Page 113

She sent me a naked selfie.
Nothing’s covered. She’s offering me everything. Her full tits, dark, thick nipples, the smooth, tan flesh of her thighs, it’s all a siren’s call, and I want to crash my fucking ship into this beautiful woman. The only problem with this picture is that I can’t spin it around and admire the view from the back.
I need to see her.
Right now.
I locate the blackout sedan Byron rented when we got to L.A. I punch in the numeric code to unlock the door and find the keys sitting in the cupholder. Not allowing myself to think about how much I hate sitting in a car, I start the engine and drive.
I’m not wasting any more time.
37
Nathan
Ipark haphazardly in the roundabout driveway, leaving the keys in the car. My phone is going off like fireworks. From the notification previews it looks like Byron scolding me for taking the car without telling him. Hodge letting me know fresh surveillance will be ready soon. Dawn asking if I’m okay, wondering where I went. At the moment, I don’t care about a damn message unless it’s more from Spencer.
I bust through the house, making a beeline to the patio. I’m almost down the concrete steps and heading toward the guesthouse when I notice the blanket-covered lump on a pool chair a few paces to my right.Spencer? Why is she sleeping out here?
“Hey,” I whisper, not wanting to startle her. She’s sitting so close to the edge of the water, even a minor freakout would send her flying into the pool. I sit down on the pool chair closest, but my movement doesn’t startle her. She’s sleeping so deeply that if my entire body weren’t coursing with adrenaline, I’d let my girl sleep. I’m too impatient to wait through her slumber. Purposely, I drag the chair closer to her, grinding the metal bars against the concrete to wake her.
I wait until her eyes fly open, round and startled. She blinks at me like she’s seen a ghost.
“Good. You’re awake.”
The blanket falls to her waist as she sits upright. I survey her silky black pajama camisole wondering what in the hell possessed her to have a lonely sleepover with my pool.
“You startled me,” she says.
“Now we’re even.” I grab my phone and show her the picture that nearly caused me a coronary. You can’t shock a man like this with no warning.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know how else to?—”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I can’t sit here and listen to her apologize for nothing. She’s misunderstanding why I’m here and what’s going through my mind. I’m going to tell her everything. Tonight, I’m taking what’s mine. But first, I need to know what she’s thinking. No more secrets. No more surprises.
“Tell you what?”
“About Casey. I nearly ripped his head off tonight when I found out the real story.” I thank my lucky stars we were in public. He should do the same. Had we been alone, my anger would’ve bested me. Casey might be taking a long nap in a shallow grave for his behavior.
“What do you mean—” She pauses. A quizzical look crosses her face. “Wait. How are you here? You were in L.A.”
“I drove…fast.”
“What time is it?” She peers at me, skeptically.
Ignoring the piled-up message notifications on my still-broken screen, I check the time. “Quarter past one.”
I’m not sure if she’s stalling with small talk, but she seems fixated on something I have absolutely no interest in. What I’m most concerned about is why she sent that picture. What she’s trying to tell me. Where her heart is. Where her head’s at. And the loudest question in my mind: Why are our clothes still on?
“You weren’t on a date?” she asks out of left field.
Date? What the hell would I be doing on a date?“Of course not.”
“You had a private block on your calendar,” she explains, continuing with the third degree like she’s trying to catch me in a lie.
I quickly explain that I had to switch the bachelor party venue. She thought the party was last night, when it was actually tonight, and vague on my calendar to surprise Dad. I’m distracted by my racing thoughts, ricocheting off the walls of my mind, so it takes me a moment longer to realize why she’s asking so many questions. “Why? Were you jealous?”
A big part of me hopes she was. One, so I know she feels exactly the same as I do. Two, so I can easily put her mind at ease. She’s the only woman that exists in my world. The only one who’s been able to get through to me. It’s Spencer, or no one. Plain and simple.