Eight Seconds to Fly, page 23
I don’t know what I did to deserve these guys, but I thanked God every day that I had them.
“Now that’s settled, I think we should deal with the real issue at hand,” Branch interrupted.
I frowned. “How will the WBRP feel about this?”
He shook his head, his face getting a level of scary that a chill ran down my spine. “Fuck the WBRP. No, these photos were all taken in different locations with tele lenses, except the one of you and Dylan. Either you have a stalker or someone has you under surveillance.”
This time, the chill that ran down my spine had nothing to do with the men in this room, and everything to do with the world outside of Beau’s arms.
27
We had to check out at ten a.m. and when Dylan still wasn’t back, we loaded his gear into the truck and took it with us. We waited around in the parking lot for an hour, Beau blowing up his phone, but all his calls were going straight to voicemail. Finally we left, Frankie driving my truck and Branch in his. I could see Branch struggling, not being with me, but I needed the space anyway. Needed to comprehend this whole clusterfuck in silence. Frankie knew when I needed silence. We’d drive all the way to Mesquite today, on the Nevada/Arizona border. Without Dylan.
My phone rang and I almost ignored it. But it might be Dylan or someone for the WBRP.
“Hello?”
“Tessa? It’s Caly. I, uh, just wanted to make sure you’d seen…”
“The massive headline calling me a whore? Yeah, I’ve seen it. Was it you?”
“Excuse me?”
Calypso was the only person I had told. And then two weeks later it was on the news? That was a little too much of a coincidence. “Did you tell the press that I was sleeping with the guys?”
Caly made a noise somewhere between a screech and a growl. “Girl, I know you're hurting so I’m going to let that one slide, but I would never, ever sell out a friend like that. And I like you, Tessa, so I’m going to consider you a friend even though you just insulted the shit out of me. To answer your question, no, I did not tell the press you had four boyfriends, even though I don’t think it's something you should be ashamed of.“ She lowered her voice until it was barely a whisper through the line. “But I might be able to help. Where are you staying this week?”
“Mesquite.”
She was silent for a long time. “Skip it and come to Vegas. Meet me at the Luxor tomorrow night. Bring your guys.”
I cleared my throat. “Dylan isn’t with me but the rest of us will meet you there.”
“Oh, Honey.” Calypso’s voice was filled with sympathy, and I was going to fucking break down into a heaving, sobbing mess. Again.
“It’s fine,” I choked out. “We’ll see you then.”
“Okay, Girl. You have my number. Just… don’t use your phone much until you meet up with me, okay?”
“Um, sure?”
With some pleasantries, I ended the call. “That was fucking weird.”
I repeated what Caly had said to Frankie, and he frowned. “Why shouldn’t we use our phones?”
I shrugged and went back to feeling miserable. Just what I needed, another problem to rub salt in the raw wound of my heart.
Despite what Calypso had said, we decided to spend at least one night in the hotel in Mesquite. It was a tiny town with barely any people, and the hotel was so quiet we were the only guests. There was a cloud of sadness, overlaid with barely restrained rage, that seemed to wrap around our group all through dinner at a divey little Mexican place and well into the night.
They surprised the hell out of me by all crawling into the one bed with me that night. Frankie and Branch on either side of me, Beau at the bottom of the bed, my feet on his chest as he rubbed the arches. It wasn’t sexual. It was comforting and even though my brain was whirling a million miles a second, I went off to sleep bracketed on all sides by their warmth and their strength.
The following morning I woke up less sad and more angry. How dare they fucking breach my privacy like that? How dare they shame me like this is the fucking eighteenth century and my only worth was how close to my virginity I was!
That rage had me slamming around in the bathroom and all the guys staying well and truly out of my way. I would just rant and rave, and they would all agree. Smart men.
When housekeeping knocked on the door to our room at 9:30, I was in fine form.
But it wasn’t housekeeping on the other side of the door. It was Dylan.
