by Marie Force
Last year’s actress winner takes the stage to announce the nominees for Best Actor in a Leading Role. Clips from each actor’s performance are played as their names are read. Flynn appears in a scene from the hospital, half his face burned as he talks another injured warrior out of giving up on his recovery. It is among the most powerful moments in the film, and the crowd in the Dolby Theater gives the scene a huge round of applause.
“And the Oscar goes to… Flynn Godfrey.”
For a brief second, it’s just him and me, caught together in this moment in time, disbelief and amazement reflected in his gorgeous eyes. Then he leans in to kiss me before standing to accept hugs and congratulations from his producing partners and closest friends.
Everyone around us is in tears as we stand and cheer for Flynn.
He goes up the stairs to the stage and accepts the award, hugging the actress who presented it before turning to face the crowd. It takes another full minute for the applause to die down. In that time, Max and Stella appear on one of the screens, both of them smiling and crying and on their feet, applauding for their son.
I hope he’s able to see them from his vantage point on the stage.
“Thank you so much. Thank you.” He glances down at the gold statue in his hand. “Wow. I thought I knew what this might feel like, but apparently, I had no clue. Thank you to the Academy and to everyone involved in the making of Camouflage. We knew from the first time we read the script that this would be a special project. We had no idea how special it would become to all of us, and I’m deeply thankful to the Academy for this award as well as the others you’ve bestowed upon the film tonight. You all know it’s been a wild couple of months for me professionally and personally. I want to thank my friends and colleagues in this room for your unwavering support during the tough times. I’ve seen the heart of this community more in the last few weeks than I have in my entire career before now, and I’m deeply appreciative. To my beautiful, courageous, incredible wife, Natalie, I thank you for showing me what’s really important in this life. I love you so much, sweetheart.” He raises his award over his head. “Thank you again.”
I love that he used the word incredible. Our word. I love that he called me sweetheart for the whole world to hear. He dodges the ushers who want him to head backstage and comes down the stairs to sweep me up into his arms. He’s still holding me when Camouflage wins the award for best picture. Flynn and most of our friends take the stage to receive their awards for producing the film.
As executive producer, Kristian speaks for all of them. “Like Hayden said earlier, it’s been a once-in-a-career honor to bring this special story to life. I know I speak for everyone at Quantum and everyone involved with the film when I say none of us will ever forget this moment. Thank you to the Academy for your recognition of Camouflage, and to our servicemen and women, past, present and future. You have our undying respect and admiration. Thank you again.”
There are photos to be taken, interviews to be given and parties to attend. But after the show ends, Flynn comes down from the stage, an Oscar in each hand, and heads right to me. I wrap my arms around him and hold on tight. We are indeed victorious.
Keep reading for a look at Rapturous, Book 4 in the Quantum Series, featuring Hayden and Addie.
The story begun in Virtuous, Valorous and Victorious picks up on Oscar night after Academy Award-winning director Hayden Roth kisses the woman he desires above all others, even though he knows she can never be his. Addison York craves her boss’s best friend, Hayden, but he has never given her an ounce of encouragement—until tonight when he kissed her after winning the Oscar. Was that kiss the start of something or another in a long line of frustrations where Hayden is concerned? Something is keeping him from acting on the attraction that simmers between them, and Addie is determined to find out what it is. But when she stumbles upon the secret that Hayden, Flynn and her other close friends have kept from her, will she allow hurt feelings to get in the way of true love? When Hayden won’t share his BDSM lifestyle with her, Addie decides to conduct her own research. Will she be intrigued or repulsed? And what will Hayden do when he finds out how she’s been spending her evenings?
Rapturous
CHAPTER 1
Camouflage cleaned up at the Oscars, and Hayden Roth kissed me. I’m not sure which is a bigger deal. We’re surrounded by Oscar gold. Hayden won for Best Director, Flynn for Best Actor, Jasper for cinematography and all the Quantum principals for producing the year’s Best Picture. They are euphoric as they celebrate at one party after another. But all I can think about is that when Hayden won, he kissed me—and he kissed me like he meant it.
