Hard & Fast (Rules to Break #1) (11 page)

“It’s no one else’s fucking business,” he shouts.

“Well it’s clearly not mine,” I shout back. “I’m just some stupid little girl you keep here to pick up your dry cleaning and fuck when you want.”

Cole leans heavily on the counter, his hands squeezed into fists, his shoulders taut. There’s a big rip in the front of his T-shirt and his skin and the muscles of his stomach show through. I won’t look. I’m so, so angry with him. “You made me—In Prague, you made me
feel
. . .” And then I trail off, because what am I going to say? That he made me feel special? That he made me fall in love with him? So stupid, Rose.

“Fuck you,” I say. I go to push past him. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I’m shaking with rage and I don’t want to be anywhere near him. He stands in my way. “
Move
,” I yell. “If you’re back with your ex then fine, but leave me out of it. You might think that little of me, but I don’t think that little of myself.”

“What?” He’s blocking the kitchen door and I make myself look up into his eyes. Let him see how serious I am.

But he’s just looking confused as well as angry now. Adrenaline rushes through my body. I just want to get away, be on my own, but my body reacts to being close to him whether I like it or not.

“Get out of my way!” I put my hands on his chest and shove, for all the good it does me. I can’t move him at all.

“Is
that
what this is really about? Me and Kenzie?” He looks furious. As if I have no right at all to even mention it. I totally lose my shit. I’ve never been so enraged in my entire life.

“I don’t give a fuck who you are or who she is,” I’m yelling, and he’s trying to say something over the top of me, but I can’t hear him and I don’t want to listen.

“Did you even consider asking me what happened before assuming?” he yells back. “I’m
not
back with my ex. She relapsed today, came to my trailer in a complete state begging me to hide her so no one would find out.
That’s
why we were in there.
That’s
what I’ve been doing all day. Do you think that was easy for me? To see her totally high like that?”

He moves out of the kitchen doorway and I open my mouth to say something, but suddenly all my rage has nowhere to go and I have no idea what to say.

“Forget it.” Cole turns his back on me and walks away. I hear him go upstairs and his door slams.

I thought I was embarrassed today on the set, but that was nothing compared to how I feel now. I am the worst person in the world. There’s something deeply wrong with me. I pace the kitchen, all the pent up energy from the fight still spiralling around inside me. I get a glass of water and my hand shakes as I hold the glass. Finally, I decide to go upstairs. I need to apologize. More than apologize. I just told my boss/lover/whatever he is to fuck off. I’m pretty sure that’s not a good idea no matter what’s going on between us.

I go to my room and peer down the hallway. His door is closed. My heart’s still galloping, so I go into my own room and pace some more. What can I say now? How can I explain? I turn the shower on. I’ll cool down and once my mind’s stopped racing and all this fight in me has drained away I’ll think of something.

My door bursts open and I jump. Cole’s standing there still with the same ripped, dirty T-shirt on. He crosses the room in three strides while I’m saying, “I am so sorry.” But I don’t get chance to say anything else before he kisses me. His hands are on my lower back, pulling me in to him and I keep trying to talk for a minute because he has to know that I really am sorry, but he won’t stop kissing me and a fluid line of heat shoots down my body because this. This is what I want.

He tugs impatiently at the zipper on my skirt. He could push it up, but I like that he wants to take it off. His mouth is hot and urgent on my skin. The shower is still rushing in the background and he pulls away from me for a second to tear at his own clothes.

“Cole, I’m sorry,” I say again, but he’s naked in front of me and I can’t remember why I’m sorry only that I am and that I need to do something with all the buzzing energy inside me that’s threatening to spill out.

I push my underwear down and Cole sucks in a breath and pulls me back to him so our skin touches down the length of our bodies. He glances towards the shower then lifts me up in one quick move so I’m wrapped around him, his mouth on mine, my hands in his hair, his arms tight and hard around my hips. God, I love that he can do that.

He moves to the shower and steps under the water, pushing me up against the wall. Then he pulls away to look at me, water running over his skin, darkening his hair and his eyelashes. He’s so beautiful. “It’s ok,” he says quietly, then he kisses me until I moan into his mouth. He’s hard against the hinge of my thigh, and I shift, desperate to get him inside me. We’re both on edge, both revved up from fighting. He lets me slide down so I’m standing and steps away. I move forward, but he gives the barest shake of his head. His eyes rake over me so I stand under the water, still trembling, and wait.

The water runs cool over my body, but it does nothing to calm either of us down. I can’t stop looking at him. He’s breathing too fast, his muscles are tight and I want to touch every inch of him.