All the fire left me like I’d been doused. He looked terrible. His hair stuck up at odd angles and he looked like he hadn’t slept. He was in the same clothes, and they were rumpled. “Tessa…”
I swallowed hard, and opened my arms. The look of relief on his face was heartbreaking. He rushed into my arms and squeezed me tight, pulling back to pepper my face with kisses.
“I’m so fucking sorry that I’m such an idiot. So goddamn sorry. I love you. I know it's probably too soon to say that, but I was staring at the bottom of my tenth glass of whiskey and I asked myself what I was more miserable about? Losing my sponsor? Or the look of sadness on your face when I left? And the answer was so damn clear, Tessa. So damn clear. Fuck them. Let them pull my sponsorship. I’ll scrape by. I’ve got enough saved to pay the entrance fees. But I can’t do it without you.”
He kissed me with so much feeling, I felt tears track down my cheeks. He kissed away each one and then just hugged me to his chest like he could make us one person.
“It’s okay, Dylan. You had to work some shit out. It’s okay. I love you too.”
Branch made a rude noise. “I was giving you another day and then I was going to track you down and beat the smart back into you. You’re family now asshole. We’ve got you. Let the sponsors pull your contracts. We are for better or for worse.”
Gah. My heart. “One thing is for sure. Whoever wrote that article is not getting away with it. I’ll sue their asses for defamation of character. I know some good lawyers.” The firm that had handled my estate were friends of my father. They’d kick some serious stalker ass.
I dragged Dylan to the bathroom. We had half an hour to be out of here and on our way to Vegas, and I was personally going to show Dylan that he’d made the right decision.
I might have imagined the weird looks I was getting when I walked into the hotel bar inside the Luxor, but this whole thing was making me paranoid. The guys were spread out around me, Branch striding in out front, looking ready to maim anyone who so much as spoke to me out of turn. I spotted Calypso with two other people. One was her cameraman, Matty, and a woman I didn’t recognize. They were all talking quietly in a booth right at the back of the bar, their faces serious. Caly looked up when she sensed us approaching, and the smile she gave me was genuine. I was going with my gut on this one, taking her at her word that she didn’t sell us out. Frankie was more skeptical, but I hoped she was going to prove us wrong.
She looked over at Dylan. “Good to see you pulled your head out of your ass, Montaigne,” she said, and now she looked a little pissed on my behalf. Yeah, she was on my side.
“I grovelled hard,” he admitted sheepishly.
She gave a firm nod. “I hoped it involved copious orgasms for pain and suffering. Come sit.”
We slid into the empty side of the booth, and Beau kissed my cheek. “I’ll get us some drinks.”
I squished between Frankie and Dylan, and Branch pulled up a chair from an empty table nearby.
“This is Patience O’Fey, from the Chronicle. The paper that published the article.” My eyes narrowed, and Caly held up a hand. “She didn’t write it, but she knows who did. I called in a few favors to find out.”
My stomach churned as I waited for the taa daa moment.
“And?” Branch asked impatiently.
Caly flicked him an annoyed look. “It was Stan Wilfred Senior. He hired a private investigator to trail you around and gather dirt. He wants you out of the competition and banned from the WBRP. I have it on good authority that they are holding an emergency board meeting about the PR disaster now in California.”
My heart fell to my feet. Shit. I looked at Dylan, whose jaw was flexing. Then I looked at Frankie and Branch. Just yesterday they’d stood in front of me and told me that they loved me more than bull riding, and now it was my turn to decide.
Beau placed a drink in front of me, something with an obnoxious yellow umbrella. I glanced up at him, my eyebrows nearly hitting my hairline. “This is the weirdest looking beer I’ve ever seen.”
He slid in beside Dylan. “I told them to give me their happiest cocktail.” He screwed up his nose. “I saw how much liquor went into that thing. If that doesn't make you happy, you won’t care after the first sip.”
Fuck. I loved them. I loved them more than bull riding. More than my soapbox. If it came down to a choice, well, there was no damn choice. But I wasn’t going down without a fight. They picked the wrong woman to screw with, I’d make sure of it.
Senior was going to wish he’d never crossed me.
