Because he made me feel good, oh so fucking good, so good it should be wrong. And of course it was wrong, which I was trying very hard to ignore.
“Quiet,” I said to him. “Our parents are asleep.”
“Who cares?” he grunted in my ear. “It’s not like they know what we were doing earlier.”
“Are you home for good now?” I asked, ignoring his comment. We were standing outside our bedroom doors in the dark.
“Maybe. Haven’t decided.”
“What’s holding you back?”
“Not sure.”
His hands wrapped around my hips and pulled me against him.
“Not here,” I said, opening my bedroom door.
He grinned as he followed me inside. I could already feel him undressing me again. I couldn’t let him stay over, not with our parents home, but I couldn’t stop myself. I wanted him so fucking badly. I turned back to him and looked at his hard body and his delicious smile as he shut the door and locked it.
I knew what that meant.
He crossed the room and grabbed me, pulling me against him. I knew where this was going, too, and wanted it so badly. I was practically burning for him, a rough yearning deep between my legs, crawling in agonizingly slow waves up along my spine. He kissed me and I kissed him back.
Together, we tumbled into the bed.
But something stopped me. Something was crinkling under my back, uncomfortable. “What’s that?” I asked him.
“What?” he grunted.
I shifted my body. “There’s something under me.”
I reached under my back and pulled out a manila envelope.
“What is it?” he asked, kissing my neck.
“I don’t know,” I said softly. “It has my name on it.”
“Alexa” was written in sharpie along the front in a hand I didn’t recognize. It was addressed to our house and had postage, so the staff had probably placed it on my pillow.
“Open it later,” he said.
But something compelled me to ignore him. I tore open the end and reached inside. I felt something glossy and smooth and pulled out what I realized were large photographs.
What I saw there nearly gave me a heart attack.
“Cole,” I said.
He stopped kissing me and sat up, hearing the panic in my voice. “What’s wrong?” he said seriously.
“Look.”
I held out the photographs. In black and white, grainy and dark but still visible, was the two of us kissing on the roof of the banquet hall.
“What else?” he asked, suddenly all business.
I showed him the rest. It was a series of us kissing each other, stopping only when we were interrupted by Madison the assistant.
Cole’s face slowly darkened. I got to the last photograph and noticed something written on the back.
“It says, ‘Five thousand dollars, five p.m., five days.’ That’s it.”
“Blackmail,” Cole grunted, standing up.
He was furious.
“Who would do this?” I asked him.
“Come on,” he said, looking at me. “We both know who this is.”
I shook my head. “Really, I don’t.”
“That paparazzi piece of shit that I knocked out. He must have snapped these without even realizing what they were.”
I nodded slowly. “And now he’s blackmailing you.”
“Explains why he didn’t press charges.”
I shook my head in total shock. I looked through the pictures again as Cole paced the room, fury rolling off him in waves. It was palpable, his anger, and it scared me.
“He knows what these pictures would do,” I said. “They would ruin our parents.”
“I know that.”
“And, Cole, our marriage. If he digs . . .”
“I know that, too.”
I stared at him, terrified.
“What are we going to do?”
He stopped pacing and looked at me. I’d never seen someone so serious in my entire life.
“I’ll take care of this.”
“Cole—”
But he had already turned and stormed out of my room. I got up and followed him out into the hall and down the steps.
“Cole, wait,” I said.
He ignored me, throwing the front door open. He went out into the street and climbed onto his bike.
He gave me one last look as he kicked the motorcycle to life and sped out into traffic.
I watched him disappear.
Something had almost happened between the two of us. Somehow, something had almost changed because of what had gone down in the dressing room. I’d felt myself almost cross a line.
But the pictures had pulled us back. Things had shifted, ever so slightly, but I knew it was true.
How could I have been so stupid?
I shook my head, afraid, as I went back inside.
I was afraid for my parents and afraid of what Cole made me feel. But I was also afraid for him and what he was going to do.