I can’t take it. I push him back, out of the water,
out of the bathroom, towards the bed, not stopping, not waiting, not caring. He falls back onto my bed, water spotting and spreading onto the sheets, pulling me with him at the last second. I meant to be on top but he moves me as if I weigh nothing, sliding me underneath him.

He trails hot hard kisses down my throat and across my breasts. My back arches as his tongue circles my nipple, his hand moving down my body and between my legs. I gasp, but his fingers are there only seconds before he’s kissing down my stomach as though he can’t wait, can’t stop himself. He doesn’t tease me. His mouth is there, sucking me in. I let out a breathless sound that makes him wilder, his mouth roaming back up my body while I fight to get him close to me, closer, inside. He doesn’t fight it, doesn’t make me wait. He needs it as much as I do, matching me with each shaking breath I take. I push my hips up to meet him and he thrusts all the way into me with a desperate noise.

His rhythm is wild and lost and fevered and I’m frantic with him, my hands and tongue and teeth on his skin. I’m pushed higher and higher, closer to the tensing and tightening in my body until I forget to breathe and then I can’t breathe. I have to hold inside the weightless pulsing of my orgasm as it pulls me under.

Cole’s hands fist in the pillow on either side of my head and he tenses so hard it makes him shudder, over and over, hard enough inside me to make me come again. I’m soundless, out of my mind, until slowly, it starts to fade and my muscles begin to relax.

Cole strokes my hair back and kisses me gently.

“I really am sorry,” I say, in a voice that doesn’t sound quite like my own.

“Well then, you should be sorry more often,” he says. And I smile, but when he gets up to use the shower that’s still running and my body isn’t in charge of my thoughts anymore, I can’t get the fight out of my head. I was wrong about Cole. This time. But that doesn’t make any of what I said any less true. I’m still sleeping with my boss. He’s still who he is. And I’m still who I am. I jumped to the conclusions I did because of that. What does that say about how much I trust him? And where can that ever lead, except to someplace bad?

Chapter Twelve

I’m pawing through the apples at the wholefoods store the next day, checking them for bruises, when my phone rings in my bag. I absently press it to my ear.

“Hey, sexy,” I purr into the phone.

“Rose?”

I stiffen at the sound of my mom’s voice. She’s been calling me, and I haven’t called back. Her voice sounds tight.

“Is it true?” she asks.

My stomach summersaults, heat rash spreading up my neck. “W-What?”

“It’s all over the news, Rose. Do you realize how humiliating this is for your father and I? Mary Watsburg was the one to tell me.”

“Tell you what?” I ask, though my whole body is tensed because I think I already know.

My mother lowers her voice, but it’s still cold and reined in. “That you are sleeping with the man you work for. Your father and I thought it was a business trip.”

Prague. Someone must have photographed us together. Cole is going to lose it.

I look around to make sure no one’s listening in, then drop my voice to a hard whisper. “I didn’t think I had to update you, Mom.”

I’ve never so much as discussed a kiss with my mother, let alone sex. When I was sixteen, I went to the local free clinic for birth control. It was supposed to be totally confidential, but confidentiality means next to nothing in a small town—especially to the mom-types. When I got home that evening, Mom called me into her bedroom, read me the riot act on premarital sex, and said that my boyfriend was never welcome in our house again. The whole thing was so scarring that I still blush when I have to ask my doctor for a renewal on my birth control prescription.

“I’m so disappointed in you, Rose.”

“I’m an adult, Mom,” I say, just as coldly, though I don’t know if I’m trying to convince her or myself.

“And you obviously don’t know how to conduct yourself as one. Fooling around in the middle of the street like a working girl.”

“It was in an alley!” I protest, like that somehow makes it better. Heads whip my way, and I lower my voice again. “There wasn’t anybody there. Or at least I thought there wasn’t. How was I supposed to know someone was following us around with a camera?”

“You wouldn’t have to worry about cameras if you weren’t behaving illicitly in public,” she shoots back.

I rake my hand through my hair. “It was just a kiss, Mom.” Though there just as easily could have been more incriminating photos, had that boy not run into the alley and interrupted us. The truth is, we weren’t being careful. We were enjoying Prague. Enjoying the anonymity. But I don’t tell her that.

“I just don’t understand what the big problem is,” I say. She’s making me feel like I’m a teenager all over again and I realize what I just said plays straight into that. “We’re both consenting adults,” I add, sounding just as defensive.

