“Sweetie, you don’t really know him. You can’t tell if you want to date him until you do.”
“I don’t want to know him. Not that way—not right down to where it matters. I’m not ready for that.” I blow into my coffee. “I just needed to say it out loud.” I take a large gulp of coffee. Ouch.
“Okay. But you do know…”
“That’s he’s a sex addict? Yep. What are the chances, right? A sex addict and a love addict in a relationship that’s not really a relationship at all. We should sell our story to Disney and see if they can create a happily ever after out of this shit.”
“Looking for tips?” Dayton teases.
“Happily ever after? A way out? I’m not fussy.” I snort.
The apartment door opens and Tyler walks through with Aaron. Neither looks happy.
“What did you do to them?” I whisper to Dayton.
She grins. “Did you get your suits fitted?”
Well, that’ll be it.
“Men shouldn’t be pricked,” Tyler answers, chucking his jacket on the sofa. He picks it up again at Dayton’s sharp cough. “We do the pricking, but I’m a fucking voodoo doll after that.”
“He’s right, sweetheart. You’re lucky I love you after that.” Aaron kisses her and sits down next to her. “I need some coffee.”
“You’re aware of where the coffee machine is, Mr. Stone. You put it there,” she retorts, picking up a wedding magazine.
“I’m done with this stuff today.” Aaron snatches it from her and throws it across the room.
She gasps and sits up straight. “You did not just throw that on the floor!”
“It’s a well-known fact that the only things that should be thrown on the floor are clothes,” I add, earning an agreeing nod from Dayton.
“Is that right?” Tyler leans over the back of the sofa next to me.
“I don’t know. British dickheads would look good there, too.”
“Only if there’s his American bitch on top of him,” he whispers, nipping my earlobe.
Now I gasp. He gives me a suggestive look, but I narrow my eyes. His phone rings before I can say anything back to him and he pulls it from his pocket.
“What do you want? ... Tessa? Tess? What’s wrong?” He walks into the kitchen, and I look at Dayton and Aaron. Both of them are sitting straight, their eyes on Tyler. I know Tessa is his sister, but only because Day mentioned it before.
“What? Are you fucking joking? ... You did what?” Tyler runs a hand through his hair. “I can’t believe this! That bastard is lucky I’m on the other side of the world or I’d break his fucking neck!”
“Uh-oh,” Dayton whispers.
Aaron shushes her and stands up.
“Tessa, the knobhead has been cheating on you. Like I’m gonna be fucking calm! You’re my sister! ... I don’t give a flying fuck if you’re five minutes older. You’re still my fucking sister!”
“Ty, man,” Aaron says across the room. “You aren’t helping her. Calm down and call her later. Day will call her in a minute.”
Tyler turns back to us, fury written all over his face.
Dayton mouths, “Twins,” at me. Yeah, well, I gathered that much, Sherlock.
“Dayton will call you. Yeah… I’ll speak to you later. Love you.” He hangs up and drops his phone on the bar. He rubs his hands through his hair. His anger is palpable, and I know he’d give anything to be in London, tracking his sister’s husband down.
Right now, I’m learning one more thing about Tyler Stone. He’s fiercely protective of the people he loves.
I get up and hesitate for a moment. But just a moment—then I run to him, wrap my legs around his waist, and kiss him firmly. He steps back in shock, but he wraps one arm around my back and the other cups my ass and holds me up.
My hands frame his face as our lips move together. Slowly, with each kiss, the tension seeps from his body. I nip his bottom lip and he lightly sucks on mine. I grip his hair and he digs his fingers into my skin.
And neither of us cares for a second that it’s the first time we’ve kissed in front of someone else.
I just know, instinctively, that this will calm him down.
“Thank you,” he murmurs against my mouth.
I lower myself to the floor and kiss him one more time. “You’re welcome.”
His eyes dart over my shoulder and his lips quirk. “Your best friend is looking at you like you’ve grown an extra head.”
I turn around and stare at her. “What? Never seen two people kissing before?”
“It was sudden and unexpected.” She giggles. “I thought we’d have to give you a room.”
“You’d do that?” Tyler asks from behind me.
I elbow him in the stomach and sit back down. Dayton glances at us both before grabbing her phone and waving it at us. “I’m gonna go call Tessa.”
“Thanks.” Tyler sighs at her name.
We sit in silence until Day leaves the room. Then Aaron asks, ”What the hell happened?”
“That bastard she married has been bloody cheating on her with some aspiring model for two months. She found him fucking her on their couch yesterday morning.”
“She’s seen her lawyer, right?”
“Yep. She went straight to his office. There’s a clause in their prenup about cheating. I remember Mum insisting she put it in there. I guess she didn’t trust him.”
“I hope she takes him for everything he has,” I mutter.
Aaron smirks. “Oh, she will. Tessa is the female version of Tyler. Strong, pigheaded, and stubborn as shit. She’ll take everything without a second thought.”
“I’m not pigheaded,” Tyler argues.
I raise my eyebrows. “Um, you are.”
“Whatever. Look, cuz. Can you tell Day I’m sorry? I gotta go. I’m not in the mood for dinner now. I’m gonna call Mum and see if she knows anything.”
Aaron nods. “Sure. I’ll get Day to call you later if you want.”
“Thanks.”
I rub my thumb along my bottom lip as he leaves. Aaron stares at me, his lips quirked to one side.
“Go,” he says. “He won’t admit it because he’s a pigheaded bastard, but he needs someone to calm him down.”
