Page 2 of Simon Says

“Wait for what?” He reached for the photos again, and Gregor dared to hold them above his head.

“Simon,” Gregor murmured in miserable warning, “maybe you should—”

“Knock the shit out of you for playing games?” Sick dread crept through Simon. “Damn right. Now hand. Them. Over.”

Because Gregor was such an enormous freak of nature, standing six and a half feet tall and weighing in at over two hundred and fifty pounds—all of it rock-solid, rippling muscle—few men ever confronted him. The twining of wicked tattoos around colossal biceps also offered discouragement to most.

But if Simon had to take the photos from Gregor, they both knew he could.

Rather than oblige Simon, Gregor looked to Dean for guidance.

Dean said, “Go ahead and give them to him.”

It didn’t bode well that Gregor turned away before complying with that instruction. The second Simon had the photos in his hand, Gregor split. He didn’t just take a few steps away.

No, he left the bedroom.

And Dean followed him out, giving Simon privacy for God knew what.

But damn it, even before looking, Simon knew what he’d find. Only one thing would make his friends look and act the way they had. He ran a hand over his shaved head, hesitated, but he had to see for himself.

Simon turned over the first photo and without even seeing her face, he recognized Bonnie.

The woman he’d planned to marry one day.

The woman he’d just bought a new and expensive mattress for.

She was naked, her face turned away from the camera, sitting astride an equally naked man. In a detached way, Simon noted her long legs, her heart-shaped ass, her cascading dark hair.

He’d been intimate with that body for five years. In the photos, she was intimate with someone else, some nameless male face on a muscular body. The photos showed the man only from the shoulders down.

Bonnie looked to be enjoying herself.

It was the oddest thing, but the overriding emotion that pervaded Simon was curiosity. Somewhere there was hurt, and definitely humiliation. But foremost was a weird loss of all sensation, and a resounding question: Why?

He locked his jaw.

Bonnie wasn’t stupid, and in fact, her intelligence was one of the things that had initially drawn him. Why did she feel the need to wander? And why the hell had she hidden the photos beneath the mattress, where he might find them?

Simon no sooner asked himself that last question than his memory jogged and he recalled Bonnie’s surprise when he’d come home early last night. She’d been sitting on the bed in a skimpy nightgown gazing at something, but he hadn’t paid that much attention.

Before proceeding to his closet to change, he’d given her the same perfunctory kiss of greeting that he’d been giving her for years.

She’d kissed him back the same way.

Searching his memory further, Simon remembered her jittery responses to his questions, and her attempts to distract him.

When she asked if he was going to shower, he told her he had at the gym.

She jumped up to get him dinner, and he told her he wasn’t hungry.

She wanted to check the front door locks, and he assured her he’d taken care of it.

He’d even left the bathroom door open as he brushed his teeth. But Bonnie had turned out the lights as if she planned to go to sleep.

That’s probably when she stashed the photos under the mattress, because he hadn’t given her an opportunity to hide them anywhere else. He hadn’t given her the chance to hide them some place better. Of course, she had no way of knowing he planned to replace the mattress today.

Once he’d joined her in the bed, he found her stiff and aloof. But he’d softened her. Simon laughed at himself. Hell, he’d made love to her with determined patience, and unless her acting skills were well honed, she’d come with enthusiasm.

---