Page 33 of The Love Dare
Winnie threads her fingers through his hair the way she’s imagined doing a thousand times. She lifts onto her tiptoes. Then she waits, just long enough to soak in the way his blue eyes stare at her in stunned disbelief, before she closes the distance between them.
I’m kissing Tyler.
I am actually kissing Tyler.
Holy shit.
It’s over practically before it begins. A mere brush of the lips. A taunt. A tease, just as Nina suggested. By the time he nestles his hands on her hips, Winnie’s already retreating. Her face burns. Her heart thuds. Her body thrums, every synapse firing, setting her ablaze with the sparks. She’s completely overwhelmed by the enormity of what she’s just done.
His grip tightens, as if to stop her.
When his eyes flutter open, he looks at her as though he’s never seen her before.
It’s exactly what she wanted, but now that it’s over, she’s not ready to know what comes next. So she does what she’s always done in the face of sheer mortification.
She runs.
CHAPTER TEN
tyler
PRESENT DAY
What the fuck just happened?
Tyler spins in time to catch one more sight of Winnie before she disappears through the mansion door. He groans at the flash of her fully exposed back in that ridiculously sexy red dress and shakes his head, still not entirely sure if all of this is happening in his own mind. Because that’s what it feels like—a wild dream. There’s no way Winnie is actually here. No way she just kissed him. He’s got to be hallucinating. It’s the only explanation. Any moment now, he’s bound to wake up. But until then?—
I need to talk to her.
Tyler snaps out of the daze and charges toward the door. Keith Holson steps smoothly into his path with a toothy grin. “Well, she’s a woman of few words, isn’t she?”
Five years of media training has taught him exactly what he should do. Stop. Answer the man’s question. Take a moment to catch his breath. Figure out a plan. He can practically hear his agent’s voice in the back of his head.Don’t be an idiot. Calm the fuck down. You have about a hundred pounds on this guy, and if you murder him, we’re definitely going to lose a shit ton of money.
On the other hand…
Winnie.
He holds himself back—barely—and brushes Keith aside with a gentle yet firm swipe. The man’s shouts follow him into the mansion.
“We need to film the entrance! There’s a speech! Protocols!”
Screw your protocols, you assholes, springing her on me like that.
On some level, he knows he’s feeding into their plan as cameramen rush to follow him and producers scramble around the edges of the room. They’re practically salivating at the overreaction, capturing every second for the entire world to dissect.
He can’t bring himself to care.
Women in ball gowns snap their heads in his direction, excited at first, then confused as he sprints past them in search of that red dress he couldn’t burn from his thoughts if he tried. And he’s not trying.
Where the hell did she go?
She was thirty seconds ahead of him, a minute tops.
A flash of crimson catches his eye.
Tyler charges through the door, then screeches to a halt. He grabs the frame to steady himself. She’s silhouetted by a roaring fire, her every curve illuminated by the flames, so beautiful it hurts. That deep, familiar pain sharpens in his gut as he studies the arch of her spine, itching to sink his fingers beneath the hem of her gown, slide them over her waist, and pull her against him.
She spins as if he spoke those silent desires aloud, the awareness in her eyes quickly snuffed by bright panic. She wrings her hands, then dips her chin. The floor suddenly becomes the most interesting thing in the world, judging by how hard she’s staring at it. A lock of black hair falls out of place andshe hastily tucks it behind her ear, tossing him a quick glance. “Hey, Ty.”
