I’d never thought about what it might be like to wake up in Pierre’s bed.
Seriously.
I mean, I knew what sex with him was like, so there was nothing unexpected – in the best possible way – there. I’d spent the whole rest of our shooting day anticipating it, just knowing I’d have orgasms pulled out of me until I was weak and couldn’t keep my eyes open.
He’d delivered on that.
Just like he had before.
This… was a bit different though.
Waking up with his face tucked against the back of my head, his arms around my waist keeping me close, his dick hard and pressing into my skin just waiting for one of us to acknowledge it this morning.
It was dreamy sigh inducing.
I hadn’t had the imagination to conjure up how perfect and completely natural such a thing would feel.
How good.
I was still marveling over that when he stirred, and we were suddenly just… skin on skin.
Another thing that was completely outside of my norm.
Sleeping naked was just not my preference, but I don’t know.... Maybe it just wasn’t my preference alone, or with Les.
I did know that when I tried to leave his bed in the early hours of the morning to slip on the pajamas from my overnight bag, he’d grabbed me by the wrist, pulling me right back into him. “Nah, shorty. Your pajamas aren’t welcome in here.”
Why had that made me so wet?
And he was doing it again now, arousing me with very minimal effort. My eyes were still closed, but I smiled at the feeling of him pressing a kiss to the back of my neck, then another and another, and then that hand around my waist was slipping lower. Between my legs, to play.
And just like that, we were at it again.
He pulled just my hips backward, putting me at the right angle to lift my leg and slide inside of me. I was already sore and overworked down there, but the pleasure of it all quickly overrode the discomfort as he took me with slow, deep strokes, peppering soft kisses over my shoulders and neck.
Why didn’t we do this sooner?
Pierre had this remarkable flair for making me feel like the easiest lay ever. What had been so difficult for others – and hell sometimes myself if I wasn’t in the right frame of mind – he made happen like it was nothing.
“What is your fine ass trying to do to me?” whispered in his extra-deep early morning rasp, right in my ear while he was balls deep inside me seemed to be today’s particular trigger.
The very next thing I knew, my thighs were shaking, body tensing as I came hard, barely registering his final stroke and release a few moments later.
What was he trying to do to me?
Once I’d caught my breath, I turned over onto my back so I could see his face.
Handsome as ever.
“Good morning,” he murmured, reaching out to caress my face with a smirk that incited the most powerful urge to climb on top and ride him. But with what he’d just done… I was pretty sure we were both fully out of commission for a bit.
“Good morning to you, too,” I answered back. “I see you have no plans to let up on my IUD,” I laughed. “Which I do have, by the way, in case birth control has crossed your mind any of the times we haven’t bothered with a condom.”
I don’t know what I was expecting as his response, but a full, belly laugh would never have been it, if someone had asked me to guess.
“Logan, come on. Yes, I should have asked, but… we both know I didn’t have to.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I know your ass wasn’t taking any chances with an unexpected baby,” he chuckled. “I’m guessing you’ve got at least two period apps on your phone, plus some kind of tracking in your regular calendar. Not to mention, I’m sure you keep it in your head too. You’ve probably got a gynecologist a phone call away for any possible emergencies or questions. All that on top of your birth control. Am I wrong?”
I sucked my teeth. “It’s only one app to track my period,” I corrected him. “And… a color-coded dot in my regular calendar. So?”
“I’m not ragging on you about it shorty,” he laughed. “I’m just saying… a long time ago, I remembered hearing something from Nubia’s mom. She wasn’t talking to me, but I heard it. Anytime you spread those little skinny legs, you need to decide whether you trying to get pregnant or trying not to get pregnant. Ain’t no in between, ain’t no caught up in the moment. You either trying to or trying not,” he said, hilariously shifting his voice into a bad caricature of an older woman. “Now,” he said in his regular voice, “I’m not saying I feel like it just a woman’s responsibility to take care of something like that. It’s on everybody involved. But with that said… from the very first time I laid eyes on you, it was quite obvious to me that you are a trying not to get pregnant kind of woman.”
I kinda wanted to be mad at that, but I also kinda… couldn’t.
My mother had a similar conversation with me, when I was heading off to college, which was presumably where Nubia was headed when she and her mother had that conversation Pierre had overheard.
We’d obviously already had all the basic sex conversations, but I wasn’t doing much in high school to have any sort of practical experience. Knowing how that might change once I was off at college, she taught me about what to look for in terms of the normal discharge that meant I was ovulating, making absolutely sure to avoid those days since they represented the worst risk of unplanned pregnancy, and then still being protected the other times.
