If you had asked me, before that moment, if I’d had any self-doubt due to Scott’s affair, I’d have said no. I’d have said that he was an idiot, and Bobbie Jo was a ho, and that it had nothing to do with me. But his simple sentence, stated with such resolution… it opened a crack in me that I hadn’t known existed, a deep fissure that ran all the way to my bones.
He opened that crack, and a dark black tidal wave of insecurity and sadness rushed out.
Pretending that I didn’t care if Quincy loved me.
Pretending that I didn’t want the picket fence and the kid on my hip and the Thompson that followed my name.
Pretending that those girls were all bitches and I’d had real friends, but they’d just grown up and moved away or gotten lives, and that was fine because I had my books and my mama and lazy summer afternoons in the sunshine.
A pile of pretends and ignores and feelings that had been stuffed inside the dark marrow of my bones, and Cole Masten pulled them all out with just that sentence and that look and the pull on my neck and his kiss, soft and sweet, on my mouth.
No man in his right mind would cheat on you.
But a man in his right mind had cheated on me and it stung.
“You are incredible, Summer. I think you scared him with your beauty and your strength and that fucking incredible mouth. I think he felt insecure about it and found a woman who he felt superior to.” He kissed me again, harder this time, and I pulled at his hair, clutched at his arm, and felt a part of me, a part of that crack, close, all of the yuck leaked out. I wanted to ask if he meant it, if that was a line of Hollywood bullshit or his real thoughts, but when I pulled back to ask, when I came off his lips and saw the look on his face, I knew. I knew that he wasn’t full of it. And I realized, in that moment, in that look, that every feeling I had bottled up… my inner conflict of self-preservation—the push of hatred, the pull of attraction? He had it too. In his eyes searching mine, the emotion on his face, I saw more. More than just fairy dust attraction. Something deeper and fuller and more real.
I moved on his lap, repositioning myself to face him, straddling him, and I crossed my bare ankles behind him, on the porch floor, our faces close, his eyes closing when I trailed a finger across his lips. “I see you,” I whispered, and those green eyes reemerged, looking at me, his brow furrowing, and I traced the lines of it as well. “God, you put up a lot of layers of asshole to keep people out.”
“It’s not asshole,” he breathed, his mouth moving forward, burrowing into my neck, nuzzling at the skin, and he took a gentle bite, his hands cupping my ass and pulling me tighter to him. “It’s me.”
“No.” I shook my head slightly and lifted his face with my hands, pulling him in for one kiss and then pushing him away. “This is you. And you are perfect. I love this you.”
His breath stopped against my mouth, and he didn’t move, didn’t pull back. He thought that I was incredible and beautiful and strong but probably didn’t want this, and it took every bit of my strength to keep talking. “And I love your asshole self too. I think I’m addicted.”
“You?” he responded, his words coming out in a rush of air. “I haven’t stopped thinking about this.” He moved one hand lower on my butt and ran his fingers across the silk barrier of my panties, between my spread legs. That was what I got for straddling this man with a dress on. He did it again, his fingers pushing at the silk, pulling it against me, and he stared at me, his eyes hungry. “I haven’t stopped thinking about that, or this…” He pressed his lips to mine, his mouth eager and rough. “Or these…” His hands pulled my dress down and came back up my bare front, lifting my breasts, the image of them, in his strong hands, enough to make me grind a little against him, and he was hard, and I could feel it, and I wanted it but it wasn’t enough. “But most of all I am addicted to you.” He said the words softly and stared down at my breasts in his hands, my legs wrapped around his waist, my dress bunched at my hips. “I can’t stop. I don’t think I can ever stop.”
It wasn’t I love you. But when he wrapped his hands around my back and lifted me up, his butt pushing off the porch and onto the grass, his hands gentle when they lowered me to the ground… when he pulled down his shorts and lifted my dress, his body settling over me, his lips on my skin, his name a gasp from my lips when he pushed himself inside… it was, in that moment, enough. Having Cole Masten addicted to me was enough. Having him tell me that Scott was wrong and I wasn’t broken… that was more than enough.
