Page 43 of Just Curious

Even though he tried to get to the bottom of things, he was still baffled. Her justification for why it was fine for her to publish Willa’s newest book was far less clear, and she tended to ramble and rave when asked about it.

Her lawyer knew he had his work cut out with this one. He was used to having guilty-as-sin clients, though, and promised to do his best.

Shortly after the police raid on Deb’s house, Willa received a shocking email.

From: [email protected]

To: WillatheBitchCamden

You better drop your claims about book theft, bitch, unless you want a graphic video of you screwing two men at the SAME TIME to spread all over the internet. Drop this action immediately and say you were mistaken, or the video goes live. You have two days to comply or at 12:01 am on Monday, you and your actions will be world news. Imagine how you’ll feel when everyone sees how freaky you all are! The Monday morning water cooler discussions will be a riot. Tick tock. Get busy retracting your claims. Now!

Kissy Kisses,

The Real Talent

P.S. Don’t be stupid. I have more than one copy of the video. It’s great spank bank material. ;) Extras are hidden where you’ll never find them.

Willa gasped as she read this. Remembering how strange her computer had been acting, she didn’t doubt that Deb and Ryker had the video as they claimed. Clearly, she left the lid open on her laptop and they had hacked in just in time to see intimate moments between Willa, Casey, and Jackson.

Stomach aching, Willa grabbed her computer and went to find her men. They were working out in the gym over at Jackson’s house while she worked on ideas for a new book.

“Hey, guys. I’m afraid I have some bad news.” The expression on her face made Jackson’s smile evaporate. He immediately set down his weights. Casey also climbed out of the ab crunch machine, and they both went to her with concern written on their faces.

With a pained look, Willa showed the men her email.

“Oh no,” Jackson moaned.

“Fuck me,” Casey wailed.

Grabbing a towel and wiping off his face, Jackson said in a flat voice, “Okay, look. I’m going to go take a quick shower. We can discuss this in a few minutes. I need to clear my head a little.”

“Yeah, me too,” Casey muttered. Both men turned to leave the gym.

“I’ll meet you both in the living room.” Willa followed them out and headed the other direction. No one said another word.

Chapter 26

When the men returned, they found Willa standing by the bay window staring out at the ocean. She had tear tracks streaking her cheeks. When she turned to look at them, she asked plaintively, “What have I done to you both? I’m so sorry that you’re now embroiled in my mess. You must hate me.” She buried her face in her hands and sobbed.

“No, sweetheart, no,” Jackson protested softly at the same time as Casey drew her into a hug and buried his face in her neck, whispering, “We could never hate you. This isn’t your fault. We’ll figure out how to handle it; it’s not the end of the world.”

In Pasadena at roughly the same time, Deb and Ryker were watching the video of Willa and her men for the umpteenth time. Just as Ryker was getting really turned on, Deb cackled gleefully in a nasty tone, “I can’t wait until that bitch reads the email I sent her about this!”

Grabbing her roughly by the shoulders, Ryker bellowed, “Youwhat?” He gave her a nasty shake. “What are you thinking? You know they can trace that right back to you with no trouble, don’t you?”

“Relax, and let go of me.” She tried unsuccessfully to shrug him loose. “I made up a new Hotmail account, sent the email and then deleted the account. No one will be able to trace that.” She hissed at him, “How stupid do you think I am?”

With a face full of purple rage, Ryker slapped her across the face, hollering, “Apparently you’re a lot dumber than I ever believed. They won’t give a shit about your stupid email account, but anyone with half a brain can trace the message back to your IP address… ormineactually since I assume you used one ofmycomputers. Ever think of that? No! Apparently, you think it’s more important to gloat. I can’t fucking believe this!” He turned away from Deb, who’d crumbled onto the floor in a sobbing heap, and his eye caught something on the video he’d never noticed before. He’d always been focused on watching Willa and didn’t pay much attention to the men.

“Holyfuck!” he cried. “It’s him! This is really, really bad, Deb.” He glanced at her sniveling at his feet. “Get up off the floor, you idiot. I didn’t hit you that hard.”

Sniffling and wiping her nose on her arm, Deb stood up and stared at the video, wondering what he meant. It looked the same as ever to her. “What?” she asked in a pitiful tone. “What’s so important? And for your information,” she poked him in the shoulder for good measure, “when that bitch Willa sees my email, she’ll retract her claims that I stole anything from her. She won’t want her kinky sex life exposed with these two guys all over her and each other. It was a brilliant plan. Admit it.”

Ryker ignored her and stopped the video. He ran it back a bit and then scrolled through it frame by frame until he got to a spot where one of the men was facing the camera. “Look! Do you see that man? I’ve never paid any attention to his face before because it’s usually out of the shot, but right there you can see that it’s Jackson Mitchell!”

“So?” All Deb thought about him was that Jackson was incredibly handsome, and it made her hate Willa all the more.

“He’s the asshole who stole the Uber Badge right out from under me at DEF CON. I wasthisclose to winning when that know-it-all blocked my attack! He deserves to go down—the self-righteous prick.”

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