It wasn’t until I got very serious with Les that I had shifted to needing all-the-time birth control, not just condoms, which neither of us wanted to use anyway. Back then, we were going at it like rabbits, and we needed certainty that we weren’t making a baby.
It was much less necessary by the time I came to the realization that the relationship was over.
In any case, Pierre wasn’t wrong, but a lack of conversation about this was still irresponsible. Unplanned babies weren’t the only concern if we were gonna keep having unprotected sex. He and Les were the only people I’d had sex with in the last seven years, so the chances of me giving him anything requiring an antibiotic were low.
Him on the other hand…
“Were you sleeping with Sienna?” I asked, which instantly sucked any humor out of our conversation.
He looked at me, eyebrow raised, then nodded. “A long time ago, yes. Recently? No. Not since I moved to Blackwood.”
Meaning not since before rehab.
“So… that day I found her over here prancing around in her panties like she owned the place… you just let me believe you were fucking her?” I asked. “For what?”
“Man, you came in my spot wearing ol’ boy’s bracelet… well what I thought was ol’ boy’s bracelet… and I don’t know. I lost my head a little.”
“What is it about that damn bracelet?” I laughed. “You asked about it, he asked about it. I put it on and y’all just go straight to caveman mode?”
“I didn’t say I was proud of it,” Pierre admitted. “I wanted you, it seemed like he had you, and I didn’t know what to do with that feeling. But… since we’re just being upfront and asking, did you and him…?”
I cringed. “No, never.”
“Good.”
“Good?”
“Yeah,” he answered. “That means I can continue to have zero qualms about doing this.”
This being spreading my legs open to put his face between them.
And there I was thinking I didn’t have it in me to cum again.
“Okay, so I’ve reviewed Sienna’s contract and her NDA,” Des said, putting a copy of both documents on the conference room table.
Nubia had flown in this morning, and Chloe had just sent along suggestions, since it was such short notice that she couldn’t make it.
Between the four of us, we were going to get this figured out.
“So it doesn’t appear that she overtly violated her NDA, since it’s pretty specific to the show. No discussion of script content, the actors, none of that. The pictures were from six or seven years ago, so they’re outside of the scope of the legal documents too. So from that standpoint, we really can’t do anything about it. Even if she decides to keep talking or releasing pictures.”
I let out a huff of air, frustrated as much of my we can do it energy melted away.
“That’s just from a legal standpoint though,” Des quickly assured, and Nubia and I both sat up a little taller. “It just means we can’t sue her for it. For now, we’ll see if this was just a one-off moment of craziness for Miss Sparks. She can have that one. If she says anything more, we become a source of our own.”
Ah.
I should’ve known Des would come with it.
“I draw the line at revenge porn,” she continued, “So I would never release any of the several sex tapes and nude pictures between her and a frankly frightening number of married high-profile men. I’m currently not above letting the world know that that these affairs happened and are happening, and letting the public do what it will with that information – especially since she’s been so vocal about the last few celebrity cheating scandals,” she said. “It’s all very hypocritical.” She put a folder down on the table, then pulled out another. “There’s also lawsuits and affidavits against Miss Sparks for copyright infringement, plagiarism, workplace safety violations – not a very good boss, it seems. And, it seems she has a bit of a nose candy habit, and a couple stints in rehab herself. But I’m going to presume that we’re calling those things off limits as well correct?”
Damn.
I knew Des was formidable, but I didn’t know she’d be able to get her hands on all this.
“Yeah,” I nodded. “Pierre would never want to use that against someone in his defense. But the fact that she’s a skank and a liar, and doesn’t treat her employees well, all of that is fair game.”
Des smiled. “Very good.”
“So we’re covered on offense, if it comes to that point,” Nubia spoke up. “On defense – which I hate to even call it, but here we are – Chloe thinks we’re going to have to pull P out of his comfort zone, and let people get to know him. It’s going to be a bit of a hard sell, but… I think she’s right.”
“I think as long as he’s able to mostly maintain his privacy, he’ll be acceptant of it,” I said. “On the surface, yes, of course, he wants the show to be a success. But I believe he also wants to change the narrative his past has created, and be known for his own talents and passions, not just someone with famous family members. It’s more important to him than I think he even realizes.”
“Then yeah, he’s definitely going to have to show himself,” Des said. “Nothing stops a negative narrative in its tracks quite as well.”