CHAPTER 104
The power came on, at some point during the night. I heard Cole stand, heard the slide of wood as he shut the windows, then he was back in bed, with his hand sliding around my waist as he pulled me against him. I was naked, and his chest against my back was warm and comforting, his hand, cupping my breast strong and possessive. He gently kissed the back of my neck, and I smiled. He said something, but I didn’t hear it, sleep pulling me back under.
In the morning, I woke first, his arm hot and heavy against my chest. Sunlight was streaming through the curtains, and I blinked a few times at the alarm clock, trying to see the time. Ten fifteen. We’d slept late. I slid carefully out from underneath his arm and walked downstairs. Pulled on Cole’s T-shirt, abandoned on the living room floor, and my panties, which had somehow ended up on the stairs, then put Cocky in the backyard and laughed as he chased a squirrel, his chest puffed, wings flapping. Our leftover steaks were in the fridge so I tossed them in a skillet, heating them on low while I got out eggs and milk, stepping over Nerf bullets as I moved, my grin widening as I remembered our late night battle. I’d claimed the kitchen as my base, Cole had taken the dining room, and we’d played capture the rooster handkerchief. Afterward, when I’d run around, picking up bullets while swigging wine, Cole had mentioned a maid. Now, in the light of day, my eyes skipped over the carnage with a wince. I cracked the final egg in the skillet and heard Cole’s voice holler from upstairs.
“What?” I yelled back, spatula in hand, the egg popping in the hot skillet.
“Come back to bed!” His voice sounded groggy.
“Come down to breakfast!” I tossed my yell up the stairs, then moved quickly back to the skillet, stirring the eggs before they browned. I heard a response, some words bellowed out, and ignored them, a smile eating at the corner of my mouth. A few seconds later, feet hit the floor, and I heard the stumble of him out of the bedroom and down the stairs.
“Morning.” His voice still held cobwebs, and I turned with a smile, one hand holding the skillet, the other spooning scrambled eggs onto a plate. I almost dropped the iron skillet when I saw him.
He was naked, his right hand unsuccessfully over his junk, half of it peeking out from said hand. His abs were on full display, his body beautiful, the lines and cuts of his shoulders, the hard plane of his chest, the clench of his forearm as he adjusted his grip and still didn’t wrangle it all. “Morning.” I grinned.
“You can’t cook breakfast in my shirt unless you want a fucking.” He growled out the words and pulled at himself, his eyes doing a full sweep of me.
“You can’t eat my breakfast if you don’t put on some pants.” I pointed with a spatula at his shorts, which lay in a pile by the fridge. Ah… yes. The whipped cream. He was worried it would spoil due to the lack of refrigeration. I had suggested we stick it in the outside freezer. He had popped off the cap with his teeth and grinned at me, turning his head and spitting it out, and if that hadn’t been the sexiest thing ever, I didn’t know what was. Possibly what happened next, his slow wander behind me, his mouth dropping to my neck, his teeth gentle when they closed on my shoulder, his hands dropping from Summer’s Favorite Organ Ever and running up my hips, under his big shirt and settling on my waist, his head tilting as he looked under the shirt. “Oh… Summer…” he tsked his tongue, his fingers sliding under the edges of my underwear. “These are going to get in the way.”
“No they’re not,” I warned, setting down the spatula and turning to face him, fixing to tell
him off for interrupting my cooking. But when I turned around, he bumped against my thighs, and my eyes dropped and stared and when I looked back up, at his cocky face, his hands pulling me forward, his mouth dropping for a kiss… Well, a woman could only be so concerned with eggs when a man was that naked and hard for her. I reached back and flipped off the burner.
