Her hands continued what they were doing. His fists relaxed. He ran his hands up and down the skin of her arms exposed by the open sleeves of the fluttery dress.
They continued breathing together, her hands doing strange things on his back while he clung to her arms. Eventually, the sharp pains subsided and he was left with a jumble of sounds in his head. Voices from the past mixed with the usual noise.
Her touch was magical. He relaxed and let what she was doing take him over. The idea of staying there, pressed together while her talented fingers did crazy things to his body—well, he’d be a dumb ass to pretend he wasn’t entertaining the thought.
When ‘tessa took in a deep breath and arched back so she could see his face, his reflex was to smile into her old soul eyes. His smile faded instantly when she cocked her head to the side and asked, “Tell me why you do this, Ty. Why do you pretend that dancing with death each time you drive is who you are? I don’t get it. You just said it. You hate this stuff. So why? Why are you thousands of miles from home living a life that I don’t think fits you?”
He answered without hesitation. Without thinking. This was one response he always had at the ready.
“Yolo,” he told her. And then a dark memory burst free from the corner of his soul where he kept it locked up. Fuck.
Yolo. Jeez. She frowned. So much random stupid fuckery was associated with the over-used phrase. You only live once. Charlie hoped he was kidding, but knew he wasn’t. Especially since the words were spoken with an edge of sadness. The second he said them she felt his mood shift dramatically.
“You’ll have to do better than that. Yolo is all well and good but I’m not a mind-reader so how ‘bout a little more?”
He raked his fingers through her hair and fingered a soft curl. His pensive scowl concerned Charlie. She knew instinctively whatever this was explained a whole hell of a lot. Maybe even why he wasn’t bouncing back from the accident. All of a sudden, even without him elaborating, so many things made sense. His body was resisting the life he’d chosen. This man was far more broken than he let on. In his soul that is, where nobody could see.
She sighed. Poor Ty. This conflict he carried within him might be more than some simple art therapy could heal. The thought made her sad.
Switching gear, she stopped what she’d been doing to his back and began buttoning his shirt. When she was finished, Charlie murmured, “You can tuck that in now.”
He growled, “No. You made the mess—you make it better.”
Pfft. Apparently a shit-load of inner turmoil didn’t short circuit the overpowering sexuality he wielded like a weapon. He was challenging the wrong gal, though. Charlie had no problem being bossy and controlling. Being the youngest of three sisters, she’d played the baby card well into her teenage years then turned all that help me, help me nonsense into making sure she got her own way, no matter what the situation.
So fine. She’d tuck his damn shirt back in and make him wish he hadn’t issued the hollow challenge.
What an idiot, she thought while deftly unbuckling his belt with little more than a flick of her fingers. Here she was trying to help his sorry ass, and he was playing chauvinist games. Without a second’s pause, the button on his slacks flew open and down went the zipper.
She saw him suck in his stomach and wanted to laugh in his face. Did he really imagine she was going to touch him intimately? My God, but men were clueless.
With the efficiency and about as much gentleness as a wet nurse diapering a long line of screaming babies, she got the shirt smoothed against his torso and tucked into the pants with nothing more than a few nimble moves. The zip went up, button fastened and buckle securely re-done before he could react.
With an arched eyebrow that spoke loud and clear about how lame she thought he was, Charlie added a withering sneer. “Think you can handle the buttons on the vest or do you need mommy to do that too?”
“Smart ass,” he growled. And then he buttoned the vest and looked at her. “Liked it better when you were touching me.”
Charlie chuckled. “Uh, duh! But I asked you a question Signor Tyler and as your therapist, I…”
“Yeah, I know the drill. Questions asked require answers. Got it. But if you think I’m going to spill my guts in front of two hundred nosey people with one finger poised over send on their Twitter app, you’ve lost your mind.”
