by Payge Galvin
UNFILTERED &
UNCENSORED
Book Twelve of
the Unfiltered Series
~ Payge Galvin & Gabby Marsh ~
Unfiltered & Uncensored © 2014 by Payge Galvin and Gabby Marsh
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
‡
OTHER BOOKS IN THE UNFILTERED SERIES:
Unfiltered & Unlawful
Unfiltered & Unknown
Unfiltered & Unsaved
Unfiltered & Unhinged
Unfiltered & Undone
Unfiltered & Unraveled
Unfiltered & Undressed
Unfiltered & Untouched
Unfiltered & Unveiled
Unfiltered & Undecided
Unfiltered & Unloved
Unfiltered & Uncensored
Visit us at our website here or sign up for the Unfiltered newsletter here.
—◊—
For Ronnie, Lynne, Bridgette, Jane, Kasey, Danni, Meg, Katy, Abby, Lucy, Raychel, and Payge -- for the energy, for the support, and for always believing in all the wild possibilities.
- Gabby
—◊—
From the back cover of Unfiltered & Unloved:
After a night-shift shooting of a drug dealer in The Coffee Cave, twelve strangers each walk out with more than $100,000 in dirty money, a pact never to meet again, and the chance to start over…
Max is an aspiring journalist looking for his first big break. When he follows a senator’s son to the Coffee Cave hoping to uncover a scandal, he finds himself witness to a murder instead, and right in the middle of a story that could make his career—and bring the love of his life, Claire, back into his arms.
Yet as Max tracks down the other witnesses to the murder and seeks to unearth their secrets, the stakes rise, and Max begins to wonder just how high a price he’s willing to pay to solve the Coffee Cave mystery. And when Max discovers Claire has been keeping secrets of her own, he and Claire find themselves on a collision course that could solve the mystery and break up a major Rio Verde drug ring—or cost Max the only woman he ever truly loved, and both their lives as well.
Chapter 1
First there was sex, and then came death
Max
The two great stories. The two great makers and breakers of careers.
The two things that would bring Claire back into his home, his life, and most of all, his bed.
She’d laid down the law during their last down and dirty. Laid down the law. That was a joke, seeing as she’d pulled out the handcuffs the day it all fell apart.
Max did love a good pair of handcuffs. Loved them almost as much as that thing she did where her tongue started at the curve of his ear, tracing its way down the stubble of his jaw and along his neck, stopping to linger a few sweet moments at his collarbone. He nipped at her nose, and she pushed him playfully away, down into the blankets. He moaned as he went hard beneath her. Her tongue made its way down his chest, lingering at his hipbones as he shuddered, gazing up at the long, dark hair that fell over her face like a waterfall to tickle those hips. Through that hair, he could just see the curve of her breasts as they darkened into small, hard nubs. Max longed to run his own tongue along that firm, silky flesh. The bed shuddered as he tugged on the velvet-lined cuffs that kept his hands bound above his head. Until Claire chose to untie him or he chose to use the safe words he had no particular desire to use, he was at her mercy, and he was good with that. More than good with it. He was exactly where he wanted to be.
Claire braced her muscled arms against the bed, a wicked grin spreading from her mouth to her dark eyes. Max knew some guys preferred their women small and even fragile, and he wasn’t about to tell someone else what their turn-ons should be, but Max liked women who were strong and curvy.
He especially liked strong and curvy and Claire. Claire’s tongue moved south, teasing at the base of his rock-hard cock. Max moaned and closed his eyes. It wasn’t just in bed that he wanted her. He wanted her in every part of his damn life. “God, Claire. I love you.”
Her lips closed around his shaft as her hands stroked his flanks, making his whole body burn. Max arched against her.
Abruptly her lips made their way north again. Her teasing licks skimmed their way up his belly and chest. Her tongue stopped to explore the hollows of his neck, and then she pressed her mouth to his. Max groaned as she deepened the kiss. He pressed his body against hers, kissing back with all his heat, all his strength, all his being. He wanted to burst out of his own fucking skin to get down deep inside her.
She took his cock in her hand to guide him in with infuriating slowness. Max forced himself to keep going slow, moving back and forth within her, savoring the friction of skin against skin, feeling that heat grow within him like a goddamn furnace. Claire thrust back, first slow as well, then with growing impatience. Max arched his back against her, wanting to get closer, and closer still.
Claire pressed her hands into his shoulders as they picked up speed, their bodies moving together in familiar, exquisite rhythm. They came together in a single, world-shattering release. Claire gave a single shuddering gasp and fell limp on top of him.
He wrapped his legs around her muscled calves, holding on for all he was worth. “Love you so goddamn much.”
“Love you. Love you too.” Claire buried her face in his sweat-soaked chest. “You are the hottest future documentary filmmaker ever.”
He hesitated when she said that. Just for a moment.
A moment too long.
“Fuck.” Claire rolled off of him to sit on the edge of the bed. “Again, Max?”
“Filmmaking is dead,” he said. “Any idiot with a cam can make a film.” He stroked the sweat-pooled small of her back with one toe. “But as a journalist I can ...”