CHAPTER 105
Cole was done for. He’d kept thinking, after sex, that it’d fade. That he’d come to his senses and find his footing. Realize that she was a normal girl and that they’d had one night of fun and now filming should be smoother, his life in Quincy less antagonistic. But he was still crazy in the middle of the night, when he fought sleep just so that he could enjoy holding her just a little bit longer. And he was definitely still crazy when he woke up, a morning chub out of control, and craved her. Smelling food, finding her in his shirt, in his kitchen, a spatula in hand, had made it even worse. He’d been attracted to women before, had loved fucking Nadia, but had never had someone crawl under his skin like this. He looked at this woman and saw her bouncing his child on her hip, saw her running through the field on his Montana ranch, saw her sitting in a velvet seat at the Academy Awards, her hand light on his arm, her mouth warm against his ear. And all of those images scared the hell out of him.
Now, sex in the kitchen completed, breakfast eaten, dishes washed, he watched her. She stood in the living room, her hands on adorable hips, frustration in her stance when he rounded the couch and faced her. “What’s wrong?”
“I can’t carry all of this stuff home.” She gestured to her haul from last night, a pile that included a popcorn machine (she’d never had one), iPad (he’d insisted on it), and minion pajamas, among four bags of other things. She had been planning to wear the pajamas to bed, thank God she hadn’t.
“I can drop you off.” He didn’t want to drop her off. He wanted to drive over to her house, pick up all of her cheap shit, and move it in. He wanted to sit down and work out their shooting schedule, their next fifty years, find out every dream she’d ever had and then make them realities. He wanted to fly Brad DeLuca up here and personally hug the man for putting him in Quincy early, for putting him on her doorstep, for saving the rest of his life.
“The reporters,” she reminded him, chewing on a thumbnail as she reached down and shifted through the closest bag.
“Fuck the reporters.”
“Ha.” She pulled out a pack of gum, Bubblicious, and ripped it open, holding it up before shaking one out. “Want one?”
“No.” He watched her unwrap it and pop the pink cube in her mouth. A children’s gum. She chewed children’s gum. Her jaw worked, and she glanced up at him, popping a bubble before speaking. “What?”
“Can we talk about this?” A stupid question. He should have kept his mouth shut. Taken her home. Let everything play out properly. Or not play out properly. And in that risk laid his worry.
“About us?” She popped her gum again, and he fought the urge to kiss it out of her mouth.
“Yes.”
“Are you freaked out by what I said last night?” She tossed down the gum and turned to fully face him, her arms crossing in front of her chest. Not defiantly, her arms were tight, as if she was giving herself a hug, her hands under her armpits. Nervous Summer. A new side. Nadia would never have responded in this manner. She would have played games, been cool, skirted direct conversation while he chased her down with questions and insinuations. Their fights were exhausting, which is probably why they both avoided them—him working out his anger on their gym’s punching bag, her on, apparently, other men.
“No.” It was the truth. Her weak declarations that could be analyzed a hundred different ways depending on how long a man wanted to stay awake… those didn’t freak him out. Not when they were so pale compared to his feelings, live and vivid in a thousand different hues. He looked down, at the pile of shopping bags, and wished he’d picked a different location for this. It’d be too serious if he invited her to sit down, yet standing here, in this dim room, the fan above them off balance and ticking, wasn’t exactly how he imagined this going. Not that he had thought this through. If he had, he’d have duct taped his mouth shut. Bringing this up now could only lead to disaster.
“So talk.” Her shoulders had loosened a little, and her chewing quieted.
He took a deep breath and jumped off the cliff. “I meant what I said last night. A man would be crazy to cheat on you. A man would be crazy to want something else, when he could have you. I’ve had you—the real you—for these last eighteen hours, and I don’t want anything else. I don’t think I’ll ever want anything else.” He stepped closer and looked down at her. “Tell me we aren’t great together.”
She looked away, into a far corner of the room, then back up at him. “We aren’t, Cole. This…” she gestured between the two of them, her hand a floppy wave of heartbreak, “… this doesn’t even compare to what I had with Scott.” She lifted one of her shoulders in a tiny shrug of indifference. “I’m sorry.”
“But… you told me you loved me. I thought…” He stepped away from her and pressed his palms to his eyes, everything in his life spiraling down in one hellacious drain of WTF.
“You thought I was a terrible actress.” There was a smile in her response, and he looked up, confused. She blew a giant bubble and popped it.
