Chapter Eight
From Natalie’s rules for Foster Boyd, v1
Rule #3: In a worst-case scenario, when bad news breaks, your first move cannot be to jump in front of a microphone and proclaim that you didn’t do it. No one will believe you, and it makes it harder to spin whatever happened later because you’re on video…already accepting that the news is out there. Sometimes, the best comment is no comment. Other times, the best comment is to threaten to sue for slander. Never is the right answer to shout from the rooftops, “Not guilty!” You only manage to confirm to the public that there is something to the story, even if they’re not quite sure what.
Natalie stared at Foster, as if he’d magically have the answer. It wasn’t like she could move. Or speak. Hell, she was still working to relearn how to breathe.
She knew she was a bit horny going into it, and that the root of her feeling lay at the feet of the sexy as hell megabazillionaire, but she didn’t know he could literally make her body into a trembling mess of quaking flesh with so little effort on his part.
Fuck, the man was good. And they hadn’t even gotten around to sex yet.
Did that mean she still qualified for first, and hadn’t moved on to seconds?
No, she needed to focus on the problem, not the sex. His brother was pounding on her door like he planned to beat the damn thing down. And she was…
Her breasts were hanging out of her now shredded tank top. Her legs were resting on his shoulders, the muscles still spasming with the force of her orgasm. She probably had a wet spot on her—why did I go with charcoal gray?—damn couch, and the room smelled like sex.
Not to mention the very impressive and insistent bulge in Foster’s khakis. She licked her lips, considering that dick imprint. She wanted it.
“You’re not helping, with that look on your face,” Foster pointed out, stroking her leg gently.
“What look?” she whispered back.
“Open up, dammit!” Connor cried from the other side of the door.
“The look that says you want my cock,” Foster replied. He gently slid her legs down until her feet touched the floor before leaning down to kiss her ear. “Can you walk?” he asked.
“No,” she replied honestly. “But I didn’t say I wanted your cock.”
He stroked his fingertip across her clit, and she had to bite her lip to hold back a moan. “Yeah, you’re saying it loud and clear, baby.”
She shouldn’t argue. Not with Connor pounding on the door. Foster surprised her by lifting her into his arms like a motherfucking princess, before carrying her gently into her bedroom. She helped, at least a little, by reaching down and snagging the doorknob to open it before he carried her to the bed. When he lay her on the mattress, he whispered, “Your bed is huge,” before laying across her body for a second. His hands dragged into her hair, and he kissed her like he intended to stay for a while. Try out the springs, so to speak. She wrapped around him eagerly. The man was built for sin, and she wanted to take him out for a test drive.
“Natalie! Open up!” Conner yelled again. Her neighbors were going to complain.
“Get dressed,” Foster whispered. “No more holes. You’ll fucking kill me.”
With that, he left the bedroom, presumably to let his brother in, and she closed her eyes.
This was a bad idea. She never slept with clients, not even that one musician with the long fingers who probably could’ve played her like he stroked the piano. But even knowing it was a giant mistake, and how she should be full of regrets, she still couldn’t help closing her eyes and doing a little jig on her back.
That was so damn good! She’d never felt so blissfully sexy in her entire life. The way he’d ripped her shirt? So hot!
Connor’s voice was now clearly in her apartment, and he still didn’t sound happy, so she dragged herself out of bed and looked at her reflection in the mirror. Well, the goofy grin…
Yeah, there was no fixing that. She’d probably still be smiling over that orgasm when she was eighty. It was that damn good. But she could reknot her hair into a messy bun. Her breasts were slightly abraded from his wonderful facial scruff, and she was keeping this shirt until she died. Pulling it off, she yanked her arms into a bra and then pulled another T-shirt over her head. Grabbing the first thing in reach out of the underwear drawer, she stepped into a thong without a lot of care for what she was wearing.
Dancing into her jeans, she stopped to smile at herself in the mirror once more before facing whatever crisis Connor thought up. No matter what it was, there was no way it could dent her current good mood.
“You still got it, girl,” she told her reflection.
Her reflection grinned back at her, as if to say, Dude, I know, right?