“I know that from unfortunate experience,” Nubia laughed. “Chloe has some practical steps that can be put in place, starting with him actually posting on social media. It can still be show-focused – a sneak peek at a page of script, a quick picture of the lighting rigs, stuff like that, that’s of interest to him. And then other stuff – his shoes for the day, his lunch, what he’s listening to in the car, stuff like that. And, occasionally, that gorgeous Perry family face,” Nubia teased. “It makes him real, and relatable. And seeing him healthy, and working, and oblivious to the bullshit… like Desiree said – perfect way to stop a false narrative.”
“I’ll convince him,” I nodded, looking between the two of them. “If nothing else, I’ll get his phone and take the damn pictures myself.”
Nubia’s eyes went wide. “You think he’ll let you do that?”
“Oh definitely,” Des answered, before I could, obviously not thinking about how intimate it might make Pierre and I sound.
Not that it was inaccurate, but Nubia didn’t need to know that.
“Oh,” she said, catching it immediately. “I feel like the two of you know something I don’t – that sounds very sure.”
“She just means that Pierre trusts me pretty well with these things related to… all this,” I tried to cover. “You know he has a Sugar&Spice feature coming very soon, that he let me arrange for him.”
Nubia’s eyebrow went up. “Yeah… I was at the photoshoot, I remember.”
“Right. Of course,” I nodded. “Well… like I said, I’ll talk to him about these things, and we’ll hope for the best. That there’s no drastic measures we need to take.”
Trying to help rescue me, Des stood, gathering her materials. “If that’s all, I do have another meeting – y’all keep me posted, and I’ll have my eye on Miss Sparks. I’m ready to turn the fire up on that one at any moment.”
With that, we all started packing up, for a meeting that should’ve been over. I was sure Nubia had other things to do, and I was supposed to be heading to set.
I should’ve known that was too easy.
“Not so fast, young Ms. Byers,” Nubia called after me, as I tried to escape the room. I froze, taking a deep breath before I turned to face her. “So… I see I was right about welcoming you into the family, huh?”
My eyes bugged open.
Just like the first time she’d said that to me.
“Mrs.-”
“Nope. Nubia.”
I let out a breath. “Nubia. I… umm…”
“Girl, relax,” she chucked, letting the frown she’d been wearing slip into a smile. “Pierre is a grown man and you are a grown woman. Why are you acting like you’ve been called to the principal’s office?”
“Well, I… I just… it’s not what you hired me for,” I finally managed to say.
“No, definitely not,” she laughed. “But… to let you in on a little secret… after seeing the way y’all work together – seeing how much Pierre has thrived with you at his side professionally… I may or may not have hoped something like this might happen.” She shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a romantic.”
My shoulders sank in relief at hearing that, but still… “It’s not really ideal, though.”
“I can imagine not… since you’re coming out of a pretty serious, long term relationship, right?”
I nodded. “Yeah. And I’m not… I don’t… me and Pierre… I don’t know what it is, quite yet.”
“I’m sure you know you don’t have to, right?” Nubia asked, hooking her bag over her shoulder as she approached the door. “That it’s okay to start without knowing the end?”
I smiled. “That sounds like very experience-based wisdom.”
“Because it is,” Nubia confirmed. “I never, never, would’ve thought Stephen Foster would be my… anything beyond a great fuck,” she laughed. “Now? He’s everything to me. I’m not saying that’s definitely what’s going to happen with you and Pierre, because I have no idea. The man I thought would be my forever ended up being very temporary, so it’s hard to know. But it’s a good thing that, like I said… you don’t have to. Just enjoy it for what it is.”
With Nubia and Des having shared that same sentiment with me, it was hard to not take it to heart. In fact, it stayed on my mind long after I’d stopped by Pierre’s office to regroup and then headed back downstairs to make my way to the set… then turned right back around to get back on the elevator to head to the legal department.
There was something I needed to handle.
I felt a bit bad for popping up on him at work, but since Anthony never seemed to have similar reservations… whatever. His overly eager intern showed me straight to his office, where he looked up from whatever he was working on to greet me with a smile when I stepped into his doorway.
“Logan. This is quite a pleasant surprise,” he said, pushing up from his chair.
I closed the door behind me, staying near it instead of stepping into his arms for the hug he was offering. “I’m… afraid it may not stay that way very long.”
His eyebrows went up as he dropped his arms. “Oh?”
“Anthony… you’ve been nothing but generous, and affectionate, and kind to me, so I won’t insult you by beating around the bush – this isn’t going to work. My heart isn’t in it, and I don’t want to waste your time by having you think we’re working towards some mutual goal when we aren’t. But I really do wish you the very best.”
