When I looked over, I saw James Guillory take a seat across from Tyler, and they started to chat, but Tyler constantly looked up, watching me as we danced.
“I knew it,” Kristen yelled in my ear over the music. “When he came to your room that morning, my panties practically lit on fire with the way he was looking at you. How long has it been going on?”
I wasn’t sure what to tell her. Of all the damn places to run into someone we both knew, this was supposed to be the least likely.
She was very friendly, but that didn’t mean we were friends. I had no reason to trust her. This was my job, Christian’s stability, and Tyler’s future on the line.
But he didn’t seem worried to have run into her, and I kind of wanted to talk about it with someone. I was happy, and I hadn’t been able to share it with anyone besides my brother.
I took a deep breath and admitted, “A couple of weeks.”
Maybe three, but she didn’t need every detail.
Nodding, she grabbed two shots of something brown off a waiter making the rounds and handed me one.
“Well, be careful,” she insisted, actually looking serious for a change. “I’m sure he’s great, but men like that take what they want, and what they want changes like the wind.”
She tipped back her shot, and I hesitated a moment before shooting back mine.
I winced at the burn as my tongue felt like it had been bitten.
We handed our glasses back to the waiter, and he left. I guessed the rounds must have been complimentary.
I blew out a breath, trying to cool off my mouth. “What makes you think he doesn’t need protection from me?” I challenged.
She threw her head back, laughing. “That’s the spirit,” she cheered.
Her black halter-top dress hugged her body as she moved, and I let my eyes follow her hands as they glided down her body.
Her red hair fell in waves, and I realized for the first time how pretty she was. I hated to admit it, but every time I looked at her, I assumed she was flighty and carefree.
Would Tyler find her attractive? I suddenly felt small, trying to figure out what the hell I offered him that he wanted so much. She was happy. I was discontent. She was playful. I was serious.
She moved in closer, and I almost moved to back up, but she put her hand around my neck and pulled me in, speaking in my ear. “So how is he?” she asked. “In the bedroom?”
I couldn’t help the little smirk that escaped as I looked away, my skin heating up at the thought.
“Ohhh, I see,” she cooed knowingly.
She didn’t need it spelled out, but I was sure my face confirmed that Tyler Marek was keeping me very satisfied.
“Well, I’m completely bummed.” She pouted. “You’re having great sex with a handsome millionaire, and I’m here with a friend who’s the friend of some pop singer I’ve never heard of.”
I laughed, and we both turned our heads to the side, seeing Tyler with his elbows hooked behind the seat again, watching us as Guillory talked to him.
“Don’t worry.” I leaned in to Kristen. “I’m enjoying this for what it is and while it lasts. We’ll eventually move on from each other.”
She cocked her head, and I couldn’t ignore how close we were as her eyes turned mischievous.
“I’m not so sure about that,” she argued. “As long as you both keep finding ways to make it interesting.”
And then her hands went to my hips, and I slowed my body, instantly feeling the heat of Tyler’s stare on my back.
She licked her red lips and breathed against my face. “Let’s play with him.”
At first I narrowed my eyes, confused, but then I understood when I felt her hands run up my sides, in a slow and possessive gesture.
My pulse sped up, and I had a hard time keeping my breathing steady as her fingers dug into my hips and pulled me closer, her thigh fitting between my legs as she continued to move slowly to the music.
What the hell?
“Watch his face,” she instructed in my ear.
But I was afraid to look. On the one hand, I liked playing games and turning him on, but on the other hand, I was scared he would get ideas.
Twisting my head to the side, I raised my eyes, instantly drifting to Tyler. Guillory had left, and he pierced me with that stare. I knew how he looked angry, and I knew how he looked relaxed, but shivers ran down my arms, and I felt myself growing wet as he watched us with his heated gaze.
I knew that look.
He was two seconds from bending me over in a bathroom stall.
I started to move more, rolling my hips into Kristen and running my hands over her waist and hips.
She took the back of my neck in one hand and dipped her head under my ear as we lightly grinded our bodies for him.
“I don’t know whether he wants to see more or wants to tear me apart for touching you,” she joked.
But I knew the answer. Tyler wanted a lot of things. He wanted everything. But he would never choose one over the other. It was what it was, and he would never claim me like that. I knew as much.
“How far are you willing to go to find out?” I asked, challenging her.
She raised her eyebrows, giving me a “try me” look.
I took her hand and led her back over to the booth, slowing and dropping to my knees to the sofa as I inched over to him.
He narrowed his eyes on me, and I could see the shallow breaths that he was trying to hide.
“Did you like what you saw out there, Mr. Marek?” Kristen crawled over to him on the seat cushions.
He ran a finger over his lips as he looked at me. “What’s not to like?”
“I don’t know,” she answered, stopping and sitting back on her heels. “You looked… tense.”
Her sexy voice was filled with desire, and I suddenly felt like I wasn’t sure of what I was doing. This was a game. Someone was going to stop it.
Right?
“I was tense.” Tyler looked over to her, tipping her chin up. “You two are beautiful,” he allowed. “As long as you know she comes home with me.”
