Wild Temptation (19 page)

Angry tears burn in the backs of my eyes. Of course—just when I finally find someone who wants what I do behind closed doors, he’s an asshole.

“Liv.”

“Leave me alone,” I say as I step into the elevator. He jumps in after me, and I turn away from him. The elevator stops.

“No. You’ve taken it completely wrong.”

“How did I take that wrong, huh? You tell me to buy something and I don’t do it, so you do. You don’t ask me. You don’t consider anything. You pushed a limit. I told you no strings, and buying shit adds another layer I don’t want.”

“Don’t want or are afraid of?”

I glance over my shoulder. “Don’t want.”

“Then why are you crying?” His voice is soft as he steps up behind me and runs his hands down my uppers arms, his touch warm and comforting.

“Allergies,” I offer lamely, swiping under my eyes. “Please, Ty, go. We’re fooling ourselves if we think this…thing…can work between us.”

“Really? I don’t think we are. In bed, we’re perfect for each other. You get me and I get you.” He wraps his arms around my shoulders and kisses my jaw from behind.

“And out of bed, we bitch like an old married couple.”

“You know what they say about old married couples who bitch.”

“No, I don’t.”

“They bitch because they care. When they stop fighting, that’s when they should worry.”

I swallow and look at the floor. Hasn’t he just hit the nail on the head and banged it right through the fucking wood? I care for him—I do. And not because he’s a great lay. But because, despite how infuriating he is, he’s funny. He can be tender, and no matter how much I kid myself, I kind of like his infuriating. He doesn’t hesitate to challenge me or push my buttons.

Seriously, the arguing really is a sick kind of foreplay.

Tyler spins me. His arms are still around my shoulders, and he rests his chin on top of my head. Despite my orders to stay by my sides, my arms creep up and wrap around his waist.

One tear falls. And another.

Because I’m petrified. I’m so fucking scared of what I was avoiding in the first place.

“See? It’s not hard,” he whispers. “We can be nice to each other outside of the bedroom.”

I laugh quietly. “Only because we’ve already argued.”

“True.” He pulls me tighter to him. “I’ll send it back. If you want. The lingerie.”

I sigh heavily and shake my head. “You don’t have to. I just freaked.”

“No, you didn’t, did you?” he says with false shock.

I pull back and smack his chest, a smile playing on my lips. His dark eyes sparkle down at me, amusement evident in them. Slowly, he presses his lips to mine in a full-bodied kiss that sends shivers down my spine.

This kiss is slow and soft. Tender and deep. It says a thousand things we can’t say out loud. Mine says that I’m afraid, that I can’t have more than what we have now. His responds that maybe I’m not seeing clearly what there is and that there’s no reason to be afraid. And mine says that there is, because he doesn’t know it all.

He might be addicted to sex, but I don’t think he’s ever experienced true addiction.

“Trust me,” he whispers. “You’re a little wild and I’m a little wild, and together, we’re a whole lot tempted. But just trust me.”

I say yes.

M
y phone rings, breaking through the silence. I grab it and hold my breath when my agent’s name flashes on the screen.

“Sheila,” I answer.

“Liv! Fantastic news. Balfour are interested in you coming in for a test shoot. Are you free Thursday?”

“What time?”

“Between twelve and three.”

I run through my shifts in my head. “Yes, at twelve. I’m supposed to work at one, but Donny won’t mind.” As long as I wear an extra-tight, extra-low-cut shirt that day.

“Fabulous. I’ll call them back to confirm. Also, you should know they’re testing twenty girls.”

“Ouch.”

“That was my first thought—but I have confidence in you, Liv. And I have a question.”

“Hmm?”

“Were you comfortable shooting with Tyler Stone?”

Oh, I was comfortable all right.
“Yep.”

“Great. Because he’s the photographer.”

Bridezilla is in full force. Her
new
catering company has just gone bust, leaving her with no food for the wedding. Again. She’s currently yelling angrily into the phone at the owner, who called to inform her of the bad news.

Bad news. Yep. Try rephrasing that to catastrophic.

“Do you think she’s on her period?” Tyler whispers.

I snort. “No. She doesn’t have them.” He raises an eyebrow at me, and I pull my hoodie down my arm. I tap the inside of my upper arm. “Implant. Stops them.”

“You don’t get periods?”

“What part of ‘stops them’ is hard for you to understand?”

“We’re eloping,” Dayton announces, throwing the phone on the sofa. It bounces onto the floor. “We’ll disappear somewhere and get married in secret, and these useless companies can go fuck themselves.”

“And there’s the control freak,” I mutter.

Tyler covers his hand with his mouth.

“Day, sweetheart.” Aaron runs his hands down her arms and soothes her. “We can find someone else to do the food. We have plenty of time.”

“Right.” She snorts. “Because you’d hate it if we ran off this weekend to get married.”