Charlie giggled at his description and tucked the words away in her memory for sharing with Rhiann. Nobody appreciated a well-turned phrase like her sister did. Sometimes she wondered if Rhi kept a list somewhere of cool words and sayings. She smiled at the thought. In her opinion, Rhi should have been a writer. Anyone with her grasp of language and story-telling shouldn’t be wasting those talents on a bunch of lettuce munching runway types. Oh well.
“Then I guess we’re out of here because you have some ‘splaining to do.”
Half an hour later, after making a full circuit around the crowded room and offering his regrets that they had to leave so early, Ty led her by the hand away from the noise and nauseating clash of scents and into a mirrored elevator. She considered their reflection. They made a handsome couple.
What? A couple? They weren’t a couple. He was a client. She wasn’t here because she cared about him. This was work. She had a responsibility to help him and that was all.
Right?
He was staring at her in the mirrors. She’d be a fool to ignore that his eyes ate her alive—but being a fool was the least of her worries.
“You look beautiful, ‘tessa.”
The slight thrum of something deeply masculine in his voice melted her common sense faster than a hair dryer aimed at a pile of snow.
She nibbled on her bottom lip and then beamed like a goddamn searchlight under his intense perusal. There wasn’t anything better than being told you were beautiful.
“If you smile any bigger, I’m going to have to kiss you.”
As a warning, his words didn’t carry much weight. She surprised them both when a husky giggle escaped her throat and she gave a lopsided grin in the mirror telling him, “Maybe I want you to kiss me. Ever consider that?”
He moved so fast she squealed from the startle. When his big, hard body pinned her against the cold mirror, Charlie shivered. And then the damn elevator doors opened and they had an audience. An audience that snickered at the compromising position they were caught in. Shit.
This time, instead of grabbing her hand, Ty snaked a possessive arm around her waist and guided them through the throng of people moving into the elevator. She had to ask him to slow down when she was forced to scamper on dangerously high heels just to keep up with him.
As they waited for the obviously awestruck valet who practically fell all over himself once he recognized Ty, he seemed less than happy. She’d been around him plenty of times when his celebrity got a reaction, but this felt different. Charlie couldn’t pinpoint anything specific. Maybe discomfort. Or regret. Perhaps fear.
Hmm. Odd partners.
Aware of a dozen paparazzi clamoring on the sidewalk outside, she steeled herself for a running of the gauntlet and looked anxiously at her companion. His fearsome scowl and the tension in his jaw would make any pictures taken vibrate with dark energy. Turning to him, she placed a hand upon his chest and whispered, “If you stomp out there with that Big Bad Wolf expression, the press will have a field day.”
He blinked and looked at her so hard she was pretty sure he could see straight through her.
“Graduated from spider to wolf, have I?” He made a lame attempt at a smile that didn’t reach his eyes but was better than the dangerous glower of seconds ago.
Thankfully, the Ferrari pulled up outside at just that moment, saving her from having to say anything. He quickly hustled them into the night and even blocked the view of the snapping cameras as she scrambled into the low beast of a car. Between the high heels and short billowy dress, she was an up-skirt flash waiting to happen.
Roaring away from the
fundraising event, Charlie watched his hands grip the steering wheel. She could feel his turmoil. Cal Tyler was at his breaking point. Right then, she would do anything to take away whatever was bothering him. This was a side to the man she hadn’t seen before. The unhappiness rolling off him in waves made her unbearably sad.
She didn’t want him to hurt.
HE DROVE BY ROTE THROUGH the Rome streets, mechanically following a route he knew well. Thank God for that because he was having a hard time concentrating. The memories were banging at the door of his conscious mind. Memories that would not be denied. Not this time, so he let them come, crowding his brain until he had no other choice than to let it all play out in his mind’s eye.
In his fanciful thoughts, he saw the clock unwind back to an earlier time. When he was young and stupid and completely unconcerned with things like mortality. The serious life-changing word hurt his heart. After all, mortality was something Cal was intimately acquainted with.
