In the next second, his shirt was whipping through the air. His dark hair haloed around him on the mattress as she lifted his reluctant hands and placed them firmly on her breasts, then threw her head back to the ceiling and released a low groan.
“I’m going to need so much therapy,” James mumbled under his breath.
“What did you say?” she purred, fiddling with the top of his pants.
“I said, uh...” His eyes flickered wildly around the bedroom before landing on a random painting on the wall. “I said that’s some interesting artwork. Picasso? You know, they only ever discovered a fraction of his work?”
I nudged Nick pointedly, but he pursed his lips and shook his head. It obviously wasn’t often that he got to play such a wicked prank on his best friend, and he was having way too much fun to put a stop up to it just yet.
“I didn’t know that,” Claudia murmured, leaning down to trail her tongue all the way up James’s chest. “Not that I wouldn’t love to spend the night talking about shitty painters, but I can think of a few more interesting things we can try.”
Then, with the speed and ferocity of a lioness, she seized his hands and pinned them above his head. It was so sudden and startling that James froze in momentary shock. He was still staring up at her when a flash of silver whipped through the air, only to clamp down on his wrists.
What the fuck!? Handcuffs? She just carries those in her purse?
James let out a gasp of surprise, straining automatically against the silver chain. While I was sure it wasn’t the first time he’d undergone a little bondage in bed, I was willing to bet that the other times had been with someone he actually wanted to have sex with, most likely been with his permission. Her fifty shades of crazy were showing, and by the look on James’s face, I knew he didn’t like it one bit.
“What are you doing?” he asked breathlessly, unable to keep a flicker of tension from his voice as he watched her toss the key carelessly over her shoulder. “I don’t—”
“Shh.” She pressed a finger over his lips, then slithered seductively down his chest, keeping strict eye contact all the while. “Now, let’s see if I can help you out of those pants.”
“Fraction!” he shouted, abandoning his undercover assignment the second she took his zipper in her teeth. He somersaulted backward off the bed and landed on his feet. His messy hair fell into his eyes as he held up his cuffed hands between them like a shield. “Fraction, for fuck’s sake. Fraction!”
The closet door flew open, and Nick and I leapt out into the room like a couple of superheroes, only devoid of our capes and spandex onesies.
It was really impossible, in that moment, to say who looked more undone. The reasons for Claudia’s shock were obvious, but as for me, I was just unable to believe I’d been an accomplice to such an event. James was still straining instinctively against the metal restraints on his wrists, looking not at all pleased by any of it.
Nick, however, was standing there like the proverbial cat that ate the canary, looking like he’d just won the Superbowl, basking in a victory that was a long time coming. He didn’t say a word because he didn’t need to. He simply held up the camera, staring deep into Claudia’s eyes.
The woman’s skin was flushed, and her mouth had fallen open in astonishment when we’d burst into the room, but as the two of them locked eyes, she slowly closed it. A flash of pure murder clouded her face, but she reined it in when she realized that the game was over, that she had come up on the losing end of the scoreboard. “You asshole!” she shouted. “Give me those pictures!”
Nick taunted her while holding the camera high. “Naw, I think I’ll hold on to them, for safekeeping. If you ever mess with me or Abby again, I’ll be happy to share them with all the right people in all the right places. How’s that for leverage, little Miss Flash Drive?”
After a roll of her eyes, a crossing of her arms over her naked chest, and a stomping of her pedicured foot, she conceded, “Then I guess we have a deal. I’ll give you the copy I have first thing in the morning, then you give me yours. We’ll make a fair exchange.”
“Deal.”
A few agonizingly long seconds later, she nodded curtly, got dressed, and swept out of the room.
“Took you long enough,” James muttered, looking around the room for the handcuff key. She had thrown it haphazardly into her mess of lingerie, and there was little chance of seeing it again.
“What do you mean?” Nick asked sweetly, clapping him on the shoulder. “I came out when you said the safe word, just like we agreed,” he chided with a grin.
James shot him a look that could have melted ice. Finally, he gave up on the key altogether and settled for putting on his clothes. It was an interesting process, considering that he was still bound at the wrists. His shoes went back on easily enough, but there was nothing he c
ould do about his shirt. In the end, we merely draped his suit jacket over his shoulders, and the three of us headed back down into the hotel lobby, looking like we’d arrested the world’s most beautiful and resentful criminal.
“I can’t believe it’s finally over,” I whispered to Nick as we headed out onto the city streets. “That was the final thing holding us back. We’re free!”
He kissed me on the tip of the nose, beaming a radiant smile. “Yep! Free to get married, free to have this baby, free to start our life together, for real this time!”
It wasn’t often that he made such grand proclamations, quiet as they were, and I found myself completely overwhelmed. I was all blissed out in a state of surreal euphoria, like I was walking around in some kind of dream.
“Yeah, well, have fun with that,” James snapped, lifting his wrists to hail a cab. “I hope it’s all worth it, because I’m not talking to either of you ever again.”
“Wait a minute!” Nick held up the key. “Look what I found!”
“What? You had the key this entire time!”