“The problem, Rose, is that it’s different for men. Men are allowed to be promiscuous and society turns a blind eye. They can sleep with a dozen girls in one night, and what do they get? A slap on the back and big congratulations. But a woman does the same? She’s a slut. A whore. And that reputation follows her for the rest of her life. I’m not saying it’s fair, but it’s true. When this is all over between you and that Dean character, that nasty reputation will stay with you.”

I suddenly wish I were anywhere else but here. I feel horribly exposed under the harsh lights of the grocery store.

Mom sighs at my silence. “I’m not saying this to hurt you, Rose. I say it because I care.”

I swallow down the lump in my throat. “I know, Mom. I gotta go.”

The second I hang up the phone, it rings again. This time, I check the Caller ID. Cole. I remember his reaction to the photographers outside the club, and a hard thump of a heartbeat starts in my stomach. I can’t deal with Cole right now. I silence the call and slip the phone into my purse, then abandon the apples and rush my cart to the checkout. And sure enough, right there on the racks facing out from the tills, is my face.

~

Cole is sitting at the kitchen table when I get home.

“How come you didn’t answer my calls?” he asks.

I slap the Daily Mail onto the counter. The headline—WHO IS COLE DEAN’S MYSTERY WOMAN?—stares up at us in big, bold script. Below it is a picture of Cole pressing me up against the stone wall of the alley, our bodies tangled together, our lips mere inches apart. My hair is mostly over my face, but it’s such a distinctive color, it’s clearly me. It’s a sensual, lover’s embrace, and if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s on the cover of a magazine seen by millions, I’d be happy to have the moment caught on camera.

Cole frowns, but he doesn’t blow up, like I expected him to. Realization slams into me.

“You knew about this,” I say.

He sighs. “My agent called me last night.”

“And you didn’t think you should tell me?”

“I didn’t know what to say. And I guess I thought it wouldn’t be a big deal. It’s just the Daily Mail. No one takes their stories seriously.”

He might be a great actor, but not good enough. I see the lie of his words just as if he’d admitted he was furious. The fact that he wants to deny that this hasn’t humiliated him makes a wave of indignation wash over me.

“Stop acting like you don’t hate this, Cole,” I fire at him.

His jaw tenses and he shakes his head before releasing a huge breath. “Alright, fine. I hate it. I’m pissed off, and angry. Does that make you feel better?”

I knew it, and still, I flinch at the words.

Some deep part of me knows that I should think about Cole, about how he’s feeling, how he’s affected, but I’m just too furious. Everything I didn’t want to happen, everything I carefully avoided for
years
, is all coming true now. My credible acting career is over before it even started. Any jobs I get now, everyone will assume I got because of my relationship with Cole. How could I have thought this would turn out any other way?

“It’ll be fine. It isn’t a big deal,” he repeats.

I snort and shake my head. “It
is
a big deal. My mom just called me. She’s furious.”

“Look, I’m sorry, Rose. I should have been more careful. I guess I got a little carried away. It’s my fault.”

“It’s not your goddamn fault,” I say, pacing away from him. “It’s my fault. I’m the idiot.”

“What are you talking about?”

I shake my head. Mom’s words play over in my head.
When this is all over between you and that Dean character . . .

She’d said it like it was an eventuality. No chance of it turning out any other way.

“Rose, this will all blow over,” Cole says. “They’ll move on to bigger news tomorrow and it will all be forgotten.”

I look at Cole. Study him. Sunlight slants in through the patio doors, frosting his hair and giving his tanned skin a gilded glow. He looks like a god. Like a painting. Too good to be true. Too good for me.

“That’s what I’m worried about,” I say.

He blinks at me in confusion, and I have to turn away.

Cole doesn’t follow upstairs, and I’m glad. I need to be alone. I need to figure out what the hell is going on in my life. My phone rings. I ignore it, but as soon as it stops, the ringing starts up again. I groan and fish my cell out of my purse. It’s an unknown number.

“Hello?”

“Hi, may I speak with Rose Weatherston?”

“Speaking.”

“Hello, this is Juliette Mack from US Magazine. I was hoping I could ask you a few questions about your relationship with Cole Dean.”

My mouth drops open.

“Rose?” she asks. “Are you still there?”

“How did you get this number?” I finally demand.

“It’s listed,” she says.

I don’t have an answer for that. Of course it’s listed. I didn’t have a reason to block my number before this. “Don’t call me again.”

I hang up and throw the phone onto the bed, raking my hair back from my face.

