I could feel his breath on the back of my neck; the sensation sent shivers through me.
“Well, what do you think?” Crim asked, his voice full of amusement.
The photo showed me lounging on Oliver’s bed in a relaxed way. I was surprised how natural I looked there — like I had command of the room. Oliver was standing off to the side, casting an angry look at the camera, and only the top of Crim’s face was visible at the bottom of the screen. His purple eyes looked even more vivid than normal compared to the yellow tones of the room.
“Posting it,” Crim said before I could respond.
“Wait—!” I said, panicking. I didn’t know that much about social media, or what would happen to my reputation once I was seen in a bedroom with Crimson Sin and Oliver Reza. I knew once Crim pushed that post button, things were going to change.
“Wait for what?” Crim said, a smile lurking on his face. “You’re going to be famous, Charlie. Might as well get a jump start on it now.”
“I don’t think I’m ready for that…” I said, picking at my thumb again.
“No one is ever ready,” Oliver said softly.
There was a heaviness to his voice, and I wondered if he was thinking of how quickly he rose to fame; how quickly his life changed.
“Fame changes your life. It prunes everything you thought was solid away,” he said cryptically as he began stitching on the mannequin.
“Yes! Oliver gets it,” Crim exclaimed, clapping his hands. “This is what this world is like, Charlie. Welcome to the shit show.”
I watched as his black thumbnail pressed the post button, and I couldn’t bring myself to stop him. There was a part of me that knew on some level that my life was about to change big time — I just didn’t know how much.
Crim didn’t even select a filter or write a caption for the photo; he just posted it.
“Aren’t you going to tell your fans why you’re here…?” I asked, an eyebrow rising.
“No,” he said simply. “If my PR team cares enough, they’ll go in and edit it.”
“Everyone’s going to think we’re all having a threesome,” Oliver muttered from the mannequin.
As soon as those words were out in the air, the feeling in the room changed; it shifted to something heavy and dark. Something forbidden.
“Why not?” Crim asked, a smile spreading across his face.
I was dumbfounded. “Guys, are we seriously discussing this right now?”
There was part of me that wanted to do everything by the book, keep to myself. Keep out of all the drama, as Leo advised.
But there was a larger part of me that took control, and that part was a ravenous beast that overrode my judgment. The beast that hadn’t been laid in a couple weeks…
“I’m one-hundred-percent serious. I would bone both of your brains out right now. All you’d have to do is say the word,” Crim said, his purple eyes jumping between me and Oliver excitedly.
There was a giddy tingling in my gut. I knew that if Oliver was down for it, I wouldn’t be able to resist.
“No way,” Oliver said, wrinkling his nose.
Disappointment crippled me.
“When are you going to get another chance to sleep with a rock star and a movie star?” Crim reasoned, unaffected by the rejection. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime thing. I’m only here for this season and then I’ll be gone.”
“Gone where, exactly?” Oliver asked, turning toward him and putting him on the spot with his bright green gaze. “You told Charlie you were going to Iceland. You told me it was Prague.” He cocked his head to the side. “Where are you going, Crimson?”
“Call me Crim,” he said, crossing one of his legs over the other. “And I’m going wherever I damn well please. I might change my mind tomorrow to go to Vancouver for all I know.”
“Why, are you running from something?” Oliver asked, his eyes shimmering with emerald fire as he took a step closer to Crim.
I couldn’t help but watch the exchange with a salacious excitement. There was something so… so hot about watching Oliver stand up to Crimson Sin like this. Oliver had an overpowering, celebrity-like energy of his own.
Crim didn’t back down. He didn’t even shift where he was sitting next to me.
He did, however, move his hand almost imperceptibly an inch to the right, touching his skin to mine.
Electricity sprang through me as blush rose into my cheeks. Was this really happening?
“I don’t run,” Crim said, that vampiric smile spreading across his face. “I explore. I’m always down to try something new, even if it’s uncomfortable for most people to even think about…”
He began stroking his thumb gently along the side of my hand.
All of my attention was focused on that spot. If the tension got any stronger, I didn’t know if I’d be able to contain myself…
A glance up at Oliver told me that he was experiencing much the same thing. He was trying to resist, but the swelling of his pupils and the pulsing vein in his neck gave him away.
“Don’t fight it,” Crim said to him softly.
That was all it took, and suddenly Oliver’s lips were crashing onto Crim’s.
I could barely wrap my mind around what was happening in front of me before Crim pulled away from Oliver and kissed me.
The force of his kiss knocked me backward, and suddenly Crim was straddling me, kissing me voraciously.
Oliver pulled apart his buttons with trembling fingertips and disappeared behind Crim as his lips crashed onto mine.
It was like he was undoing me with that kiss; everything that I’d felt in the meadow came rushing back to me: I felt powerful and insignificant all at once.
Then Oliver appeared on the bed to my left. My eyes were closed, so I could only feel as his hands trembled, roving over my sides with a ravenous want.
Suddenly, everything became clear. Oliver was faking drunk that night, just as I suspected. The way he was touching me right now was like an
