Rise

by Piper Lawson

The reporter’s grin flashed as she made a note on her sheet.

  “I’m giving you the inside track,” I insisted.

  “Because you won’t give me the real inside track.” She leaned in. “What is it? Virtual reality? I heard a rumor that’s the next type of gameplay. Will it be available on the Cobalt platform? Apparently the Titan suite of games is the most popular on the entire site. Membership numbers are exploding.”

  “Glad we could help out our friends at Cobalt. It’s a team effort.”

  In some ways, that deal was my legacy. I’d handed off most of the contracting responsibilities to our new administrative officer. While I was expanding our relationships with Hollywood, Max could focus on his next big game project.

  “Am I interrupting?” Sam pulled up next to the booth at LIVE.

  “Not even.” I reached to tug her into the booth. “My girlfriend, Sam,” I volunteered. “She’s an art professor,” I added.

  Sam rolled her eyes. “Hardly.”

  Since the show at LIVE she’d expanded her website to include both her art styles. Epic had also booked her to do some art for a new superhero film, slated for release a year after Phoenix.

  Clayton, the guy who’d snapped her up for an art show at his Boston gallery after seeing her work at the restaurant, had balked when he’d learned about Sam’s commercial work.

  But when she’d told him he needed to make a decision about the show because she had a line of job offers from Hollywood, he’d fallen in line.

  “Art, huh? You ever do any work with Titan?” the reporter asked.

  “We borrowed her for a few weeks. But she wouldn’t let us keep her. She’s too talented to stay tied down.”

  “I’m emotionally tied down,” Sam tossed back.

  “Aww. That’s cute.” My hand streaked under the edge of her shirt—under the table where no one could see—and my thumb stroked her skin.

  Her eyes brightened, even ask she kicked me under the table. “We are working on a comic book together. Did he tell you that part?”

  I stared at her as the reporter asked, “Really? Is this a new project?”

  Sam winked at me, and my heart expanded in my chest. “It’s had about twelve years of delays,” Sam explained, “but better late than never.”

  Truer words.

  “So,” the reporter started, and I tore my attention away from Sam long enough to meet her gaze. “Any last words for fans waiting for the new movie?”

  There were a few tricks we had up our sleeves, but David would kill me—or sue me—if I let them out.

  “It’s going to be a long ten months. But fans of the franchise are going to love it.” I thanked the reporter and Sam and I shifted out of the booth.

  “Thanks for picking me up at work.”

  “LIVE isn’t your work,” she teased.

  “But I can’t let reporters into Titan HQ.”

  “It’s not a secret fort.”

  “It’s basically a secret fort,” I insisted, following Sam out to my Tesla.

  The car was a step down from the Bentley, but it was still freaking cool. The thing didn’t make a sound and you pretty much saved the planet every time you put it in gear.

  Plus, it meant I could afford to support those scholarships at MassArt, which Sam and I had decided to make together using the auction proceeds in Sam’s mom’s name.

  “How’d you like your afternoon with Payton?” I asked as we slid inside.

  “It was great. We finger painted with Tristan. Or, technically I put water-based paint on his finger and let him smear it on his tray.”

  “You let him paint? You don’t let me paint.”

  “That’s because you’d probably just strip off my clothes and paint all over me, and…” her voice trailed off as she reached for her seatbelt.

  “Not such a bad idea after all, is it?” I started the car and pulled out onto the road. “I don’t suppose you know what day it is.”

  “What day?”

  “It’s our six month anniversary.”

  Her mouth went round. “Six months since we started dating? Wait, are we dating?”

  “I know I’m a good boyfriend. But you are truly a terrible girlfriend.” I switched off the air conditioning, letting the summer breeze blow through the open window.

  “I did warn you,” she tossed back.

  “We’ll work on it.”

  “Wait. If you were being a really good boyfriend, wouldn’t you count from the time we met?”

  “In which case it would be our… twelve-and-a-half-year anniversary?” She laughed. “But we weren’t dating then.”

  “Maybe not. But I loved you then. So that’s got to count for something.”

  I glanced over to see Sam grinning.

  Her shorts left most of her long legs bare. Her T-shirt fell off one shoulder. She looked like some siren sent to tempt weak travelers into selling their souls or their possessions.

  I wanted to give her everything.

  Sam had moved in with me three months ago, and I couldn’t have imagined how good it felt to have her around all the time.

  I cleared my throat. “If it’s our twelve-and-a-half-year anniversary, I’m going to have to step up. All I had for you was flowers.”

  “You better. I’m talking jewelry. Exotic pets. Maybe a small Caribbean island.”

  Partway to our house, I detoured to a park by the river and turned off the car.

  No other cars were in sight. A single jogger made their way past in the distance, but not close enough to see us.

  “What are we doing here?”

  “I did have something for you.” I reached into the glove box and produced a folded sheet of paper.

  “What is it?” she asked, eyes wide.

  “See for yourself.”

  I shifted my seat back, my heart thumping as she opened it.

  “It’s a comic.”

