Suspiciously Obedient (10 page)

“She’s hot, man. Oooh, I like how the hands there go toward here—”

“I'll kill you if you say one more word.”

“But—”

“Dead. You’re dead.” Mike threw the first thing he could find—Jeremy's abandoned phone—at him, hitting right on at the temple.

“Ouch!” Rubbing his head, Jeremy laughed. “Bad sport.”

“This isn't a game.”

Tap tap tap.
Using the phone, Jeremy pulled up something on his screen. The sound of voices, muted. “It's playing on YouTube—nine different uploads. The most popular hit 900,000 views already.”

“Fuck me.”

“Someone already did.” Jeremy's palms flew up in a gesture of supplication as Mike damn near charged him. Rage raced through his bulging veins, arms itching to hurt something. Someone.

Jonah.

The asshole had done it. Intern his ass. Honor among weasels; he wondered how much Jonah'd been paid for that clip.

“Sources say the dark-haired beauty riding Michael Bournham's pole remains a mystery—” Click. Jeremy moved on to some Oprah channel, paused three seconds, and moved on. The rotation made Mike sick. Too many channels were running one particular ten-second snippet of the video of him and Lydia, a moment when he thrust up into her and she tipped her head to the right, the gesture so sexual and intimate it made him hard just thinking about it.

“Thank God you didn't say her name,” Jeremy commented. “Or that her face is never on camera.” He seemed to think something over, then added, with a low whistle, “That is one hell of a nice ass, Mike.”

“Thanks. I've been doing lunges and thought no one noticed,” Mike said sourly.

Pointing to the television, Jeremy said, “No, I meant—”

One glare was all it took. Jeremy slumped down and shut up. Good.

“What a mess,” Mike hissed, disgusted with himself for letting this happen. “Could this get any worse?” His stomach growled. When had he eaten last? The aroma of oregano and something cheesy filled his nostrils. “Are you cooking something?” he asked Jeremy, agog at the thought. Jeremy's idea of a kitchen utensil was his phone.

“I ordered pizza an hour ago, Mike. It’s in the oven on warm,” was the answer, Jeremy's eyes glued to the television. Mike grabbed a few slices of pepperoni pizza from the oven, snagged a Samuel Smith’s Oatmeal Stout from the fridge, and plopped down on the couch, munching away.

“Can we watch anything but this?”

Jeremy flipped to QVC.

“Okay, anything but
this
and Lydia's ass?”

Tossing the remote after turning the box off, Jeremy stole a slice off Mike’s plate and wolfed it down in three folded bites.

“Jesus, do you ever use your teeth to chew?”

“It all digests the same.”

Bzzzzz.
Smart phone in hand, Jeremy tapped a few times. When his jaw dropped, Mike groaned. “What now?”

Volleying his head back and forth between Mike and the television, Jeremy finally just shoved his phone at Mike, wincing as he stretched his arm out. “Don’t kill the messenger.”

It was Diane. Rather, a video of Diane on national cable news. “What the hell is she—”

“And so Mike asked me to be part of his reality television series, so I came to talk about the script in his office, and one thing led to another…” Hair flip. Attempt at a sensual smile. Fail as her over-plump lips made her look like a corpse with a pork chop trying to escape her mouth.

“There you have it, folks,” said the anchor. “Michael Bournham's viral sex-tape partner has been exposed. Meet the Hidden Boss? Not anymore. They should call the show ‘Meet the Hidden Sexpot.’”

A spray of beer and half-chewed pizza flew across the room, narrowly missing his arm. “Sexpot? Sexpot? Diane? More like cesspool!” Jeremy shouted.

A sense of relief flooded Mike’s body, extending out to his limbs. Deep breaths helped to restore a little more of his core, that unwavering sense of self that he'd become so detached from these past few years. Lydia was off the hook. Diane—in her weird, self-centered, hyper-affected way— was grabbing the perfect fifteen minutes of fame.

Which saved Lydia from humiliation and the nightmare of a very hungry, very determined press.

He still had the Matt Jones rental, with the GPS within, containing Lydia's address from last night. Not that he needed it—driving past her apartment ten or so times since the media shitstorm hit had branded it in his brain. Tracking her down and trying to explain this mess wouldn’t be hard. Surprising Jeremy, he ran out the door, keys in hand, and was barreling down the stairs before his friend could shout his name.

So much of this was out of his control.

Trying
, though, wasn’t.

Some cranky old lady, who looked like the last time she wore lipstick was during the Eisenhower administration, answered the door. “Funny,” she said, “you look very different in the video.” Madge. He'd forgotten, in the frenzy surrounding the video, that she was Lydia's grandmother.

She may as well have spat the words in his face, the wave of revulsion and self-incrimination that hit him worse than any saliva that she could have hocked. Leaving the door open, she turned away and stomped down a hallway. He assumed that meant that he could enter. The apartment was quite nice, simple, but nice, with a homey decor that spoke to a longer history of the family living in the Midwest. Maybe the old woman had moved here for reasons unknown. Hell, maybe she was part of the original settlers from the Mayflower, given her appearance.