He kissed me the way I’ve wanted him to for almost as long as I’ve known him, which is going on ten years now. That’s how long I’ve wanted him. At times, never more so than when he kissed me earlier, I’ve suspected he wants me, too, but neither of us has ever given in to the attraction that simmers between us.
It could be because I work for Flynn, Hayden’s best friend and business partner. Or maybe he thinks I’m too young for him, although seven years isn’t that big of a deal. It’s not like I’m seventeen. I’m twenty-seven and fully grown, but I fear he thinks of me as the little girl I once was and not the woman I’ve become.
Flynn’s wife, Natalie, puts her arm around my shoulders and gives me a squeeze. “Having fun?”
“Absolutely. You?”
“Best night ever. They’re so happy.”
“Flynn is flying high because you’re here, not because of the Oscars.” The two of them are wildly in love, and though I’m thrilled for my friend and boss, I’m envious, too. I want that. I want the connection they have, and I want it with a man who is perpetually unavailable to me.
“I’m so glad he won,” Natalie says. “He deserved it.”
“Yes, he did.” Flynn’s fearless, gutsy performance as a severely injured veteran has been the talk of the award season this year, with a clean sweep of the Golden Globe, SAG, BAFTA and now the Oscar.
Hayden deserves a big chunk of the credit as the director who’d coaxed that gutsy performance from his best friend. The two of them are gold together as evidenced tonight and over the last couple of months.
We’re crammed into a booth at the Vanity Fair party. Hayden is on one side of me, Natalie on the other. The heat of his leg pressed against mine has my full attention, whereas Natalie’s leg on the other side doesn’t do a thing for me, as much as I adore her.
No, Hayden is the one I want, in all his complicated, maddening, sexy, frustrating glory. It has occurred to me often during the years I’ve nursed this impossible crush that I could’ve chosen a far simpler man to worship from afar. I could’ve chosen a man who wasn’t my boss’s best friend and business partner, two things that put me more or less off-limits to him. I could’ve chosen a man with fewer sharp angles and rough edges.
I’m a smart woman, and I’m well aware this fixation I have on such a difficult man isn’t healthy for me. Tell that to the heart that does backflips and handsprings any time he’s in the room, let alone wedged up against me, radiating the kind of heat that has me fantasizing about being naked in a bed with him.
I don’t care if it’s not in my best interest to want him. I don’t care that Flynn probably wouldn’t approve or that Hayden is more secretive than the CIA when it comes to his private life. I don’t care that my dad can’t stand him or that many of the people who work for him live in fear of his unpredictable rages. I don’t care that his family is one of Hollywood’s most dysfunctional—and that’s saying something in this town.
None of that matters. I want him, and after the way he kissed me tonight, I’m on fire with desire and determination. Tonight is the night. When he takes me home later, I’m going to make my move and to hell with the fallout. I’m sick and tired of wishing for something and not doing a damned thing to get what I want. It’s time to put up or shut up.
I groan at my own cliché-ridden thoughts, but this situ
ation has become one giant, ridiculous cliché. If he didn’t want me the way I want him, then why would he have kissed me like a lover when he won the Oscar?
As if he could read my thoughts, Hayden turns away from the conversation he’s been having with Jasper to smile at me. Although, to call the subtle movement of his lips a smile is giving it far too much credit. It’s more like a cocky smirk than an actual smile.
“You okay?” he asks, his usually cold blue eyes gone warm with what might be affection.
I have to resist the urge to sigh with the pleasure of having his undivided attention focused on me for once. “I am. You?”
“Never better,” he says with an honest, genuine smile, so rare and so fleeting that I wish I had my phone ready to record it before it’s gone.
“I’m so thrilled for you guys. I know how hard you worked on Camouflage. You deserve all the awards and accolades.”