“How about we both go home with you?” she suggested.
Had I wanted her to say that? I couldn’t swallow past the lump in my throat.
Tyler didn’t answer, and before I knew what I was doing, I dipped my head to his neck, kissing the soft skin under his ear.
I heard his sharp intake of breath, and I caught his skin in my mouth, dragging it between my teeth.
“Kiss her,” I whispered. “Please.”
I saw him out of the corner of my eye as he hesitated, and then, slowly, he reached out and took her by the neck, bringing her in, their lips meeting.
I squeezed my eyes shut and took hold of him, trailing deep kisses over his neck and across his cheek, trying to own what was happening.
The sounds of their kissing and her moaning turned my blood cold and made my heart ache.
Kiss her, I thought. This needed to happen.
I would force myself to watch the whole damn thing and take any desire I had for him – any need – and twist it into knots to where nothing good could be made from it and no part of what I felt for him could ever be recognizable again.
I couldn’t have him. Not for good. He was sex, and he’d hurt me.
I’d have to let him go eventually. Why increase the inevitable pain on my heart when I could end it right now before he got a chance?
I didn’t want to love him. This needed to happen.
A tear fell down my face, and I quickly wiped it away as I pulled back and watched him. Not them, just him.
His hand was on my thigh as he kissed her, and he tried pushing it under my dress, but I slowly inched away, out of the scene.
“Keep going,” I urged. “Let me watch you.”
His tongue was in her mouth, and his other hand palmed her breast over her dress, and I envisioned it. Him taking her home, pulling the top of her dress down as he planted her ass on his desk and fucked her rough
and dirty.
Or maybe he’d take her to bed. Let her ride him as he watched her body move.
I inched far enough away that his hand lost contact with my thigh, and I just sat there on my knees, watching him make out with another woman while I felt like he was slowly getting farther and farther away from me.
His eyes were closed; he wasn’t seeing me. My composure cracked, and more tears pooled in my eyes.
He didn’t even know I was here. He didn’t see me.
All he saw was her.
But then his hand started reaching across the sofa in search of me, and the next thing I knew, he pulled away from Kristen and pushed her off, glaring at me.
I stopped breathing, realizing that he was pissed. He was really pissed.
He looked at me like I’d betrayed him.
“I’m sorry,” I gasped, nearly in tears. “That was stupid.”
And I crawled back over into his lap, straddling him, ready to apologize.
“What the hell are you trying to do?” he barked, the vein in his neck bulging.
I shook my head, taking his face in my hands. “I don’t know,” I cried. “Just don’t let me go, okay? I shouldn’t have done that.”
And I kissed him softly, my whole body shaking with the sobs I tried to hold back.
I didn’t want to let him go. I was falling for him.
His angry breaths slowly calmed, and after a few moments, he wrapped his arms around me like a steel band and kissed me back.
I heard Kristen clear her throat next to us and then felt her shift off the sofa.
“Well, I’ll just excuse myself,” she said in a light tone, as if nothing had happened.
But then I felt her lean in and whisper in my ear, “And if you haven’t noticed, he’s in love with you, too.”
I gripped his jacket, not even hearing her walk away as I closed my eyes and saw only him.
TWENTY
EASTON
“
Y
ou messed up my books,” I commented, lying on my back on the floor of his study and gazing up at the bookshelves I’d so tirelessly organized a few weeks ago.
“Yes, I did,” he admitted without hesitation.
I wore one of his long white shirts with the sleeves rolled up and was supporting a glass of Scotch on my abdomen with my feet crossed.
“Did you do it on purpose?” I pressed.
“Yes.”
A smile spread across my lips, and I leaned my head up, taking a sip of the hearty liquid.
Christian was apparently spending the weekend with his grandfather across the lake, so Tyler brought me home with him from the club. It was one a.m., and neither one of us was the least bit tired.
I’d felt guilty about ruining our night out, but Tyler had said he didn’t give a shit. He didn’t like clubs anyway but had wanted to take me out.
After pulling me out of the club, he’d raced home, damn near getting into an accident on the way, and stripped off all of my clothes as soon as we’d gotten in the door. He’d carried me upstairs, my legs wrapped around his waist, and kept me good and occupied for more than an hour.
He’d gotten a few calls while we were busy, though, and since neither of us was sleepy, he’d come downstairs to take care of some business while I got drunk on his alcohol.
He stood behind his desk in gray lounge pants and no shirt, sorting through some papers.
“You’re not going to fix them?” he suggested.
I tapped the glass with my fingers, staring up at the hodgepodge he’d made of the books.
“I’m considering it.”
I heard his quiet chuckle. “Maybe you no longer need to be soothed,” he suggested. “Or maybe you found something else equally effective.”
“Cocky,” I shot back, teasing.
But actually, he had a point. A few weeks ago, those books, sitting there out of order, some facing the wrong way, had driven me bananas, and I could not concentrate on a damn thing until I’d gotten them sorted.
Now it just kind of bugged me. I still felt the pull, but there was something else in the room tugging at me, too.
