Twister: Party Games, Book 3 (18 page)

He heard his name mentioned. And again. It didn’t matter.

Nothing mattered except the woman watching him approach her.

When he was a step away from the table, he stopped. Stared at her. Waited for her to say something. Anything.

“You don’t happen to have a camera in that thoroughly un-classic car of yours, do you?”

He shook his head at her unexpected question, fighting to control the smile wanting to pull at his lips.

Cameron turned back to the battle on the field,
her
lips as unreadable as her sunglasses-covered eyes. “’Tis a pity. I rarely leave home without mine and there’s such an innocent, simple beauty to this game I’d love to capture.”

Every fibre, every molecule in Lachlan’s body ached to take her in his arms. Every muscle strained to hold her close. He almost did. Almost. Until he saw the faintest hint of moisture on her cheek below the rim of her large black sunglasses. So instead, he climbed onto the bench beside her, rested his elbows on his knees and let his gaze follow the action on the battleground before him.

He didn’t pay attention to the people mingling away from the table, watching him and Cameron with curious expressions. He watched the game, wishing he had the courage to let his thigh brush hers.

What felt like a lifetime later, Cameron swung her face back toward him. “Is it true? What your stepmother said?”

He stopped his ragged breath before it could escape him. “No.”

Black sunglasses regarded him.

He pulled a face. “Okay, maybe a little.”

She waited. Silent.

“You were my fantasy,” he said, turning back to the game. “I had a poster of you on my wall when I was a teenager. I fell asleep every night looking at you. Every wet dream I had was pretty much about you.”

If his crude confession affected her, she didn’t let on.

“And yes,” he continued, his chest tight, “I
did
…pleasure myself, as my wonderful ex-stepmother so gracefully put it, in front of that poster often.” He chuckled, a dry, humorless sound. “I was a teenage boy and teenage boys jerk off. A lot.” He slid her a sideward glance. “It’s a fact of life, I’m afraid.”

The corners of her mouth twitched. A little.

“But what Alyssa failed to reveal at her press conference was that after catching me once when I was seventeen—once mind you, only once—she offered to pretend she was you and then abused me for being a sick, depraved boy when I told her to fuck off.”

Her lips parted, an almost inaudible gasp slipping past them.

He finally released his earlier sigh and returned his gaze to the soccer game. “Suffice to say, family dinners were a tad uncomfortable from that point onward. Every time she looked at me I squirmed. Every time my dad touched her I felt sick. Every time she kissed him I wanted to shake him and tell him to wake up to himself. When she left him for an older man—a mining magnate with more money than Dad at the time—I wanted to laugh with happiness. And then Dad brought home the next model, and the next, and for the remaining years I lived under his roof I got to witness his humiliation at the hands of those I’d grown to despise. Women who made a living out of being beautiful.”

“Models.”

Cameron’s low voice stroked over him.

He nodded, giving her another sideward look. “Which I hope explains my abhorrent behaviour at the party last night. Behaviour for which I am truly sorry. It was narrow-minded, infantile and arrogant.”

“I think the impromptu soccer game made up for it.”

Lachlan smiled. “Soccer. Is there nothing the game can’t fix?”

Cameron laughed, a short, soft chuckle. But her body was still tense, and Lachlan had to quell the hope swelling in his soul. Hope that slipped away when she swung her face away from him and said, “Maybe.”

Risking it all, unable
not
to, he moved his hand, found her fingers and threaded them with his. She didn’t pull away. It was something. “Please tell me what’s going on in your mind.”

It was the most elemental request he’d ever made. And the most important. If she didn’t answer him now, he knew they had no chance. That she’d already decided the outcome.

“Three years after beginning my modeling career,” Cameron said just as his head began to swim, “I woke to find my bodyguard straddling me. Naked.”

Lachlan blanched, the simple calm in her voice, the horrific image of her words like an icy blade thrust into his stomach.

“He was aroused, panting and, if I hadn’t been able to grab the phone on my beside table and smash it into his temple, I know exactly what he would have done.”

Lachlan’s chest constricted. His throat slammed shut. Hot rage rolled through him, filled his mouth with bile, his gut with churning knots. He stared at her profile, wanting to kill a man he didn’t know. Kill him, revive him and kill him again. All in the space of a heartbeat, he wanted to commit murder.

But not as much as he wanted to take away Cameron’s pain and make her feel safe.

“Cameron,” he began, but she shook her head, lifting her other hand and placing her fingertips on his lips.

“I smashed him in the head with the phone—a ridiculous thing shaped like a pair of big, fat pink lips—and he tumbled off my bed, staggered to his feet, told me he loved me and ran for the small balcony off my bedroom. Before I could comprehend what he was doing, he’d thrown himself through the glass door and over the rail. I lived on the tenth floor. The paramedics said the impact ruptured every organ in his body and shattered every bone.” She stopped, caught her bottom lip with her teeth and then shook her head, her fingers threading with firmer pressure through his. “It was kept out of the media, apparently because Andre was ex-military the government didn’t want the backlash, and I retired from modeling. Until this morning, no one has ever been in my bed but me. I’ve never woken to anyone since that night. When I woke to you…” Her voice faded away. “Do you see now why we can’t be together? What man wants to go to bed every night wondering if the woman he loves is going to wake screaming when he touches her?”

Lachlan’s blood roared in his ears. His mouth was dry. He studied her profile, wishing to hell she’d look at him. He wanted her to look at him. To see his face, his eyes, when he said what he was about to say.

“Cameron?” he said her name, and again when she didn’t turn. “Cameron, how many times did I touch you last night? How many times did I give you pleasure?”

