by Selena Kitt
I stared at him, frowning. I’d wondered about that. Why hadn’t Alex ever asked for the ring back? The thing was huge and had to have cost him a fortune. Unless what Tyler said was accurate.
“I don’t care,” Tyler said. “Just give me the ring.”
“Cheap bastard,” I said under my breath, glaring at the ring on my finger. Alex was Mr. Responsible. Why would he bother to buy me a giant engagement ring, spend all that money on something as frivolous as jewelry? “What are you going to do with it?”
“It’s not what I’m going to do,” he said as I twisted it off my finger. “It’s what you’re going to do.”
“What?” But once it was off my finger, he had it in his palm and was already out of bed.
“Come on.”
I didn’t have much choice except to follow. The living room had a sliding door and a little patio balcony that looked out over the city. This seemed like a pretty big liability to me—Alex was big on knowing his liabilities, and I could spot them a mile away now, my eyes sharp as any lawyer’s—but when I looked closer, I saw that a clear sort of cable railing kept people from falling—or jumping—to their doom.
“Tyler!” I called, seeing him opening the patio door and going outside. He was completely naked—and so was I. But I followed him anyway, hugging myself and shivering. “Oh my God, it’s freezing out here!”
“Then do it fast.” He turned and held out the ring. “Like pulling off a Band-Aid.”
“You want me to drop a three-thousand-dollar ring off the edge of a balcony in the middle of Detroit?” I asked, incredulous, although I was beginning to doubt the value of the ring in question.
“I can guarantee you this thing isn’t worth that much.” He rolled his eyes. “But if it is, let some homeless person find it and pawn it. It’s going to do them a hell of a lot more good than it’s doing you.”
“Tyler...” I picked up the ring, scowling at it. I hated the thing, I really did. I always had, even from the beginning. I hated gold. I hated marquis diamonds. I hated being engaged. I think I even hated Alex, if I was being completely honest. So, what in the hell was I still doing with this thing?
“Hurry up, I’m freezing my nipples off.” Tyler crossed his arms over his chest. It was the middle of the night and I wondered if anyone could see us. Maybe with a pair of binoculars from a building across the way, I thought. But why would anyone bother? “And I want to get back in and warm yours up.”
“I can’t.” I closed my hand around it, feeling the diamond digging into my palm.
“Can’t or won’t?”
“I don’t know,” I said, feeling helpless, lost. I was paralyzed. It was just how I felt when Alex asked me to marry him. Alex with his sensible Consumer Reports recommended car, Alex with his sensible loafers, Alex with his sensible 401K and blinding white brushed three times a day and flossed twice smile.
Trapped. That’s what it was, I realized, clasping the ring even tighter in my hand, as if I could squeeze hard enough to turn the diamond back into coal.
“Do you want my help?” Tyler put his arms around me from behind. The warmth of his body was a welcome shock and I felt myself instantly relax. My grip on the ring loosened.
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
He reached down to find my hand, still in a fist, grasping it in his. Then he reached out between two of the invisible cable ties, his whole fist encompassing mine. I looked down and the height was dizzying. My stomach did flips. I felt the diamond biting into my palm. I remembered Alex’s upturned face—right there in the middle of Olive Garden, getting down on one knee, and when I’d accepted, everyone had clapped. The first time in my life I’d done anything worth applauding. And now Tyler was asking me to let it go. Not that it wasn’t already long gone.
“Let it go, Katie,” he whispered into my ear, his breath warming me to my toes. “Let him go. You deserve better than him. Far better than this.”
“No...” I shook my head, denying it.
“Yes.” His hand flat on my belly, the other fisted over mine, holding a ring that should never have been on my finger in the first place. “Let me believe it for you—until you do.”
“Okay,” I breathed, accepting it. Letting it all go. I felt tears burning my eyes, my throat. Okay.”
“Let go,” he whispered.
And I did.
