Page 46 of Of Heartbreak and Harmony
I whimper, half-frustration, half-arousal. He’s right, and I hate him for it.
“No sex,” I say weakly. He drags his nose over the sensitive skin at my neck.
“No sex. I won’t kiss you. But I’m going to touch you, and you have to allow yourself to like it.”
I nod, and he leans back, narrowing his eyes slightly at me. His gaze bounces over my face, to my shoulders, to my ears, and then he frowns just a little.
“Is that your natural hair color?”
I freeze. My heart thuds in my head as I dart my eyes back to his face. I search for something—anything—to hint that he remembers, but once again, I see nothing. I’m the only one suffering from whispers of the past. To him, I’m just another woman in a long line of women that probably spans the globe.
I don’t know what to say. My voice probably wouldn’t work even I did, so I nod.
His hands drop away, cold air hitting me suddenly in the absence of his body heat, and in a blink, the sensual smirk from earlier is long gone. My eyebrows scrunch in confusion before I can stop them.
“If you can’t sell it, then you can go home, and we’ll find someone else. I’ll be back at ten. Wear something to go clubbing.”
The harsh statement, the way he delivered it without feeling, lingers in the room after he leaves. How he can turn it off and on so easily shouldn’t shock me. After all, I’ve experienced it before.
This time, though, I have to shield myself. He won’t burn me again.
15
CALLIE
PAST, ArtFusion Night Two
The guys thinkI’m meeting my “friend from high school.”
Never mind I didn’t have any friends in high school, and they know that. It still wasn’t hard to get them to buy the lie. Becket is giving me the silent treatment because my “headache” derailed his plans of getting lucky. Pike is distracted by his own plans, and Rocky and Ezra are too busy bickering to question me.
Once they’re gone for the evening, I rush to get ready. The body painting itinerary said to wear a swimsuit if you want to participate, but I don’t have one with me, so I have to stick with a strapless bra and a pair of underwear. Aside from my Phoenix outfit, I only packed the bare necessities—nothing frilly or sexy—and I pull on a pair of cut-off jeans and a plain tank over the top. There will probably be people in bikinis; hell, there will probably be people half-naked, but I’m more comfortable clothed. Besides, I don’t even know if Torren will want to participate. Maybe he just wants to observe. Maybe he wants to meet there and then go somewhere else. The fact that I really don’t know what to expect makes my stomach flip with nerves.
It's okay. It’s good. I’m just going to go along with whatever.
I debate makeup, then decide against it. It’s hot as fuck outside, and I’ll just sweat it off anyway. I don’t even bother checking my reflection in the van’s side mirror. If I do, it will just make me more anxious. As itis, I spend the entire walk to the art tent with my head in a spiral. I tell myself it’s not a big deal, just a casual meetup with a guy I met, but my pounding heart isn’t buying my lie.
This is Torren King.TheTorren King.
I’m sneaking off to meettheTorren King at ArtFusion to possibly do latex body painting, and there isn’t a single thing I can tell myself that will make this feel less surreal. It’s not until I turn a corner and find him waiting for me, standing just out of the beam of one of the light posts, that my nerves threaten to consume me. I stop in my tracks and stare.
He doesn’t see me right away. His head is tipped in shadow as he scrolls on his phone with a lit joint hanging from his pouty lips. He’s got the baseball hat and sunglasses on again, and there’s more scruff on his face than there was yesterday, but there’s no hiding who he is. If the colorful tattoos on his arms don’t give him away, the god-like aura he exudes should.
God, he’s so effortlessly gorgeous that it’s unfair. Tattered blue jeans and a plain black T-shirt shouldn’t look this good on anyone. I fist my hands, take a deep breath, then force myself to walk toward him.
I’m just out of arm’s reach when Torren looks up from his phone and finds me. His smile is immediate, and my cheeks and chest heat with a blush.
“You came.”
I shrug. “I did.”
He stubs out his joint, then takes his sunglasses off and hangs them on his shirt just like he did yesterday. He never breaks eye contact. It’s so intense, the way he stares me down with those impossibly green eyes. I almost forget how to speak.
“Have you done this before?”
Torren tips his head toward the tent. There are already about twenty people inside. There’s a woman walking around in a fully painted colorful latex bodysuit, chatting up participants and handing out foam paintbrushes. I scan my eyes over her perfect body—a canvas of blue and purple swirls that somehow hides and accentuates every dip and curve—and determine that she’s almost entirely naked. She might have on some sort of thong, but it blends with the latex paint so well that I can’t be sure.
I swallow past the lump in my throat and shake my head.
