Page 92 of The Love Dare
Christ.Her brother was right. He is a saint. “Because I want to do this the right way.”
“Feels pretty right to me.”
He drops his head to her shoulder with a strained laugh, entirely at her mercy. “Win. I’m trying to be a gentleman here.”
“Well, who the hell said I wanted that?”
He groans against her skin. She’s playing with fire, and he’s not sure she knows it. Because the cameras are the only thing keeping him in line, and once they’re gone, he’ll be more than happy to show her everyungentlemanly thought running through his mind.
Just as he’s teetering on the edge of giving in, the haze of her lust clears.
“Oh, shit. You’re right.” She releases a heavy sigh, extracting her hand as she drops her head back against the rocks, panting. “We can’t do this here. Cameras. Microphones. People. God, what was I thinking?” She slaps him lightly on the biceps. “This is all your fault. You drive me crazy. You can’t just pick me up and carry me around and walk me under waterfalls like it’s no big deal with all your bulging muscles and your piercing blue eyes and your brooding stares, and, oh god, your hands, and expect me to think straight.” She glances around as if looking for her lost sense. “My boob is still out! Why didn’t you say my boob was still out?!”
He shrugs with a devilish smirk. “I’m enjoying the view.”
“Ty!” she admonishes him and spares a moment to rearrange herself. The second she’s covered back up, he wraps his arms around her midsection and falls back, dragging her with him. The pressure of the fall pushes them beneath the water. She comes up sputtering. A calculating gleam lights her gaze. He lifts his arm just in the nick of time as a wave of water shoots toward him.
It’s the exact distraction they both need to cool down. But even after an epic splash war, towels, and a picnic on the shore, he’s still buzzing.
So is she.
The air crackles between them during the hike back. An electric current sizzles up his arm every time their fingers brush. The minutes tick by, unreasonably slow as the sexual tension builds. Even Nina must sense it. She’s unusually quiet on the drive to the hotel, letting them have their moment, their space. All through dinner their conversation is stilted, their brains too busy short-circuiting every time their eyes meet, burning with a mutual countdown. The crew films a few scenes in the “dreamsuite”—him guiding Winnie inside the secluded bungalow, the two of them sipping champagne with the surf rolling in their ears, a chaste make out session on the flower-petal-strewn bed, but the cameras are too close, too in their faces, to forget. After an eternity, he finally corrals the crew in the foyer and not-so-subtly forces them toward the open door. Nina calls out a reminder that they have eight hours of freedom, but no phone calls, no internet, and?—
No problem, he thinks as the door clicks closed.
Eight hours.
Eight glorious hours, and he knows exactly how he wants to spend them. Tyler spins. Winnie is right behind him, staring at him with those big eyes. It’s quiet. Is it too quiet? All of a sudden, a nervous tickle itches his collarbone. He scratches the spot with a swallow, wondering if the pressure and the expectation is too much.
He clears his throat. “We don’t have to?—”
“Ty?”
He lets out a slow breath. “Yeah?”
“Shut up and kiss me.”
Thank god.
He sweeps her into his arms, grinning against her lips as she yelps into his mouth. He slides his hands up her thighs, bunching the blue silk of her skirt around her waist as he presses her back to the wall, sandwiching her against it as he devours her. Winnie untucks his shirt and glides her hands up to his shoulder blades, digging in as she breaks their kiss with a sigh. His lips find her neck, and her head tips back. When she goes for his buttons, he retrieves her hands and clasps their fingers together over her head.
“Not yet,” he orders.
She sucks in a breath as he nips at her skin, making no move to break free of his grip. Tyler holds both of her hands in oneof his and glides the other down the entire length of her torso, skin over silk, taking his time to memorize every curve. All he wants to do is rip the material off her, but he holds himself back. There’ll be time for that later. First, he needs to make sure she understands just how sexy she is, just how unbelievably tempting she’s always been, how much she turns him on without even trying. And if that means he needs to keep it in his pants a little while longer, he’ll damn well find the strength.
So he stays there, kissing her silly until neither of them can take it anymore. Then they fumble down the hall, kissing and tripping over tangled limbs, until they find the bedroom.
Winnie reaches for the switch and he steals her palm.
“No.”
She arches an amused brow. “No?”
“No.” He grips her waist and pulls her deeper into the room with him. “You think I want to miss a second of this? The lights stay on.”
“A second of what?”
He sits on the bed, keeping a hold on her hips. She looks down, a handful of inches taller than him with how he’s perched, and brushes his hair from his brow, a look so loving in her eyes he doesn’t understand how this moment is even real. But it is. And he’s not going to waste it.