She shook her head, still not looking at him. “It’s not the same.”

“Yes.” He placed his fingers under her chin and, with gentle pressure, swung her face back to his. “It is. Because your heart knows who is touching you. Your heart knows it is me, only me.”

She didn’t say a word. Nor did she flinch when he reached up and removed her sunglasses. Tears swum in eyes tormented with a nightmare Lachlan would willingly spend the rest of his life trying to eradicate.

“You say that now…”

“And I’ll say it tomorrow and the next day and the next.” He smiled. “And the next and the next.”

She swallowed. “And what about the day after that?”

Lachlan shook his head. “Won’t have to say it then.”

She frowned. “Why not?”

He leant forward and brushed his lips against hers. “We’ll be too busy playing soccer.” He tasted her lips again as she began to laugh, capturing the beautiful sound with a gentle kiss before pulling back just enough to say, “Or Twister.”

She laughed, and this time he let her. His heart thumped hard, harder than it ever had. Her strength, her courage… Christ, it made everything else pale by comparison. All the meetings with demanding studio heads, self-indulgent newspaper editors, deceptive journalists, manipulative board members…all of it suddenly seemed so superficial.

And unnecessary.

He touched his thumb to her bottom lip. “I wasn’t kidding when I said I’ve fallen in love with you,” he murmured, loving the way she leant into his caress.

She smiled, her gaze holding his. The tears were still there, but so too were tiny laughter lines on the sides of her eyes, and for Lachlan those lines were the most beautiful, exquisite thing he’d seen today.

“And
I’m
not kidding—” she grinned, “—when I say the next time we play Twister
I’m
going to win.”

Lachlan burst out laughing, smoothing his arms around her back and pulling her to his chest. She trusted him, of that he didn’t doubt, and he would do everything in his power to show her she was right to trust him. He would show her that when her fears and memories and nightmares tried to claim her, he would always be there for her. That together they’d be able to achieve anything.

He was Lachlan McDermott after all. And when Lachlan McDermott set his mind to something…

The distinctive click of a camera sounded behind them, followed by someone giggling and someone else shushing loudly. Pulling away from Cameron just enough to look over his shoulder, Lachlan counted at least twenty people paying very close attention to what he and Cameron were doing. All but a few of them held camera phones in their hands. All of them were grinning.

Turning back to Cameron, he tugged her closer to the protection of his body, shifting on the table edge in an attempt to shield her from the growing crowd. “Come on,” he said, giving her a small smile, “let’s get you out of here.”

She studied him for a still moment, her expression unreadable, and then, with a grin, ran her hand up his chest and cupped his jaw. “Better still,” she whispered, “let’s stay right here.”

Before he could ask her what she was doing, she leant forward and kissed him. Utterly and completely kissed him, her tongue touching his, her hands tangling in his hair, a low but very carnal moan vibrating deep in her throat, leaving no doubt whatsoever to those around how much she enjoyed doing exactly what she was.

To the left of their table someone yelled out, “Onya, Mr. McDermott.”

To the right someone else yelled out, “I’ve got a Twister game at home if you like?”

Lachlan didn’t care.

And it seemed neither did Cameron, if the way she climbed onto his lap, wrapped her legs around his hips and kissed him even deeper was anything to go by.

As far as Lachlan was concerned, the whole bloody world could photograph them this way.

About the Author

Lexxie’s not a deviant. She just has a deviant’s imagination and a desire to entertain readers with her words. Add the two together and you get darkly erotic romances with a twist of horror, sci-fi and the paranormal.

When she’s not submerged in the worlds she creates, Lexxie’s life revolves around her family, a husband who thinks she’s insane, a cat determined to rule the house, two yabbies hell-bent on destroying their tank and her daughters, who both utterly captured her heart and changed her life forever.

Contact Lexxie at
[email protected]
, follow her on Twitter
www.twitter.com/lexxie_couper
or visit her at
www.lexxiecouper.com
where she occasionally makes a fool of herself on her blog.

Look for these titles by Lexxie Couper

Now Available:

Death, the Vamp and his Brother

The Sun Sword

Tropical Sin

Suck and Blow

Triple Dare

Dare Me

Love’s Rhythm

Savage Australia

Savage Retribution

Savage Transformation

Coming Soon:

Sunset Heat

Suspicious Ways

Dark Embrace

Let the games begin…

Suck and Blow

© 2011 Lexxie Couper

Party Games, Book 2

Talent agent Frankie Winchester is a hellion. Her motto is all a girl needs is a fun time, a fast car and an awesome masseur on speed dial. There’s only one person who could beat her at anything. Alec. Bane of her high-school existence, a kid whose parents were as working class and loving as hers were rich and distant.

When celebrity landscape architect Alec Harris spots Frankie at an exclusive Sydney house party, everything comes rushing back. The memory of being the “cheap-money” kid, trying and failing to prove himself—and impress his dream girl, Frankie Winchester.

Unexpectedly partnered in a wildly sexy game, the delicious friction ignites a scorching sexual tension. But there’s more than a playing card trapped between them. Frankie refuses to admit that kiss shook her to the core. Alec wants nothing less than her full surrender.

Warning: C’mon, the book’s called Suck and Blow. What more warning do you need?

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Suck and Blow:

Someone ran into him. Hard. A firm, warm body slamming into his side as if the person hadn’t been watching where they were going but was in a damn hurry to get where ever it was.

He stumbled to his left, a chuckle rising to his lips as he turned to face the someone, his hands instinctively reaching out to steady them on their feet, his fingers curling around biceps both smooth and firm.