It was weird, but she felt more than discomfort, she was actually… worried. Leaning over the table, she wished the camera would go away for a minute, except, when the camera was around, he was usually more “on” than he was at any other time.
“Nairn,” she murmured.
His smile was slow, but he didn’t look up, just fingered a prong on the fork next to his prone hand. “No one calls me that,” he said.
Oh, she didn’t care about being his buddy. Moving down a chair, she got closer to him. “I’m calling you that,” she said, sliding a hand onto his face to draw it up so he’d look at her. Immediately, when their eyes met, she felt better. “Do you want out?”
The only thing she could figure was that he was having regrets about what they’d done. It made sense. He was a guy used to his freedom and he’d just tied himself down to the heaviest weight he’d ever met.
Slowly, his lips curled into a sinister kind of smile that didn’t fill her with confidence. Sliding up in his chair, Trick didn’t straighten, he leaned closer, guiding her hand from his face around his neck as he moved in. But instead of kissing her lips, he kissed her cheek, then moved around to her jaw and lower to the dip beneath her ear.
“Nairn,” she whispered when he kissed her neck.
Her eyes got heavy until they closed and her head moved of its own free will, somehow knowing exactly how it had to shift and angle to let his lips find the spot they sought. His first name felt better on his lips than his nickname. It didn’t make sense, but it made her feel more connected to him, made their connection more real.
Why was it ok to let the stoic, reticent Trick kiss her like this when she’d never dream of letting the handsy, arrogant chancer who’d held her on the dancefloor last night touch her this way?
His tongue trailed over her pulse point, bringing his lips to her ear at the same time she felt his fingertips on the inside of her knee beneath the table. “I’m gonna fuck your tight, desperate little pussy so hard tonight, baby, you’re gonna forget your own damn name.”
That was it.
Exactly what she needed to hear.
Standing up, she shoved away from that disgusting, entitled mouth and was infuriated to see it twist in a laugh. He opened his arms. “What? Baby, come on! You want it!”
Grabbing her water glass, Lyla tossed the liquid in his face and spun around to march away. If he thought she was happy to be spoken to in that way, he was mistaken. Whatever she’d done to make him think she was one of the hussies from his nightclubs, she’d have to figure it out and make sure she never did it again because she had a limit and he’d just found it.
SEVEN
Lyla had locked the bedroom door, but he hadn’t come knocking on it. She left him sleeping on the couch when she went to breakfast because she didn’t even know what time he’d gotten back to the room.
For all she knew, he’d gone on another drinking binge. A guy like him could find friends, or rather drinking buddies, and a warm bed, in any state or country.
She’d gone for a wander around the resort and perused the gift shop before the walking tour group met in the lobby. Trick had shown up, just seconds before they were going out the door. His arrival delayed their departure another twenty minutes, as he signed autographs and told stories.
Yeah, the guy could turn it on for his fans, no doubt about that.
The tour included a picnic lunch, during which Trick was surrounded by people who wanted to be his new best friend meaning Lyla was spared having to talk to him all day.
Dinner that night was a buffet and they’d ended up at a table full of more adoring Trick fans, but she didn’t care, in fact, she was grateful, because it saved her from a repeat of the previous night.
Trick told her to take the bedroom again that night and she was glad to because at least the door had a lock and she didn’t have to worry about him accidently falling into bed with her. Lyla guessed he was happy to be out in the living room because it gave him freedom to come and go as he wanted, with whoever he wanted.
Saturday was spent by the pool. Trick missed breakfast again; she was learning that he didn’t keep regular hours. While she swam and read, he stayed in the jacuzzi being adored by those who recognized him.
They did some interviews in the evening and ended up eating dinner in the room with the crew as Paul lectured them on interacting more.
But they had a flight to catch on the Sunday and by the time they packed and made it to the airport in their minibus, everyone seemed ready to leave Florida behind.
The next step for her was moving in to Trick’s place.
The camera crew got every second of her packing up the last of her things in her apartment. Trick had to go to the studio and so he disappeared, leaving her and a couple of guys from the station who were dressed up like movers, to take her possessions out of her apartment.
She wasn’t moving her furniture. In fact, Lyla was keeping her place because she wasn’t ready to part with it yet and selling an apartment she loved was a big deal to her. If the honeymoon had taught them all anything it was that this relationship wasn’t going to last beyond the contract.
It felt weird going into Trick’s place without him there. Paul gave her a tour and then they did take after take of her snooping around the place, though she didn’t say much about the things they set her up to find. So what if he drank a lot of beer and there were a ton of empty liquor bottles? Did it matter if he had a porn stash? And why was his internet search history her business? It wasn’t.
It was nice that there was a note on the fridge from Trick saying she should make herself at home and that he wouldn’t get back until she was asleep.
No, because his radio show was live from ten to midnight, and she had to get to work in the morning, so she wasn’t going to wait up.
Sleeping in his guest room was no different to sleeping in a hotel or at a friend’s house. Yes, it smelled like Trick and that was a little bit weird, but it didn’t take her long to get to sleep.
Monday was one of the oddest days of her life.
