Page 23 of Anger Bang
He hooked a finger under her chin and tipped her face so she had to look him in the eye. “And here?”
Oh, God. The man could be wearing a burlap bag and she wouldn’t be able to avert her eyes.
Do not say that out loud, Thea! Try to maintain a little bit of dignity here.
Luckily for Thea, a group of crew members picked that moment to show up, saving her from herself.
“All right, people, we gotta take some group shots for the socials, and then it’s lights, camera, action,” said Justine, the producer, looking way too comfortable in her hiking boots, T-shirt, and loose-fitting khakis. Her attention landed on Kade and Thea. “You two, in the center.”
Everyone stopped and turned to look at Thea and Kade. They were not friendly, happy looks. Thea’s gut dropped. Kade intertwined his fingers with hers and squeezed her hand.
Thea looked around, swallowing past the lump of oh-fuck clogging her throat. “Shouldn’t that be Jackie and Dex?”
“They’ll be in the chairs right in front of you,” Justine said, not looking up from her phone. “We let the live stream viewers pick the photo arrangement. They wanted you two in the middle.”
“Let’s just do it and get it over with,” Kade said as he put on his baseball cap, a grim expression on his face.
“Going along to get along?” she asked. “Don’t tell me you’re a fan of the fawn response.”
He flashed that crooked grin of his at her and wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her against his side. “Figure the sooner we’re done, the sooner we can get back to our experiment. Are we trying fast or slow today? We really should have made a schedule.”
The flush of desire he invoked was almost enough to negate the sea of acid swishing in her stomach from a mix of guilt and embarrassment as they walked over to their spot behind Jackie and Dex. If she’d been in court, she would have testified that everyone around them could take one look at her and know exactly what she was thinking, what she’d done last night, and how much she was looking forward to doing even more. Dr. Kowecki would no doubt tell her that she was overthinking things, and she wouldn’t be wrong. They were surrounded by people intent on being the center of attention. The last thing the group of actors was probably thinking about as they turned it on for the cameras was Thea.
Still, she couldn’t seem to shut off her brain, even with all of the images Kade had inspired last night that had led to a very sleepless, hot-and-bothered kind of night. What if someone noticed?
“Careful there, Dr. Dino,” Kade murmured, his palm settling on the small of her back, making her skin sizzle with desire. “I wouldn’t want to have to kiss that shocked look right off your face in front of everyone.”
Oh God, she wanted that and she didn’t—she just didn’t know a damn thing anymore.
Pulling herself together, she whispered back, “No more kissing, remember?”
His hand slid lower until he was cupping her ass. “I’ll make up for it in orgasms.”
Whatever she was going to say to that—what could she?—was silenced by the on-set photographer, who started telling everyone to give him happy, give him thrilled, give him the best time of their lives.
“And since you were curious,” Kade said, leaning down so his lips brushed the sensitive shell of her ear while the photographer clicked away at his shutter. “I went commando.”
Chapter Ten
Never in his life had Kade ever worried about flashing his nuts. Then again, he’d never worn anything this fucking short in his entire life. Chafing was a serious concern. It would have been a damn tragedy if the mandatory wedding fun hike had been an actual one. Instead, it was a made-for-Instagram quick trip up a well-worn trail to Black Bear Brewery.
The bridesmaids had been ordered to hang together toward the front, leaving Kade to spend the half-hour walk watching Thea from behind. It was not a hardship.
The woman had a great ass.
But he also clocked the cameras zoomed in on his reaction to her. Fuckers.
For him, this was all about figuring out whether he wanted to draw out her next orgasm like a slow build that finally broke like a summer storm or if he should make it hard and out of nowhere, because both would be fun as hell and the perfect way to spend a week that otherwise was a slice of pure evil.
For the production crew, however, the hike and the attention on Thea and him were all about the live-stream ratings and that sweet sweet ad money. Kade was about ready to drop the “Do I not entertain you” line when his internal oh-shit alert went off.
He was scanning the woods for a bear or another attacker and nearly missed it when Dex veered around the bridesmaids, bypassed his bride, and—under the watchful lens of the live-streaming camera—hustled over to a dark-haired woman standing on the brewery’s pine front porch and threw his arms around her in a massive bear hug before picking her up and swinging her around.
Kade stopped dead in his tracks, his whole body going numb.
Even after fifteen years, Elenore St. James still looked almost the same as she did the last time he’d seen her. The same dark hair that matched his and Dex’s, now mixed with some gray. The same blue eyes that, when focused on a person, made them feel like they were the only soul in the world who mattered. But her smile when she turned it on him at that moment? It was the same—exactly the same hesitant, hopeful smile he remembered. It was the one that would widen and fill the person she was smiling at with enough sunshine that they’d forget there had ever been gray days—unless, of course, that person was Kade.
He knew better.
