by M. P. Hingos
We all looked at her, struggling to get on her board and attempting to stand up for more than fifteen seconds before getting slammed by a very small wave.
“I honestly didn’t think there wasn’t anything she couldn’t do, but now I know better,” Tyler said as she faceplanted into the water.
“Hey at least she’s trying,” Jonah said, “more than my girlfriend ever did. She lives near the beach but hates it.”
“When am I going to meet this mystery girl Jonah?” I asked.
“Soon, I hope. She’s shy and the thought of meeting you is quite intimidating for her, but she’s coming around. Hopefully she’ll accept my invitation to the house soon and you guys could meet her.”
Tyler patted him on the back and said, “As long as she’s good to you, Marianna and all of us are going to like her.”
“Shit, she’s doing it!” Dell exclaimed.
We all turned to look at what he was watching and there was Ally standing on her board.
“How long?” I asked quietly.
“Thirty-three seconds and counting,” he replied, keeping time on his waterproof watch.
She really was doing it. She kept her balance and rode the small wave that carried her. As if sensing our eyes on her she turned her head and with a huge grin on her face she lifted her hand to wave, her whole body rocking in excitement. Just as Jonah groaned “Don’t….” she fell, splat, in the water. Forgetting the wave I was waiting for I swam back to her, smiling as her head bobbed in the water. Her smile was contagious as she threw her arms around.
“Did you see me? Did you see me?” she asked, giddy with excitement.
“I sure did,” I replied, “You stayed on for one minute and seven seconds. Dell timed you.”
“I can’t believe it. I did it. I’m going again.”
Unfortunately the second victory eluded her hence the pout as we headed on home.
**********
By the time we got back to the house after stopping off for a lazy lunch everyone pleaded exhaustion and retreated to their own corners of the house. I headed off to the study to call Tess and after a gigglefest like teenagers as I updated her on my relationship with Gabe and Tyler’s visit I made my way to the bedroom. The sight of Gabe, sprawled out naked on the bed and the look of hunger in his eyes told me his plea of exhaustion was his excuse to get me into bed. Didn’t the man know by now he didn’t need excuses to get me naked and in bed with him? One touch from him had me as hungry for him as he was for me.
“Took you long enough,” he said, his smoldering eyes, fixated one me.
It took me mere seconds to rip off my clothes before gliding onto the bed and top of him. My hand reached between us and grasped his already hard and erect cock. His deep moan told me he waited long enough as he reached up and grabbed my head, pulling it down to him. His lips captured mine as I stroked his cock and from the pulsing I felt in my hand I knew it was taking all the control he had not to explode in my hand. Taking pity on him I broke the kiss and sat up, positioning his cock at the core of me. Rising slightly I came down on him, feeling immense pleasure as he filled me. I rode him, long and hard before I felt him giving in to the control he held on to. Tightening my muscles around him I finally allowed myself to fall, freely into the abyss of pleasure as the world around us exploded.
I opened my eyes and stretched. The soreness of my muscles made me groan and I turned, looking for Gabe. He wasn’t in bed so I slowly eased my tired body out of bed and headed into the bathroom, hoping a long, hot shower would ease my soreness. As the hot water poured down my body reality began creeping in. I loved the time I was spending with Gabe and would always cherish it but I needed to do something more with my life. A lot of women would kill to be Gabe’s girlfriend and be content with that but I wasn’t one of them. I loved him , without a doubt, but I, in all honesty couldn’t just sit by and only be the movie star’s girlfriend. I needed to work. It was part of who I am and being in L.A. wasn’t exactly conducive to me working, even though Gabe paid me handsomely for the work I did with his stalker. Chicago was out of the question, I couldn’t see myself going back now that Tess was in my life, which meant I had to leave for New York soon if I wanted my life back on track. All the contacts I made were in New York and even though I may never be a part of the FBI again maybe someone I knew could recommend me to the NYPD or a high-end security company. Either way “To protect and serve” was all I knew so those were my limited choices. As soon as I got my answers concerning Alexis I would sit Gabe down and tell him of my decisions, until then I would continue to enjoy every moment I had with him.
I found all five men in the game room, enjoying the flashes of bombs blowing up and the sounds of rapid gunfire coming from the games they were playing. I looked around the room and took in the multiple big flat screen televisions and the game consoles hooked up to the them together with all the controls and headgear scattered around the room and shook my head. Men and their games. There goes the evening. Spying me standing by the door Gabe gave me a quick smile before returning his attention to the big screen in front of him.
“Hey babe,” he said nonchalantly.
“Hey yourself,” I said, “Marianna wants to know if we’re staying in for dinner?”
