e does, I fill each of the tubes with ocean water, then cap them.
Depending on how tonight’s tests go, this might not be enough. But lucky for me—and if I have my way, lucky for California—there’s always more salt water where this came from.
After sliding the test tubes back into my blazer pocket, I make my way up the staircase to the main road, and then walk another couple of blocks until I’m home. As I head up the driveway, I can’t help turning back and looking back toward Tori’s building, can’t help wondering what she’s up to now that she sent Mr. I’m-A-Movie-Star So-You-Should-Kiss-My-Ass packing. Then I’m annoyed with myself for thinking about her when I know she’s not thinking about me. But it’s not my fault she’s so goddamn hot with her heart-shaped ass and her bedroom eyes. Not to mention her mouth. I’m not even sure I like the woman—and I know she doesn’t like me—but that hasn’t stopped me from having any number of fantasies about that drop-dead-sexy mouth of hers.
I may be a geek, but I’m still a man and I’d be lying if I said my dick wasn’t twitching right now at the thought of those gorgeous lips anywhere near it.
As I key in the gate code, I think about taking a dip in the pool, just to clear my thoughts and help me focus. Once I’m in my workshop, Tori’s lips—or any other part of her anatomy—are pretty much the last thing I need to be thinking about.
But then I press the button on my key fob and open the door to the climate-controlled garage that doubles as my work area. Once I’m in, with my research and tools and gauges all around me, I forget about Tori’s mouth and pretty much everything else as well. I forget everything but the project I’ve been pouring my heart and soul into for several long months.
After taking the test tubes out of my pocket and laying them gingerly on my lab table, I pull off my jacket and tie and drop them on the nearest chair. Then with my pant legs still wet around the cuffs, I roll up my sleeves and get down to work.
I made some tweaks on the desalinizer this morning—nothing major, but enough that I want to see what it does to this round of seawater. I need to figure out how much salt it strips out on the first, second, and third passes. While my ultimate goal is to deliver purified water after only one pass through the system, right now I’ll settle for almost purified after three. At least then I’ll know that these new changes are taking me in the right direction.
Time slips away as I work, and it’s not until my laptop craps out—and takes my dictation software with it—that I even look up. I get up and start hunting for a charger, but I can’t find any of the four I usually have in here. Which is utterly ridiculous. The main reason I have so many chargers is so that even when I misplace one—which, I admit, I do a lot—I’ll have backups. And considering I charged the damn computer in here this morning, I don’t know how all the chargers could suddenly be missing now.
Muttering to myself, I make my way into the house to search for one of the damn things, and it’s not until I glance out the wall of windows that I realize dawn is breaking over the water. Once again, I’ve worked all night without even being aware that time was passing. No wonder my whole body feels like somebody took a hammer to it.
With the onset of dawn comes fatigue—I’ve been up over twenty-four hours at this point—and I decide to hell with the charger; I can find it when I wake up. I’m fairly satisfied with the work I got done today, so taking a few hours to sack out won’t hurt.
I strip off, then climb into bed with my tablet. I’ve got some vague idea of playing a mindless round of WordBubbles as I settle in for sleep, but as I scroll through Yahoo, a picture of someone I’m pretty sure is Tori catches my eye. Her photo is side by side with one of Alexander Parsons, aka the blond douchebag, and they’re both under the salacious headline: IS ALEX AS HOT IN BED AS HE IS OUT?
I almost scroll past it, considering I’m not the least bit interested in whether or not he’s good in bed. But there’s something about its key placement in Yahoo’s news stream—and something about the fact that they aren’t using a joint picture of the couple—that has my spidey senses tingling.
More than a little disgusted with myself, I click on the piece—then wish I hadn’t when a well-known gossip site comes up, along with the opening shot to a video and a link promising a sex tape of actor Alexander Parsons and socialite Tori Reed.
Fuck. Shit. Goddamnit.
Looks like she doesn’t have good taste in men after all. How the hell could she be this stupid? Making a sex tape with that asshole? What the hell did she think was going to happen?
He’s totally the kind of guy to post something like this just to build up his own name and brand recognition. Especially considering the fact that he’s got nothing to lose. His reputation isn’t at stake, after all. If it’s a good tape, then he gets to play the stud while she’s forced into the role of the slut. It totally sucks, but that’s how the world works. How it’s always worked. We just like to pretend that we’ve moved forward, gotten more civilized. Gotten more equitable. But the sad fact of the matter is the woman will always take the brunt of the heat in situations like this.
Goddamnit.
I click away from the site, then Google Alexander Parsons sex tape. Close to a million hits pop up and we’re only four hours into this debacle. Then I Google Tori Reed sex tape. Only half the number of hits come up—since he’s the main news here, not her—but half a million hits is still nothing to sneeze at. And once morning fully hits and America wakes up…this story is going to go through the roof. She’s the daughter of one of the country’s most in-the-limelight businessmen and he’s the star of the biggest action movie of the summer. There’s nowhere for this story to go but everywhere.
I scroll through one of the more popular articles, making sure not to hit the PLAY button on the video. Sure I’m curious about what the tape is like, curious about whether Tori looks as hot going down on a guy as I’ve fantasized for the last year, but this is definitely not the way I wanted to find out.
When did this even happen? It’s only been about six hours since Parsons came back to the party looking completely disgruntled. Unless I’d totally misinterpreted the look on his face. Which I admit could have happened as it’s not like I spent a lot of time or effort trying to figure that jackass out. Not likely, but it could happen…
It’s only as I get to the second half of the article, which mentions that he and Tori dated a couple of years ago, that things click into place. Including the fact that the opening shot of the video—the one frozen on the screen for the world to see—shows Tori with very distinct, very bright blue hair.
So not taken tonight then. Not taken anytime that I’ve known her, in fact.
I don’t know why the knowledge settles me, but it does, even as it makes me wish I’d plowed my fist into that bastard’s face when I’d had the chance. Makes me wish I’d done a better job of watching out for her. Because now that the details are falling into place, I’m getting a much clearer picture.
This was revenge on his part, pure and simple. Sure, he probably also saw it as a way to cement himself as the perfect Hollywood stud, but the primary motive here was petty schoolyard bullshit. He wanted to sleep with her, she said no, and this is how that shallow, pathetic bastard gets back at her.
Jesus. It takes a real man to throw a woman under the bus just for exercising her right to say no.
An image of Chloe flashes into my head after that long-ago night when she’d been raped. Broken, shattered, ruined, just because some asshole thought he had the right to take what he wanted. To do what he wanted.
Parsons might not have raped Tori, but this whole sex tape thing is just as much about power and control as rape is. See what I can do to you? See how powerless you are?
Well, fuck him. No way in hell is he getting away with it. No. Way. In. Hell. I couldn’t stop Brandon—and then my parents—from hurting Chloe. But this? I can definitely do something about this.
Throwing back the covers, I climb out of bed and do what I should have done an