  “Just a few panes.” I tried not to sound nervous as I watched her read it, her lips curving in a half-smile.

  “I love it,” she said, emotion filling her voice.

  “I didn’t know if we were ever going to get a chance to do one together. So I made it myself.” I paused, watching her gaze move over the page again. “I was fucking miserable without you in LA, you know. I actually started thinking I wished you’d tattooed me after all.”

  Her gaze lifted to mine, love and mischief were scrawled on every inch of her face. “I still can.”

  “It’s always good to save something for thirteenth anniversaries,” I reasoned, reaching over to pull her on top of me.

  My fingers stroked up under her shorts and I filled my hands with her ass.

  “How’s this compare to jewelry? Pets? The island?”

  “It’ll do,” she whispered, squirming in my lap.

  When I slipped a finger past her panties and into her wet heat, she moaned.

  “I remember the first time I saw you in shorts like these. I’d wonder what it would be like to touch you. It was all very sweet. Mostly sweet,” I amended. “I’m not sweet anymore.”

  “You can be when you want to be.”

  “I don’t want to be,” I whispered in her ear.

  Epilogue 2

  Sam

  11 months later

  * * *

  “Where’s my tie?”

  “On the chair.”

  “Not that one. My bowtie.”

  I hid the snort as I stuck my head out of the hotel bathroom.

  My boyfriend stood in the middle of the bedroom in shorts and socks, looking perplexed, grumpy…

  And sexy AF.

  I tucked the end of my towel between my boobs, resigning myself to blow-drying my hair after dealing with the current crisis.

  If it was any other guy, I would’ve called him crazy. But for Riley, stressing about things like clothes was how he showed his nerves.

  “You don’t need a bowtie,” I said, stopping in front of him and taking his face between my hands.

  His arc
tic-blue gaze came to land on my face. “What do you mean?”

  “You need to take the edge off.” I rose up on my toes and pulling his mouth down to mine.

  It worked like a charm.

  Riley’s a mouth guy. He likes to talk with it, smile with it, and…

  Yeah.

  The point being, the best way to shut Riley up is to kiss him.

  It’d never been a hardship. Not once in the year-and-a-half we’d been together.

  He lifted me easily, and my greedy hands dug into the muscles of his back as he carried me across the floor until we hit the wall.

  “Good. Idea.” He groaned it in my ear, sending shivers down my spine as I grinned with anticipation.

  Considering my boyfriend spends so much time at a desk, there’s no way he should be this hot. It’s some kind of dark voodoo he cracks up to rock climbing.

  Regardless, I’m just the grateful beneficiary.

  I could barely remember a time before this guy had turned me on.

  How I’d ever walked away from him I’ll never know.

  Actually, that was a lie. I walked away because I’d been hurt. The kind of hurt that’s amplified by teenage drama, hormones, and questioning whether you’d ever be enough for someone who shines so brightly.

  The only thing that could get us past it was time.

  Time, and love.

  I reached for his shorts, managing to shove them down as my towel came off. The white fluffy cotton hung off my body, wedged between us for a moment until with a grunt, Riley threw it to the ground.

  My fist closed around him and I bit my tongue at the feel of his hard length, my thumb wandering to play with the metal ball that blew my mind every time.

  Sometimes I regretted Riley hadn’t been my first.

  But then I remembered he was my first at everything that mattered.

  “Have I told you lately how sexy you are, mi sirena?” he whispered in my ear.

  “Reminders are good,” I moaned.

  He murmured in my ear, and if I was wet before, I was soaked now.

  If it wasn’t enough to be dating a guy who was smart and quirky and charming and—as advertised—never forgot a special occasion? The fact that he was learning Spanish for me clinched it.

  Riley lifted me in his arms, using the wall for balance as he pressed his cock between my legs. He slid inside and we groaned together, a feat made easy not by his size but the fact that I was slippery as hell.

  An alarm went off in the background. “Shit,” I panted. “Max and Payton and Tristan are going to be here soon to pick us up.”

  “I can hurry,” he rasped against my throat. “Can you?”

  I nodded, and when he changed the angle so he ground against my clit, I cried out.

  If I’d known in high school that getting naked with Riley McKay would’ve been this monumental, this physically and emotionally overwhelming, nothing—including the look of horror on his face in the theater that night—would’ve stopped me.

  But sometimes, you need to wait for the things you want. To work for them.

  To build to them…

  My mouth fell open as he filled me, deeper than before. “Shit, that’s good,” I gasped.

  Our hips matched one another’s rhythm, racing to a sweaty finish.

  When we both went over the edge together, we took a second to come down, panting.

  “Your bowtie’s there,” I said, shifting out of his arms and pointing over his shoulder.

  He blinked back at me, clearing his throat. “My what?”

  I smiled as I tugged his lips down on mine. The taste of him was heady and familiar and one hundred percent home.

  “Perfect. We’ve got this.”

  “You realize you can’t change anything now,” I murmured.

  Riley shifted in his tux in the next seat over. “But what if people don’t like it.”

  “It’s gotten great reviews. Rotten Tomatoes is eating this up. And you’re forgetting something.”

