Chapter 40
Keira
Three months later
As I stroll across the executive floor at SCORE, I smile, wave, and return thumbs-ups. I’m soaking up the love from the staff members.
During my convalescence, so many of them reached out via Rhys’s executive assistant with heart-warming messages of support. The last time most of these people saw me, I was on crutches. Thank God, I can now walk unassisted.
“Look who’s here,” Cecilia says when I park myself in front of her desk.
I return her warm smile.
We’ve grown close over the last few months. She was kind enough to come by Rhys’s place every night to drop off the flowers and stuffed animals fans left at SCORE’s security gate. She’s an absolute sweetheart. I’ve also grown much closer to Rhys’s mom.
When she wasn’t working, Dawn spent all her free time mothering me. She didn’t care that her son had hired topnotch help to assist me, she forced herself into the mother role, and I was more than happy to let her.
Mikki flew in as well. In fact, she came back not long ago. Having her around is super fun. We might be new friends, but we have a great bond.
The second time around, she just showed up at Rhys’s door, unannounced. She planned on staying a couple of weeks, but she’s still in LA. My life may be drama-filled, but it pales in comparison to what she’s been dealing with. Jaw-dropping stuff.
“You’re finally one hundred percent,” Cecilia says.
“I’d say I’m ninety percent. My left leg isn’t quite there yet.” My eyes lower to my ballet flats. “I won’t be able to wear heels for a while.”
“You’re still standing strong—pun intended—that’s all that matters,” she says.
Amen to that.
The advanced motorcycle training saved my life.
The helmet, heavy motorcycle riding pants, and armored leather jacket are close seconds.
Since I had lost weight since leaving LA, my boyfriend bought me new gear that fits properly.
I balked at the eye-popping price tag at the time, but he wouldn’t hear of it.
Thank God he ignored my protests. Although, I’ll end up having to replace all my riding gear, they were instrumental in keeping me alive.
I had to wear a neck brace for a while, but I didn’t sustain a spinal injury or trauma.
I can’t thank my lucky stars enough. I was badly bruised, suffered from severe road rash, and I broke a bone in my lower left leg.
It took the doctor an hour to reposition it.
I was in a cast for weeks. The recovery was difficult and frustrating.
It was also agonizing at times. I promised myself I wouldn’t rely on painkillers, but I had to cave in.
Rhys was watching over me like a hawk. He wouldn’t say it, but we both knew he was worried.
People get hooked on painkillers all the time.
Noah was by my side, doting all over me for two weeks.
When he went back to New Zealand, he took a little piece of my heart with him.
The accident opened my eyes. I begged my brother to come back to LA.
There are six months of production left for the series he’s working on.
This is the last season. After that, he’s coming back home for good.
There’s no shortage of work in Tinsel Town for his skill set.
“You look like you mean business today.” Cecilia gives me a onceover. “Anything I should know about?”
“Maybe,” I say, brushing my fingers through my hair.
My whole life, I’ve had a curtain of hair, extending down to my waist. After shaving it off in Nepal, I knew it would grow back.
After the accident, cut and color were the last things on my mind.
Once I was back on my feet, I couldn’t wait to get it cut short and colored blonde again.
“Come on, spill the beans,” Cecilia says.
I shake my head. “I can’t yet. I haven’t even told my boyfriend yet.”
She smiles wide. “You’re in luck. He got in twenty minutes ago. Fair warning, he’s a little grouchy.”
“Yeah, even when you get some shuteye, a red eye flight is always brutal,” I say. Rhys was at a conference in Chicago and another in Detroit.
“It’s more than that.” She leans into her desk.
“If I could figure out how to get Margaret Camden to shut her mouth, I’m sure Rhys would give me a big fat raise.
I fear only a miracle of God would make that happen.
” The bitterness in Cecilia’s voice doesn’t go unnoticed.
“This morning’s interview was laughable.
The things that came flying out of her mouth were farfetched. ” She rolls her eyes.
I sigh. “She’s exhausting.”
“I understand she needs to feed her children, but that isn’t the way to do it,” Cecilia says.
“As my publicist says, I’m a low hanging fruit and Margaret is determined to milk it.”
Cecilia crosses her arms and leans back against her chair, her lips curled up in disdain. “Whatever happened to common decency?”
“Apparently, it can be sold to the highest bidder.”
Based on what I was able to read online, Jedd Maitland is lucky to be alive. He narrowly escaped with his life, unlike the man who caused the accident in the first place. According to the reports, the careless drunk had enough alcohol in his system to down an elephant.
Without her partner in crime, aka Jedd, Margaret Camden cranked up her defamation campaign and took her one-woman show on the road.
The tell-all article Jedd threatened me with was never published.
I can only assume he never wrote it since it’s been mum’s the word from the Hollywood Herald camp.
Chelle’s mom on the other hand can’t seem to shut the fuck up.
She’s willing to tell her story, knitted with lies, to anyone willing to listen.
My new publicist advised me to ignore her, which I’ve done.
I only made one statement––right after the accident when I was still in the hospital––to rebut Margaret’s ludicrous comments.
She dared to compare me to the angel of death, blaming me for Jedd’s accident.
There are cameras in every corner in LA.
The video footage tells the story like it happened, disproving Margaret’s grotesque lies.
I’m woeful things turned out the way they did with Chelle and her mom, but it’s no fault of mine. They changed.
“Oh, well.” I shrug. I refuse to let Margaret ruin my day. “Let me go poke my head inside my boyfriend’s office before he’s too busy to remember about me.”
