotta give it up for multiple orgasms.”
They’d weathered the storm, more or less, and managed to go quietly about their business despite the overbearing presence of the paparazzi and the gotcha techniques they used.
Perry Waterman had severed ties with his business partner the minute the FBI raid went public. Mickey said it was evident from how swiftly Waterman’s team moved after the story broke that they knew either what was coming or perhaps even had been the ones who’d tipped off the feds. Mostly, Perry seemed relieved. His associates dealt with the media scrutiny with impressive professionalism.
She’d reached out to Phaedra Bellamy. The poor girl was being dragged through some icky stuff, and she wanted to help. Mickey proved what a stellar human being he was when he volunteered to get Moira on her side. Alan Sperry’s trafficking charges exposed a scary, dark world where young girls, and guys too, were traded as commodities and forced into high-end sexual slavery in the world of mansions, private jets, and yachts in the Mediterranean.
Paige hadn’t realized that Phae was only nineteen, about to turn twenty. She handled herself so well that her age wasn’t important. But the press liked to spin and spin and spin when it came to salacious gossip, turning Phae into the presumed target of the traffickers. That wasn’t exactly true. Alan had wanted her for himself, as a toy he could share with his butt buddies, Markus and Joann. What a fucking mess.
But they were leaving in a few days for Denver and from there, their schedule was wide open. A weather snafu in Montana had moved the start of filming to the beginning of September, so Edward and she decided to go full monty with the RV rental. Just like when they researched Wyoming properties, they’d spent hours together doing research online for the right vehicle.
Nothing too big or flashy—after all, part of the fun was doing the whole RV camping thing. They didn’t want their ride to scream CELEBRITY, so they eventually settled on a motorcoach that wasn’t big and ostentatious but also wasn’t tiny and cramped. And best of all? It was a Thor motorhome, which started a thousand jokes, one-liners about Thor’s mighty hammer, and Asgard with loads of emphasis on the ‘ass.’ She could not wait.
Booking a private jet to take them from Los Angeles to Denver was probably overkill—it wasn’t that long a trip—but the expense had been worth the experience. Especially with his cool-as-a-Popsicle assistant and fiancée pretending to be his personal flight attendant. After takeoff, when they were able to move around, she’d served him lunch complete with a linen napkin meticulously placed on his groin, adjusting it several times, in fact, until it was just right. She even flashed him—wearing white lace boy-short panties—and calmly inquired if he’d be requiring access to the cockpit during their flight.
He’d very nearly choked on his sandwich.
A huge weight lifted once they left L.A. behind. He was sick of the constant paparazzi presence wherever they went. Paige was handling it better than he was, having acquired this Zen-like attitude and an empty smile that the gossip sites found boring after a while. She never reacted to any of the trash talk the photogs used to force a camera-worthy reaction out of them.