“Cam!”
Cameron started at the laughing shout. She watched a willowy young woman wearing a skimpy LBD leap down the stairs of Lachlan’s house and run toward her across the people-peppered front lawn.
A lithe body slammed into her, two long, almost gangly arms wrapped around her in a suffocating bear hug, and before she could do anything but laugh, Lillian McDermott—utterly delightful, monumentally innocent super model—planted her full, glossed lips on Cameron’s mouth and kissed her.
“I knew you would come.” Lillian grinned when she finally deigned it okay to let Cameron go. “All that blustered complaining and grousing about staying away from crowds didn’t fool me.”
Cameron raised an eyebrow, watching the younger woman practically quiver with nervous energy. “I’m only here for a little while,” she said, lacing her fingers through Lillian’s. “As much as you don’t believe it’s possible, I do prefer to not be around a crowd anymore.”
Lillian let out a dismissive snort. “Pft. Crowds schmowds. This is just a few close friends and work colleagues. I’m sure you know most of them. Frankie is here, by the way. She told me she wants to talk to you about the New York shoot.”
Cameron shook her head and gave Lillian a smile. “No work talk tonight. I’m not here as Cam Winters, photographer. I’m here as your friend.”
“And to check my brother out.”
Cameron’s stomach dropped. “Excuse me?”
Lillian laughed, tugging Cameron closer to her side before sliding her arm around Cameron’s shoulders. “C’mon, Cam. You think I didn’t notice?”
Cameron swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. “Notice what?”
“That every time we chat about life outside a photo shoot, you steer the conversation around to Lachlan?”
“Do I?”
Lillian nodded, nudging her hip against Cameron’s. “You do. And you weren’t even considering coming tonight until I mentioned Lochie would be here.”
Forcing calm through her body, she cast Lillian a sideward glance. “I think you may be reading too much into things, my young apprentice.”
Lillian laughed again. “Are you quoting that movie again? The one with the space ships and light swords and Harrison Ford without wrinkles?”
Phew, she’d dodged a bullet there. Lillian may be right about her reason for coming to the party, but Cameron wasn’t prepared to discuss her burgeoning interest in Lachlan. “They’re light sabers, child,” she answered with a grin and a haughty tone, as if bestowing Lillian with an important life lesson. “Light sabers. And yes, I am. Now, take me inside and show me this grand chaos you’ve designed. I expect to be playing a game of Spin the Bottle with Russell Crowe and Hugh Jackman before the hour’s up.”
Lillian pulled a face. “Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe? Fine, you can take the oldies. I’ll happily settle on Chris Hemsworth, thank you very much.”
Five steps later, they entered Lachlan’s house. Five after that, Lillian laughed a greeting at someone who looked a lot like Kylie Minogue and Cameron took the opportunity to slip away from her host.
She moved through the crowded house, not making eye contact with any of the other guests. She didn’t enjoy mixing with people anymore, preferring her own company. Besides, apart from Lillian there was no one here Cameron truly wanted to interact with. The only reason she was here hadn’t made an appearance in the house.
Perhaps he was still trying to find a space to park his bike?
The junction of Cameron’s thighs throbbed at the thought of Lachlan McDermott and his Ducati. He’d looked sexy climbing off the thing. Sexy and intimidating and powerful.
Everything she knew he was. Everything that made her nervous. So nervous she’d resorted to subterfuge to speak to him.
She slipped her way through a particularly tight knot of partygoers cheering on a game of Suck and Blow and paused for a moment when she recognized Lillian’s agent in the line. Frankie Winchester was staring with gaping shock at a tall man Cameron somehow knew. Or maybe didn’t.
She watched as the man lowered his head toward Lillian’s feisty agent, watched as his lips brushed over Frankie’s. Cameron’s pussy throbbed some more. Not because it was Frankie and a somewhat familiar guy, but because Cameron all too easily could feel Lachlan’s lips brushing over hers.
Her sex constricted. Her nipples grew tight. She’d prepared herself for a physical reaction of some kind to Lachlan McDermott, but not this. This was all a bit…a bit, damn it, this was all a bit too unsettling.