It was his last year in college, a time when going balls-to-the-wall and testing every limit that came his way was an everyday thing. Back then; he was making great progress toward earning a degree in architecture and design and basically having the time of his life.
Well, not just him. It was him and Harvey Swanson all the way. Harve was his oldest friend. They’d known each other from the time of Cal’s earliest memories having grown up on the same block in a happy suburban neighborhood in Virginia.
They went to the same preschool, were in the same grade, rode the bus together to school and played on the same Little League team as kids. It was Harve who got caught along with Cal one memorable afternoon when they’d been salivating over a stack of his old man’s Playboy collection out in the garage. Jax had shown him where the secret stash was hidden and from there, well fuck. He and Harve wasted hours and hours of time drooling over the nudes and dirty stories.
They stuck together like glue all through school and the only time they ever competed with one another was trying out for the football team. They shared everything, including Helen Bradley and had on more occasions than he was comfortable remembering, taken turns with the sexually experienced girl. And as was so often the case with youthful bullshit, he had forever etched in his memory the visual of Harve and him DP’ing Helen while she screamed filthy words and begged for more.
By the time college rolled around it was a given that they’d buddy up for that too. Doing college together at Cornell University in the empire state, they thought it cool as shit that Bill Nye and Kurt Vonnegut were both alumni of the venerable New York college. Roommates and partners in crime they called themselves desperados and made a pact to always look for the edge and to never be satisfied with anything screaming of being the safe way to go.
Shit. When he put it that way, of course it was going to end badly. And ending badly was the understatement of the century.
His mom had a block of wood she kept on a shelf that said, Life changes in the instant. The ordinary instant. It was a quote by a writer she admired. After September 11th when the whole world changed in a heartbeat, she put the thing on display and never put it away. Cal couldn’t count the number of times over the years he’d thought about that little block of wood.
The ordinary moment that changed his everything took place on a Thursday in April. He and Harve were out joy riding. Spring break was coming and after that—graduation. On that day, their whole lives spread out before them. The future full of promise and the past a happy place stuffed with good times and great memories. Life was fucking good.
“Slow the fuck down, Harve. Last thing we need is a ticket this close to graduation. Our folks’ll shit themselves.”
An early spring forced green, yellow and white into the countryside around the college. They were cruising the back roads, a mix tape blaring from the sound system and the T-tops of Harve’s classic stowed away. Next to Cal’s beloved Chevelle, the Trans AM was a shit ton of fun to drive.
“Wah wah, you pussy!”
His best friend’s voice reached through time and grabbed Cal by the throat but that wasn’t enough to stop the memory from continuing.
Harve shifted and the car shot forward, the roar of the V-8 engine and the sound of the Red Hot Chili Peppers song, Dani California blaring as they sped up taking the twisting curves and flat sections with increasing speed.
Was alcohol a factor in what happened next? He’d never know for sure. While Cal could take it or leave it, Harve was a hardened college beer guzzler. This was one area where they couldn’t compete—not that he tried.
They were coming up on a well-known dead man’s curve—one that saw countless speeding cars. Right after the curve was a climb and a dip that could get a car air born if taken at the right speed. Harve shifted again and went for it.
“Dude!” Cal yelled. “Take it easy, man.”
What did Harvey do? Laugh and press the gas pedal. They took the turn but not on four wheels.
“Fuck yeah,” his friend hollered. “Woo hoo, Cal! Yolo!” he roared.
The next thing Cal remembered was waking up in the hospital. Seven days later. Two after his best friend was laid to rest in their hometown cemetery. What people said was true. Life can change in an instant.
Yolo, man. Yolo.
He’d been silent way too long for her liking. Charlie shifted in the leather seat, her bottom lip throbbing from the force of her teeth chewing on the puffy ridge of flesh.
