Bombshell (Hollywood A-List #1)(26)

“Brad?”

He didn’t move. I’d moved big drunk men before. In Scotland there had been a boy who had no idea when to stop drinking. Then in college, more than one boy, more than one time.

I pulled his arm until he was on his back, then pulled both wrists and pulled forward. If I’m making it sound easy, it wasn’t. I slipped and fell in wet grass, and grunted like a tennis player. But I got him to sitting. Half his gorgeous face was dotted with mud.

“Brad?”

No answer. I slapped him. Nothing. Slapped again, harder. He groaned.

Then I pulled my arm back and really hauled off and whacked him.

“Ow.”

“You have to wake up. I can’t carry you.”

“That hurt.”

“You deserve it.”

I crouched, getting my shoulder under his arm.

“Okay, I’m going to count to three. On three, stand up.”

“Do you know you’re beautiful?”

“One.”

“And you smell like a fruit cup.”

“Two.”

He looked at me, the weight of his head tilting his face at an angle to mine. “You’re the queen of the house.”

“Three.”

We lurched up. Took a step left. Adjusted. Stood steady.

“Can I just sleep here?”

“No. Nicole isn’t going to find your drunk ass on the lawn in the morning.”

“Shit.” Despite his alcohol saturation, that word held a ton of meaning.

I forgot I had to think about my daughter.

I didn’t think about her finding me.

I’m going to have to change.

No one should count on the authenticity of drunken emotion, yet there was something so deep about the tone of that word. Even if he didn’t remember how he uttered it the next morning, there was something inside him that knew he had to fix this.

“Lean on me,” I said.

We took one step forward, then two. I held his wrist with one hand and his waist with the other. The front of his tuxedo shirt was brown with mud. I got wet wherever his clothes touched me.

“Thank you,” he said when he stumbled.

“No problem. Step up here.”

He stepped up to the pool patio.

“You hurt my feelings,” he said without hurt in his voice. As if he was just stating a fact. “When you called me a dick.”

“I’m not sorry.”

“I don’t blame you. Do you have fantasies, ever?” He ran the question into the statement as if they made sense together.

“Like about what?” I asked. His arm around me, his breath soft in my ear. Even his dependence was kind of a fantasy.

“You know what bothers me about fantasies?”

“Watch this chair here. Whoa.” I pulled him left, narrowly missing tripping over a lounger.

“You never know if you’re getting it right,” he said.

I turned to him, and found his eyes taking up my entire field of vision and my nose two inches from his.

“What do you mean?” Up ahead, the screen door was wide open. He must have come out that way.

“Like when I fantasize about f*cking you.”

We almost tripped on the entrance. I swallowed my lungs, stomach, and heart in one gulp. He was drunk. He didn’t mean it. He never thought about f*cking me. Not Brad Sinclair.

And he was my boss.

“Step up,” I said, turning back. My face burned red hot.

He stepped up. We were in the back room. I was never going to get him up the stairs to his room, so I pivoted toward the guest room.

“Do you come with a dick?” He slurred, but I wasn’t mistaking the words or meaning. “Just a dick? Or do you need a little help?”

“Brad, really?”

“I have this one fantasy where you come without help and one where I touch you.”

“This is totally inappropriate.”

I kicked open the guest room door.

“I want to know which one’s right, then I won’t ask again. And what do you call your . . . you know . . . girl parts?”

I ducked and let his weight drop. He fell to a sitting position, soaked clothes sticking to his beautiful body. White shirt exposing his nipples and the hair on his chest, eyes a third lower, seriously asking me what term I used for my genitalia.

“I’m assuming you talk dirty,” he said. “I shouldn’t assume. But it’s my fantasy and I’m keeping it.”

A drop of water fell from his cuff onto the wool carpet.

“The jacket has to come off.”

He nodded and went for his lapel, but even that messed with his balance and he nearly tipped over. I grabbed him and pulled him up.

“You know the best part of them?” he said. I tugged his cuff so he could get his arm out. “The part when I spread your legs.”

I sucked in a breath. My nervous system fired, dropping all sensation and urgency to my core. I had to pause to breathe before I pulled the other cuff.

“I’m looking in your eyes and you say yes,” he continued. “You bend your knees.”

I tossed the jacket over a chair.

“And I . . .” He put the backs of his hands together and moved them apart. “God.”

I didn’t have to take his shirt off. Didn’t even have to stay in the room with him. I could have left. But maybe this was a little bit of my fantasy too. Maybe his attention was something I craved, even if he wasn’t supposed to be drunk or muddied.