Turning from the Suck and Blow game, she continued through the house. She’d come here to do one thing. She’d come here to meet the media mogul, and by jingoes, that’s what she was going to do. Meet him, introduce herself as Cam, not Kole, and ask if she could get him a drink.
And maybe something more.
Cameron stomach clenched. She wanted to kiss him, but the trouble was who would do the kissing? Kole? Or Cameron?
She didn’t want to think about that. She couldn’t. If she did she’d probably head for her Mini and get her gazillion-dollar arse home.
Weaving her way through the raucous crowd, she found herself at the bottom of the massive sweeping staircase leading up to the house’s main bedrooms. Climbing three steps, she stopped and studied the people around her. Maybe she would find Lillian again. Or go looking for the bar. Or maybe—
“Excuse me,” a familiar deep voice rumbled behind her, “but I do believe you’re in my way.”
Her heart leapt into her throat. Her sex pulsed, her breath caught. He was behind her. After all this looking and he was now behind her.
What did she do now?
“Or maybe,” Lachlan continued, voice deeper, strained and controlled, “that was your intention?”
A teasing, sexy smile curved Cameron’s lips and, before she could consider what she was doing, she turned and gazed up at him. Up. It had been a long time since she’d needed to look up to meet a man’s gaze. A long time. Her pussy squeezed with tight heat. She liked it.
Never have before. Why now?
The question unsettled her. And made her…curious. Everything about Lachlan McDermott made her curious.
And aroused. Damn, so very aroused.
Even the arrogant way he looked at her.
He stood on the step one up from hers, his eyes still smoldering challenge. He raked a stare over her body, from top to toe and back to top again. The leather jacket was gone, but that didn’t do anything to lessen the sheer male potency radiating from him. God, he turned her on.
Or is it Kole who’s turned on? Do you really like being her, regardless of what happened to you? Do you want to be her a—
“You found a parking spot, I see?” she asked, killing the unnerving thought.
His nostrils flared at her mocking question.
“And now,” she continued, “you’re ready to play?”
He didn’t say anything, just bunched his jaw and studied her.
She let her smile move beyond teasing and sexy to downright provocative. A Kole smile through and through. “Can I interest you in a game of Suck and Blow? Seven Minutes in Heaven? Spin the Bottle?”
His nostrils flared again. Once. And then he was pushing past her, his body grazing hers as he descended the stairs. A fissure of raw sexual energy pulsed through Cameron at the brief contact and she sucked in a silent breath, watching him storm down the stairs.
He stopped at the bottom, stood motionless for a second and then, when she didn’t think he was going to, turned and looked back up at her, eyes hot with a desire she could tell he fought with every fibre in his body.
And just like that, she knew it was more than a kiss she was prepared for. So much more.
Chapter Two
“Fuck me, McDermott, is that Kole? The model?”
Lachlan started, jerking his stare to the man standing on his left. His best friend and house mate, Mackenzie Harris gaped up at the woman on the third stair rise, his mouth hanging open. A
little.
Lachlan scowled, sliding his attention back to the stunning, irksome threat to his sanity. She regarded him with an unreadable focus, the smoky-grey eye shadow and thick black lashes making her pale blue eyes all the more striking in the light. His balls grew hard and his cock twitched in his jeans. Curse the bloody woman. Turning back to Mac, he shook his head. “No, it isn’t.”
Mackenzie swung his stare to Lachlan, shocked disbelief flashing across his face. “Bullshit.” Mac shook his own head. “It’s Kole. I stared at her poster in your room every time I crashed at your house when we were at school. I think I jerked off to it more than once. The model graced the cover of every single women’s magazine your father owned more than once, as well as some that had nothing to do with women. It’s Kole.”
Lachlan refused to look at the woman in question. He couldn’t. She’d already come close to undoing him once tonight, to destroying his control. If he looked at her now, saw who Mac insisted she was, the woman of his stupid adolescent fantasies, the star of every wet dream he’d ever had, he didn’t know what he would do.
Run up those three stairs and kiss her senseless. Crush those lips of hers with yours and plunder her mouth with your tongue.