“Thank you. I’m rather thrilled myself.”
Hayden is a complicated mix of brilliant and moody, complicated and complex, driven and ambitious, ruthless and loyal. To see euphoria creep into that mix of intense qualities fills me with an unreasonable amount of happiness on his behalf. He works so hard and rarely takes the time to enjoy his success.
In the tight confines of the booth, he somehow manages to raise his arm and lay it across the back of the banquette. One slight move, and that arm could be around me.
I squirm slightly, enough to press against him, jarring his arm. It falls to my shoulders, and I venture a glance at him, surprised to see heat and desire in his eyes that only add to my determination.
The poor bastard has no idea what he’s in for.
I’m dying a slow, miserable, painful death jammed into this fucking booth with Addie’s sweet body squeezed against me, my cock as hard as a freaking rock for her and not a goddamned thing I can do about it. I can’t believe I kissed her when my name was called earlier. I hadn’t planned to do that. In fact, I’d actively planned not to do anything inappropriate where she’s concerned tonight.
Flynn asked me to bring her as my date so she could share in the celebration we had expected for Camouflage. I’d agreed because he’s right—she deserves to be here after the way she supported our entire team during the grueling shoot.
If I’m being honest, I wanted her here for me, too. I like to look at her. I love to breathe in her sexy, alluring scent and fantasize about burying my face in her thick blonde hair while I fuck her. I want to lose myself in her and never come up for air.
But I won’t. I won’t lay a finger on her, as much as it kills me to resist an urge that seems to multiply exponentially every time I’m around her.
I avoid complications the way some people avoid germs. Everything about my obsession with Addison York is complicated. Other than the fact that Flynn would fucking kill me if I so much as look at her cross-eyed—and that’s not an insignificant other than—she deserves much better than me.
She should be cherished, not tied in my web of ropes and fucked to within an inch of her life, which is exactly what would happen if I ever let my inner beast run free with her. That’s not going to happen.
Now if only my fucking cock could get the message and stand the hell down, I might actually be able to enjoy this incredible night. It’s not happening with her, no matter how badly I might wish otherwise. I repeat this refrain to myself over and over again, but when she snuggles into my embrace, laying her head on my chest, my cock tells me to fuck off.
I look to my left to find Flynn eyeing me with an astute look that tells me I’m not fooling him by trying act like I don’t care that Addie is lying all over me. I care. I fucking care way more than I should, and Flynn knows it, even if I’ve never acknowledged his suspicions about my feelings for her.
He called me out on it recently, going so far as to insinuate that I’m in love with her. I did what I always do when my name and Addie’s are mentioned in the same sentence—I denied it. What else can I do? Everyone loves Addie, and the last thing I need is my closest friends and business partners turning against me when I fuck things up and hurt her.
Because I would fuck it up—and I would hurt her. I have no doubt at all about that, which is one of the many reasons I keep my distance. Or I usually keep my distance. With her body pressed against mine, I allow my hand to curl around her shoulder, enjoying the rare lack of distance.
I instantly realize I’ve made a huge mistake by touching her.
Dear God… Her skin is like silk, soft and smooth. One touch will never be enough. And was that… Fucking hell, she moaned. I have to get out of here. I have to get away from her and the wicked temptation she represents. Except I can’t move a fucking muscle with our whole crew crammed into this goddamned booth.
Not to mention, I’m so hard that there’s no way to escape without giving myself away to Addie and everyone else in the room. FUCK! I break out in a cold sweat. Then her hand lands on my abdomen, and I nearly lose my shit.
“Move,” I growl to Jasper, who’s next to me.
“What?” he yells over the loud music and voices.
“I need to take a leak.”
“Oh, okay. Let Hayden out, you guys,” he says to Kristian and Marlowe.
