Randall growls, the exhalation hot and wet against my forehead. “Good girl. Damn, baby…you’re a sweet little slut, you know that?”
He kisses me then, thrusts his hands down my pants, and I let him. I let him, because I need him to feel like he’s won. To think he has me right where he wants me, and that there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
When he slides his tongue between my lips, it takes everything in me not to bite the damn thing off and spit it back at him.
I return his kiss, meekly, while his hand cups my mound, dares to dart a finger under the silk material. “Smooth,” he murmurs. “Just like I thought it’d be.”
And that, right there. That’s the final fucking straw.
I pull back a little, whisper against his lips. “Can I see it again?”
Randall stops, though he doesn’t remove his hand. “See what?”
I fight to keep my head straight, to keep my lunch down, to remember the plan that sparked moments ago, when he first touched me. The plan that will hopefully, fingers-fucking-crossed, get me out of this mess.
Because there’s no way, no way I’m having sex with this brute.
“The video.”
Randall traces my jaw, tilts my head so he can peer into my eyes. “I know what’s going on here. You think you can make a grab for the phone, maybe get lucky enough to erase it.” He brushes his lips over my forehead. “Don’t play me, bitch.”
“Play you? I’m not, really I’m not.” I try to sound like I’m pleading. Try to pretend I don’t really care. “It’s just that…” I trail off, like what I was about to say is embarrassing. “Never mind.”
But Randall is curious now. He doesn’t like being kept in the dark, and if there’s something going on with the video, he wants to know about it. It is, after all, his insurance policy. “What? It’s just what?”
I close my eyes, worry my lip between my teeth. “Well, um. It’s just that…” I sigh, open my eyes, and meet his heavy-lidded stare. “It totally turned me on.”
He raises his brows, surprised by my admission. So I rush on.
“I’ve never, you now, seen myself like that before. And it was so fucking hot. It made me so….wet.” I reach out, run my hand over chest before sliding it down. When I reach his hard on, I know I’ve won.
Seconds pass, then years. Or, at least, that’s what it feels like.
Everything hinges on me getting that phone.
And then I hope to God it shows what I think it shows.
Randall chuckles, and the hand that’s still between my legs gives one last squeeze before letting go. “Whatever gets you in the mood, baby.”
He hands me the phone, pulls up the video, and hands it to me. Leaning against the house, I slide the bar all the way to the left, so I can start watching from the beginning. I also turn the volume all the way up, so I can catch every single sound.
There’s no room for doubt. I need to be absolutely certain before doing what I’m about to do. So I watch. With bated breath, I watch.
Randall mistakes the intensity of my focus for something it’s not, and resumes his touching, his groping. He thinks I’m turned on and getting more so by watching this…filth. This fucking invasion of my privacy.
I’m hot right now, so hot. But not in the way Randall Beaumont thinks. I’m filled with rage, with indignation, with vengeful thoughts of ramming an exceptionally sharp object into Randall’s crotch over and over and over again until there’s nothing left but a bloody, pulpy mess.
The video ends, Randall’s mouth is suctioned to my neck, and…I smile.
• • •
Randall the Pervert, Randall the Asshole, Randall the Sorry Excuse for a Human Being is nervous.
“You can’t tell that’s me.” I’m still holding his phone, still smiling, when I repeat the words that took the wind out of Randall’s sails.
“Bullshit.” But he’s staring at me like a deer caught in the headlights, and I can’t help but think that he knew this from the start. Knew that there’s not one moment in that entire video where my face isn’t either turned entirely away from the camera or thrown completely in shadow. The bastard was just hoping I’d be too beside myself to notice. “That’s your fucking backyard. How do you explain that?”
He stares me down, tries to appear tough. Yet there’s a tremor in his swagger, a sliver in his smugness that wasn’t there before.
I knit my brows together and frown, like he caught me. “Yep, yep. You’re right about that.” Without warning, I toss his phone back to him, and as he grapples to catch it, I pull mine from my pocket. In a flash, I dial Nicholas and press the speaker button. Voice mail picks up, like I knew it would.
Not that it matters.
This is just for show.
“Hey, babe,” I say. “Just calling to let you know someone broke into our lake house. Don’t worry, I’m okay, I wasn’t here when it happened. I came up to meet with a potential client and found, well, a mess, really. Looks like they came via the lake – I found bottles and wrappers and,” I pause, sigh, “condoms all over our back deck. The cops are taking everything for prints, of course. But they think it was just teenagers, maybe some college students on break having a party. Nothing was taken, but they did break the window on the sliding door. Fortunately, it doesn’t look like they went inside. Weird, right? Of course, they were probably drunk, so…”
Randall’s face, which was tomato red at the beginning of the call, whitens.
I ramble a bit more about the trespassing, and by the time I terminate the call, Randall is fit to be tied. His mouth works, and it takes a few tries before he can muster up words. “You have no idea who you’re messing with. Bitch.”
I smirk. “Coming from you, that’s a compliment. And I think the shoe is on the other foot, here. You don’t know who you’re messing with.” I point at the hidden camera tucked alongside a fake plant next to the door, and Randall, dumbass that he is, looks straight into it. “We have two security cameras on this porch. You come near me again, even attempt to drag my name through the mud, I’ll have you charged with harassment so fast your dick will spin.”
He waves me off. “You mean what just happened here? The only thing that footage will show is a slut enjoying herself.”
I cock my head, arch a brow. “You sure about that?”
Randall certainly doesn’t look sure about that.
“That’s what I thought.” I chuckle, turning for my door. This jackass has wasted enough of my time. “Oh, and if I see you on my property again, if I see you even looking in the direction of my house, I’ll call the cops.”
But just as I’m about to step inside, he calls my name. Playing his last card, he lifts his chin. “Does that boy toy of yours – Ford – know you’re married?”
“Yes,” I say, allowing him one last look. “He does. Met him on Tinder. Said he liked the idea of fucking another man’s wife. It was a one-time thing.” I shake my head, though a new fear has my heart racing in a way it wasn’t before. “So if that’s all you’ve got, you’re fucked. Randall.”