Pushing her away, she winked in his shocked face and wrinkled her nose.
“Just cooling you down, loverboy. Reminding you that I’m not one of your awestruck fans. Or a horny co-star.”
His face fell at her jest, as if she struck a nerve.
Well, that was not good.
A troop of wildly stomping roughriders marched through her belly sending waves of anxiety into every corner of her being.
“Okay,” Paige drawled. “My bad and that makes us even.”
Nodding as he finished wiping the water off his neck, he growled, “Look,” but he was looking everywhere but at her. “I fucked up today.”
She snorted and elbowed him playfully trying to break his dour change of mood. “So, what else is new?”
“This is serious, babe.”
“Yeah, Edward. I get that. Cut me a damn break, okay? Remember—I’ve been watching you for a while, and I’m not stupid. You don’t hang by the shoreline in a pair of incredibly expensive tailored slacks, which, by the way, you’ve completely ruined, for no good reason.”
More head nods. Well, at least he was aware of what he was doing and that it seemed more than a bit odd.
“Has Mickey called you?”
The alarm bells started clanging in her mind. If he was asking about Mickey, then that meant some serious bullshit must have gone down.
“No. You told me to turn off my phone. Remember? Something about having earned a day off.” She all but harrumphed at the end. It had been his damn idea, after all.
“Yeah, right. Well, um … you might want to turn it back on because I’m pretty sure he’s halfway to an award-winning meltdown right about now.”
“What did you do?” No use in beating around the bush. All indications were that he’d stepped in it pretty good.
Edward rubbed his big hand on the back of his neck and grunted. “Fuck.”
“Perhaps another time, “ she pithily remarked. “Now … What. Did. You. DO?”
A tremendous wave crashed ashore sending a soft mist of sea spray into the air. The gentleness of it was so opposite to how she felt.
“The studio arranged a couple of sit-downs today. No print, mostly bloggers.”
Now see … this was exactly why she could never have a real day off. Not when they were in L.A. Too much potential for fuckery, a point so perfectly demonstrated by the damn studio hauling some last-minute crap out of their butts.
“How bad was it?”
She saw the relief in his expression at her question and wondered if it was because he feared she would be mad.
Keeping his gaze partially shuttered, he answered slowly. “Um, yeah. About that … well … it’s like this.”
And then he stopped talking.
Now, later on, maybe she’d rewind this moment and try to figure out why she did what she did, but at the moment, her every action and reaction felt completely natural.
Bellowing, “Jeez Louise, spit it the hell out, would you?” Paige whirled in the sand and jumped on him, pushing Edward flat as she straddled his middle and playfully slapped at his chest.
With her hands around his throat, she pretended to choke him and yelped, “Men! And you think we’re the troublemakers!”
The second she felt those big, sturdy hands of his grip her hips, she knew they were in the danger zone.
He might not have been making real eye contact before, but he sure as hell was now. Did it help that she immediately worried he would know how he affected her? No. Not at all. And it was her own damn fault for straddling his muscled torso in nothing but a pair of barely-there shorts and an even tinier pair of panties.
Shocked by her behavior, Paige froze. So did Edward. For the first time, she let her senses off their leash, aware that her bottom seemed to be butting up against a rather firm mound in the area of his zipper.
“You are a shit-ton of trouble, babe.”
He increased the strength of his hold on her hips, and then slid a palm around to one cheek of her ass.
In a screenplay, this would be a fade to black moment. Right after he kissed her silly and she let him know with a couple of shimmies and hip rolls how much he owned her.
Owned her? Oh, boy. That was telling!
Sanity restored, she glumly reached for one of his hands—the universal signal to cease and desist.
“Not a good idea,” she mumbled.
“You started it,” he groused.
“Yeah, I know, but we can’t cross this line.”
“Why not?”
What the hell was happening? Was he saying what she thought he was? And how was that even possible? How did they go from resting horniness to raging lust with nothing between?