No.
It was the oddest day of her life.
And that was including the day she’d married a complete stranger.
Some people at work went out of their way to come over to her. Most people just pointed and whispered.
Keeping her head down, Lyla tried her best to just do her work. That was all she wanted to do. Luckily, the camera crew had split before she got to her desk. So, this was just her, working.
“You know he only did it for the show.”
Looking up from her desk, she saw the Cronies surrounding her. “I know,” Lyla said to Faith.
The three women were holding cardboard coffee cups, and Lyla cast her eyes to the clock on her desk. Hmm. She’d missed lunch. Well that was fine, she didn’t really relish the idea of sitting in the canteen with her packed lunch getting gawked at anyway.
“It’s not like he knew who you were before he agreed to do it,” Chelsea said.
“I know,” Lyla said again. If these women thought they were going to get a rise out of her or upset her, they were sadly mistaken, she smiled. “Still got married before you did though.”
The women faltered as someone squawked and hubbub started on the far side of the room. The trio around her desk turned to check it out; they did have to be the center of everything after all. Except as she glanced around to look over the shoulder-high screen that surrounded her desk, Lyla was surprised to see Trick there at the edge of the room scanning the space. People were crowding him, but he was looking right over their heads, something he didn’t normally do. Usually he was attentive and patient with fans or anyone clamoring for his attention.
God, had something happened?
Pushing away from her desk, she rounded the Cronies, ignoring their questions and rushed from her secluded corner over to the man who was being mobbed by the research department; a group who weren’t known for playing it cool.
Trick scanned righ
t past her, then stopped and looked back, his head tilting in a smile as he recognized her and began to move through the people who were drafting around him. Trick reached toward her, she put her hand in his and he curled their fingers together like they were about to engage in a thumb war or something.
Trick pulled them together and with his other hand he picked her glasses off her nose to push them up into her hair as he dipped to kiss her cheek.
His lips rose to her ear. “Can I take you out for coffee?”
Looking left and right, Lyla felt it necessary to acknowledge that there were a dozen people around them still baying for his attention, not because they were there, she was getting used to his fans, but because it should make one point obvious. “I’m working,” she said.
“I know,” he said, keeping the link of their hands tight together as he took her hand up to his lips. “But I managed to ditch Paul and I’ll be filming all afternoon. I don’t have long before the cameras catch up with us.”
Then why did he seek her out? And why wasn’t he trying to grab her boobs? This had to be important. “We shouldn’t go out in public if you’re worried about us having an audience,” she said. It was weird how easily she managed to blank out the people crowding them as long as she kept her focus on his eyes just like he’d told her to on the plane. “Come here.”
Keeping his hand, she led him away from the others to the far side of the room to one of the quiet study rooms they usually reserved for audio work. There was a glass panel in the wall that meant they’d still be visible from the bullpen. But when Lyla closed the door and slid the lock, the engaged light came on. Like anyone who wanted in couldn’t just look through the glass and see someone was working inside. Nope, they needed the light too apparently.
Except, well, she wasn’t working, not as Trick guided her over to the desk and propped himself on the edge to draw her into the vee of his thighs, resting his hands on her hips.
“Is everything ok?” she asked, touching his face, then she remembered what had happened the last time she did that, so she dropped her hand.
“Have you seen the schedule this week?” She nodded. “It’s insane.” She nodded again. “We’re not going to get any time alone.”
“Have we ever had any time alone?” she asked.
It felt like every second they were under some kind of scrutiny. Even now, although he’d put her back to the part-glazed internal wall, she knew her colleagues would probably be watching. He straightened his back, then kind of sagged in a gesture suggesting he was about to say something, except he didn’t speak.
When he swiped his tongue over his lip she got more impatient. “Trick, would you just—”
“I’m sorry.”
Part of her wanted to look around for the camera, another part wanted to lift his tee-shirt to look for a wire. “You’re what? For what?”
“This is messed up and I don’t think either of us bargained on how messed up it would be.”
Conceding a nod, Lyla had to admit she hadn’t had a clue what a rollercoaster this would be. “Ok.”
“I have to be a certain way for the cameras, you know, the… personality. It’s—”
“An act,” she said and nodded. “I know. I have figured that much out.”
He smiled. “You’re a smart one, Malloy.”
In the sunroom, on the plane, even on their honeymoon when he offered her the bedroom every night, he showed a different side of himself. Trick didn’t always say inappropriate things and act like a letch, he only did that when someone was watching them. Sure, sometimes his innuendos didn’t hit the mark, and some of his jokes weren’t funny, but he was much easier to get along with when they didn’t have an audience.
“When we’re alone you treat me with respect. When we’re not, you don’t.”
“And that’s why I’m sorry,” he said. “I upset you when I said… what I said… at the dinner table.”
Oh, so that was what he was talking about? Then why were his hands sliding up and down her hips now? Was he feeling more than he should? Was he about to take her by surprise with another insult?
Lyla slapped her hands onto his, stalling them against her hips. “You didn’t have to say that. I know dinner was a bust and I shouldn’t have touched your face, or… responded when you…”
“When I kissed you?” he asked, slipping one hand out from under hers to curl it around the side of her neck that he’d kissed. “I probably shouldn’t have done that either.”