“They better decide in the right direction, otherwise I am going to shake up this industry alright. I’m going to bring the misogynistic old fucks to their knees.”
Caly blew out a breath. “I’d hoped you’d say that. Because I’ve got a plan, and it's going to be rough. But once it's done, neither Wilfred scumbag will ever walk over another person ever again. That's where Patience comes in.”
As Caly unloaded her plan, I chugged my cocktail and the happy buzz I was getting both softened the blow of her words and raised my ire for the men who decided to derail my career because they were too selfish to see past what they wanted. They were goddamn animals, and sometimes rabid foxes needed to be put down. The fire in Calypso’s eyes told me she was happy to be the one pulling the trigger.
It was simple really. We were using their own rope to hang them. Their own tactics to sink them to the bottom of the pit of filth they liked to wallow in. But I didn’t understand why Calypso felt so strongly about it.
“I’m in, but I want to know why you’re willing to do this. You have to know it’s career suicide, right?”
Caly shrugged. “What good is a career if I can’t rest easy at night?” Matty gripped her hand and lifted his chin toward us.
“You should tell them so they understand.”
Caly took a deep breath. “Stan Wilfred Senior is my father.”
Well, I didn’t see that one coming.
28
My mouth fell open, and I couldn’t help the small squeak of surprise that came out. “What?”
Caly waved her hand. “Let’s just say that Junior’s particular appetites came from somewhere. He was the fruit of an already rotten tree. My mother was the Wilfred family housekeeper. Senior raped her then had her fired, telling his father that he caught her trying to steal his mother's jewelry. Senior was twenty-five.
“My mother got another job as a waitress in a shitty part of town, and that’s how she met my real father. My step-father. He sat in her area, and if you heard him tell the story, he fell in love with her in an instant. But she was already showing and he thought she was married. Anyway, long but kinda romantic story short, he got the whole sordid saga out of her one night while he was haunting her area at the diner, proposed in the same moment and they’ve been together ever since. He’s never been anything but my father, but when I hit my teenage years, they made me take self defense lessons and told me why I needed to protect myself. Who my biological father was and how I came to be. I was mad that they’d lied to me for so long, but I understood in a way too. Dad told me that I was his in every way that mattered and I eventually got over it. But what remained was a thirst for vengeance for my mother that ran so deep, I’ve planned my life around it.”
Holy shit.
Beau cussed softly beneath his breath. I reached across the table and put my hand on top of Caly’s. “I’m with you. We end their depraved cycle right now. Let’s see how these assholes like prison.”
It was simple really. Caly had been gathering evidence diligently for years from the background. The Wilfreds were arrogant assholes; they saw her as a pretty face and nothing more. They never considered that she could be their downfall. But Calypso chased down every rumor, recorded every deep dark secret ever whispered between people who thought they were alone. When Matty got on board too, the evidence compounded even more.
She hadn’t been able to nail Junior too, but she could now. All I had to do was reopen my assault case against Junior, open a defamation case against Senior, and Caly would do the rest. She had proof that Senior had threatened me, and had hired a private investigator to chase me down. Apparently, Caly had a lot of friends in the industry, and the younger two Wilfreds had made a lot of enemies, coasting off the good reputation of the Wilfred patriarch, Alfred “Freddie” Wilfred. He was still alive but had retired from public life, handing everything over to his only son.
Three hours later, we had a plan and I had butterflies in my stomach that didn’t seem to want to leave. In the lift, Frankie wrapped me under his arm, kissing my temple. “It will all work out. I believe that fate has a plan for you and it isn’t shrinking into obscurity due to the whims of some filhos da puta.”
I grinned and rested my head against his chest. “I know, Frankie, but this isn’t how I thought my first year on the professional circuit would go. I knew there would be challenges, but I didn’t think it would be some kind of crazy conspiracy.”
Branch snorted. “Nothing is ever that simple with you, Nugget.” I scowled and flipped him the bird, but he grabbed my hand, pulled me close and sucked my middle finger into his mouth. I now have a theory that my finger has a direct line of pleasure to my core, because my whole body clenched in need.
