Keep Her Safe, page 31
Damian takes a seat in the booth and I immediately sit in his lap, reminded instantly of the fantasy I’ve always had and I can’t believe that it’s finally coming to life. His arms wrap around me, pulling me hard against his chest and he bites down on my bare shoulder gently before brushing his lips against my skin.
“Is this what you wanted to talk to me about, young lady?” Denise, one of my favorite executive producers from the show asks as she approaches our table and sits down next to Damian and me.
“I meant to tell you. Things just got a little…hectic.”
“I’ll give you a pass this once.” She chuckles before she pushes her glasses on her nose and takes a sip of her martini. “I’m happy for you.” She nods at Damian. “Take care of our girl.”
“Of course.”
I melt in his arms, inhaling his cologne, and letting his scent calm me from the chaos swirling around us. “Do you want to dance?” he murmurs in my ear and I spin to look at him in shock.
“Umm yes? Have we met? We can…out there?” I point towards the crowd of people.
“Yeah, I don’t think anyone will fuck with you with my arms around you.” He kisses my neck and I hear squeals and oh my Gods in the distance. “Besides, I would do anything to make you happy.” His words melt me and I press my lips to his. His eyes dart around the crowd on instinct and he nods once. When I follow his gaze, I see Luke and the new guy he’d just brought on as a trial run stationed fairly close by.
“I’m glad you’re willing to bring on more help.”
“I’ll do whatever I can to keep you safe. Your safety is my number one priority.” I quirk an eyebrow at him. “Well, until our hypothetical children come around.”
One Year Later
“Give it to me, baby. Come on,” Damian whispers against my clit. He’s in his favorite position, on his knees in front of me in the back of a limousine, his mouth attached to my pussy as we make our way to my biggest award ceremony of the year. I’m up for an Emmy again for my final season of LA Dreams, and after the year I’ve had—particularly the final episodes of the show that really put my acting to the test with the very drastic exit of Jeremy’s character—everyone is already calling me as the winner.
Especially since I lost the Emmy last year.
Jeremy was convicted of attempted kidnapping, murder for hire, two counts of attempted murder, vehicular assault, and stalking. He received a life sentence without parole so the writers decided just to kill his character to not completely alter the tone of the show by making him “a bad guy.” But it made for some very intense scenes requiring me to do a lot of hysterical crying.
And the board lives for that shit.
Damian’s hands rub over my swollen belly, stroking the skin above my belly button in time with the strokes over my clit and I feel the swift kick from within in response. I’m seven months pregnant, a surprise neither of us saw coming, and Damian has been obsessed with my pregnancy and the thought of being a father.
I want to grip his hair, but we’re minutes from arriving at the show and I don’t want us looking like we’re sexed up like we always are.
The moment the paparazzi found out about Damian and me, they started following us around relentlessly and have shared hundreds of pictures of us engaged in all kinds of public displays of affection. Kissing, touching, dancing at clubs, making out in the front seat of my new Range Rover, me sitting in his lap any time we’re out to dinner alone. There was one stray shot of us leaving the doctor where he was on his knees in front of me with his lips on my stomach that made it onto every news outlet in the country within an hour. He’d gotten me a puppy for Christmas because I wanted a dog for years that he refuses to let me walk by myself so there are dozens of pictures of us walking our Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Hunter.
“That feels good,” I moan, feeling my orgasm hovering over me.
“Mmm, then give me what I want,” he growls. “Come on my face.” He inserts two fingers into my slick wet channel and finds that spot that has become even more sensitive during my pregnancy. He curls his finger to reach it and my climax washes over me.
“Oh fuck, baby right there,” I cry out.
“Right there?” He closes his lips around my clit and sucks as I come against his lips. “Oh fuck yes. Come for me, baby.” He holds me in place as he licks up every drop before he slowly slides my panties back up and underneath my black gown. He wipes his face with the facial wipes we now keep in the limo since he can’t seem to ride back here with me without eating my pussy. He presses a light kiss to my stomach before taking the seat next to me. “What are you thinking about?” he murmurs and I turn to look up at him.
“I don’t know if I’m more nervous to lose again or to actually win.”
He grabs my hand and locks our fingers together. “No matter what happens, Shay, I am so proud of you. Despite everything you’ve been through, you are the most remarkable woman I’ve ever met.”
“Don’t.” I point at him as I feel tears prickling in my eyes and he smiles before pressing a kiss to my lips, light enough to not ruin my lipstick. The whole reason we didn’t have sex back here.
“They would be so proud of you too.” He says referencing my parents.
We are sitting in our seats in the audience, waiting anxiously for my category. Damian is seated next to me with his hand on my knee to keep it from incessantly bouncing. I do technically have a new bodyguard, but as Damian predicted, he barely gets to do his job because Damian is no more than a few feet away from me at all times. There are even times that Damian acts more like my bodyguard than my man and I have to remind him that he’s on the red carpet to take pictures with me and not to keep people back.