Chapter Four
I remembered the sex. I remembered the drinking and the smoking. I remembered dropping my ring twenty stories, letting it fall to the pavement below. I remembered playing Plants vs. Zombies on Tyler’s iPad, taking turns killing zombies with pea shooters and tossed cabbages, completely enamored with Tyler and how he took it so seriously. I remembered everything, in minute detail, and I was glad, even though I was more hung over than I’d ever been in my entire life. And that included senior year when we went to Cedar Point and I drank a fifth of tequila mostly by myself after eating fair food all day.
“Oh my God.” I didn’t even want to open my eyes. I was surprised I could talk at all, I had so much cotton in my mouth. “I think someone replaced my head with a watermelon overnight.”
“Nope, same little head that was giving me head last night,” Tyler replied, mid-yawn.
“Very smooth.” I groaned. “I’m in no mood for jokes.”
“Poor pretty head.” He pressed his lips to the top of it as I buried my face in a pillow.
“You can’t kiss this ouchie away,” I told him, my voice muffled.
“Oh, I can fix it,” he assured me. “Trust me. I am the fixer.”
“No that’s okay.” I lifted my head and it was like lifting a bowling ball. “I’m just going to crawl into the bathroom, throw up, and die a little.”
“Want me to hold your hair?” He brushed it out of my face and peeked under the blonde curtain.
“That’s a sweet offer.” I gave him a half-smile. “But I’m pretty sure that’s way below your pay grade.”
I managed to get to the toilet before I gagged, but nothing came up. Beer before liquor, never sicker. I really needed to remember that rule before I decided to do shots. Before I helped rock god Tyler Cook drink a fifth of Jack. Before I smoked half a joint and took some Oxy to finally fall asleep, my whole body buzzing like I was filled with thousands of sticky honeybees.
“Are you all right?” Tyler Cook was knocking on the bathroom door, asking if I was all right. I could have been bleeding out my eyes and I would have said “Yes”. There was no way to be in the man’s presence and feel like there was anything wrong in my life. Maybe I was being a little myopic, but he was all I could see.
“Fine!” I called, crawling over to the shower and reaching up to turn the knob. “I’m just going to shower!”
“I ordered room service.”
Room service. Was he fucking kidding me? I felt like I could throw up my own tongue. I got into the shower and closed the clear shower door. The water was only lukewarm, but I didn’t care.
“I’ve got the perfect hangover cure.” He poked his head in the door, eyeing me in the shower. “I’ll fix you right up.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
I leaned my forehead against the tile, closing my eyes and wishing I was dead. Or at least unconscious. The only thing that made it better was knowing that Tyler Cook was in the other room waiting for me. That was almost enough to clear my aching, fuzzy head. Almost. When I looked up, Tyler was gone again.
It took me forever to shower. I kept dropping the soap and every time I reached down to get it, my head would light on fire and I’d have to rest for five minutes before I started again. Then I forgot to wash my hair and had to get back in. Then I just forgot how to wash my hair altogether. It involved shampoo and water and some sort of horrible scrubbing motion that made my head feel like it was going to wobble right off my body.
By the time I dragged myself out of the bathroom, room service had arrived, and Tyler was lifting silver lids off the dishes, setting them aside on the cart. The smell of f
ood was enough to make me gag.
“There better be coffee.” I sat on the edge of the bed, still wrapped in a towel, and squinted at him. “Lots of coffee.”
“Caffeine will just dehydrate you.” He shook his head, handing me a full bottle of Dasani water. “Here, drink this.”
“This is clear.” I looked at the bottled water like it might bite me. “This is not coffee.”
“Drink it.” Tyler took it back, twisting off the cap, and handed it to me again.
When I didn’t do anything but sit and look at it, he sighed and lifted the bottle to my lips. I couldn’t do anything but swallow when he tipped it back.
“Ugh, I’m gonna puke!” I gasped, pushing it away. My stomach revolted like it had an army of French peasants in there with pitchforks on the way to show Marie Antoinette they meant business.
“Good.” Tyler handed me the bottle. “Drink all of it.”
I sipped. Every time he looked over at me, I lifted the bottle, though, with a fake “See, I’m drinking!” smile.