“It’s such a strange feeling,” I mused. “Suddenly abandoning a habit I’ve had for seven years. I feel more peace now than I ever had doing it, though.”
“Seven years?” he repeated. “I thought you started when your parents died five years ago.”
I let out a breath and closed my eyes. “Shit,” I whispered under my breath, not loud enough for him to hear.
I’d forgotten that he didn’t know.
“Easton?” he prompted, clearly waiting for an answer.
I swirled the glass in a circle, watching the brown liquid coat the inside. “Yeah, that story was never in the media, was it?”
In his Googling, he wouldn’t have come across it, because my family had kept it under tight wraps.
“What story?”
I took a deep breath and set the glass down on the floor, tucking my hands behind my head as I started.
“I wasn’t always the sophisticated, capable, and charming woman you see now,” I joked.
He walked around the desk, leaning against the front of it and staring down at me.
“No?” He played along.
I looked up at him and, after steeling myself, opened up to him. “When I was sixteen, I was very naive and sheltered,” I told him. “I didn’t know how to make decisions or question anything. I had never even been on a date, and if my parents had had their way, I never would’ve been.”
I stared ahead at the bookcase, remembering my perfect white house and my perfect pink bedroom and my perfect, strict schedule posted on the refrigerator.
“I was a twenty-four-hour tennis player, and the only people I spoke to were my family, newscasters, and my coach, Chase Stiles.” I looked at Tyler. “He was twenty-six at the time.”
His expression turned guarded. “Chase Stiles? Am I going to like where this is going?”
I gave him a soothing smile and continued.
“He was so devoted to me,” I admitted. “Always encouraging me and spending so much more time working with me than what he was paid for. He would buy me things, and I liked it, because I thought he was the only one who cared about who I was on the inside. He asked me about my interests outside of tennis.”
Tyler stayed quiet, and I hesitated, feeling my stomach knot as the old fear started to surface.
But I forced it out, keeping my eyes downcast. “I didn’t see it as wrong when he started buying me outfits.” I went on. “Tight shorts and sports bras to train in. And I didn’t think it was such a big deal when he took pictures of me posing in the outfits he’d bought.”
“Easton,” Tyler inched out, apprehension thick in his voice. He didn’t like where this was going.
I swallowed through the tightness in my throat, still not meeting his eyes. “But then he started getting familiar,” I explained, chewing on my bottom lip. “Patting me on the behind when I did well or hugging me for too long.” I blinked, pushing away the shame I felt creep up. “A couple of times he came into the locker room while I was showering, pretending it was an accident.”
At the time, I’d felt like it was my fault. Like I was enticing him, or that what he was doing was normal. We’d spent a lot of time together. Training, traveling… We were close, so maybe he was just a really good friend or someone, like my parents, whom I should trust to never hurt me.
“I didn’t tell anyone what was going on, and I didn’t confront Chase about any of it,” I told Tyler. “I just started getting more stressed, and I became angry. Very angry,” I added.
“I started refusing his gifts,” I continued. “And I threw fits when my mother would try to leave me alone with him on the court. After a while, I finally broke down and told them about his behavior.”
“Did he force himself on you?” Tyler bit out, his voice turning angry.
I shook my head. “No. But the behavior was escalating,” I explained. “M
y parents fired him, but they didn’t press charges. They didn’t want America’s next tennis darling tainted with a scandal forever preserved in the newspapers.”
I looked at Tyler and could see his fists balled up under his arms.
“And then, on top of that,” he deduced, “you lost your parents and your sister two years later. That’s a lot for a young person to go through.”
I nodded. “It was.”
Chase’s abuse, and my parents’ and sister’s deaths, had almost killed me five years ago. I dove into a world of turning chaos into order and building such a tough outer shell that nothing bad could hurt me again.
It wasn’t until recently that I’d realized, looking up at Tyler, that my shell protected me from all the good stuff, too.
“I started arranging and counting things as a coping mechanism, a way to have consistency,” I told him. “To know what I could count on. Awareness of my surroundings, everything in its place…” I went on. “I didn’t like surprises.”
“You needed control,” he assessed.
I nodded. “Yeah. After Stiles and then the accident, Jack and I tried to keep it going, but as you saw online, I couldn’t get it together. My game fell apart. We sold our house and moved here, so I could have a fresh start and my brother could pursue his own dreams finally.”
Tyler pushed off the desk and approached me, standing tall above me and looking down intently.
“And what’s your dream?” he asked.
I inhaled a long breath and took my hands out from behind my head. Running one up his leg to the inside of his thigh, I whispered, “To not want you as much as I do.”
The next week flew by, fall conferences having started, and I needed to get ahead on revising lesson plans that I’d already completed last summer.
I’d expected that to happen, as classes don’t always go according to schedule and certain changes I’d decided to make at the last minute needed to be accounted for later. I didn’t mind how my personal life had changed or even how unpredictable it had become, but I didn’t want to lose control of my career. Being a good teacher was acceptable. Being a great teacher was my mission.