I watch Veronica and an actor from another hit show make their way onto the stage to present the award for best actress in a television drama. She looks gorgeous in a strapless floor-length silver gown that looks like tiny diamonds with the way the light hits it. I beam with excitement knowing it will look perfect with the very large diamond ring Derek plans to give her tonight.
“Remember to breathe,” I hear in my ear and then he presses a sweet kiss on my cheek.
“He seems more excited than I am.” I rub my stomach as I feel a kick from inside and Damian’s hand rests on top of mine.
“He knows his mother is a star.”
I turn back just in time to hear Veronica finish listing the names of the nominees. “And the Emmy goes to…” She opens up the envelope and squeals instantly. “Oh my god! Damian, bring our girl up here!” She jumps up and down and presses the envelope to her chest. “Shay Eastwood-Hunt!”
The theme song of LA Dreams starts blaring through the entire auditorium as the room erupts in applause and cameras surround me as Damian helps me to my feet. I hug Cooper and Derek and a few members of the crew on the way up to the stage, my arm linked with Damian’s as he guides me.
“You okay?” he whispers in my ear and I nod as we make it to the stairs. He kisses me for no more than a second, but it’s enough for the room to get even louder with their screams and a few stray cat calls. “I’ll be here,” he says.
I love you, I mouth at him as I make my way up the stairs and Veronica rushes toward me to pull me into a hug.
“You fucking did it!” she squeals in my ear. “Love you so much.”
“Love you more,” I whisper back as I make my way to the podium.
I let out a breath. “I don’t know how many people can say their best friend handed them their Emmy. On a show they were on with you, no less.” I look at her and she’s staring at me like a proud mom still bouncing with excitement. The tears have already started to form as I think about the speech I sort of practiced just in case. “Wow, thank you so much. I’ve been playing Ashley Anderson for over a decade and to close the chapter on this part of my life…to say goodbye to her on this kind of high is unbelievable.” I hold the Emmy up and look at the gold statue that’s heavier than I anticipated. “Six years ago, I started this show and then immediately went into the worst period of my life, so in a lot of ways being Ashley Anderson saved me. It showed me that I was resilient and that I was tough enough to get through the worst. It showed me that,” I dart my gaze to where Damian is standing and give him a wink, “where there is life, there is hope.” I laugh through my tears. “There are so many people I want to thank before they kick me off the stage.” I go through my laundry list of people and when I get to the end I turn towards Damian. “And of course, to my husband, thank you for everything, for always being my light in the dark. I love you. And finally,” I look up and hold the Emmy over my head, “Mom, Dad, this is for you.” I blow a kiss upward and then towards the cameras as everyone applauds and music indicates a commercial.
“You always know how to deliver a monologue,” Veronica chuckles when we get backstage and we’ve removed our microphones. She pulls me into a hug and when she pulls back the tears are moving down her face again. “That was really good.”
“Thanks, V.” She nods behind me and I turn to see Damian standing there with the sexiest smile on his face and then I’m in his arms the best I can be with my stomach between us.
“Fuck, I’m proud of you. You are amazing and I am so honored to be your husband.” His eyes are a bit glazed and I wonder if he got a little emotional during my speech especially when I referenced his tattoo. “That is not the speech you practiced for me.”
“Sorry.” I giggle. His lips crash against mine and we stay like that for a few seconds before a throat clearing interrupts us.
“How did you get back here before I did?” my bodyguard, Luke, says to Damian.
My husband shrugs. “They know me.”
“Okay, well it would have been nice if you let me in on the secrets. I am her head security, Hunt.”
Damian gives him a look of derision before turning his gaze back to me with a look that says, can you believe this guy?
I press a hand over my lips to stop the giggle from expelling from me and shake my head. Be nice, I tell him with my eyes.
He wraps an arm around me and presses a kiss to my temple as he walks me towards the refreshments table. “Yeah, sure. Keep telling yourself that.”
The End.
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PREVIEW OF WHAT WAS MEANT TO BE
“She’s getting fucking married?” The words come out harsher than I intended, leaving my mouth through gritted teeth. I have one hand gripping the phone tightly and in the other, the engagement party invitation that I want to rip to shreds. Seeing the names Whitney Monroe and Parker Anderson printed in gold script makes me fucking enraged. I clench my fist, damaging the crisp white paper in the process before I toss it towards my desk. I can’t bear the sight of the words another second.
“Together with their families.”
Whitney’s family. My family. The thought of watching her get married sends a wave of sadness through me. Followed by a wave of anger. Then regret.
How can she be getting married?
“You said she wasn’t dating anyone seriously.”
“I said I wasn’t sure but that things with this guy didn’t seem serious,” my younger brother, Trey, corrects.
“I told you to keep an eye on her. Don’t you think that this is something that I would have wanted to know? Before she had a Goddamn ring on her finger?” I’m pacing the length of my small office, trying my best to keep my voice down with the thin walls separating all of the doctors on the floor.
