I was obsessing,yes.
Not about what Summer had said, exactly. She’d been known to encourage me to have sex with pretty much every semi-attractive male who happened across my path since the day I met her, over five years ago now. Including the ones I was never, ever going to have sex with, such as Zane, Dylan, Brody and Jude, men who were far more family to me than potential fuckmates—no matter how attractive theywere.
It was about the fact that, for once, I actuallywantedthe man inquestion.
Badly.
And that was a bad idea. Kinda like Ash had been a bad idea… though for differentreasons.
This, in fact, was a worseidea.
Far, farworse.
So why wasn’t that stoppingme?
Why was I climbing out of bed, pulling on a T-shirt and panties and creeping down the stairs, as quietly as I could, like some high school girl sneaking out to bone her hot college boyfriend? There wasn’t even anyone in thehouse.
I did not yet know what I was doing, other than walking the line… or wobbling over it, half-drunk and horny. I was going to stand in the living room and gaze out the window at the cottage where Seth slept like some fucking lame-ass stalker, and then I was gonna decide what todo.
And that’s what Idid.
I stood there in the dark, looking out at the lanterns dangling on his patio, aglow in the night. I pictured myself turning around, going right back upstairs, getting into bed and going to sleep. Waking up tomorrow with not one thingchanged.
Instead, I drifted outside. Right through the non-existent wall, where the living room flowed out onto the patio, and down the little stone path that connected the big house to the guest cottages. Hoping and praying the entire way that I didn’t run into Flynn on his nocturnal rounds. He’d probably think I was some paparazzo intruder and brain me with the barrel of hisgun.
I stood in the glow of the lanterns on Seth’s patio and looked around. The doors to Flynn’s cottage and Joanie’s were closed, but they were only screen doors. There was no sound but the wind in the trees, the faint roar of the ocean. At least I was lit up here, my platinum hair a dead giveaway in the lantern light; no way Flynn would accidentally shoot me. Though I would have to explain what I was doing here, stalkingSeth.
No; fuck that. I didn’t have to explain shit to Flynn. He worked for me,right?
So why was I so fucking nervous about gettingcaught?
Because this iswrong.
Because you shouldn’t be doingthis.
Because fucking around with Seth would be selfish andstupid.
While I was telling myself all of this, I tried his door. It was a sliding screen with a billowy curtain fluttering on the inside. It was unlocked, but I didn’t slide itopen.
Instead, Ihesitated.
I pictured what would happen if I wentinside.
Seth was of course sleeping; it was the middle of the night. He was lying on his bed, maybe naked, maybe draped in a sheet. As I approached, he woke up. He saw me. Maybe he said my name, with a question mark at the end of it. He watched as I slipped off my shirt. Then I slid into bed with him in mypanties.
And no, he did not kick meout.
I took a breath. My heart wasracing.
Christ, was there something wrong withme?
I turned and hightailed it back to the house, ran straight up the stairs, closed myself in my bedroom, and flopped intobed.
I’d promised myself, after Jesse, I wasn’t going to dothis.
I’d sworn to myself, up and down:No more rockstars.
Before Jesse, I’d had several other boyfriends—men who were in no way involved with the music industry. Smart, classy, stable men. Men who had money and a life of their own, but who treated me well. Like gold,actually.