“So you were acting? With me?” His mind started shuttering through their night, and she rolled her eyes, stepping forward and wrapping her arms around his neck, her mouth sugary when she pressed it to his lips.
“God, you are dense,” she whispered against his mouth. “Yes, we are great together. Yes, I don’t want anyone else either. Yes, you big stupid man who can’t say the words that every woman wants to hear, I love you too.” She leaned back to say more, but he didn’t let her go. He crushed her into his arms and somewhere, in the course of their kiss, he got her gum and swallowed it and then threw her over his shoulder and carried her upstairs.
CHAPTER 106
When we pulled into the Holden’s driveway, the gate was open, the string of stranger’s cars now in a neat line in front of my house. At our approach heads moved in the cars, doors opened, rigs were grabbed, and feet stepped quickly out, flashbulbs popping in the brightest sun that God could provide.
“Are you sure we don’t need to call Casey?” I asked nervously, Cole’s hand tightening on mine.
“First rule of Hollywood, babe. The gods don’t ask permission. Own your shit and don’t forget to smile.” He put the truck into park and leaned over, waiting for a kiss, his smile widening when I leaned over, and our skin was lit when the paps went crazy.
I giggled, and he smiled, taking one more kiss before he grabbed the handle. “Let’s go raise some hell.” I grabbed my handle and cracked the door, a stranger before me wearing a Lakers hat, his black shirt a poor choice in this heat, a camera in his hand one that probably cost more than my truck. I smiled politely and he lifted his camera in response. We met at the front of the truck, Cole’s hand reaching out for me. When I grabbed it, he pulled me all the way in, his arms supporting me as he dipped me low, my shriek in response captured by every camera present. He smiled down at me, and I scowled. Then he kissed me long enough that I blushed.
“Enough,” I murmured. “I think they got it.”
Cole pulled me up with a smirk. “Not yet.” He kept his hand on my lower back, and we stepped toward the house, the curtain moving in the front window, and I wondered what on Earth Mama was thinking of this. On the front steps, Cole turned, hugging me to his side and facing the group, seven or eight bodies scattered across the lawn without any concern over my planting. I glared at the closest one, and he moved away from my butterfly garden, his hands raising in apology.
“I’m assuming, since you’ve squatted yourself on this personal property, that you know this beautiful woman beside me. But what you don’t know is that she is mine. You fuck with her, you fuck with my team and—more importantly—you fuck with me. I
f I ever convince her to marry me, you all are invited to our wedding. We’ll be serving crème brulee, be sure to eat up.” I smacked his stomach hard enough to make him wince, and he pulled me against him, his head dropping for another kiss. “Just a joke, babe. Except for the marriage part. Too early?” He pulled off, his eyes on mine, a cautious smile on his features.
“Too early,” I said sternly. “Especially since, Mr. Masten, you’re still a married man.”
“Ouch.” He winced. “And you know better than to call me that.”
“Mr. Masten?” I said playfully and wheeled out of his arms, reaching for the door handle, his hand too slow when it tried to catch me.
“Damn woman.” He hooked a finger in the back tie of my sundress, pulling me back before I could twist the knob. “Have I told you that I love you?”
I didn’t respond to him, I just smiled, and then the door opened and Momma was there, and her smile was stretched bigger than I’d ever seen it.
CHAPTER 107
TWO DAYS LATER
The bang on the trailer’s front door was so hard that the walls shook. I rolled over and poked, with one lazy finger, Cole’s side. He groaned. “I can’t move, woman. You’ve destroyed me.”
I laughed, my own muscles too weak to move, much less to stand, dress, and get to the door. “I thought we had two hours before the next shoot,” I whispered to him. It couldn’t have been two hours; there was no way. It’d been… I looked for the clock, but it was in the trailer’s main room and that was a good eight feet away. I laid my head against Cole’s chest instead. The person at the door pounded again, a series of raps that showed no patience or timidity whatsoever.
“Just pretend we aren’t here,” Cole stage-whispered, his hand tightening around me when I started to get up.