“Like that’s ever likely to happen,” Cecilia says.
“A girl can never be too cautious,” I say.
She laughs.
With a spring in my step, I close the short distance to my man’s office.
“Knock, knock, knock.” I rap my knuckles against the door.
The door swings open.
A tall, delicious man flashes me a sexy smile before he circles an arm around my waist, pulling me to him.
“Get in here,” he says.
He closes the door shut behind us.
“Well, hello to you, too––”
Rhys’s lips crash against mine.
He slides his tongue inside my eager mouth, flirting with mine, ratcheting my desire and devouring my mouth in a domineering display of possessiveness I’ve come to crave.
A soft moan escapes my throat.
My neglected nipples harden beneath my blouse, begging for his touch, his mouth, and his cock. I love when he teases the peaks of my nipples with the engorged head of his cock.
Oh, God.
My lady bits pulse.
I tell myself the light-headedness hitting me is because I’m walking on sunshine after my epic morning, and not because of the man I can’t live without. I know better. Kissing Rhys is an experience so intense, I feel it all the way down to my toes.
“Fuck, I missed you, dimples,” he says, pulling away from me. His voice is rough.
“I’ve missed you, too, Rhys.”
“Let me take you in,” he says, taking a step back. “Give me a twirl.”
I drop my designer handbag on the console near the door and grant his wish.
“You look so sexy.” He grazes my chin with his fingertips.
“Thank you.”
“Did the outfit seal the deal?”
For my big day, I selected a black blouse with an oversized, feminine bow at the neck which I paired with a hot pink fashionable A-line raw silk skirt that hits me right below the knee.
My scar is still visible, but that wasn’t enough to stop me from exposing my legs.
The dermatologist says the scar should fade in time, but there will always be a trace of it.
I can walk again. I can live with a scar.
“It did.” My smile is epic. “It’s official. Your girlfriend is a new artist at Ritual of Rhyme Records. I no longer have any financial or contractual ties to my old record company.”
Rhys picks me up in his arms and kisses me all over before dropping me to my feet.
“Congratulations, baby.”
“I’m so excited to start this new chapter in my life.”
“I am so happy for you,” he says.
“Can you handle it?”
He draws his eyebrows together.
“You’re going to be dating a model and a chart-topping singer. That’s a lot to handle, big guy.”
“I can handle your sexy ass just fine,” he says. “I reckon someone needs a refresher.”
With one swift motion, he has my back pressed against the door, one hand holding mine over my head and the other up my skirt.
How the hell does he move that fast?
“We have plans for later, Rhys.”
“You’re going to make me wait?”
“Yes.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
I lift my chin up. “I’m dead serious, Rhys Hartford.”
“Are you saying you don’t want me to make you come?”
Bastard.
He had to go there.
Toys and fingers don’t measure up to his masterful touch.
After ten days on opposite sides of the country, I’m dying for his fingers and his big fat cock.
Add to that, the fact I was in so much pain after the accident, and later the cast was in the way.
It’s been a while since we’ve been intimate.
I’m as desperate as he is. I’m this close from begging him to make me come or better yet, a quickie in his private bathroom, but I chastise my pussy to behave.
His nostrils flare and his gaze burns into me.
I sweeten the pot.
“If you’re patient, I’ll make it worth your while.” My voice is light, but the rest of me is combustive.
“Fuck, woman, it’s been a week and a half. You have to give me something to tide me over. One more minute of this…” He grabs his crotch and squeezes his cock hard, “and I’ll be suffering from blue balls permanently.”
“What if I lick your balls later to make it better?” I emphasize my lewd offer by sliding a finger between my teeth and give him a helpless poor little me look.
“Devious little flirt.” He shakes his head.
“Well… it is tonight’s theme.”
“I can’t wait,” he says.
Neither can I.
He lowers his head closer to mine. I expect another heated kiss. Instead, he buries his face in my neck, nuzzling me, inhaling my scent before sucking the sensitive flesh there. He takes me right back to where I was when he kissed me––on the edge of frenzied delirium.
I grab his waist and slip my fingers through the loop of his pants, pulling him closer to me.
His cock is so hard.
I tilt my hips forward, grinding against his hard-on. My desire builds with every rotation of my hips.
He responds by pressing hard against me.
Damn him.
My body trembles, as does his.
“Fuck,” he says.
Our teasing ways will be my demise.
If this little steamy interlude is any indication, tonight should be explosive.
Just when I’m about to change my mind about us fooling around, I remember what I have in store for him and force myself to rein in my raging libido.
“We need to put a stop to this right now,” I say.
Rhys ignores me
“Please, be good, baby,” I say.
He sighs in frustration.
He pulls away from me, lust veiling his glacier-blue eyes.
“I’ll meet you at Dark Compulsion,” I say. “Once I’m done with the meeting at the advertising agency, I’ll head to Phoebe’s. I dropped off my things there this morning. Arianne and I will change at her place for tonight’s party.”
He stares at me in disbelief.
“What are you talking about, Keira? I’m not going to see you back at my place?”
“Nope. I want to remove any temptations on both sides. It’s clear we can’t keep our hands off each other.”
“Jesus Christ, woman, you might as well chop off my balls.” He’s suffering. “I can coax myself to wait until we get to the club to fuck you, but I can’t even get a blowjob beforehand?”
I feel for him, I really do. “You catch on quick, big guy.”
“You’re going to pay for this,” he says.
“I surely hope so. God knows I spent enough money at French Appliqué.”
He growls.
I swear, he shows teeth like a wolf.
Poor baby.