His cock jerked in his jeans and he ground his teeth.
“I asked her, Harris,” he spoke slowly, not for Mac’s benefit but for his own. Control was slipping from him. His balls throbbed with a need far too dangerous to consider. “She said she wasn’t.”
“Then she’s lying,” Mac shot back. “Look at her bone structure. Look at her lips. No one on the planet has lips like that. I’ll bet my M5 for your Merc that she is.”
Lachlan ground his teeth tighter. “Deal.”
Mac laughed. “Bloody hell, McDermott. That’s the first stupid deal I’ve ever known you to make. But I’m not going to argue. Even with the ridiculous salary you pay me I’d never afford a car like that. I thank you in advance.”
Lachlan slid his stare to the sexual torment on the third stair. “I’m not going to lose, Mac.”
He climbed the stairs in three strides, stopping only when he was on the woman’s rise, his thighs brushing hers, his stare locked on her eyes. She gazed up at him, a smile playing at the corner of her lips. And yet, a tiny pulse beat at the base of her long, smooth throat. Wild and fast. He could see it. It made his cock stiffen and his balls throb. “So,” her voice slipped past her glossed lips on a husky breath, “you are ready to play a game with me?”
He stared hard into her eyes. Every nerve ending in his body thrummed. Every muscle coiled. “Are you the model Kole?”
The smile at the corners of her mouth grew cheeky. “If I say I am, will you kiss m—”
He claimed her mouth with his and invaded it with his tongue.
She stiffened. For a second. A heartbeat. Just one, and then slid her tongue over his, battled it. Mated with it.
Charged electricity poured through Lachlan. He growled into her mouth, captured her tongue and sucked it with demanding greed. She moaned in return, her hands finding his shoulders, his hair. Her nails raked against his scalp, her hips pushing forward until their lower bodies were together. Stomach to stomach, thighs to thighs.
Lachlan drove his tongue back into her mouth, the wild taste of her kiss too intoxicating to deny. He grabbed her hips, holding her still, holding her to his erection as he deepened his hungry exploration of her mouth, her lips. They were so soft, so full under his and he groaned, his cock flooding with fresh desire. God save him, he hadn’t planned on kissing her. He hadn’t. But it was her lips…lips made to be ravished, worshipped. Lips created for kissing and fucking and biting.
He did just that, catching her bottom lip with his teeth and giving a not-so-gentle nip.
A shiver raced over her and she thrust her hips harder to his, rolling the warm curve of her sex—trapped behind the leather of her mini—to his cock. The pressure was unbearable. Exquisite. He raked his hands down over her arse cheeks, grabbed each one and hauled her closer to his dick.
She whimpered, dragging her nails up his back, over his shoulders. She clung to him as she ground the junction of her thighs to his rigid, denim-imprisoned length and swiped her tongue over his.
Lachlan’s head swam. His blood roared in his ears, pumped through his cock. He kneaded her buttocks—twin curves of toned perfection—and plundered her mouth until nothing existed but the sound of his heart slamming in his chest and the hitching moans of the woman in his arms.
Kole.
The model.
Model.
An icy fist of disgust smashed into Lachlan’s gut. He tore his mouth from her lips, jerking his hands from her arse. Christ, was he really so weak one woman could undo his control? A woman who may be exactly who she denied she was?
He stared at her, face inches from hers, studying every stunning line and curve and feature. He finally saw what the shadows of the street had hidden from him—blue eyes that had entranced the world eighteen years ago, a slim turned-up nose thousands of women paid cosmetic surgeons the world over to acquire, cheekbones high and angular and exotic, lips full and sensual…
Kole. The woman he’d just kissed on the stairs in plain view of anyone caring to watch truly was the model of his teenage fantasies. A model. Just like his superficial, money-grabbing stepmother.
He bit back a growl, refusing to let her gaze go. “Why did you lie to me back on the street?”
She cocked one finely arched eyebrow. “Who says I did?”
Hot anger thumped in his temples. “I’m not an idiot, and we’re not standing in the dark anymore.”
“Is there a problem if I am?”
