Total pages in book: 150
Estimated words: 148434 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148434 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
I didn’t know the Hales, Meadows, and Cobalts.
I didn’t know her.
Charlie sizes me up. “And?”
Jane frowns. “Thatcher?”
“I didn’t go looking for it,” I explain, my voice void of emotion. “Guys in my unit were playing a clip. I saw maybe three minutes.” I can barely even remember the images in my head. It was just another porno that my platoon laughed at or jerked off to. It didn’t mean anything then.
Her jaw is unhinged. Completely fucking shocked. “You didn’t…”
“I did,” I say again.
“Oh my God.” She cringes, fingers steepled to her lips. “You’ve seen my parents having sex.”
I grimace. “Yeah.”
I think she already believed I’d never watch one of their porn tapes. Because the man I am now would never. But I was eighteen. I was just a kid, and I didn’t know then what I know now.
“You didn’t look away?” she asks, confusion and hurt cinching her eyes.
I’m hurting her, and it’s like stepping across broken glass, rolling around in it, willfully slicing and tearing apart my flesh.
“I didn’t look away,” I confirm. “I was eighteen. Back then, it was just porn to me.”
Deep wrinkles crease her forehead in a frown, and she shakes her head. “But you knew how their sex tapes came about. They didn’t consent to have them taken. They were illegally filmed and leaked online.”
My throat feels like sandpaper. “I didn’t know that until I started working for your families. Honestly, I didn’t know much about your parents except the basics.”
She’s quiet, and I think she’s just in her head.
But goddammit, I feel like I’m fucking this up. So I fight to say more. “It probably seems like common sense—that if someone knows about those sex tapes, they must know how they originated. But the un-fucking-fortunate truth is, people didn’t care about those details enough to share them.”
Charlie plays a dramatic song on the piano while eyeing me. Having a third-party witnessing my inability to speak is just the cherry on top of this shit pie.
Jane lets out a breath, shoulders dropping. “I understand.” She nods. “It’d be wildly self-absorbed to think that everyone knows every little thing about my family. Most people aren’t doing deep-dive wiki searches on Rose and Connor Cobalt.” She nods again, certain about this.
“Did you get off on it?” Charlie suddenly asks.
Jane chokes on a noise. “Charlie!”
“It’s porn, Jane. It’s there to arouse. I’m just asking what our brothers would want to know for the sake of this game.”
“For the sake of your own curiosity,” Jane counters.
“That too.” Charlie is unabashed.
I run my fingers through my hair. “No, I didn’t jerk off to it.”
“Because there were other people in the room?” Charlie asks.
Jane groans and flashes me an apologetic look.
I’m fine, honey. “Because I didn’t. It was ten years ago. If you want to know if I was hard, I don’t remember. Is that good enough?”
“I’m satisfied with your answer, if Jane is.”
“I’m highly satisfied, thank you,” she says without hesitation. She’s what I care most about, and she gives me an assured nod.
I didn’t completely fuck this into the ground. That’s something.
“One more.” Charlie nods towards the cards.
I pick the last one and I silently read the words.
Take three nudes and send them to Jane.
Unholy fucking shit.
“Charlie, he can’t do this,” Jane says after reading the card in my grip.
I can.
I will.
I’m not worried about me. I’m concerned about her. She can’t join me in this. Not a fucking chance. Her brothers might have thought twice about this card, had they known she’d be a part of the game.
Charlie’s shoulders rise in an apathetic shrug. “Then he loses.”
“I’m doing it.” Resoluteness bleeds from every word.
“What?” Her lips part, eyes widening tenfold. “You want to?”
“I’m happy to send you nudes of myself. It’s not a problem.”
“You’re certain?” She’s in a daze, disbelieving.
“Yeah.” It’s easy for me. I meant what I told her on tour—when my bare ass and the nickname jockstrap circulated online and on entertainment TV. I didn’t care.
I was just glad it didn’t happen to her.
She smiles but as her turn to make a decision approaches, her lips falter and flat-line.
I wait for Jane to tell me that this is something she absolutely can’t do. Can’t fathom. We just went through a whole discussion about her parent’s sex tapes, ones that were leaked online. I know Jane’s feelings about nudes.
I know she wouldn’t dare. Not for a second. Because as soon as there are naked photos of her on any device, she’s created a probability where they could be leaked. No matter how small that probability, it’s always been too great a risk for her.
I know that.
I’ve heard those words verbatim from her lips to my ears.
She was my client.
She is my girlfriend.
So right now, Jane lifts her chin and eyes on my eyes, she tells me, “I’ll do it, too.”