“I can’t say I’m averse to the idea, but I know that’s not what you want. You want it all, so I’m giving you it all. Yes, it’s hard work, but it’ll be worth it in the end.”

“Do you want a glass of wine?” Tyler asks hesitantly.

Dayton shoots him a hard look. I pat his thigh and cross to the bar. Opening the cupboard, I run my eyes over the bottles until I find a bottle of tequila.

Bingo, baby.

I pour her two shots’ worth into a glass. I nudge Aaron out of the way and hand her the glass. She drains it in one go, turning around to put the glass on the bar.

“Blech.” She screws her face up and shivers. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” I smirk and join Tyler back on the sofa.

“What the…” He watches in amazement as Day opens her laptop and starts calmly tapping at the keys. “What did you just do?”

I smile smugly. “That’s why I’m the maid of honor.”

Aaron leans on the back of sofa. “What did you give her?”

“Tequila.”

“Tequila?”

“You think wine is gonna calm that crazy down? No, Aaron. You need something a bit stronger.”

“Shit,” he mutters. “I wish I’d known that when I dragged her around the world with me.”

I laugh when he joins her at the bar. I laugh even harder when she shouts at Tyler for that glass of wine he offered. When he doesn’t move, she snaps his name and yells at Aaron not to pour a glass, all without looking away from the screen.

My stomach is actually hurting from laughing so hard. There’s something beautiful in the moment a man realizes that he wears the pants but his woman controls the zipper.

Apparently, Dayton controls two zippers.

“Come on.” Tyler grabs my hands and pulls me up off the sofa. “We’re going. I’m not taking her crap anymore.”

“Where are we going?”

“Anywhere but here.”

I wave goodbye as he drags me out of the apartment and into the elevator. No sooner have the doors closed than his lips are on mine, hungry and tasting. Devouring and consuming.

“Whoa.” I grab his sweater to steady myself.

“Been wanting to do that since you walked through the door,” he whispers, nibbling down my neck.

“Uh-huh.”

“It’s becoming a habit with you.” He pulls me out of the elevator and toward his car.

Since our wedding disaster summons came at the same time, he called and said that he’d get me. I didn’t realize how idiotic it was to agree until now.

“Well, make sure you don’t do it tomorrow. That would be embarrassing.”

“Tomorrow?”

“The shoot?”

His eyes flick to me. “Shoot? What? Oh—”

“Balfour Swimwear,” I say, spelling it out for him. “I’m one of the models testing.”

“When are you going in?”

“Twelve. I’m working tomorrow afternoon.”

“Oh, fucking hell,” he groans, pulling into the parking lot of a bar downtown. Before I can ask what he’s doing, he explains. “That means you’re one of the first. I’m going to be shooting girls all day with a fucking hard-on after you.”

“As long as it’s for me.” I give him a pointed look and get out of the car.

“Hey,” he growls, pulling me against him when he catches up with me. “You better believe it’s for you, baby girl. And I’ll need you to get rid of it after.”

I reach between us and squeeze him lightly. “Looks like tomorrow isn’t your problem right now.”

He grabs my hand and tugs me toward the bar, his gaze heated. “If you behave yourself in here, I might just let you suck it later.”

“Might?” I raise my eyebrows and follow him into the bar. Not like I have a choice. He’s taking me in whether I want to or not.

And I’m trying not to freak about the one hundred thousand million lines this situation is jumping over.

“Trust me,” he mouths, getting the attention of the bartender.

Dammit. I hate that he can read me so well.

He puts two drinks in front of us—white wine for me and a beer for him. “Let’s talk.”

“About what? The weather? Isn’t that a Brit’s favorite topic?”

His lips curve into a wry smile. “Hardy-fucking-har. For the record, Seattle’s weather is about as shit as London’s.”

I grin.

“No, smartarse. I mean talk in general. You know, like people do.”

I draw a line between us on the table. He gets my meaning and instantly rubs it out with
his
finger. Dick.

“I want to know how you and Day ended up best friends. You are nothing alike.”

My grin widens. “Isn’t that the best part? Opposites attract and all that. Besides, you’d be surprised how alike we actually are.”

“I don’t see it.”

“You wouldn’t. We both have really hot tempers—”

“Noticed
that
,” he mutters.

I kick his shin. “We both have our guilty pleasure TV show—mine is The Big Bang Theory and hers is The Walking Dead. I know, they’re different, but whatever. We both like wine and Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and my cat. No, scratch that. Nobody likes that grumpy little shit.”

Tyler laughs. “Seriously, though. You’re so different. I don’t see how it works.”

“It just does. Like, she plans everything down to the very last detail, but I’m impulsive. Like with the wedding—she jokes about eloping to get married, but she never would. She’d have a meltdown before she even reached the airport. If anyone’s going to elope to get married, it’d be me.” I sip my wine. “She prefers lingerie, but I prefer shoes. In fact, I’m pretty sure I have a pair of shoes for every set of lingerie I own.”

“Good to know.”