21. Molly
21
MOLLY
W hen I woke up again, my phone was dinging with incoming messages.
Shit.
I grabbed for it, half terrified that it would wake Noah and half terrified at what the messages could mean. No one knew I had Noah in here, right? Maybe they were just looking for him and figured I’d know where he was, given my status as Keeper of Noah. And yesterday I would have told them that it was no longer my job to keep an eye on him or know where he was every moment of every day.
Right now...
I glanced to my left and took in the long, lanky, tattooed form of Noah Michael, now uncovered and showing off his perfect ass, in my bed. Now I did know where he was, but couldn’t tell anyone. Not even my best friend.
Not that I had a best friend. That was Noah, and he already knew where he was.
Oh my God, I needed to get some coffee and stop my mind from spinning.
My phone dinged again and I quickly opened it to see that these weren’t text messages. They were emails. And that meant they were coming from the office.
The first one went right to the heart of the matter.
Molly , it read. I love what you’re sending me, but I’ve got to tell you, girl, these pictures aren’t sexy enough. I thought you were on the road with some of the sexiest rock stars the world had to offer! Rivers Shine, for example. Noah Michael! That broody one that never talks to anyone but has the face of an angel. These are sexy men! Why are your pictures so G-rated? I want them with their shirts off. Preferably more than that. Do a spread with one in his bed, looking broody and like a rock star. Naked, preferably. Do something that’s going to get us the clicks. I know Rivers is with that girl now, so that might not happen, but I’ve got an even better option. A hotter one. Noah Michael. All the girls in the office are crazy for him and begging for more pictures. Get those to me now. Like, this week. I want to see what we’re working with. If the session is good, I’ll want the same with the others. You’ve been on the road with rock stars before, right? Use your experience. Don’t fail me. I don’t want to call it quits on you so early.
Oh. My. God.
So, good news first: She loved the pictures I was sending her. And I hadn’t even sent her my best, yet. We’d only done one show, so I hadn’t had a lot of variety in there. But at least she liked what I was sending. Only she wanted them to be sexier. Well, I could do that. I didn’t necessarily think Rivers or Matt or Hudson were sexy–I’d known them too long to think that–but I could manage it. Rivers loved to go on stage without a shirt, so I’d just move around and get some pictures of his chest highlighted by the stage lights.
And then avoid Lila like the plague.
Matt would be tougher, but I thought he might do a shoot with me in some sort of urban setting. Make it grainy and very emo. He’d be great at that, and girls would go out of their heads for it. Hudson... Alone in a coffee shop, I thought. Staring around him like the world was trying to hurt him, those big brown eyes of his acting like magnets to any female in a 50-mile radius. Softer focus, for him. Maybe in sepia tone to make it moody but still emotional. It would be perfect.
And then Noah. She wanted a bedroom session of Noah. With him in the nude.
Of course she did. All the girls wanted to see what Noah looked like under that armor he always wore. But the thought of doing that shoot with him made me feel like I was going to throw up. I couldn’t do that. First of all, Noah was my best friend. It would be weird. And he’d never agree to it. He hated being vulnerable or soft in front of people. He was very private with his real self, as shocking as that sounded.
He would tell me no right off the bat.
But my job was evidently depending on it. I went back and read the last line again, and there was no way to misunderstand that; if I didn’t do sexier photos–and this session with Noah–Janette was going to fire me.
Shit.
If she’d wanted something like that, I wished she’d told me when she gave me the assignment so I could have turned it down. I would have told her that Noah didn’t do things like that, and maybe try to sell her on using Matt instead. He wasn’t as dangerous and sexy as Noah, but he was definitely hot, and had plenty of fans.
Maybe I could still talk her out of Noah. But what would I use as a reason? “Sorry, Janette, I fucked him last night and now the thought of photographing him naked makes me feel like I might throw up.”
That wouldn’t go down very well. Also, it would mean admitting that I’d already broken her cardinal rule of not getting involved with anyone I was covering.
Fuck, did she know what I’d done? Was that why she suggested Noah? Holly hell, did she have spies watching me? Was she already working up to fire me?
I broke out in a cold sweat at that, positive that she must know what had happened between the two of us, and that was why she was asking for this. Oh God. Oh God, oh God, I’d finally managed to get a good job and I was going to get fired after my first assignment.
Because I slept with Noah.
Maybe I could still save it. Get him to do the photo shoot with me and she’d have to forgive me, right? I’d just bite the bullet and ask him, straight out. Pray that he’d be willing to step up and save my job. Two months ago, I would have asked him without thinking twice, and we would have laughed about how stupid it all was.
Right now, it seemed like such a loaded question I could hardly bear it. We’d already made a huge mistake sleeping together once. Get us into a room and half of us naked, with me shooting pictures of him, and it was all going to get a lot worse.
How the hell was I supposed to go back to not feeling anything for him in that situation? I didn’t trust him, and I didn’t trust myself. I had no idea how he actually felt about me, so I wasn’t going to risk my own heart on the situation. Hell, I’d seen him get rid of girl after girl in the past.
Maybe he was going to wake up and get rid of me, too.
“Why are you so twitchy?” he asked suddenly.
I jumped, proving his point, and then laughed. Twitchily. “Just pressure from the magazine. Nothing serious,” I lied.
He hummed in response, like I’d just said the sexiest thing in the world, and pulled me toward him. “I dreamed about you the other night. About that time I had to save you from Trevor. When you first started wearing a bra.”
I almost died right then and there from mortification.
“Oh my God, please never say that again.”
He giggled and nuzzled into me. “Why, what’re you going to do about it?”
“I’ll tell everyone who’ll listen that you got the crap beat out of you by a kid half your size,” I said primly.
He jerked up and stared at me, looking both shocked and betrayed. “Trevor was years older than me and twice as heavy.”
Now it was my turn to giggle. “Not the way I’ll tell it.”
He tackled me and took me back onto the bed, his fingers busy tickling me as I kicked out at him, trying to get away. When he stilled, though, his eyes were serious.
“I was ready to kill him for messing with you.”
I gave him my most gentle smile. “And I thought you were a fucking hero. I was so infatuated with you. You saved me more times than you should have.”
“Well, that was a long time ago. These days you don’t need anyone to save you. Besides, I can’t beat guys up for you anymore. I’m supposed to be acting more responsible. You’ve got this big magazine job. We’re not supposed to be seen together, even if we wanted to. No hero would put you in that situation.”
I shrugged. “True. But I’ve never thought of you as a normal sort of hero.”
The kiss he gave me was slow and deep. Suggestive. Intoxicating.
“What kind of hero am I, then?”
“My kind,” I whispered, knowing we should be working on a plan to get him back to his room.
And not giving a single fuck.
It turned out my sense of self-preservation was what really needed saving in that moment. But I was too busy giving in—again—to that light in his eyes to remember that.