“How are you not hung over?” I asked, studying the last few inches in the bottle, wondering how I was going to manage to get it down.
“I’m no lightweight.” He was putting food on plates. Actual food. Food he wanted me to eat. This man was tormenting me.
“So, you do that every night?” I lifted the water bottle to my mouth again when he looked my way.
“My lips are sealed.”
“Like mine should have been last night.” I groaned when he actually started carrying a plate my way.
“Now eggs.” He sat next to me, armed with a fork and ready to use the damned thing.
“I can’t eat.” I shook my head, pressing my lips into a thin line like a two-year-old denying a parent runway access to the airplane utensil.
“Yes, you can.” Tyler smiled encouragingly, holding the fork full of cooked liquid chicken death food to my lips. “Open.”
I opened my mouth for him like a baby bird—a very reluctant baby bird who didn’t like worms—and he spooned in scrambled eggs. They were soft and easy to swallow without much chewing, which was good. I figured, the faster the food got to my stomach, the faster it would come back up, and we could stop with the torture fest.
“What is that?” I gasped when he lifted a cylindrical, dull green object off the plate and held it out to me. I thought it was some sort of garnish.
“A dill pickle.” He held that out too. It was dripping in vinegar and smelled like a cross between Easter eggs and the devil. Or what I’m pretty sure the devil must smell like, anyway.
“I can’t put that in my mouth.”
“Sure, you can. It’s not that big.” A slow grin spread over his face. “You did just fine with mine.”
“And yours was bigger.” So, I wasn’t hung over enough not to brag about my sexual prowess.
“Told you.”
“Egomaniac.” I groaned again as the death pickle got closer to my mouth. “Please, don’t make me eat that.”
“It will make it all better, I promise.” He wasn’t giving up. Seriously, he wanted me to take a bite of Kermit’s little green pickle. Was he joking? I wanted to look around for the Punk’d film crew or something. Finally, I opened my mouth and bit off the tip. And yes, I’m ashamed to say, some tiny part of me was pretending to bite off the head of this man’s enormous dick as punishment. I chewed it with relish—it was literally becoming relish in my mouth anyway—and grimaced at him as I swallowed.
“You’re a sadist,” I said as he offered me another bite of the magical healing pickle. Except I wasn’t feeling any better. In fact, my stomach thought I was giving it such a strange conglomeration of foods, it might just give it right back.
“Tough love, baby.” Tyler made me take another bite of scrambled egg. At least that was more tolerable than the damned pickle. But then he was offering me that too. Bite of egg, bite of pickle, bite of egg, bite of pickle, in some endless loop of horror.
“Oh my God, this is torture.”
“Just get it down,” he soothed. “I promise you, by noon, you’ll be back to your usual Katie self.”
“Snarky and sexy?” Last bite of scrambled egg. Thank fucking God.
“Right.”
“Will it make me rich and famous?” I refused the last bite of pickle. I just couldn’t do it.
“I didn’t say it could perform miracles.” Tyler popped the last bit of the pickle into his mouth, crunching happily. Then he reached for something else from the tray. “Now the banana.”
“I think you just want to watch me eat phallic objects.” I eyed him as he peeled it.
“You could be right.” He handed it over and I managed to take a small bite. Just the tip.
“You’re enjoying this too much.”
“Probably.” He grinned, nodding at the long, yellow fruit in my hand. “Eat.”
“Yes, Daddy.” I took another bite.
“Mmm I like the way you say that.” He laughed when I hit him on the arm.
I managed to chew and swallow the entire banana, silently handing over the peel. I was still chewing, and I fully expected it all to come back up at about the speed of light. I’d spray the penthouse suite with so much undigested pickles, bananas and scrambled eggs they’d think a pregnant woman blew up in there. And I kind of wished it would be soon, because Tyler was looking far too smug for his own good.
Then he leaned over and kissed my forehead. His lips were warm and soft, and he slipped a hand behind my neck, so he could press them firmly there, like a mother checking her child for a fever.
