Unforgettable: Book Three (A Hollywood Love Story #3)
Nelle L’Amour
Brandon
The flicks of a warm, wet tongue graze my neck. The Gooch. I slowly peel open my eyes, one at a time. They feel like they’ve been super-glued together and the lids are made of cement. The pup wags his tail. I can’t say the same for the one that’s hung between my legs. It feels like a dead weight.
Squinting, I glance down at my watch. It’s six a.m. The darkness of night has morphed into the light of day though the sky’s a depressing gray. I must have nodded off. Still on the couch, draped in a thick towel, I feel sick to my stomach. And it hurts to think. Last night’s events come at me like a rockslide. My head aches, my heart aches, and my cock aches.
Everything’s gone wrong. My romantic getaway with Zoey here in Cannes has ended up a total nightmare. Fucking Katrina showed up and f*cked up everything. I know she’s crazy enough to follow through with her threat—to tell the media I physically assaulted her and threatened her life. My insane fiancée staged the whole thing right down to slashing her arm with a jagged piece of glass and pulling out clumps of hair from her head. But she’s right. The media will believe her. She even took photos. God dammit. She’s blackmailing me. Holding a virtual knife to my chest to cut off my balls. Giving me no choice but to marry her and go along with her absurd wedding plans. I don’t love her. I don’t like her. I loathe her. There are bitches. Fucking bitches. And psycho bitches. She belongs in a category all of her own. Fucking psycho bitch.
Burying my head in my palms, I squeeze my burning eyes shut for a moment’s reprieve. Hoping the blackness behind my lids will give me clarity to find a way out of this horrific mess. I breathe in and out of my nose as I search my chaotic mind. My thoughts are like bumper cars, colliding into each other, knocking any semblance of rationality off the track. It’s futile. I can’t think straight. Or think of a solution.
Zoey, Zoey, Zoey, Zoey. Her sweet name rings in my ears, silencing the cacophony. She’s made for me. I love every ounce of her. Inside and out. The irony—it took amnesia to make me realize that the girl of my dreams was right there in front of me all along. Last night was the best, most powerful, and most sensuous one of my life. I couldn’t get enough of her. She rocked my world.
Then goddamn Katrina showed up. The timing couldn’t have been worse. A bitter cocktail of guilt and remorse courses through me. I shouldn’t have let the f*cking psycho bitch throw those demeaning insults at her. My beautiful Zoey kept her head up high and weathered the storm like the trooper she is. And I love her all the more for her courage, strength, and pride. My loyal little soldier. I’m the one who’s the coward and should hang my head in shame.
Shit. I promised to text her, but I didn’t. My poor Zoey. Knowing her, she must have stayed up all night waiting to hear from me. Confusion gives way to anguish. I owe her an explanation. It’s all too convoluted to explain in an email. Let alone a text. An ugly conversation awaits me. I hope she’ll understand. Maybe have a solution. Help me grow some balls and still love me for the powerless * I am.
I need to see her so f*cking badly. I long to take her in my arms—smother her with kisses and love her as hard as I can. My fear of losing her holds me back. I sink my head deeper into my palms. The throb in my temples is nothing compared to the throb in my heart or the ache in my cock.
Finally, I will myself to face the inevitable with the remote hope of salvation.
Taking Gucci off my lap, I set him on the cushion next to me.
“Wish me good luck, Gooch,” I mutter under my breath. Good luck for what?
He barks.
“Shh!”
My legs unsteady, I rise from the couch.
“OW!” A sharp pain shoots up my leg. Holding onto the arm of the couch, I bend up my foot. Shit. It’s bleeding. I’ve stepped on a small shard of glass, an unswept remnant of Katrina’s insane rampage. A painful reminder I just don’t need right now.
Lifting up my heel, I hobble to the closest bathroom with Gucci trailing behind me. Not the one Zoey and I shared last night that’s adjacent to the master suite where Katrina’s sleeping. The last thing I want to do is wake the bitch, though with her earplugs and sleeping mask, she’d probably sleep straight through a terrorist attack. I rinse my foot in the bidet, washing off the blood, while the memory of Zoey having an exquisite orgasm from the jets swirls around in my head. My limp dick twitches. I can’t fight my need for her. The open wound is just another physical manifestation of my unwavering ache. My relentless desire.
I exchange the towel wrapped around my bare body for a fluffy bathrobe. I would have preferred putting on a fresh pair of sweats or some jeans, but my entire wardrobe is in the master bedroom as is my cell phone. Belting the robe, I head for the door to my suite. My injured foot hurts, but I can walk on it. My chest tightens with every painful step and my pulse accelerates. I don’t know how I’m going to face Zoey without making her mine again. I want to chain her to me, then jump off the edge of the earth and hear her roar my name one last time… so loud the whole world will need hearing aids.
My pulse spikes while my cock sinks. Wishful thinking. In the bar area, I find a bowl that was spared in Katrina’s wake of destruction and fill it up with water. I set it down on the floor, and Gucci immediately laps it up before cocking his head and gazing up at me with a “what’s next” expression. With a firm hand command, I tell Gucci to stay and he obeys. I slink out of my suite and an envelope meets my feet.