“Are all the pictures of you?”
“No.” Her volume rises. “Oh hell no. Based on quantity alone, I’d say I wasn’t his favorite model.”
I’ll take her raised voice to tears any day of the week. “You have every right to be pissed.” I point to the screen. “You’re saying he took that picture and others without your consent.” I didn’t phrase it as a question, yet she answered.
“Yes. Without my consent. Without my knowledge.”
Sami spins around and enlarges the picture. Though it becomes very pixilated, I finally figure out what she’s showing me, the bed. I turn toward her bed. My memory is fuzzy.
“The bed we got rid of, is that the one in the picture?” I ask.
“No. This was taken in Jackson’s place before he moved in with me.” She flails her hands as she points toward the screen. “I’ve been looking at these for over an hour. The majority of them were taken at his place. I’m so damn angry. I think he must have had some kind of camera set up in his bedroom. But look...”
She sits and quickly scrolls. “See this one?”
“I’ve looked at porn with friends before, Sami, but for the record, this isn’t doing it for me.”
“Good. Don’t look at the woman.” She points to the window. “Look at the trim around the window. See the color. I’m certain I know where it is.”
“What does that mean?”
She grunts as she again scrolls. “Don’t look at me in this picture. Look at the color of the window casing.”
It’s fucking hard not to look at her. Damn, she’s stunning. Yet what gets my attention isn’t her perfect body; it’s her face. “Shit, Sami, you didn’t know this was being taken?”
“No.”
“Why aren’t you happy?”
She quickly stands. “Maybe because I just found my ex-fiancé’s treasure trove of self-made porn. No, I think it’s called revenge porn.”
“Only if he puts it out on the internet.”
“Well, it violates some law.”
“I think it does.” I rephrase my question, wanting an answer. “Why aren’t you happy in the picture?”
She shakes her head. “God, I was such a dunce.”
My blood pressure spikes. “Why aren’t you happy in that picture, Sami?” My hands ball into fists at my side. “Did that asshole force you?”
“No.” She shakes her head. “If I were to guess—because that’s what it will be since I don’t remember that exact instance—I would say that we argued and this was about to be make-up...” She shrugs not finishing her sentence. “He has this thing where he likes to watch.”
“Watch what?” My mind is a cyclone of thoughts.
Watch Sami with another guy.
Watch her with another woman.
Watch her with herself.
“Sami, watch what?”
She turns away. “No details, remember.”
I can’t stop myself as I reach for her shoulder and turn her until she’s facing me. My question comes out louder and gruffer than I intend. “Watch what?”
“Me touching myself.” She lifted her chin toward the computer. “Let me rephrase. He likes to watch women masturbate. Like I said, I wasn’t even his star model.”
Fuck.
Holding onto Sami’s shoulders again, I gently run my hands up and down the soft satin sleeves. The robe she’s wearing is barely long enough to cover her round ass. And if I tug on the sash, I am sure I could get a real-life view of the tits on the screen. Instead, I stay in friend mode. “As long as you were okay with it...”
“I wasn’t okay with pictures.”
“Tell me where you saw that weird color trim.”
“It’s not weird. It actually looks nice. Wait...” Her eyes open wide as she pushes past me and picks up her phone on her bedside stand. “Shit, shit,” she mumbles, scrolling and looking down at her phone. “I deleted most of the pictures with him in them.” She stops and looks up at me. “Here. I must have kept it because his face isn’t in it.” She shoves the screen my direction.
I see a table near an open window. On the table is a wine bucket and glasses. It’s then I see the same trim. My gaze meets hers. “Where was this?”
“In Holland.”
“That bed and breakfast?”
She nods. “It’s called Feliena’s Room. Jack liked it because it’s larger than other rooms and has exclusive access to the porch.”
“Apparently,” I say, going quickly through the pictures, checking out the ones with the greenish trim, “it also has exclusive access to cameras. I know this is hard, but look at the angle of all of the pictures.”
This time, Sami is looking from behind me, her hands on my back as she peeks around my shoulder. “You’re right.”
“Do you know the identities of the other women?”
“Some,” she says as she sits on the edge of the bed. “There are dates. I’m not certain if the dates are representative of when the pictures were taken or when he uploaded them.”
Turning away from the screen, I run my fingers through my hair. “I don’t understand why he has them in his email.”
She shakes her head. “I’ve been looking through them for a over an hour. I’m not the only woman in pictures with dates after our engagement. Hell, Ellen and I aren’t even the only two. It seems that after he sold his apartment, he primarily used the bed and breakfast.”
“This can’t be legal.”
Sami sighs as she falls back on the bed, lifts her arms over her head, and stares up at the ceiling. “You’re naked.”
It is the first time since I crawled out from the sheets that I even considered it.
“Do you want to take my picture?”
Faster than fast-pitch softball, Sami grabs a pillow and chucks it at me. “No. Don’t joke.”
I walk toward her, then lean over her and climb onto the bed until I have her straddled. “Listen to me.”
With an over six-foot-tall, two hundred-plus-pound naked man straddling her, Sami puts her hands over her ears and starts singing. “La la...”
“Oh no.” I reach for her hands one at a time until I have both wrists secured over her head, and her wide-open green eyes staring up at me. “You, Samantha Ann, will listen to me.”
“You can’t make me.”
“I am making you. I have you pinned and your wrists captive.” Keeping her hands secure, I do what any naked friend would do. I untie her robe, stare down at her perfect body, and begin tickling her.
Sami tries to resist, but within seconds, the bedroom rings with her laughter as she wiggles and writhes beneath me. “Stop it,” she cries between giggles. “I’m going to pee.”
Letting go of her wrists, I reach for her waist and roll until she’s on top of me. Somewhere during the tickling, giggling, and rolling, Sami’s long hair became loose and is now hanging down around my face, leaving us in our own tunnel.
“Thank you,” she says before leaving a kiss on my lips.
“Honey, I’ll take your laughter over tears any day.”