“I’m sure he can find plenty of people to calm him down.”
“You’re not fooling anyone, Liv, and neither is he. We’ll do dinner next weekend. Go after him. He needs you to.”
I stand and grab my coat, giving Aaron one last look before I slip out the door after him.
“He needs you.”
Dangerous words. Very dangerous words.
I pull out my phone and text Tyler.
Wait.
I take the elevator down and find him in the parking lot, resting against his car. “You weren’t thinking of leaving without me, were you?”
He drags his eyes up to me, and I drop the corner of my shirt over my shoulder, revealing my light-pink bra strap. Heat flares in the depths of his eyes, a desperate heat, and I get into his car without saying another word.
I lie on his bed on my stomach while he is on the phone with his mom in New York. He’s been out there for a while, and I’m nosy, so I open the drawers of his bedside cabinet. Contradicting myself at every turn, I know.
As much as I don’t want to know Tyler any better, I have a crazy desire to find out every little thing. I’m trying to convince myself that it’s a natural thing when you like a guy, but I know it’s not. That desire is more of a growing obsession, and that’s step two of my addiction.
Find out everything.
I pull out his passport and flip it open to the page with his photo. Judging by the date, he recently renewed it and updated the picture. Damn. There goes a possible giggle-fest.
I set it back into the drawer and finding nothing of interest in the top one, so I move to the second one. Now this is a goldmine of sexual goodness. Condoms, a couple of different lubes, and…
A bullet?
“Anything good in there?”
I look up and produce the bullet box. “Um?”
He grins, pushing the drawer shut with his foot. “It’s brand new. See? Sealed.” He undoes it and pulls out the tiny, purple vibrator.
“Yes, I’m just wondering why you have one.”
“Presumably for the same reason you do. To make you come.”
“You don’t need the bullet, or was I not clear enough half an hour ago?”
“It’s not just for that.” He switches it on. The quiet buzz fills the room, and he runs the tip of it down my neck and toward my breasts. “It’s for fun. Spice, remember?”
I wonder if he’s aware of how many times I’ve used my own bullet.
He turns it off and sets it on top of the nightstand. “Did you go in the third drawer?”
I shake my head. The grin that spreads across his face now makes me wonder what I missed. Fortunately, I find out quickly.
Handcuffs.
I can’t stop my tongue from wetting my lips. “Handcuffs.”
“Do you trust me?” he asks, his eyes boring into mine.
I look at the metal rings and meet his gaze again. Confidence boosts inside me, borne of knowing that the only place he can attach those is to his bed. “Yes.”
“Roll over and put your head on the pillows.”
I roll over and straighten on the bed. Tyler kneels next to me and clips one of the cuffs around one of my wrists. When I look up, he hooks the other around the back of one of the bars on his headboard. He clips the second one into place.
Going back to the drawer, he lifts up a key and sets it on the nightstand. “Any time, say stop and I will.”
Oh, I have no intention of saying stop.
His eyes crawl down my naked body. He removes his sweatpants, which he put on minus boxers. His cock springs to life, already semi hard, and he grabs the bullet from the side.
“I dreamed of this,” he murmurs against my neck. “Having you cuffed to my bed, naked, ready for me to enjoy. And I plan to—I plan to explore you with my hands, my tongue, and my little friend here.” He turns the bullet on and runs it below the curve of my breast. “And I’m going to enjoy it very, very much.”
“I dreamed of it, too,” I admit, my breath catching as he circles my nipple with the bullet.
“See? Perfect for me.” He flicks his tongue in the hollow spot at my collarbone. I shiver, his mouth and the bullet a heady mixture.
I shiver, his mouth and the bullet a heady mixture. He trails the bullet around both of my nipples, across the soft flesh of my breasts, and down my stomach. He draws lazy circles across it, dipping it into my navel now and then. It slides down to my bikini line in a tease that makes me clench. The whole time Tyler tastes my nipples, he’s seemingly oblivious to the part of my legs, the quiet begs from my mouth.
He lays the bullet, still vibrating, just above my bikini line and crawls down the bed. His hands circle my thighs and he parts my legs, hooking them over his shoulders.
He blows onto my aching pussy, the heat from his breath hitting me hard. I tug at the handcuffs, wanting his mouth there now.
“Don’t,” he whispers, looking up at me. “You’ll be sore. If you want them off, tell me.”
I shake my head. I don’t. Not really.
He slowly runs his tongue along my wet folds. My skin buzzes where the tiny vibrator is against it, and I buck my hips to get rid of it. Tyler pins them back down, his tongue pushing down on my clit. He takes his tongue away, reaches it inside me, and
holy fuck.
He holds the bullet lightly against my clit as he licks and sucks his way around my pussy. Every inch of me is touched by his tongue except my clit. The bullet never moves, never wavers, and I can’t believe the tightness in my stomach. It feels like I’m going to—
Explode.
Tyler’s tongue stretches inside me as I come. I push my hips up, the pleasure too intense. I can’t move, can’t escape, and it only heightens the rush through my veins.
“That was my favorite yet,” he whispers. “Making you come.”
Keeping my legs hooked over his shoulders, he eases into me. This is how we fucked the first time, during what we thought would be our one-night stand.
He pushes deep into me, rubbing against my tender flesh, and kisses my calf. His hands are wrapped around my thighs to hold my legs in place as he fucks me. He reaches forward to palm my breasts, groaning.