“Ah….no I thought we all could go out this evening, probably for steaks. Tell her it’s nowhere too dressy.”
I loved how he treated Marianna like she was his second mother. He’d never not included her in dinner plans and even if she declined he’d always remember to bring her back something. I scooted into the kitchen to relay the plans for the evening but she respectfully declined. I slowly made my way back to the game room thinking it wouldn’t be a bad thing to find a nice respectable gentleman for Marianna so she’d have some company for herself. Lately I was becoming such a mush for love. I entered the room in time to hear Gabe screaming at Tyler for being a cheat. Everyone else laughed claiming Tyler won the game fair and square.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Tyler cheated and won,” he screamed.
“Did not. All I said was and I quote, “hmm…why is Ally walking around without a shirt on?” and the big dummy actually looked up,” Tyler said, still laughing.
“And then you blew my head off you big cheat,” Gabe threw back at Tyler.
“Yeah well it was the only way to kill you, while you were unguarded,” Tyler returned.
Walking into the middle of the room I looked at the screen and said,
“It doesn’t look to hard. You must not be very good at it if you had to distract Gabe in order to win Ty.”
This brought on an on slaughter of laughter from the room. I saw the tears streaming down Gabe’s face while Tyler sat there, a shocked expression frozen on his face. Hey at least I got them to stop shouting.
“Really Ally? Really? And here I thought you were my friend. Why don’t we see what you’ve got,” he said issuing a challenge.
I haven’t met a challenge I’ve backed down from yet.
*********
“Babe, let it go. Let’s go out and have a nice dinner and fun evening and when we get back if you don’t like what I have planned for you and I for the rest of the evening you can try kicking his ass at the game again,” Gabe said, grabbing my hand and pulling me to the front door just after I grabbed Tyler and tried pulling him towards the game room.
“I’m not going to try and kick his ass next time. I AM going to kick his ass and no amount of cheating is going to help him,” I said baring my teeth at Tyler, who had the balls to laugh in my face.
I’ve heard the stories of Tyler cheating at video games because he hated loosing but never believed them. Not my sweet gentle soul, Tyler. But after today I believe all the stories to be true. I was moments away from kicking his ass and winning the game when he reached over for a bottle of water in front of me, “accidentally” dropping it and “accidentally” knocking the controls out of my hand. As I tried grabbing the controls he quickly fired a missile at me and blew me to s
mithereens and declared himself the winner and God of the controls. His exact words. Everyone saw it, they all knew he cheated. Even he knew he cheated but yet he celebrated like a victor, hence my desire to kick his ass. If only Gabriel would let me go so I could drag Tyler’s butt back to the game room.
“Have a nice night guys,” Marianna called out to us.
“Sure you haven’t changed your mind,” Gabe asked, kissing her gently on the head before propelling me towards the door.
“I’m sure,” she said, then pointing to the cheater Tyler she said, “I’m in the middle of his new book and it’s got me so hooked I want to finish it tonight. He makes me the envy of my book club.”
Scooping her up in his arms for a big hug and kiss on her cheeks, Tyler declared her one of his biggest fan before she shooed Gabe, Tyler, Cane, Dell and myself out the door. Jonah didn’t join us for the evening because of a big date his girlfriend had previously planned.
**********
Chapter 18
The evening went off without a hitch save for one incident. As we were leaving the restaurant a middle aged man ran up to us screaming “I love you, I love your work.” The ever protective Cane and Dell, thinking the crazed man was about to launch himself onto Gabe quickly blocked his access as Gabe pulled me into him. To our surprise the man latched onto Tyler. The always laidback and calm Tyler, except when he was cheating at video games, took it all in stride, gently releasing himself from the man’s grasp with the help of Cane. After a quick and polite conversation with his fan and a signing of one of his books which the man happened to have in the backpack he was carrying Cane and Dell rushed us into the already waiting SUV and we sped off into the night, leaving the small crowd of paparazzi and fans that suddenly gathered out of nowhere. Tyler was, in all his rights, just as famous as Gabe was, a household name, with millions of people buying and liking his books. Having one Steele brother around always drew out the crazies, but having two of them together, drawing attention, was a security nightmare so I was more than happy having both of them secured in the backseat of the SUV.
“I honestly thought he was going to knock you over the way he threw himself at you Tyler,” Dell said as we entered the house.
Gabe chuckled. “Better you than me little brother. At least I got one night free of the crazies,” he said.
“Hey the more crazies like me, the more books I sell. But all in all my fans are usually cool. I don’t do a lot of book signings but when I do it’s fun meeting the people who take the time to come out.”