So many questions and not enough answers.
“Edward …” Paige was lost and didn’t know what she should do. It was up to him to rescue this moment before it destroyed what they had.
He sat up, growled, “Shit,” kissed her on the forehead, and then lifted her as though she was the size of a toy and put her on the sand.
“I’m sorry. You’re right.” He shrugged and ran his fingers through his hair. “I guess I just wanted to …”
An actor at a loss for words was an uncomfortable thing to witness.
He cleared his throat and looked at her. “I don’t want to lose you, Paige.”
Huh? What? Lose her? Good lord. Enough with the beating around the bush.
“It would take a lot for that to happen.” She said it softly, maybe too softly, as the ocean breeze swallowed the words.
She saw him wince. Uh-oh.
With a heavy sigh, he told her. “Does a fake sex tape, a co-star blabbing lies, and a pissy little blogger looking for a story qualify as a lot?”
Edward didn’t even know how he got through telling Paige all that had happened. How that fucking blogger had set him up for a reaction and how this so-called X-rated romp had more bang for the buck than some of his movies. And how Joann had insinuated herself into the middle of the mess for god only knows what reason.
Goddammit. It wasn’t even fucking him on that damn tape, but it didn’t stop Edward from feeling embarrassed and uncomfortable about the whole thing.
She took it all in but didn’t say one word. He watched her fingers in the sand and briefly wondered if she kept them there rather than around his throat.
When she finally spoke, it seemed as though she was thinking out loud.
“The other day, Mickey was going on and on about some story he thought might be making its way through the media. I guess this explains what had him so jacked up. But…JoJo? How does she figure into this? Didn’t you make that tape like a year ago?”
That was it. Leaping to his feet, he angrily brushed the sand off his pants. “That goddamn, motherfucking, disgusting, piece of shit tape IS NOT FUCKING ME!”
Edward needed her to believe him. “What in the fucking fuck do I have to do to make you see that?”
Part of him wanted to unzip his pants and quite literally push her face into his crotch so she could examine the exact path of his tattoo and know without a shadow of a doubt that the hydraulic cock in that damn video was not him.
The unguarded expression on her face almost crushed him. Shit. Did Paige actually doubt him?
That was his breaking point. If he didn’t have her in his corner, well…fuck the whole career plan. Nothing was worth this bullshit.
Turning, he stomped off toward the house as her deep sigh wrapped around his frazzled nerves.
“Edward, wait,” she called out, but he was too upset to turn around. Coming to terms with how much he needed her to have his back was difficult enough without seeing the condemnation in her eyes.
She was on his heels less than two minutes after he’d stormed back into the house.
The silence in the kitchen was deafening, but he stood his ground. She either believed him—believed IN him—or she didn’t.
The first thing she did was go to her purse and pull out the iPhone that went wi
th her everywhere. She set in on the counter as it fired up and reached into her backpack.
“Here,” she muttered after pulling out a gigantic bag of what appeared to be M&M’s and shoving it at him. “Personalized. Enjoy.”
What was personalized? He looked absently at the clear bag in his hands then finally noticed the mix of his two favorite colors—blue and purple—with the name Gideon Shaw in script on each little candy.
He wanted to ask where they came from and why but didn’t trust his voice for more than a terse, “Thanks.”
They both looked at her phone when it started beeping and chirping wildly. Just as he had suspected when she told him it was off, the second it connected again, all hell started breaking loose. Probably a hundred and fifty frantic texts and emails from Mickey. Maybe from the studio, too.
Paige glanced at the screen, picked it up, scrolled and read for a good minute and a half, sighed, quite deliberately switched the device to mute, and tossed it on top of her bag.
Well, at least he had her attention and wasn’t playing second fiddle to a damn phone.
He stared her down, but it wasn’t easy. Or fun. The moment had a rubber-meet-road quality to it.
