Page 7 of Wicked Temptations
He was already half-dressed, cargo pants sitting low on his hips, black tank top that showed off the lean muscle of his arms. I’d seen him in various stages of undress plenty of times in the changing room, but it still did things to my focus that I couldn’t afford during work hours.
“I wanted to get a head start,” I said, which was true. “Big night ahead, apparently.”
His jaw tightened. “It’s just a regular Friday.”
“Right. Except for the part where we’re competing to see who’s better at their job.” I leaned against the shelf unit, arms crossed, and watched his hands still on the holster he was threading onto his belt. “Question though. What does the winner get?”
He looked up at me then, and I saw the moment of hesitation before he answered. “Satisfaction not enough?”
“That’s boring.” I kept my tone light, even though my heart was picking up speed. This was stupid. I should just drop it and get ready for my shift. Stop pushing him. “You issued the challenge, Jude. Surely you had something in mind.”
“I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”
Liar. Jude thought everything through in painful detail. But I could play along.
I seemed to have been doing that a lot lately. Playing along with whatever Jude wanted, following his lead and letting him set the terms of engagement. During rehearsals, during performances, during these strange, awkward moments between us when I couldn’t tell if we were fighting or flirting or some dangerous combination of both.
I’d never been a follower, and I’d never backed away from a challenge.
“Fine. The loser buys breakfast at Frank’s Diner. After shift. Four a.m.”
As far as rewards went, it was pretty basic, but I needed it to be. I couldn’t risk anything too serious or anything that had the potential of giving my stupid crush away.
I watched him process it—watched the micro-expressions cross his face—interest, panic, something that looked almost like want before he locked it down. He was going to say no. I could see it coming.
“Fine,” he said instead. Well, call me fucking shocked. “But when I win, you’re buying me the full breakfast. Pancakes, eggs, bacon, the works.”
Something warm unfurled in my chest. He’d said yes. He’d actually said yes, and it was just breakfast after a stupid bet, so it meant nothing. But he said yes.
“Whenyouwin,” I repeated, and let myself smile. “Sure. Keep telling yourself that.”
I pushed off from the shelf and headed for the door, but I couldn’t resist throwing one last look at him. He was standing there holding his vest, staring after me, and his expression was complicated enough that I felt it all the way across the room.
Yeah. Tonight was going to be interesting.
***
My shift started at seven, and by seven-thirty I was fully in my zone. Both physically and figuratively.
I loved this part of the job. The adrenaline, the performance aspect, the way I could disappear into character and become someone else entirely. I’d done theater in college, then moved onto stunt work after graduation, but nothing had felt as alive as this. Especially not when I was performing opposite Jude.
I’d figured out his patterns by the end of week one. I knew where he liked to position himself, how he moved through the fog and how he liked to slide on his kneepads so he could pop up behind unsuspecting guests. It should’ve made our choreographed fights easier, if a little boring and predictable. Instead, it made them more intense, because I could anticipate him and he could anticipate me, and we’d started improvising around each other in ways that probably drove our director crazy. It made the crowds lose their minds, though, which was clearly a problem for Jude. That was what tonight was all about. Who was best? The king of the park or some such shit.
Our first scheduled fight wasn’t until nine, which gave me time to build up the competition, to remind Jude—and myself—what I was capable of. I hit every mark, terrorized the guests with devious satisfaction, and when a grown man stumbled trying to get away from me, I filed that away as a point in my favor.
But I could hear Jude working too. Could track his progress by the screams and by the phones that came out to record whenhe appeared. He’d added thigh holsters to his costume since last shift, more buckles and straps that caught the light and framed all the right places, and I felt a spike of irritation because of course he had. He was always one step ahead, always making sure he was the one people remembered.
By the time nine o’clock hit, I was wound so tight and ready I was worried I’d explode.
I entered our designated fight zone from the east, scanning the crowd until I spotted him on the scaffolding. He was backlit by red floods, looking down at the chaos below like a predator surveying prey, and something in my chest tightened. He was beautiful like this. Dangerous, and confident, and completely in his element.
I wanted to shake him. Wanted to grab him and demand to know why he looked at me like an enemy when we could be so much more than that.
Instead, I ran.
I vaulted over a barrier that wasn’t part of our normal route, changing the blocking on purpose because I knew it would piss him off. The crowd scattered and screamed, and I felt the exact moment Jude spotted me, felt his attention lock on like a target.
He jumped down to meet me, and we collided mid-air. That was his own form of improvising, and the unexpected impact drove the air from my lungs. The momentum carried us both into a roll that ended with him on top, forearm across my throat. The tourists were losing their minds, but all I could focus on was the weight of him, the heat of his body through layers of tactical gear, the way his pupils were blown wide. And that he was straddling me. All I wanted to do was rock up against him and show him how much I liked him up there, legs spread on either side of my hips. It was a good look for him.
