Page 50 of The Love Dare
Winnie searches his eyes, hesitant, as though she misheard. “You love me?”
“So much,” he whispers, running his thumb along the edge of her jaw as he tightens his grip on the back of her head, trying to convey without words. “You have no idea how much.”
“I…” She shakes her head, for once in her life at a complete loss for words. “But I’m in sweatpants.”
The edges of his lips quirk. “I love you in sweatpants. Some of my dirtiest dreams involve you wearing sweatpants. Of course, I’m usually taking you out of them, but?—”
“Ty!” She gasps. A blush floods her cheeks.
God, he wants to press his lips to her skin and taste that heat. “What? I have nothing to hide anymore. Please, just come with me.”
He slides his hand down her arm to entwine their fingers, relieved when she squeezes back.
“Where are we going?” she asks, looking down at her outfit—a cropped white T-shirt displaying a tantalizing two inches of stomach above a pair of worn purple NYU joggers. “I look like Barney. These are my guilty pleasure pants. They aren’t supposed to see the light of day.”
“I’m pretty sure that ship has already sailed,” he answers wryly, slipping his gaze to the camera blinking from four feet away.
She wrinkles her nose, then gestures at his formal black suit with an air of desperation. “I can’t go on a date looking like this, when you look like that.”
“So I’ll change into my sweats, too.”
“You’re an athlete.” She scoffs. “That’ll just make you hotter.”
He stands and pulls her roughly against his chest so he can slide his fingers around that sliver of bared midriff he can’t stop thinking about as he murmurs, “If you’d rather I be naked, you only have to ask.”
She snaps her head back to stare up at him with eyes as wide as saucers. All at once Tyler realizes that while being in love with Winnie Rusu has been fifteen years of sheer torment, wooing her is going to be another thing entirely.
“Who are you and what have you done with Tyler Briggs?” she asks with utter disbelief.
He slips his thumbs under the hem of her shirt and traces the contours of her ribs, just to watch the heat in her eyes flare. “I’m the Tyler Briggs who’s done pretending he’s not absolutely head over heels for you.”
“I’m not entirely sure I’m ready for this Tyler Briggs.” She swallows thickly as a shiver trembles through her. “Where are we going on our date?”
“I haven’t gotten that far.”
He looks past the film crew crowding the doorway to the producer standing in the shadows behind, her Cheshire grin practically gleaming through the dark. Nina’s been waiting for this—waiting for him to break. It’s obvious now that she wanted this dramatic moment. That she was torturing him and Winnie both, playing them against each other. Maybe her initial threat was an empty one. Maybe it wasn’t. He’ll never know, but he will have to live with the fact that it worked so well for so long.
“Where are we going on our date?” he asks the producer. NotCan we go on a date?NotWill you let us go on a date?Butwhere, because that’s the only choice she’s got left.
Nina dips her chin as if to say,Deal, then pushes off the wall. The rest of the crew parts like the Red Sea to let her pass. “We weren’t planning to leave the property tonight, so we don’t have any off-location filming rights established. We could set up a cabana by the pool. We could empty one of the rooms downstairs. We could lay something out on the grass.”
Hard pass.
The last thing Tyler wants to do is have this conversation in front of the other women. Whatever strings production has been pulling have undoubtedly already done enough harm. He doesn’t need to give them more fuel to light a fire under Winnie’s ass.
It needs to be somewhere more private, more intimate.
He doesn’t want to do this in some tacky spot, surrounded by fake rose petals and plastic candles, on some gaudy-ass silk couch while a violin screeches in the background.
He wants it to be real.
To be them.
He wants it to feel like…
“Home,” he announces, knowing it’s right the moment he says it. “We’ll do it at my house. I’ll sign whatever film release you need.”
“You bought a house?” Winnie leans back in surprise. “When?”