“You’ve got a bruise.” He stood, looking down at me thoughtfully. “I’m going to take a shower. I’ll leave the ice bucket if you decide you’re going to puke and can’t make it to the bathroom.”
He put the empty ice bucket beside me on the bed and headed toward the bathroom.
“Okay,” I called, flopping over onto my side, everything in my stomach sloshing and making me suddenly very nauseous. “I’m going to die now.”
“Not on my watch.” He winked before closing the door behind him.
I think I fell asleep while he was showering. And I think it was a long damned shower too, because when he opened the door, a cloud of steam followed him like a rolling fog off the lake. I only opened one eye, seeing him approach the bed, a towel wrapped around his slim hips. There were those two, delicious, mind-blowing ridges I’d licked last night, one near each hip bone, like two commas that just screamed, “Wait a minute there! Pay attention to me!” And I did. I was.
“Feel any better?” He stroked my still-damp hair away from my face.
“You know what?” I narrowed my eyes at him as I slowly sat, hugging my towel back around my middle—it had fallen askew while I slept. “I actually do. What sort of black magic is this?”
“Told you I’d fix it.” He gave me that smug smile, the one I wanted to kiss right off his smug face.
“I’m just grateful not to feel like Pumpkinhead,” I admitted. “Listen, now that I can do more than crawl, I’ll get out of your way.”
I stood, looking around for my discarded clothes. They were all underfoot.
“I kind of like you in my way.” Tyler stood in mine, blocking my escape.
“I should go home...” I said, mostly because I wanted to say the right thing. As much as I would have loved to stay, I knew I couldn’t impose. There were one-night-stand rules to follow, after all, and number one usually involved taking your wet panties home in your pocket and slinking away in shame.
“To the fiancé?” Cocked eyebrow, dark stare, like he was actually jealous.
“I told you, that’s as over as over gets.” I rolled my eyes. “And we never lived together. I was too much of a slob for Alex.”
“So, what?” Tyler sat on the bed, pulling me between his open thighs. This parted his towel and drew my gaze downward. “You have cats to feed? A dog to walk?”
“No...”
“Hamsters? Gerbils? Fish?”
“None of the above.” I shook my wet head, smiling.
“So, you need to go home… why?”
“Well… because...” I shrugged, glancing around the bedroom. “I don’t live here.”
“Neither do I,” he reminded me. His hands slid up under my towel. I was still clutching it to my chest. “So?”
“Tyler...” I met his eyes. They were dark, dancing, devilish. “Are you asking me to stay?”
“I asked you to stay last night. Don’t you remember?”
“You were serious about that?”
“You want me to clear it up for you?” Those hands were at my hips, gripping them under the terrycloth.
“Yeah, I think some Windex might be helpful here,” I quipped.
“That was bad.” He snorted a laugh.
“I’m a bad girl.” I swallowed when he parted my towel like a curtain, looking at my naked body in the bright light of day.
“Does this help?” He planted a little kiss on my navel, licking it for good measure as he pried the towel from my hands. I had no choice but to let it go. It dropped to the floor at my feet.
“A little less cloudy.”
“How about this?” His hands slid around to grab my ass, his tongue searing across my abdomen, licking his way up to my left nipple.
“Definitely clearing up,” I murmured.
“Umm, how about this?” He grabbed me and tossed me, making me squeal and knocking my breath completely out of me. We wrestled on the bed until he pinned me, my wrists clasped in his hands above my head. His towel was gone, and his aim was impeccable. His cock slid into me and I cried out.
“Clear yet?”
Oh my God, that look. This man owned me. And he fucking knew it. Smug little bastard.
“Crystal.” I bit his shoulder as he started to move, giving him my own self-satisfied grin when he swore and pulled back to scowl at me.
“Brat.” He kept my wrists clasped in one of his big, calloused hands, in spite of my feeble attempts at escape, sliding the other one down my body to grip my ass. “I’ll teach you to bite me.”
“You will?” I snapped my teeth at him, teasing. “Where?”