“I know that feeling, but then there’s the few who are actually crazies who makes you think “why the fuck am I putting myself through it”” Gabe said, probably thinking about Bernie Wilson.
A box on the coffee table caught my eye. I walked over to it, a strange feeling came over me. There was no post mark on it, which meant it was delivered by hand.
“Gabe, were you expecting any deliveries?” I asked, drawing the attention of everyone in the room.
“No,” he replied, walking up to the box.
He bent over to pick it up but I caught his hands before he touched it. It was an ominous looking big, black box, sealed with tape. Maybe I was over-reacting because of the Bernie Wilson incident but I wasn’t taking any chances with Gabe’s or even Tyler’s safety, especially knowing my sister might be close by. Gabe snatched his hands away from me.
“What the hell Ally, paranoid much?” he said.
“Gabe maybe you should let one of us open it,” Dell said, coming up behind him.
“Come one guys, you think someone’s gonna try and blow me up by sending me a bomb in a box?” he asked jokingly.
That’s exactly what I was thinking.
“Gabe we can’t take anything for granted….” I started before he cut me off.
“Ally, you’re not here as my personal security detail okay, so just relax. I don’t need to be handled like some sort of subject by you,” he said almost angrily.
He snatched the box off the coffee table and found the end of the tape and pulled it off. He flipped open the top and I heard the beep as the timer for the bomb switched on. From the look on Dell’s and Cane’s face they heard it to. I grabbed the box out of Gabe’s hand before he had the chance to touch anything or look inside the box. Both Dell and Cane pushed Gabe and Tyler aside as I gently pulled back the paper at the top of the box. 14:23,14:22,14:21. The timer was counting down from fifteen minutes.
“What the hell!” Gabe said just as Cane and Dell both said at the same time “Ally give me the box.”
I shook my head and slowly backed away, carefully tightening my hold on the box.
“It’s a bomb,” I said softly.
Both Gabe and Tyler gasped.
“Ally put it down and lets get out of here,” I heard Gabe say but I couldn’t risk leaving it here. I didn’t know the radius of this thing and the damage it could do. My best bet was getting down to the beach and getting it into the water as far out as possible.
“Cane, Dell get them out of here and then get Marianna and Jonah if he’s not out, on the street and as far away as possible and call 911. I’m going to take it into the water. Come on guys, NOW!” I said as forceful as I could without screaming. I didn’t want anything to trip the bomb off and that meant loud noises or sudden movements.
“Ally, no god dammit,” Gabe screamed and launched at me.
Cane grabbed him and pulled him into him as Dell held onto to Tyler. I turned to walk towards the back of the house as Gabe continued to holler at me to stop and from the corner of my eye I saw him struggling with Cane, landing a punch to Cane’s jaw as Cane tried dragging him towards the front door.
“Oh God please let this work, please let this work,” I chanted as I quickly but very carefully made my way down the path and onto the beach. As my feet hit the water I checked the timer. I had less than seven minutes to get as far in the water as possible and dump the bomb, hope it doesn’t go off and hightail it up to the house as fast as I could. With three minutes to go I sprinted up the path to the house thanking God the bomb didn’t go off when I placed it on the ocean bed. I rounded the corner to the front of the house and through the opened gate. I saw Gabe still struggling with Cane as Tyler tried holding him down as well. The bomb went off just as I made it to the gate, shaking the earth around us. It felt like an earthquake. I looked back and saw sea water spew into the air before falling back into the vast ocean.
He was mad. He looked at me silently and I could feel the anger radiate from within him. I did what I needed to do. I don’t regret it and I would do it all over again if it meant keeping him safe. Tyler rushed to me and crushed me in a hug as he just stood there.
“You crazy, foolish girl,” he whispered, quickly brushing the tears from his eyes, “you ever do anything like that again and I’m going to kick your ass, you understand me.”
Marianna, Jonah, who apparently was home, Dell and Cane each took turns hugging me and looking me over as the distant sirens grew louder but he just stood there, in that one spot, staring at me, his eyes burning holes in me.
“How the hell did a bomb get in the house?” Tyler asked, raking his hands through his hair.
“That’s what I want to know,” I said, still looking at Gabe.
I needed answers before the authorities became involved.
“Marianna, did anyone come by while we were all out?” I asked, hoping I didn’t sound panicked as I scrambled for answers.
“No. Not that I know off,” she answered, sounding as shaken up as she looked.
“Jonah, what about you. Did you see anyone when you got home?”
“No,” he said, “I didn’t leave. Melissa came over instead and surprised me. She thought we could go down to the beach for a moonlight picnic. She brought a picnic basket and everything. I met her up here at the main house.”