Lachlan’s gut clenched. He ground his teeth, balling his hands at his side. Damn it, she’d played him like a foolish boy.
A foolish boy with a dick so hard it’s a wonder your fly hasn’t burst open yet. When was the last time you felt so aroused? Months? Years? Or thirty minutes ago when you first saw her climb out of her car?
The thought made his stomach knot. “So, you did lie,” he stated, doing his best to keep his voice low. He could feel the increasing attention of a curious audience like ants crawling on his back. Most of Lil’s invited guests would know exactly who he was. Most of the country damn well did, so why would all the people crammed into his home be any different? The last thing he wanted was some party-goer tweeting about McDermott Jnr having a meltdown in his own house, or posting the accompanying images on YouTube.
The woman shifted her weight, just enough for her thighs to brush his again, a brief contact that sent fresh heat into his dick.
“I didn’t,” she said, an ambivalent calm falling over her beautiful countenance. “I haven’t been the model Kole for a long time.”
A hot jolt of tension shot through Lachlan’s groin. A low grunt of contempt sounded at the back of his throat. “Semantics? You’re going with that defense?”
Her lips, swollen and glistening from his hungry possession, pulled into an ambiguous smile. “I didn’t realize we were at war, Lachlan McDermott. It didn’t seem that way but a second ago. Tell me, what does the victor get?”
He narrowed his eyes, refusing to acknowledge the aching hard-on in his jeans at her words. “Enjoy the rest of the party, Kole.”
He turned and stalked down the stairs, not even remotely slowing down as he passed Mac. “I owe you a car.”
His best friend let out a surprised laugh, but Lachlan didn’t stop to see what followed. He pushed his way through the throes of people enjoying themselves in his home, cursing his half-sister, his stepmother, his father and, finally running out of other people to blame for his utter weakness, cursing himself.
Damn it. Of all the models…of all the women, why did she have to be Kole?
An image of his teenage bedroom filled his head. Or more to the point, an image of the almost life-size poster of Kole pinned to the far wall of that room did.
He ground his teeth, shutting down the unsettling memory, closing of
f the squirming heat working its way to his balls.
No models, even if it was the model of his adolescent wet dreams. That was his rule and he never broke his own rules. Strictly no-involvement. Models, especially super models like Kole, brought little to life except unrealistic demands, inflated egos and shallow dinner talk. He’d grown up with one long enough to know that.
Kole or not, throbbing hard-on or not, rock-hard balls or not, he wasn’t letting himself be weakened by her allure again. His father may not have ever learnt the lesson, but Lachlan wasn’t his father.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Mac fell into step beside him, staring at Lachlan as if he’d grown an extra head.
“Looking for Lillian,” Lachlan snarled. “I need to have a word with my sister.”
Stop the charade. It’s not really Lil you’re angry at.
“I’ve had a word with her already,” Mac grunted back, his jaw bunching. “Trust me, it won’t do you any good.”
Lachlan shot his best friend a good hard glare. Something wasn’t right with the usually calm, detached lawyer tonight. Trouble was, something wasn’t right with Lachlan tonight either. “You knew about this…this…shin-dig?”
Mac held up his hands, shaking his head. “Fuck, no. I was as surprised as you when I walked in the door. But that’s not the issue I’m interested in at the moment. I just witnessed you doing a fairly good job of playing tonsil hockey with the woman you’ve fantasized about ever since I met you, a woman every straight man on the planet would give his left nut to even talk to let alone kiss, and you walk away from her like you’ve kissed the devil?”
Lachlan’s gut churned. “Drop it, Harris.”
“Not on your nelly, McDermott. What gives? You can’t tell me you weren’t enjoying that because I’ve seen you kiss a girl or two, and trust me, what you and Kole were doing on that third step was borderline porn. I got a semi watching and I’m afraid to say, it was impossible to miss the wood you were sporting when you bolted.”
Hot tension sank into Lachlan’s groin. “I didn’t bolt. And why does it matter to you? You just landed yourself a top-of-the-line Mercedes SLS AMG. That’s three hundred thousand dollars worth of car. How’s that make your semi feel?”
Twister: Party Games, Book 3 Page 2