He scrubbed a hand over his head. “Um… wow,” he huffed. “That might be the most polished kiss-off I’ve ever gotten.”
“I’m sorry if this feels impersonal, I’ve just… thought about it a lot. And I don’t have any interest in offending you or having this become some ugly thing where we have to avoid each other in the halls. I was hoping that since we’d only seen each other a few times, there was no reason for this to be anything other than amicable.”
Anthony shook his head. “No, I’ve got no issue with that, at all. I’m a bit surprised to hear you say that, actually. I was thinking I may have said too much to your boss yesterday in his office.”
I resisted the urge to correct the notion that Pierre was my boss, to instead focus on, “What? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“It was before you walked in,” he explained. “I was talking too much and I thought he might’ve repeated some of it back to you.”
“You said something bad about me to him?” I asked, incredulous, but he shook his head again.
“No, not bad. Just… not great. I guess it doesn’t matter anymore, so I can just tell you,” he chuckled. “I really was interested in you for you, but… I was also interested in the fact that you were a Byers.”
So I wasn’t imagining that shit.
“Wow. No, he… didn’t say a word to me about that,” I told Anthony. But it did shed some light on how Pierre had spoken about him after.
That whole right next to the flowers thing.
“So… what, you were using me to… be connected with the firm? With my father?” I asked, still trying to figure out what the end goal for him was. “Because you could’ve just asked me.”
Hearing that seemed to really hurt, if the disappointment in his eyes before his head dropped was any indication. “Right. I guess I’m just not used to things working in my favor when I use a direct approach.”
“Maybe in other cases, that was true,” I agreed. “But personally… I love candor. I know the reputation for attorneys is sneakiness and manipulation, but I promise, you do not have to lean into that.”
Anthony gave me a nod, and a bit of a smile, though I could tell I’d probably ruined his day. “Thank you, Ms. Byers. I will definitely take that under advisement.”
I had no problems taking a hint.
The clear energy shift told me I was dismissed, and I couldn’t blame him. I turned to leave, but before I was gone, I couldn’t resist poking my head back in the door.
“Hey.”
He looked up with heavy eyes. “Yes?”
“I’ll talk to my father for you, okay? He’ll be in touch.”
“What?!” he asked, practically springing off the desk. “You’re serious? You’d do that for me?”
I shrugged. “You need a mentor, he needs a mentee, and it’s surely not going to be me, so… it may as well be someone who really wants it.”
“I… shit…,” he said, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I don’t even know… thank you,” he said, stepping through the door to hug me, which I accepted this time.
“Like I said,” I told him as I slipped away, then moved to leave. “You really could’ve just asked.”
I felt a lot better – a lot less guilty – about breaking things off as I headed back downstairs to finally make my way to the ODS set. Knowing he had some ulterior motives helped, and the promise to put him in touch with my father did the rest of the heavy lifting where that was concerned, to the point that I felt free as a bird by the time I walked up to Pierre and Nick mid-scene.
I didn’t interrupt, waiting until their natural break before I offered any greetings. There was the usual handshake between me and Nick, and Pierre and I usually didn’t touch each other.
Today, he grabbed my hand, pulling me much too close for the intimacy to not be obvious to anyone watching – it didn’t seem like he cared about that though.
“How was the meeting?” he asked, referring to the one between me, Des, and Nubia.
“It was fine,” I told him, taking a step back. “We can talk more in detail about it later. Alone.”
He nodded. “Okay. Why’re you running from me though?” he asked, with a confused smile.
“This is an incredibly public place,” I responded, returning his smile as I slipped my hand from his. “And unless we want to create a new scandal, or make some kind of announcement, we should probably keep it cool. Not so obvious that something is happening between us…”
“Shit, you’re right,” he admitted, taking another step back himself. “My bad. The sight of your face just got a nigga a lil hype, that’s all.”
“Oh my God,” I blushed, shaking my head. I glanced around to see if there was anyone within earshot before I admitted, “My heart may have started racing a bit when I saw you too, but… we gotta chill. We’ve already been outed to Nubia. And Elodie knows, since she’s staying at your place and saw me.”
Pierre squinted. “Yeah… Nick knows too.”
“See!” I couldn’t do anything now except laugh at it, but still. “I just… I would like us to be able to just enjoy it for what it is before it becomes something we have to explain, or defend, or whatever else.”
He nodded. “I can work with you on that.”
I bit back a smile as one of the crewmembers walked past us, but couldn’t help the almost overwhelming happiness behind the smile.
“Good.”