In a tone meant to mollify—his mother pulled this shit, too—she calmly told him, “You know damn well that was a slip of the tongue. If you say it’s not you, then it’s not you. This is not something we need to debate.”
Who was she kidding?
“Fucking eh, Paige. Those are empty words, and you know it. And I’ll debate this stupid thing with you till hell freezes over if I have to.”
“What do you want from me?” she bit out, her arms flung up in surrender. “I’m goddamn agreeing with you. Why is that not enough?”
“Because I can tell that you’re just saying the words.”
She crossed her arms and glared at him.
Impasse. Yep, that was what this was. An impasse.
A light bulb went on over his head. This ought to make her stop and think.
“What would you do if the press reported that it was your bare ass riding the tiger in that damned video? Hmm?”
Her eyes flared then narrowed. The comment pissed her off, but before the anger, he had seen something else. Something … yeah. Something.
“Well, it isn’t,” she stated in a tight, affronted voice.
“I wouldn’t know,” he replied silkily. “It’s not me the lady was banging so maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t you.”
His follow-up shrug said it all.
Edward couldn’t remember ever seeing Paige’s mouth drop or witness her feeble and unsuccessful attempts to make words form.
He’d made his point.
The bottom dropped out of her stomach faster than a trip on that damn roller coaster he’d forced her to ride. What was that thing called?
Oh, right. The Intimidator.
She’d likely not forget that experience because Paige had never been scared so shitless in her life. Nothing like a mind-blowing, three-hundred-foot drop while your terrified screams mixed with the thirty others strapped along with you into little cars going ninety miles an hour. Paige had wanted to strangle Edward for making her ride that.
His comment about being unable to defend against an unprovable accusation had been a bull’s-eye that rattled her almost as much as the Intimidator. Same sensation. Same free-falling panic.
And the hurt in his voice only made it worse. Her unintentional slip had wounded him.
She didn’t want to get into it with him about that damnable tape. From the very start, when the X-rated sensation hit the pay-for-porn sites, they’d discussed what was happening in general terms. She hadn’t been able to handle it any other way. Even the suggestion of a video purporting to show one of the world’s sexiest men in a high-voltage romp with all his manly attributes on display for all the world to see had nearly destroyed Paige.
That was right about the time she had developed a hard-core jones for ice cream. Any mention of Edward, or rather Gideon, doing the dirty, and on film no less, sent her straight to the freezer. At the height of the insanity, she’d been consuming several pints a week.
Keeping cool while the gossip queens had giggle fits had been a daunting challenge. It had taken quite a bit of maneuvering and double-speak to keep from ever being in a position to have to watch the damn thing. Hearing and seeing his bruised emotions, though, was making her revisit the wisdom of that decision.
His reaction wasn't about her job, though. No, this was personal and had nothing to do with their professional association. It went way beyond who signed her damn paycheck.
Worry slithered through her senses. Had she stepped in it? It looked quite possibly as though she had. Edward wasn’t vain and he most certainly wasn’t prone to hyperbole, so the offense he took at what must seem to him like her disapproval was undoubtedly the real deal.
Trying not to think about what she was doing, Paige skirted around the kitchen island and reached for him, drawing the big man into a fierce hug.
Her face half buried on his shoulder, she told him, “They weren’t just words, sweetie. I’m on your side.”
His tension melted away at her assurance of support. When his arms slowly went around her and held on tight, she clung to him though she knew a rational person would have politely stepped back and resumed the status quo.
She’d have been content to stay wrapped up in him like that forever, but they had a shitstorm on their hands that needed handling. Tilting her head, she looked up at him and offered a timid smile, a far cry from her usual confident grin.
“Tell me again what Joann has to do with this.”
His arms tightened, and he gave her a dirty look. “I didn’t fucking sleep with her.”
“Pfft. I know,” she smirked. Didn’t he realize that if he, in fact, had bedded his blabbermouth co-star that JoJo would have rubbed Paige’s nose in it from day one? God, men were stupid about women.