“Journalism?” She was on her feet. “You’re majoring in fucking journalism? Just in time for print to finish dying its long slow death so it can leave you permanently unemployable?”
“People have been saying novels are dead for decades, too, baby, but we’re still reading them.” Max wanted to run his hands down her sides, to lick the sweat from the hollows of her neck. He wanted everything about her, body and soul. “This time I’m sure, Claire. Print or online, it doesn’t matter.”
“A blogger’s not a journalist, Max.”
“There are options. I’ll figure it out.” This conversation was getting away from him fast. “Trust me. Journalism is where I’m meant to be. I know it is.”
“That’s what you said when you declared your chem major.” Claire twisted her hair back off of her neck, and a frown crossed her perfect face. “And political science. And forensics. And computer science. And comparative fucking literature.” The angles of her face hardened. “How is that even a thing?”
“Comp lit was awesome.” His comp lit grades hadn’t been awesome, but that was another matter.
“That’s not the point,” Claire snapped. “The point is you’ve been an undergraduate for six years.” She gave a weary sigh. “I’m tired, Max. Tired of you never finishing what you start. Tired of doing all the work around here, in be
d and out of it.”
He reached for her, but the bedframe shook again as the handcuffs held. He wanted to take her by the shoulders, to draw her back into bed, to tell her with words and without them that it was okay, that he knew what he was doing this time. “Journalism is different. I’ve found my calling.” He knew it with the same certainty he knew he’d never love another woman the way he loved Claire. He flashed her his best smile, the smile she said was the first thing that had made her fall in love with him.
“Oh, don’t you dare give me the stupid smile.” She fumbled for her clothes. “You think you can have anything you want when you flash that damn sexy smile.” She pulled the clothes on. Not in the slow hot way that would have made Max want to pull them right back off again. In the quick angry way that made Max fumble for words to explain.
“It’ll work out, Claire, I promise. I’ve already set up this internship for the summer—”
“You always say that, Max.” Claire sounded tired as much as angry.
“This time is different!” Max said.
“Every time is different, according to you.” Claire shook her head, and wisps of sweaty hair fell back into her face. There were shadows under her eyes. She’d been working long hours at her desk job with the Rio Verde police department. “You can’t get by on that stupid smile forever. It’s over, Max.”
Over? What did she mean, over? “We can work this out, babe. Untie me and we’ll talk, okay?” They’d had fights before, but neither of them had ever used words like “over” or “through.” They weren’t like that. They were solid, the sort of solid that let them listen sympathetically to their friends’ romantic ups-and-downs smug in the knowledge that they were better than all that, and all that angst was nothing to do with them. Hell, they’d just been talking about moving in together. “No more changes after this, I swear,” Max said. “Journalism really is my calling. This time I’m sure.”
“Your calling?” Claire scowled. Her scowl was hot as hell. “Is that what you think this is? Well, let me know if your calling calls you back.” She reached into her pocket and tossed Max the key to the cuffs. The cold metal landed on his chest. “Until then you can pay your own damn bills.”
She stalked across the room, stopping just a moment to turn off the webcam. He hadn’t seen her turn it on—it’d been weeks since they’d messed around with vidding themselves. Then she walked away, closing the door behind her.
Just like that.
“Claire!” he tried to stand as the door slammed shut behind her. The bed jolted, and the key rolled off his chest and onto the floor.
Fuck.
Chapter 2
Max
Sex and death. The two great stories.
No one escaped the second. But the first was more reliable, at least if you were looking for a story. Everybody screwed. It was one of the great truths.
Screw the wrong person, at the wrong time, in the wrong place, and you were the one who wound up screwed over. Any journalist knew that. Sex could build a career—or destroy one.
One good scandal. That was what Max needed. One good scandal to lead to one big story to jump-start his new career—and to show Claire he was more than some glorified blogger. That he was worthy of her love, her faith, and her life. Of both their lives, intertwined together, forever.
Sadly, Rio Verde wasn’t exactly teeming with celebrities ripe for being brought down in a major sex scandal. There was that actor who became a YouTube sensation after her telenovela got cancelled, but people already expected actors to be having sex left, right, and center, and in other positions besides. Ditto the local football team, even if they were doing a bit better than usual thanks to their new star quarterback. There was Congressman Walker’s kid, going to school right on the ASU Rio Verde campus, but everyone knew he’d been steady with the same girl for ages. A search of the local papers revealed that Congressman Walker’s boy wasn’t the only government brat hanging in Rio Verde that weekend, though. Senator Cunningham and his son were going to be at a campaign rally Saturday night.
Now if Senator Cunningham, proud crusader against sex in all its forms, were sleeping around, that would be a story. His wife had gone ahead and died, becoming a figure of sainted memory in his no-sex-before-marriage-and-maybe-not-even-then campaign speeches, which was probably a better fate than having to sleep with the pontificating senator into their golden years. If not for his apparently-legitimate child, Max would wonder whether the uptight senator had ever been laid in his life. Which meant, of course, he had been, early and often. No one went on about the evils of primal acts like that unless he’d not only met temptation but welcomed it into his arms and many more compromising positions besides. If Max caught Senator Sex-Will-Steal-Your-Soul in some hot babe’s arms, there wasn’t a paper in this country that wouldn’t eat the story up.