“You asked me to keep her safe,” he retorts. “You didn’t say anything about cock blocking her or interfering in her dating life or whatever the fuck. I do have a life of my own, you know. And what difference does it even make? You broke it off with her. So, you’re subscribing to the belief now that if you can’t have her, nobody can?”
That’s exactly how it is. Whitney Monroe belonged to me regardless of our current relationship status. I don’t know who this guy is, but there’s no way in hell she’s walking down that aisle with him.
“That’s exactly what the fuck I’m saying.” I decide to tell him the truth because I told Trey everything. Even about the intense two-year long relationship I found myself in with my best friend’s daughter. The relationship that left her broken-hearted when I ended things and me with regret, raging self-loathing and anger at myself for letting things get so far. I hadn’t ended things to be cruel or because I didn’t love her, I ended it because I felt we didn’t have a future. I was not only her parents’ best friend but her godfather which meant according to every rule in life, she should have been off limits to me. I’d been there the day she was born and through all of her milestones, all of her birthdays and even helped teach her to drive. I’d been there with her father threatening the boys with what would happen if any of them ever hurt her.
The irony that I also taught her to fuck and ended up hurting her way worse than any of those boys is not lost on me.
It all happened so fast. The summer she turned eighteen somehow coincided with the summer I lost my mind when the girl I’d known for eighteen years became a woman right before my eyes. A woman that suddenly had all my attention and we found ourselves unable to keep our hands off of each other and sneaking around behind everyone’s back. At my office, my car, my house on weekends, there was no chance her parents would drop by unannounced and if they did, we always had contingency plans and practically every Four Seasons Hotel in the State of California.
I don’t know how no one caught on to be honest.
Our affair was intense, bordering on a burning obsession with each other. I hadn’t felt that way about anyone maybe ever. I woke up consumed with her. I went to sleep with her on my mind if she wasn’t curled up in bed next to me. If I was away from her for more than a few hours, my hands itched with the need to touch her. My mouth desperate to kiss her, taste her skin or the wet flesh between her legs. I was enamored with her. I was in love in a way that I’d never felt before and it hit me hard and fast.
I had been engaged once before breaking it off a few weeks before the big day at which point, I vowed never to get serious with anyone again and I had a series of flings and short-term relationships throughout my thirties.
Enter legal-aged Whitney Monroe.
I’d learned that she’d been infatuated with me for years, praying for the moment she turned eighteen and that I’d maybe reciprocate her feelings. “Or at very least one night of sex.”
That one night of sex where I took her virginity turned into another night and another until it was almost every night and some days. Weekends away. Secret vacations where she’d told her parents she was away with friends. Sneaking out in the middle of the night because she still lived at home at the time so we could fuck in my car.
The sneaking around was fun and the thrill of the forbidden kept us both coming back for more but it grew to be more than that.
There were I love you’s and talks of the future together. There were nights when we were drunk on tequila and each other as we whispered our vows of devotion. We’d been together two years and her parents still didn’t know. The only people she had told were friends at school that weren’t as familiar with our family dynamic and her cousin Chloe who almost lost her shit when she found out. And that was only because Trey had accidentally slipped up and told her during their pillow talk or whatever.
I’d gone so far down this road with her that I didn’t know how to explain it to my best friends who just happened to be her parents. How could I have let things go on this long without telling them? How did I let things get so far? How did I let myself fall in love with the one person I knew I couldn’t have? Shouldn’t want?
I went back and forth for weeks, wondering what was the worst thing they could do. They could forbid me from seeing her. But Whitney wouldn’t listen and suddenly there would be this irreparable rift in their family that I would have caused. Uncomfortable holidays and family functions, heated arguments, and tension so thick and able to divide a family. Not to mention, on top of all of that, I’d lose my best friends.
It wasn’t until Doctors Without Borders needed me on another team, this time in Mexico to help when COVID-19 hit that I decided it was time for Whitney and me to have a talk about us. The look on her face still haunts me when I told her the news that I was leaving and that it would be best to use this as the ending point of our relationship.
Three Years Ago:
“I can’t come with you…?” Her brown eyes are brimming with unshed tears, realization dawning on her that I wasn’t telling her to pack a suitcase. “Doctors are supposed to just up and leave their families?”
“Technically yes. If it’s your first time, you’re not allowed to bring family at all.” I wince, wishing I’d left out that part, knowing she’ll have a rebuttal for it.
Her brows furrow and I can see the wheels turning in her head. “But it’s not your first time. You opened that hospital in Mexico years ago…” She bites her bottom lip and under normal circumstances that visual would have prompted my mouth between her legs. “JP, I don’t want to be without you for eighteen months or possibly even longer.” She crosses her arms and curls her lips into a pout which is a look I’d been on the receiving end of many times and always ended with me giving her whatever she wanted. I flinch at her calling me “JP,” the nickname she’s had for me for years. She’d stopped calling me that when we first started this, opting to call me by my first name instead in an attempt to shift the dynamic of our relationship. She’d only called me that when she was feeling extra vulnerable or at times in bed when we’d tapped into her daddy kink.