Her frown was so hard it was painful. “I don’t understand what she hoped to gain by this.”
His grunt of disgust said it all. Pulling out of their clutch, he shook his head and frowned as his expression hardened. The glitter flashing in his baby blues was not at all friendly.
“Dave didn’t say she was implying the video was of her, only that she’d fucked a tattooed guy. Bitch. She knew what she was doing. If pressed, I’m sure she’ll backpedal like crazy and point out that she never mentioned anyone specific. The inference was quite enough.”
When his mouth snapped shut, her eyes widened. Wow. It was easy to understand why the lady was a legend. Batshit crazy wasn’t enough—she had to be a manipulative cunt, too. “Oooooh.” She widened her eyes and nodded her head to show her understanding.
“Somewhere between Mickey’s rant about a news story and this latest threat lay an ocean of lies and half-truths. People will hear what they want to hear, and Jo knows that. Just by putting her name out there, it means half the public will automatically assume it’s her. Because why? Because we have a movie coming out, and you know what that means.”
Crinkling her nose, she finished the distasteful thought. “Yeah. Means you’re doing her.”
His eyes flashed. “Exactly, but … I am not doing anybody. Neither is Gideon, I might add.”
She noticed the emphasis on the word doing and saw what appeared like regret in his expression when he looked at her.
“Right,” she murmured as a whirlwind of thoughts blew through her mind. “Shit, this gets complicated, huh?”
Paige leaned over the black marble of the enormous island and clasped her hands in front of her, almost as if she was praying. The lights hanging overhead reflected in the shiny surface—so too did the bright sunshine and blue ocean from the wall of windows facing the beach.
Deep in thought, she unconsciously traced her fingers on the mirror images, vaguely aware of Edward behind her leaning against the counter.
The gears in her mind were furiously grinding. If JoJo were sti
rring the pot, it couldn’t be good. She wouldn’t put it past the cold-hearted woman to use Gideon to her advantage, a thought that made Paige extremely uncomfortable. Maybe she should confront her and …
Waaaait a minute. Was he staring at her ass?
Bent over as she was and wearing a pair of shorts that needed a warning label, her butt had to be making quite a statement.
The librarian chose that moment to belly up to the bar and take control. Only this time, she had her naughty corset on beneath the conservative white blouse and gray skirt and had slipped her feet into a pair of who’s-your-mama-now heels.
With a small, melodramatic sigh, she shifted position and pretty much wiggled her bottom in his face. If he was looking, which she was sure he was, then Edward had just gotten quite an eyeful of her ass cheeks.
Oh, my god! I must be insane.
Quickly straightening, Paige hated that embarrassed heat was rushing up her neck and into her cheeks. What alternate universe was she in where playing the flirt was in any way a good idea?
When she spun around, thinking to restore some dignity to this odd situation, her stomach bottomed out for the second time this hour. The look on Edward’s face stopped her in mid-motion.
He’d never considered bending Paige over the kitchen island … until now. One glance at her amazing legs with the teasing hint of ass cheek, and he was beyond any hope of reining in the powerful surge of arousal that had him in its grip. Positioned as she was, that pert, sexy ass of hers was at the perfect height. Now, if only she’d spread those sinful legs, a must if she hoped to stay upright while he pounded her from behind.
She let out a soft sigh and then his brain melted. Watching her wiggle that ass, he could only wonder what she was doing. Which was it—invitation or dare?
Whatever. He’d take either.
In three quick step, he was behind her, his eyes never leaving the tops of her gorgeous legs where they disappeared into the skimpy shorts. He had to touch her, plain and simple. Had to know if her skin was as soft and smooth as it appeared. Had to hear her whimper when he slid his fingers up her shorts.
Edward’s mouth twisted into a wicked, knowing smile when she didn’t move a muscle. Which made it easy to close the slight distance between them and press his throbbing shaft into the seam of her ass.
The Gideon Affair Page 7