“No,” she said, taking both of his hands to bunch them in hers to move them between their bodies. “You do have a habit of touching me more than you need to… Trick, I’ll admit to knowing that when you act in shocking ways you’re doing it for a reaction from me, or for the cameras, I know that. But… I have to admit to not having a clue who you actually are behind the façade.”
He let his hands fall from hers onto his thighs that she was still standing between and he shocked her again by letting his head fall against her shoulder. He just laid his head there for the longest time and she didn’t have a clue what to do. It took her a good minute before she let her hand curl around the back of his neck.
“Malloy, you’re not the only one,” he mumbled.
Turning her lips toward his hair, she almost felt bad, but had to ask. “This isn’t some sneaky way I haven’t figured out for you to cop a feel, is it?”
He laughed and the heat of that exhale moved through her baggy sweater and managed to reach the sensitive peak of her breast that hadn’t been awakened by a man in a long time. He blinked as he straightened, kind of, and looked at her. The exhaustion in him made her peer closer, what was he hiding? What was so awful that he had to keep up this front all the time?
But her contemplation was broken when his hands slid up under her sweater to cup her waist beneath it over her tank top. “Why do you wear this stuff?”
“What stuff?” she asked, trying to be subtle in her attempts to pull his hands out of her sweater because her coworkers would be watching every nuance, but she couldn’t encourage this behavior, even if it wasn’t an overtly sexual move.
“Your clothes. You pick all this baggy, shapeless stuff that covers every inch of you. Look at it. It goes right up to your neck, all the way to your wrists and your pants probably don’t even have a decent ass in them, not that I can tell ‘cause that sweater goes halfway down your legs.”
Sneering at his exaggeration, Lyla only smiled when he mirrored her growl in a fake mocking. “I wear clothes that are comfortable,” she said. “I don’t have a figure that—”
His eyes widened with interest. “Oh, I can’t wait for you to finish that sentence. Malloy, you have an amazing figure and if you say anything else, you’re just flat-out lying to me… Why would you lie to your husband?”
Her smile got wider because this was the kind of teasing she could handle. “It’s not that I don’t have a figure, it’s just… I don’t see why everyone else has to see my body all the time and it… it changes things.”
“What changes things?” he asked and she was surprised that he appeared genuinely interested in what she was saying. “Your body?” She nodded. “Because when people see you have a killer body they…” He didn’t finish the sentence, but his smile intrigued her. “You’re goddamn smart, babe.”
“I’m—”
“You didn’t even see it. In the hotel, that first day when you came out of the bathroom in your bikini, all us guys were panting.”
“You were…? Oh, Trick,” she groaned, trying to push away, but he pulled her back so quickly that her body bounced into his and he slid his hands from her waist around to splay them on her back, holding her to him.
Pressing her hands to his shoulders, Lyla didn’t put up too much of a fight. This wasn’t bad, he wasn’t trying to be all over her, he was just holding her. Yes, she could encourage this kind of touching; it might discourage the other kind.
“We were,” he said. “And you’re right, our opinions of p
eople do change based on their body type. It’s not fair; it’s just the way it is.”
“I just like to be comfortable,” she said.
“And not drooled on, I get that,” he said. “But you’re a married woman now, you can relax a bit.”
She didn’t understand. “Being married means I should take my clothes off?”
He nodded, selling his line as serious. “In the apartment, yes, as much as possible, in fact we introduced naked Tuesdays just last week.”
Did he ever stop flirting or thinking about sex? The teasing… was this what Sadie had meant about her having fun with him? Or was this the kind of behavior that encouraged women to get naked with him?
“Have you had sex with Sadie?” she asked, making some connections in her mind.
“Yes,” he said and she was surprised that he didn’t skirt the issue or try to avoid the question. “Years ago, we’re just friends now.” He peered at her. “Does that bother you? That I work with her?”
Lyla shook her head. “No, who you sleep with and who you work for are none of my business.”
“It’s a bit your business,” he said. “We’re married.”
She didn’t ask about Sadie as Trick’s wife; it was her curiosity that made her ask. The same thing that made her good at her job made her question probably more than she should. “But we’re not married for real.”
“Funny, I didn’t print that marriage certificate from the internet, did you?”
Rolling her eyes, she pinched his shoulder. “No, I meant, it’s not like we married for love. If we loved each other then yes, I would have a major problem with you seeing your ex every day. But we don’t.”
“She’s not really an ex,” he said, sort of considering it as he shrugged. “It was a casual thing, only lasted about a week.”
“She’s had you longer than I have.”
Something about the way his eyes lit up made her wonder about the significance of what she’d said. Lyla wasn’t great at reading between the lines. “I never married her.” True and she had to concede that. “You’re the only woman I’ve ever married and that’s why I had to come down here to apologize. You’re right, we didn’t marry for love. But we’re married and we have to live together. I can’t keep avoiding you or punishing you for my misconceptions.”
Getting Tricky Page 7