Almost bouncing on her bare feet, she headed out to join the Boyd twins in her living room. Buffy had risen from her napping spot on the carpet and now nudged Foster’s leg. It was kind of cute, endearing even. Behind that cocky rich guy façade lay a guy who loved his dog and could give amazing orgasms. Her heart swelled, and she sighed at how lucky she was to have stumbled across Foster Boyd.
But then the words of the twins soaked through her bliss-drunk mind. “Wait, what do you mean when you say, ‘The Natalie Scandal’?”
Connor spun on his heel to face her, his gray eyes under that dark hair looking almost scary in their intensity. “You. You’re the problem.”
Instantly, about a hundred possible scenarios popped into her head, the first of which involved a drone in her window, catching a picture of her sprawled like a complete hedonist on her couch while the Firstborn Prince ate her out like it was his job.
Foster reached out, catching her fingertips. “Connor is exaggerating. It isn’t your fault at all,” he said.
“Oh, you must not have fucked her yet, if you’re still being nice to her. He’s a jerk, by the way. I am picking up on something between the two of you, and so far, I like you, so fair warning, he’s an asshole and you’ll regret it,” Connor added.
The last thing she expected was for Foster to haul off and punch his brother in the jaw.
“Don’t talk to her like that,” he said in a voice gone guttural with fury.
Connor cupped his jaw and considered his brother. “What, you don’t like her knowing the truth? Did you tell her what you did? Did she notice the paparazzi camped out in front of her building, like buzzards ready to shred her public corpse?”
Before Foster could answer, she shook loose of his hold. “He didn’t tell me yet what he did. What happened?” Since Foster clearly wasn’t going to tell her, she faced Connor when she asked.
Foster shoved her none too gently behind himself, as if to protect her from his brother. “Like you’re one to talk, Con? You say I’m an asshole, but name one woman you ever treated like more than a handy piece of ass? The rule was no seconds, wasn’t it? And haven’t you proved why we even came up with that rule?”
She didn’t like being shoved, and she was getting pissed at them both, so she simply stepped around Foster and faced Connor again. With deadly calm, she repeated her question. “I’m not fucking anyone, especially if you two don’t start answering questions, pronto. What the hell happened?”
Connor didn’t answer, whether because he didn’t want his brother to punch him again or because he didn’t even have words for whatever the hell happened. He snagged her remote, turning to a local channel and flipping the volume up about twenty notches too high.
On the screen, in bright color and clarity, she saw her social media profile picture next to a headline that read, “Failed Image Consultant Sexting Scandal.”
“What?” she whispered. “I haven’t sexted anyone.”
“Yeah, well, this dates back a few months. I don’t know if you lovebirds even knew each other then, but it doesn’t matter. He lost his phone and they found evidence that makes them think you’re the one he was writing dirty messages to. They have pictures of tits, messages they screenshot, and otherwise, a bunch of evidence they’re contributing to you both. And the Welles situation is just feeding the frenzy. They’re claiming you’re so hungry for a fortune that you tried to blackmail Aiden Kelley, hence the secret baby thing coming to public. Good luck spinning this one, image consultant. And thanks for the property in the Keys, brother. I’ve always had a fondness for that house.”
Conner went silent before slamming his way out of her apartment. Natalie continued to blink at the full color image on the screen as the media painted her a fortune-hunting slut. “I didn’t even do anything,” she whispered.
“Dammit, I forgot I bet him the Keys property,” Foster said, running a hand through his too-long blond hair, still messy from them fooling around on her couch.
She turned slowly to face him. Could a piece of property really be his biggest worry right then? Her entire career…no, her life. That was a major network blasting her publicly. Her entire life was going to be permanently destroyed because of some stupid thing he’d done a month before they even met, and his biggest worry was some stupid house in Florida?
“Get out,” she whispered.
He blinked at her, looking surprised. “What?”
“I said get out, Foster.” With that, she walked away from him, reentered her bedroom, and locked the door. Glancing at her reflection again, she noticed the goofy grin was gone.
Orgasms, it seemed, weren’t the cure for everything.