I let out a tiny moan, and the feeling in the lift shifted to something a lot more hedonistic. Beau swallowed hard. “Oh hey, what was the end verdict on group sex?”
When Branch pulled me into his arms, lifting me and pressing me into the side of the elevator, Dylan groaned. “In favor. Definitely in favor. Goddamn that's hot.”
I slid my eyes toward him, and he was stroking his dick through his jeans. I curled into Branch, deepening the kiss until he was groaning into my mouth. The doors slid open on our floor and I was suddenly extremely glad that Branch had the forethought to get a suite inside the hotel. Beau strode out first, finding our door and opening it quickly. Branch picked me up and walked me out of the elevator, continuing to kiss me. I wrapped my thighs around his waist, his every step creating friction at my core.
He strode in and dropped me on the bed, and a half naked Dylan was there, his hands running over my body, tearing my clothes from me and kissing the exposed skin. When my shirt was gone, he kissed my nipple through the lace of my bra and I moaned. Then he sucked it into his mouth and the scrape of the lace and the damp heat of his tongue had me writhing. Another set of hands was pulling off my boots and removing my jeans, and the cool air hit my soaked pussy. A hand gripped my thigh, spreading me wider, and the groans around the room chased away any embarrassment I might have had.
Dylan slipped my breast from my bra and sucked at my nipple properly and I arched toward him. When I felt shoulders nudge their way between my thighs, I looked around his head and down at the dark curly hair between my thighs. Frankie looked up at me, his eyes hooded and the look on his face was made for the city of sin.
“Oh shit,” I moaned, knowing what was coming. Dylan laughed darkly. “Oh yeah, Baby Girl. You are going to love this.”
Frankie didn’t taste and tease this time though. He devoured. His nose brushed my clit as he ate me out like a starving man, and I writhed against Dylan’s mouth, my grip on his hair must have been painful but we all liked the pain a little, otherwise we wouldn’t do what we did.
I rode Frankie’s face as I chased the orgasm just out of reach. That was until Dylan reached down and tweaked my clit. I came all over Frankie’s face on a scream that was torn from my chest. Jesus, he must have remembered that move from last time.
I pried my eyes open, panting hard. Dylan was grinning down at me, and when he lowered down for a kiss, I basically consumed him. He chuckled against my lips. “I like you like this, Baby Girl. All spread out like a feast. A masterpiece made for our enjoyment.”
He rolled off me until I could see Beau and Branch. Both had lost their clothes, standing there slowly stroking hard cocks. I nearly swallowed my tongue as Beau strode forward, the grin on his face so beautiful I would have done anything he asked in that moment.
“You ready, Beautiful?” While his words were doused in lust, there was a hint of worry. He was giving me an out, but I ask you, what woman in their right mind would say no to be worshipped by four hot men?
So I sat up on my elbows and caught his lips in a quick kiss. “I am so ready.”
Beau rolled me so I was perched on top of his body. He took a moment, just eating me up with his eyes. “So goddamn perfect. You are more perfect than I ever could have imagined.” He reached up, running his hands down my body, over my breasts with their achingly hard nipples. “You ever had two guys at once, Beautiful?”
I blinked at him, and tried to comprehend what he was saying. “A threesome?” He shook his head, his grin wicked. “You mean, like, at the same time? In me at the same time?” My brain seemed to be struggling to understand what he was suggesting.
“Mmhmm.” He slid me down over his hard cock, and it rubbed against my clit, making me moan. “One here,” he murmured, thrusting upwards but still not inside me.
A hand stroked down my back, over the globes of my ass. “And one here,” Branch growled in my ear, making me shiver.
Oh shit.
His dark chuckle was like falling into a vat of honey. “Don’t worry, Beautiful. We can work up to that. Tonight, let me just make you feel good.”
I set my jaw. Unfortunately, or fortunately, Tessa May Everett wasn’t a quitter. “No I want to try. Just tell me what to do.”