“Be right back,” I mutter to Addie. Jarred by my sudden movement, she sits up, a stunned expression on her face—as if she just realized she was all but lying on me. Not that I minded. I didn’t mind. In fact, I loved it a little too much. As I slide out of the booth, I remove my tuxedo jacket and fold it over my arm, hoping it will hide my raging “problem.”
I’m reminded of eighth grade science class, when I popped a boner for my lab partner, Jamie, when we were presenting our findings in front of the class. She had the best rack of any girl in our grade, and I was hard for her for a solid year. I swore that everyone must’ve noticed, but no one ever said anything—and they would have if they’d seen it. I never forgot how humiliating it had been to realize in that moment that I had absolutely no control over what my dick chose to get hard over.
As an adult, I’ve devoted a lot of time and energy to the concept of control. So it’s galling, to say the least, to lose control the way I have twice tonight.
I can’t remember the last time any woman made me sweat just by sitting next to me in a booth. I’m a fucking Dom, for Christ’s sake. My control is legendary. Except, apparently, when Addison York is pressed against me.
With my jacket still strategically positioned, I make my way through the crowded room, accepting handshakes and congratulations from colleagues on the way to the men’s room. Once there, I lock myself in a stall, hang the jacket from the hook on the back of the door and lean my head against the cool metal.
Get it together, will you?
I want to pound the shit out of the stall. Anything to rid myself of the frustration and desire that possesses me like a demon I just can’t shake no matter how hard I try. What the fuck had I been thinking when I kissed her? I hadn’t been thinking. I’d just acted. In the biggest moment of my career, I took what I’ve wanted for as long as I can remember. I took her. I took Addie…
I fumble with my belt and the irritating buttons and hooks on my tuxedo pants, nearly swearing out loud at how cumbersome the process is. Then my cock springs free, hot and hard. I take myself in hand, looking for some relief from the most painful desire I’ve ever experienced.
I cannot have her. I will not have her. I cannot have her. I will not have her.
The thoughts parade through my mind as I relive that kiss, that one fleeting, magical moment in which I had absolutely everything I ever wanted—the ultimate career success and the woman I love. Fuck…
Hearing voices outside the stall, I bite back a moan. I’ve never admitted to anyone—even myself—that I love her. Motherfucking hell… I can’t love her. I cannot. I will not. I grip my cock so hard that it hurts. Part of me can’t believe I’m actually doing this here, a heartbeat away from colleagues and paparazzi, but I can’t stop what she s
tarted in that booth.
I can’t control that which cannot be controlled. I love her. I want her. I need her. I can’t have her. From deep within my sex-addled brain, I have the foresight to reach for my handkerchief in the seconds before I come. Every muscle in my body participates in the soul-cleansing release. The relief is immediate and overwhelming.
Breathing hard, I close my eyes and stay perfectly still, letting the oxygen feed my starving muscles. I stand there until my cock begins to finally retreat, satisfied for now. With shaking hands, I clean myself up and knot the soiled cloth into a tight wad that I store in the pocket of my jacket.
I know better than to dispose of a cloth full of my DNA that also bears my initials in a public restroom at a Hollywood event. Such is the life of a celebrity. “Leave nothing behind” is one of our mottos.
I give myself another five minutes to calm down before I take the leak I came in here for. I restore my clothes and inhale a series of deep breaths, determined to get through the rest of this night, to get her home and then head for Club Quantum, where I’ll find someone who can help me to slake the need she stirs in me.
I emerge from the stall to an empty room. Thank God for small favors. I wash my hands and splash cold water on my face, mopping it up with the towel the attendant hands me. I suspect he knows exactly what I just did.
Whatever. With the evidence tucked away in my pocket, let him try to prove it.
I’m heading for the door when Flynn comes in, placing a hand on my chest to move me backward into the room.
“We need to talk.”
“No, we don’t.”
“Yes, we do!” Thankfully, he keeps his voice down. “So this thing with Addie… It’s happening?”
“No, it’s not happening.”
