Page 3 of Wicked Temptations
The sound stopped me short. His eyes were half-lidded, hazy, and that look wasn’t performing. It wasrealwant.
What the fuck.
I shoved myself up and away, breaking contact so fast I nearly tripped over my own boots. The crowd thought it was part of the act, and I did my best to play it straight. I brushed my wayward curls out of my eyes and flashed the audience a wicked grin, then I disappeared into the fog before Ash could respond. Before he could see the shock in my eyes and before this thing between us turned into something that couldn’t be explained away as performance.
I didn’t stop moving until I was near the creepy doll zone, and even then, my heart was still trying to break through my ribs. My hands were shaking.
I had four hours left in my shift, and I was already wrecked.
But this was fine. Everything was fine.
It was just another night dealing with weirdo-fucking-Ash.
Chapter 2
Ash
Shit!
I moaned.
Out loud.
With his hand on my fucking throat and fifty fucking people watching.
Fuck.
Chapter 3
Jude
Iforcedmyselfbackinto performer mode, terrorizing a bachelorette party and then a family with kids who were definitely too young to be in the scare zone, but whatever, not my problem.
My problems were more important anyway. I could still feel the phantom weight of Ash on top of me, could still feel the heat of his skin despite all that fabric and leather. It was short-circuiting my mind and dredging through memories better left forgotten.
I hated it. Hated that he’d gotten under my skin like this, hated that every night was becoming a competition I couldn’t win because winning would mean admitting there was something to compete for.
I hadn’t spiraled like this in years. Not since Dylan.
His face surfaced unbidden in my mind. He’d been a college linebacker with a future everyone could see coming except me, and we’d been polar opposites, but something had clicked anyway. He’d liked my darkness until he didn’t, liked how I kept things compartmentalized until I wouldn’t give him more.
“You don’t let anyone in,” he’d said the night he left. “Not really. You’re so busy controlling everything, you don’t even notice when people stop trying.”
He’d sounded so much like my mom. She’d said something similar after Dad had left and I’d locked myself in my room for three days straight.
Maybe they were both right.
Dylan had wanted promises I couldn’t make, futures I wouldn’t plan. He’d wanted me soft when I’d spent my whole life learning that soft meant broken. That giving someone access meant watching them leave with the crushed pieces of you still stuck to their shoes.
It was better to keep everyone at arm’s length. Better to make it a performance.
Except Ash wasn’t playing by those rules. He’d looked at me tonight with that challenge written all over his face, then melted under my hands like he’d been waiting for it. Like he wanted me to break him.
So fucking dangerous.
My thoughts shattered when a guy in a Ridgeway Park hoodie dared to try to jump-scare me. I got the upper hand and snarled, dropping into a slide that had his girlfriend shriek loud enough to make my ears ring. Good. Pain helped. It reminded me where I was and what mattered.
The rest of the night blurred together in a string of jump scares and screaming tourists. I went through the motions on autopilot, but some parts of me were always tracking Ash’slocation, listening for his voice; waiting for the next time we’d collide.
