19
CALLAN
Mornings are much more pleasant when you wake up with your best girl’s head tucked into your chest. Merc was already up—he jogged and did all manner of exercise way too early in the damn day—and Foster was sleeping on Adrianne’s other side.
We didn’t often sleep all in the same bed, but there was no separating us last night. We’d piled into Adrianne’s bed and slept in a tangle. On top of that, I definitely didn’t mind waking up like this. “You’re staring,” came Adrianne’s sleepy voice. Her eyes were still closed, but her body was no longer lax with sleep. How she knew that I was staring, I could only guess.
I smiled. “Can you blame me? It’s a pretty damn good view.” She laughed and nudged me. her warm eyes opened and met mine. “How are you feeling?” I asked. “Last night was... intense.”
Adrianne snuggled in closer. “It was perfect,” she corrected. “I’m perfect.” She pushed herself up onto her elbow. “Ethan asked me the same thing last night, whether I was okay.”
“We know that it can be intense, doing something like that,” I said. “Laura was never truly comfortable with all of us at once, to be honest. It was overwhelming for her, and we just want to make sure that it wasn’t for you.”
She thought about it for a moment. “It was overwhelming,” she decided, and my heart sank like a stone. “Having all of your attention is like being in a hurricane of sensations.”
“Adrianne, I’m so so—”
She put a finger to my lips. “That’s not to say,” she added, “that I didn’tthoroughlyenjoy myself because I did.”
I smirked behind the pad of her finger before kissing it. “Enough to do it again sometime?”
She pulled her finger away and replaced it with her mouth. It was a glancing kiss, a “good morning,” but it was enough to make my blood surge all the same. Would Ieverget tired of touching her? I hoped not.
“I would be an idiot to say that a night like last night would never happen again,” she said, “but would it be wrong to say that I would rather keep that to be a special thing? I don’t want to give up my individual time with you all.”
I shook my head. “I can promise you that it won’t happen,” I said. “We all like having you to ourselves too much.” I brushed my mouth to hers again, and then because I could, I trailed those kisses down her throat. “Speaking of...” I waggled my eyebrows at her, and she laughed.
“Should we wake him?” Adrianne asked, indicating the sleeping blond beside her.
I snorted. “Do you have a trough of coffee ready? Because I would advise waiting if not.” She giggled and then seemed to come to a horrifying realization. “What's wrong?”
“I'm not supposed to have caffeine,” she said mournfully. Her face was a mask of grief, like she’d just gotten the news that someone had died.
But considering how much Starbucks I’d seen this woman consume since we first met, this was devastating news. “I'm sure we can find you some caffeine-free alternatives.”
Foster shuddered and rolled to face them. “That ishardlythe same,” he griped.
Nice going, dickweed, I thought and glared at him. “Maybe you can give up coffee with her?” I suggested.
“Oh, no, I could never ask him to do that,” Adrianne said, but she looked at him with these puppy dog eyes that I couldn't turn down if I tried.
“Fuck you, Callan,” Foster seethed, but then his eye landed on her and he melted. Just like I knew he would. “Of course I will give up coffee with you, Princess.”
She rolled into his arms. “You're so sweet.”
Foster glared at me over her shoulder. If I was lucky, the worst that he would do was shave my eyebrows while I slept. “That's me,” he said and dropped a kiss on her shoulder. “Sweet.”
We got up and dressed. Foster and I shaved side-by-side in the bathroom, and Adrianne watched us with a fascination that neither of us could understand. When moments later, she practically climbed into the bathroom sink to put her makeup on, we couldn’t look away. There was something so intimate about seeing the way she got ready, like we were seeing from behind the curtain. “Should we wait for Ethan before we go to breakfast?” Adrianne asked when she’d finished.
“Nah, he'll know where to find us,” I said. We'd only been going to the hotel's restaurant for breakfast since we arrived. Adrianne liked their eggs, and it was a nice way to have a central meeting place to talk through the day.
We swung the door open, and on a silver platter on the ground was a letter with her name scrawled across the envelope. I bent down and picked it up and opened it. Inside the envelope was a letter, and when I pulled it out and opened it, a picture fluttered to the ground. Adrianne went for the picture as I scanned the letter.
The letter, simply put, was a nasty piece of work. It accused Adrianne ofbesmirching Dr. Falconi and the love that she bore for the late Dr. Rutledge. It would be utterly ridiculous if it didn’t also threaten her. It heeded her to “walk away before there are dire consequences for your harlotry.”
“Callan?” Adrianne’s voice was thick, and I looked at her. She handed me the picture that had been tucked inside the letter. It was a shot of Adrianne on her knees in front of me, her mouth stretched open on my cock. The surroundings were... horrifyingly familiar. It was from that day in Coober Pedy.
The picture on its own was good blackmail, but the letter didn’t mention wanting money. All it demanded was that she walk away from the movie and renounce her role as Dr. Falconi so as to better “preserve” the integrity of the character.