Studying his profile, she saw a muscle twitch in his jaw. He was killing her. She always had a hard time around other people’s energy when the vibes she picked up were somber and unhappy. Wanting to make it better for everyone was a big part of who she was. If a magical genie ever gave her three wishes, the first one would be to give her the ability to kiss the whole wide world and make it all better.
Nana sometimes says that her youngest granddaughter got an extra helping of heart. The whole family pretty much agreed. That was her. Charlize the wise and big hearted. Not a bad thing to be at all, but seriously. Sometimes all that empathy and the desire to fix every broken being was a real burden. Like now. More than anything she wanted to help Ty. Something inside him called to her. Something she couldn’t ignore if she tried.
They were headed in the direction of his apartment so at least she knew he wasn’t going to pull up to the curb at her place and boot her from the car. That alone gave her hope that he was really going to open up and let her see inside.
And then something occurred to her—a thought she voiced aloud just to see what he’d say.
“Is this your car?”
He didn’t look at her; there was too much traffic for that. And he chuckled, but there was no humor in the sound. “Fucking better be if I’m driving, huh?”
Okay. That came out wrong. She sat there a thought for a minute.
“What I mean is, did you pick it out? You know. Did the words, I want a blue Ferrari Spider come out of your mouth?”
She turned and watched while he considered her question.
“Uh, well no. The team makes sure I’m driving something flash.” He rolled a shoulder. The grit in his voice was quite apparent. “Appearances.”
Was that a sneer she heard?
“The Maserati is my personal car if that’s what you’re asking. This? Part of the image.”
Charlie wasn’t exactly surprised by this reveal. Actually, it was as she suspected but now wasn’t the moment to reveal she thought him a fraud. Cal Tyler was no thrill seeking vroom vroom jockey.
Maybe when he explained, she’d understand better why he wore this particular mask. She’d need to know if there was any hope of getting him past the problems holding him back.
“Do you mind if I have a drink?” Cal registered her look of surprise. He rarely imbibed, but right now he needed one. “It’s still early,” he assured her. “I’ll be able to drive you home.”
’‘tessa tossed her bag onto a table and reached up with both hands to fluff her hair. It was an odd habit, one
that he’d noticed she did quite a lot. Unfortunately, when her arms went up, so did the hemline of her short dress. Cal nearly hiccupped a loud gasp when most of her thighs were revealed.
A drink. Stat. And a big one. “Can I get you anything?”
She hurried to the bar cart and examined the choices. “What are you having?”
“Vodka martini. Dirty. Three olives.”
“That sounds yum. Can I watch you make them? Is this one of those shaken or stirred things? I think you should shake them. Makes the drink sexier, don’t you think?”
She rattled off questions and comments in a free-form ramble. Her natural enthusiasm almost helped him find a smile.
“Have you ever had a martini? They can be lethal.”
She snickered. “Really? Stout in London. Sherry from Spain. Wine by the barrel in Italy and France. I think I can handle the drink of Mother Russia. One of my art school friends grew up near Moscow and insisted we chomp on pickles whenever the Stoli came out.” She went “blech” and stuck out her tongue. “I think olives will be more my style.”
Well, okay then. Two dirty martinis, shaken, not stirred, coming up.
As he prepared the drinks, Cal watched her wander the room. Dragging her fingers, he thought about the way she approached life with tactile curiosity. Now that he really thought about it, she touched practically everything. Even him. Flashes in his mind replayed the way her hands soothed his pains. ‘tessa holding his face so he couldn’t look away. Shit. The clapping games and the goofy fingerplays she dropped into almost every situation.
While stabbing a cocktail pick into the olives, his thoughts wandered far from the moment. He bet her hands would be heaven on his body. Specifically his dick. She’d take her time with soft, exploratory touches and knowing her, she’d be thorough about it too. Would she tease the tip with a fingertip? He’d like that. His dick gripped in one of her delicate hands, the fat head exposed and her thumb stroking the underside. Then, a droplet of fluid that she’d dip a fingertip into. Swirling it in gentle circles on his sensitive flesh …
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