The Gideon Affair

The words came far too easily. She excelled at having presence of mind. That ability to think on her feet was a big part of why people found her so capable. Thank god, it served her right now.

“Well, sweetie,” she mockingly sneered. “I put up with your moldy ass because I love smog, pretention, PinkBerry, and a brutal drought. Next question?”

Relief swept through her when Edward leaned in and put his forehead against hers.

“Damn,” he muttered thickly. “And here I thought it was ‘cause you’re hopelessly in love with me.”

He was joking. Right?

With unerring accuracy, she dropped her arm from his shoulder and went straight for the water bottle planted in the sand at his side. One flick of a finger on the cap and it sprang open just as she upended the bottle and cold water drained down the back of his head, sliding down his neck and into this shirt.

Jolted by complete surprise, he barked, “What the fuck!”

Pushing her away, she winked in his shocked face and wrinkled her nose.

“Just cooling you down, loverboy. Reminding you that I’m not one of your awestruck fans. Or a horny co-star.”

His face fell at her jest, as if she struck a nerve.

Well, that was not good.

A troop of wildly stomping roughriders marched through her belly sending waves of anxiety into every corner of her being.

“Okay,” Paige drawled. “My bad and that makes us even.”

Nodding as he finished wiping the water off his neck, he growled, “Look,” but he was looking everywhere but at her. “I fucked up today.”

She snorted and elbowed him playfully trying to break his dour change of mood. “So, what else is new?”

“This is serious, babe.”

“Yeah, Edward. I get that. Cut me a damn break, okay? Remember—I’ve been watching you for a while, and I’m not stupid. You don’t hang by the shoreline in a pair of incredibly expensive tailored slacks, which, by the way, you’ve completely ruined, for no good reason.”

More head nods. Well, at least he was aware of what he was doing and that it seemed more than a bit odd.

“Has Mickey called you?”

The alarm bells started clanging in her mind. If he was asking about Mickey, then that meant some serious bullshit must have gone down.

“No. You told me to turn off my phone. Remember? Something about having earned a day off.” She all but harrumphed at the end. It had been his damn idea, after all.

“Yeah, right. Well, um … you might want to turn it back on because I’m pretty sure he’s halfway to an award-wi

“What did you do?” No use in beating around the bush. All indications were that he’d stepped in it pretty good.

Edward rubbed his big hand on the back of his neck and grunted. “Fuck.”

“Perhaps another time, “ she pithily remarked. “Now … What. Did. You. DO?”

A tremendous wave crashed ashore sending a soft mist of sea spray into the air. The gentleness of it was so opposite to how she felt.

“The studio arranged a couple of sit-downs today. No print, mostly bloggers.”

Now see … this was exactly why she could never have a real day off. Not when they were in L.A. Too much potential for fuckery, a point so perfectly demonstrated by the damn studio hauling some last-minute crap out of their butts.

“How bad was it?”

She saw the relief in his expression at her question and wondered if it was because he feared she would be mad.

Keeping his gaze partially shuttered, he answered slowly. “Um, yeah. About that … well … it’s like this.”

And then he stopped talking.

Now, later on, maybe she’d rewind this moment and try to figure out why she did what she did, but at the moment, her every action and reaction felt completely natural.

Bellowing, “Jeez Louise, spit it the hell out, would you?” Paige whirled in the sand and jumped on him, pushing Edward flat as she straddled his middle and playfully slapped at his chest.

With her hands around his throat, she pretended to choke him and yelped, “Men! And you think we’re the troublemakers!”

The second she felt those big, sturdy hands of his grip her hips, she knew they were in the danger zone.

He might not have been making real eye contact before, but he sure as hell was now. Did it help that she immediately worried he would know how he affected her? No. Not at all. And it was her own damn fault for straddling his muscled torso in nothing but a pair of barely-there shorts and an even tinier pair of panties.

Shocked by her behavior, Paige froze. So did Edward. For the first time, she let her senses off their leash, aware that her bottom seemed to be butting up against a rather firm mound in the area of his zipper.

“You are a shit-ton of trouble, babe.”

He increased the strength of his hold on her hips, and then slid a palm around to one cheek of her ass.

In a screenplay, this would be a fade to black moment. Right after he kissed her silly and she let him know with a couple of shimmies and hip rolls how much he owned her.

Owned her? Oh, boy. That was telling!

Sanity restored, she glumly reached for one of his hands—the universal signal to cease and desist.

“Not a good idea,” she mumbled.

“You started it,” he groused.

“Yeah, I know, but we can’t cross this line.”

“Why not?”

What the hell was happening? Was he saying what she thought he was? And how was that even possible? How did they go from resting horniness to raging lust with nothing between?

So many questions and not enough answers.

“Edward …” Paige was lost and didn’t know what she should do. It was up to him to rescue this moment before it destroyed what they had.

He sat up, growled, “Shit,” kissed her on the forehead, and then lifted her as though she was the size of a toy and put her on the sand.

“I’m sorry. You’re right.” He shrugged and ran his fingers through his hair. “I guess I just wanted to …”

An actor at a loss for words was an uncomfortable thing to witness.

He cleared his throat and looked at her. “I don’t want to lose you, Paige.”

Huh? What? Lose her? Good lord. Enough with the beating around the bush.

“It would take a lot for that to happen.” She said it softly, maybe too softly, as the ocean breeze swallowed the words.

She saw him wince. Uh-oh.

With a heavy sigh, he told her. “Does a fake sex tape, a co-star blabbing lies, and a pissy little blogger looking for a story qualify as a lot?”

Edward didn’t even know how he got through telling Paige all that had happened. How that fucking blogger had set him up for a reaction and how this so-called X-rated romp had more bang for the buck than some of his movies. And how Joa

Goddammit. It wasn’t even fucking him on that damn tape, but it didn’t stop Edward from feeling embarrassed and uncomfortable about the whole thing.

She took it all in but didn’t say one word. He watched her fingers in the sand and briefly wondered if she kept them there rather than around his throat.

When she finally spoke, it seemed as though she was thinking out loud.

“The other day, Mickey was going on and on about some story he thought might be making its way through the media. I guess this explains what had him so jacked up. But…JoJo? How does she figure into this? Didn’t you make that tape like a year ago?”

That was it. Leaping to his feet, he angrily brushed the sand off his pants. “That goddamn, motherfucking, disgusting, piece of shit tape IS NOT FUCKING ME!”

Edward needed her to believe him. “What in the fucking fuck do I have to do to make you see that?”

Part of him wanted to unzip his pants and quite literally push her face into his crotch so she could examine the exact path of his tattoo and know without a shadow of a doubt that the hydraulic cock in that damn video was not him.