The phone rings again. I scream, then pounce on the phone to silence it. But it’s Kate. As if this whole situation couldn’t get any worse. I hesitate with my finger over the screen, but I’m going to have to face her sometime. I finally swipe to answer.

“Hello,” I say.

“You lying bitch,” she yells.

Adrenaline spikes in my system, and whatever guilt I felt is gone. I’m instantly defensive, like a cornered animal.

“What did I lie about? Did you ask me if I’m sleeping with Cole?”

“I insinuated it. God, I just knew it—the minute you wanted to buy lingerie. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I wanted to tell you, but I signed an NDA.”

“A what?”

“Non-disclosure agreement.”

“Oh who the fuck cares about that. You know I wouldn’t have told anyone.”

“I know, but—”

“But what?”

I throw my hands in the air. “I don’t know! I guess I just felt like there was no point telling people about it because it’d probably be over in no time and then I’d just be embarrassed that I’d done it.”

“You’re fucking Cole Dean. Trust me when I say there is
nothing
to be embarrassed about.”

“Tell that to my mom,” I say, and dammit, my voice cracks. There’s a silence on the other end of the phone. And then:

“I’m picking you up.”

~

The sun in sinking behind the Hollywood hills when Kate finally pulls up to the house.

“What the hell are you wearing?” she asks, eying my baseball cap and comically oversized sunglasses.

“I’ve had twelve reporters call me since we got off the phone, not to mention texts, calls and emails from everyone I’ve ever known.” I drop into the passenger seat, and Kate shifts the call into drive.

“Some house,” Kate says, eyeing Cole’s mansion in the rear view mirror.

“Yeah, I guess,” I say distractedly.

“You guess?”

“I don’t think I’ll be living in it for much longer,” I say.

She heaves an annoyed sigh. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about, Rose. Because you haven’t told me anything.

“I’m going through a crisis here. Can you not make this about you?”

She exhales, and guilt slams into me.

“I’m sorry. I screwed up, okay? I know that.”

My voice cracks, and whatever retort she was going to make dies on her lips.

“I just don’t get why you wouldn’t trust me,” she finally says.

I sigh. “It’s not that, Kate. It’s just . . .” I pull off my hat and shake my hair out. “It’s complicated, okay?”

Hollywood Hills retreats in the rear view mirror, and Kate merges onto the interstate. Tires whir in the silence.

“I really am sorry,” I say. “I do trust you. And I want you to know everything.”

She works her jaw, her eyes trained on the road. Finally, she waved a hand at me. “Well then, go ahead. I don’t have all day.”

I take a deep breath and dive into the story, telling Kate all about my first ass-filled meeting with Cole, my rules, my complete and utter failure to follow my rules, everything in Prague, and how I’m feeling more and more like my happiness is balanced on a knife’s edge. Kate doesn’t stop at the café we’d planned to go to, just drives aimlessly and listens while I spill my heart out. And it feels like a thousand pounds of weight lifts from my shoulders. I wonder why on earth I decided to keep this all a secret from my best friend when sharing with her feels so good.

“Have you talked to Cole about this?” Kate asks when I finally finish.

I shake my head. “I don’t want to seem insecure.”

“Which you are,” she points out.

I sigh. “Yeah, I guess.”

“If you ask me, it sounds like Cole hasn’t done anything wrong. I mean, I’m on your side, obviously. But I just don’t get why you’re worried. The guy seems infatuated with you.”

“Exactly,” I say. “Infatuated. And infatuation ends, Kate.”

“So you’re pre-emptively angry with him for not liking you anymore, even though he currently really likes you?”

“It sounds stupid when you say it like that.”

“That’s because it
is
stupid. Of course it’s possible something could go wrong. You can’t live your life in fear. Then why bother living at all?”

“You didn’t see how mad he was about the picture getting out, Kate.”

“So? He’s a private guy.”

“Yeah, but, it makes me feel really shitty. Like he’s ashamed of me.”

She doesn’t have an answer for that.

I wish she did. I stare out of the window at the palm trees whirring past, the streets alive with color and life and California magic. This place is perfect and I don’t want to have to leave. I don’t want everything to end. And yet, I can feel it slipping through my fingers like sand.

~

Cole is in the foyer, pulling on his leather jacket, when I make it back to the house. His eyes go wide when he sees me, like he’s not sure if I’m going to rip into him again, and it makes me unbearably sad. I hate that we fought again. I cross the room in two big strides and wrap my arms around his neck, pulling his lips to mine. I need to erase this uncertainty. Make things better.