  “What’s that.”

  “We’ve seen it and it’s amazing,” I whispered.

  Riley and I had seen the final cut, though it’d been a favor from David who insisted we weren’t supposed to get a sneak peek.

  Max had waited until now to see it, which was testament to the way he’d mellowed since having Tristan. The kid—hard to believe he was more than a year now—bounced happily in Payton’s lap on my other side.

  “You ready for this?” Payton leaned toward me, her voice a conspiring whisper.

  “Do you ever get used to it?” I asked her, taking a moment to look around the theater. There had to be two hundred people there, including most of Titan’s staff, the directors and Epic’s senior management, and of course, the cast headlined by Jane Casey who was all smiles in the front row.

  “Nope.” She shifted her son her in her lap and he beamed at her.

  It was incredible to see their success, and their friendship, evolve. Still, it wasn’t as if Titan’s future in Hollywood was riding on this movie. Riley had already sold options to not one but two other Titan games, and he’d admitted to me last night that Epic was planning to move ahead with an Omega film in the next year.

  Like me, Riley had been through his own shit, and it changed him. Most of the time, it made him better; he didn’t like letting people down, or leaving them behind.

  Yet I’d also witnessed him become more willing to take his own chances. Opening up about what he needed and wanted.

  I’d learned from him too.

  In the past year, I’d started to build a name for myself, both my landscapes and my commercial art.

  I’d always thought falling was too great a risk.

  But really? It depends who you fall with.

  The lights dimmed and Riley’s hand tightened on mine. I glanced over at his profile in the dark. The angles of his hair. The sharp outline of his nose. The full lips, drawn with nerves.

  Excitement raced through every part of me until my skin tingled. “I still can’t believe the premier ended up on my birthday,” I whispered to him.

  “Uh-huh.” He sent me a distracted smile.

  The opening credits started and I felt Riley shift beside me. “Hey Sam?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I have to tell you something.”

  I turned toward him, eyes wide. “It can’t wait?” I murmured, glancing behind us at the next row of VIP’s.

  “No. It can’t.”

  His mouth came down on mine and my brows shot up.

  I couldn’t protest that we were in a public place. Couldn’t do anything but give in to his lips, hard and warm and knowing in a way that made me wet instantly.

  I felt his fingers stroke mine, then…

  Something cold.

  I pulled back, glancing down at my hand.

  It sparkled in the dark.

  My chest tightened, my stomach twisting into knots. “What the hell?”

  I lifted my hand, jaw agape as I took in the giant solitaire.

  Riley’s handsome face looked down intently at me. “I figured if getting you to be my wife was half as hard as getting you to be my girlfriend, I’d have to apply some pressure.” His low voice was warm, filled with love and a hint of uncertainty. “Ring notwithstanding, the final say is still yours.”

  I glanced behind us, realizing everyone in the next row was watching us, not the movie. Not a single person looked annoyed. Behind me, Payton grinned.

  I turned back to see Riley take a breath, bracing himself. From that moment, it was all him. The theater fell away. The lights, the room, the people, the movie we’d both helped make.

  There was only him.

  There’d only ever been him, I realized as I lost myself in the depths of those blue eyes.

  “Sam Martinez. I’ve loved you as long as I can remember. I intend to keep doing that. What do you—”

  “Deal.” I said the word before he could finish, and kissed him before he could breathe.

  I’
m lucky enough to say I’ve been in love not once, but twice.

  When you know there’s someone to help you get up? That’s a fall worth taking.

  Every damned time.

  Ready to get Schooled?

  * * *

  Dylan Cameron is my best friend’s brother.

  The one guy I can never have.

  Too bad he’s irresistible…

  Book 1 in my steamy Travesty series about best friends, big dreams, and the sexy-as-hell guys that get in the way. Over 100,000 copies sold.

  * * *

  Grab Schooled now!

  Thanks for reading Rise! Since I wrote the first scenes of Play (between sassy banker Payton and grumpy gamer Max) more than a year ago, I’ve been wanting to get to Riley.

  I love a good second-chances story, because there are few things that fuck with us like time. Time has the ability to turn us (and others) into heroes or villains, bullies or victims. In time we can learn to accept, to deny, or to regret.

  I wanted Riley and Sam’s story to reflect all of those things, but most of all, I wanted it to be simple and heartfelt and real. Most of us know what it’s like to struggle to come to terms with major events over time. We try to assign blame or reconcile our view of ourselves. We try to cause ourselves pain, or to alleviate it.

  We can also relate to the joy of reconnecting with something you’ve always loved but forgotten. For me, that’s writing. After many years of letting it go and doing things I ‘should do’, I’m so grateful to have it back in my life.

  And for what it’s worth—I really do believe going after what you want is worth the fall. Because that’s what being wonderfully flawed, biased, confused, earnest and human is all about.

  If you want more where this came from, subscribe to my insiders list. You’ll hear about new books, sales, and special deals. Plus, just for subscribing you’ll get an exclusive read: http://eepurl.com/bNQmYT

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