The sun shone through gauzy curtains and he felt raw and intrusive, as if he had absolutely no right to be here. The feeling made him waver inside, because Michael Bournham never felt that way these days; he always had a right to be wherever he damn well pleased, within the bounds of the legal system, of course. The ground beneath his feet was shaking like tectonic plates, moving hard against each other, fighting for dominance. Everything felt like that, though—and not just since the damn video had gone viral. Ever since he’d encountered Lydia in the parking lot. Had that really just been a few weeks ago? It felt like years. If only he had given in to his attraction to her when he had met her years ago, who knows where they would be right now. They sure as hell wouldn’t be in this position, with Mike coming to beg her forgiveness.

Beg. Michael Bournham didn’t beg anyone for anything, and yet he would get down on his knees and kiss her feet and make a thousand promises, all of which he would spend the rest of his life keeping, if she would forgive him his foolish, foolish, forgetfulness. In some ways it was her fault—she’d driven him there, so captivating, so alluring, so lovely in his lap, his hands filled with her ass, her hips, her curves, all gyrating on top of him, moving in ways that he didn’t know flesh could connect. She’d driven him out of his own mind, something that no mere mortal woman could possibly do, and yet she had.

He couldn’t blame her; that would be the easy way out, something that a weaker man would claim. Mike might be many things right now, but
weak
was not one of them—and never would be. He was facing this like a man, standing here in her apartment, uncertain but composed at the same time. Morals, driven into him from childhood through adolescence, made his center guide him. You look people in the eye when you make a mistake. You apologize. You try your damnedest to make it better, and even if they don’t forgive you, you still take whatever they throw at you because you wronged them. That was why he was here. That, and of course the hope she would forgive him, that she would go into his arms again and let him kiss her. Let him love her.

Love.
That’s what drove all of this underneath. She had bewitched him. No, he’d
let
her bewitch him, falling under his own spell, the spell of allowing someone in. No blame could take away what had happened. That damn video was everywhere right now. Everywhere, proving what he’d always said, that the world was getting smaller and smaller at about the same rate that cell phones shrank.

Murmured voices in a back room told him that Lydia was here, and his heart began to pound against his pecs, against his bones, the ribs desperate to expand enough to accommodate the swell of his need. This need was different, not driven by the blood that rushed to his southern parts, but rather blood that pumped through his veins, coursing through, transporting a deep, soulful desire to spend his remaining decades with her. Building a life with Lydia was all that mattered right now. Matt Jones had forged a wonderful beginning with her. Could Michael Bournham take over and make a lifetime happen?

Her form appeared suddenly at the end of a long hallway, and her shoulders told him exactly how she felt, squared and lifted high, her breasts resting beautifully above the swell of her waist and hips. She wore a soft, blue flannel set of pajamas, casual and relaxed. He wanted mornings with her, coffee at the breakfast table, lounging in bed reading the paper. Bed. A day in bed with her could get him through decades of life if that were all he had. A nagging memory of being in this apartment just last night, of being in her bed, of the invitation to enter her world as much as he had entered her body, all snapped shut the second she opened her mouth.

“No camera crew?” she said. “
Mike
, you’re slipping.”

Mike.
The way she said his name with such acid tones forced a hot ball of lead into his belly, choking his throat. Only she could have this effect on him. No woman ever had—then again, he’d never made love to a woman on video and had it go viral. After a billion people watch you make love, where do you hide? Lydia was trying her damnedest here in this apartment in Cambridge.

Silver hair followed by China-blue eyes filled the room, sucking the air out of her lungs and making all the blood in her body rush to her V. There stood Michael Bournham, his body encased in some sort of shimmery gray t-shirt, made from an impossibly fine fabric, and jeans that looked painted on by Michelangelo himself. Sunglasses hung from a strap around his neck, and his look was of such intensity that the rest of the world melted away, breaking apart molecule by molecule as everything converged into one, simple atom.

Them.

“Lydia,” he said, and his voice seemed different. Smokier. More commanding. In her heart she knew this was Matt.
Matt Jones
. The same man she'd hated, then grudgingly liked, then pined for, and finally submitted to—eagerly. No different today than two days ago, aside from eye and hair color. He wasn't worth the strange reaction her body and brain elicited, electric thrumming creating a frequency that pounded away at her pulse, her thoughts, her heart.

Being Michael Bournham should have meant absolutely nothing. Her hands had stroked this man. Her mouth had kissed this man. Her body had accepted this man into her, thrusting and urgent and fevered and hot, pushing and bucking for more of him.

His skin was the same, sandy hair sprinkled in all the right places. In the closet, in the elevator, in his office, in
her own damn bed
, those hands had touched her flesh, alternating between tender and coarse with powerful caresses, the ability to shift from one state to the other an exquisite, almost divine, gift.

Metamorphosis went both ways then, no? If he could change touch so easily, why not identity?

Who had she really fucked, after all? Ah. That was the $64,000 question.