If Claire saw an article like that, she’d also see that his journalism career wasn’t just some crazy delusion, and she’d come back to him. She’d have to. He’d prove himself to her, and to the scholarship committee who’d refused to fund him for more than four years, and to his parents who weren’t willing to fund him for more than five. He’d show them all and reclaim his life and a piece of official parchment in the process.
The rally was in a park just off-campus. All Max needed to do was catch the senator there, begin tracking him, and catch him getting all down and dirty. Easy.
Okay, maybe not so much. But Max’s disarming smile wasn’t as useless as Claire thought, and it had gotten him past other do-not-enter signs, not to mention keeping ASU Rio Verde from kicking him out for his indecisiveness. And if the senator didn’t pan out—or rather, put out—well, there was time to track down smaller-town scandals later. Some of the things he’d seen going on in the computer science department would raise a few eyebrows, too.
Max spent the days until Saturday living on ramen noodles, showing up for his highly unpaid internship at the RV’s local rag, the Verde View, and texting Claire a dozen times a day to tell her he loved her and missed her. She only answered once, the first day after she’d left him. I’m sorry Max. I—we—I just can’t. After that, she went completely silent.
All the more reason to make it to that rally, Max thought as he got ready for it. Max figured Senator Cunningham’s campaign stops attracted a pretty buttoned-up crowd. Not exactly his scene, but what was the point of his six weeks as a drama major if he couldn’t slip into a role? He tucked a button-down shirt into his jeans, buttoned it all the way up, and added a decent jacket. He drew the line at shaving the layer of scruffy stubble from his face, though. He had his standards. Filling his head with sufficiently clean-cut thoughts, Max headed out into the oppressive 105 degree “dry heat” and down to the park.
There was quite a crowd gathered for Rio “why-live-in-Phoenix-when-you-can-settle-for-less” Verde. Right up front was a sizable group of clean-cut Worth the Wait kids, all smiles at the prospect of their future wedding nights as fumbling virgins. Senator Cunningham was a major funder of the campus WtW chapters. A few of the kids held signs that said Worth the Wait is Waiting for Senator Cunningham, which oddly enough didn’t seem to creep anyone out at all. A contingent of businessmen in suits and ties were at the rally too, along with some moms pushing babies in strollers and dragging toddlers by the hands, the only evidence that anyone in this place had met a real dick in their entire life. More suits and ties belonged to the campus chapter of the Young Republicans. Off to one side, apart from the others, was a half-hearted group of protesters in dreads and tie-dye carrying more signs, including one with a failed attempt at punning on Cunningham and cunnilingus. Max groaned. They hadn’t even spelled cunnilingus right.
The esteemed senator took the stage, and the crowd went wild. The protestors responded with some half-hearted hissing, barely audible over the din. One of them shouted, “Senator Cunningham needs to get laid!” for good measure, but no one seemed to hear.
No one but the suit standing in the crowd who turned
to the protestor—a hippie chick complete with white girl dreads and flowy broom skirt—and said, “You offering?”
For an instant the woman seemed startled anyone had even heard her, but then she made gagging sounds. “Yeah, I’m all about serving my country, but there are limits.”
“Limits,” the suit said, as if turning the word over for some hidden meaning. “Sure.”
“It’s bad enough the dude is running on a sex-is-bad platform when he’s frigid as a Popsicle north of the arctic circle,” the hippie chick said. “But have you seen his stance on reproductive lack-of-freedom? Repressive border politics? Cuts in school funding for small towns? That bill he pushed through in support of puppy mills last spring? And don’t give me that crap about the student-loan-reduction rider making it all okay. If tuition rates weren’t so high, that wouldn’t even be an issue. Seriously! The more you study this guy’s politics, the worse they get, you know?”
“I don’t know, actually.” The Suit rolled his eyes. “I try to spend as little time studying the Senator’s politics as possible.”
Hippie chick laughed. “Which totally explains why you’re here.”
The Suit didn’t answer that, and Max turned his attention back to the senator, who was introducing the president of the local Worth the Wait chapter, Noah something-or-other. Suit Dude and Hippie Chick began talking again, but Max only half heard.
Until the Suit said, “Oh, come on, my father is a prick, but he does not support drowning kittens!”
Max’s head whipped around. The Suit’s father?
Hippie Chick’s jaw had fallen open, but as Max looked, she burst into peals of laughter. “You’re his son? Seriously?”
For an instant Suit Dude—Joseph Cunningham, IV, presumably—looked embarrassed, but then he burst into laughter, too. “Just—pretend you didn’t hear that prick comment, okay?”
“Scout’s honor,” Hippie Chick said, still laughing as she raised two fingers in the air. “I promise to utterly despise your father on grounds other than his undeniable prick-ness.”