Wild Temptation (36 page)

I kiss him hard. I kiss him deep. I kiss him with my fears and anxieties and my hopes and dreams. I kiss him with everything I have and everything I am right in this moment, because sometimes, that’s all you can do.

His umbrella falls to the ground next to mine with a clunk, and I arch my body over his. I don’t care that there are people around. I don’t care that it’s pouring rain and we’re both getting soaked. All I care about is this sexy, intriguing, tempting man and the way he consumes me so completely with his kiss.

All I care about is the fact that this kiss is either the end of something wonderful or the beginning of something magical.

“You should do that more often,” he murmurs, lowering me to the ground.

“You wanted me to smile. Here it is.” I run my fingers through to the end of his hair and allow my lips to spread and curve the way they want to. He places his hand on the camera, but I cover it with my own. “No,” I whisper. “This smile is for you. Just you.”

He takes his hand from under mine, conflicting emotions in his eyes, and cups my cheek. “I love the just-for-me smiles more than I love your normal smiles. Can I get them on a regular basis?”

I turn my face into his hand and kiss him palm. “I don’t know if I have a choice about that.”

“I don’t want you to have a choice.” He draws me closer to him. “I want your only choice to be me. No matter what happened before. And here, right now, this is the perfect time to make your choice. It’s a world away from everything you’re holding back because of. Promise me that, when we get home, you’ll tell me if it’s all or nothing.”

I close my eyes. I want it all as much as I want nothing. But right now, I want the all a little more.

“I promise. You, Tyler Stone, have three days to convince me why I should set every one of my fears aside and give you every part of me.”

“Are you challenging me, Miss Warren? Because you know how I take a challenge.”

“I’m challenging you. I challenge you to give me one good reason why I should take a chance on you.”

“Challenge accepted. I hope your heart—and your knickers—are ready for it.”

I open my eyes and stare straight into his. They’re dark and determined, hard and forceful, scheming, devious. I lay my hand at his waist and step farther into him. He grabs an umbrella and holds it over us ridiculously.

My heart and my
knickers
might be ready. I’m undecided if I am though. Still, I say, “I’m ready, Ty. Give me your best shot.”

Dayton sips her wine slowly. “A boat ride? That’s his idea of romanticizing you?”

“A boat ride with dinner,” I correct her like it’ll make a difference. I’m not really a boat person.

“Okay. But a boat? You hate boats.”

“I don’t hate boats. I simply have a strong dislike for anything that bobs in water.”

“Tell that to the salmon you ate for lunch.”

“Semantics.” I wave my hand and pick up my glass. “A boat. I feel sick thinking about it.”

“So tell him,” she says with a ‘duh’ face.

“No! He already paid for it and stuff. How awful would that make me?”

“Not as awful as you’d be vomiting everywhere with seasickness.”

My stomach turns. “Ugh. Don’t!”

“Don’t what?” Tyler asks, sitting on the chair next to me.

“Nothing.” I smile.

“So, Liv.” Aaron rests his elbows on the table. “Have you thought any more about my offer?”

The bar. The managing. The…responsibility.
No,
I want to say. I haven’t thought at all—but I’m quickly thinking that thinking stuff over is overrated.

“I’ll do it.”

Everyone stops.

Seriously? Is it that much of a shock? Wait.

Did I just agree to run a motherfucking bar? Holy crap. I did.

Their shock is justified.

“You will?” Aaron half-grins. “Really?”

“Why not?” I down my wine.
Whyfuckingnotindeed.
“I’m up for a challenge.”

Tyler squeezes my thigh under the table.

“Fantastic.” Aaron’s grin spreads across his face. “We’ll talk when we get back. We’ll go down there and run over everything.”

“Perfect. Why not?” I pour another glass of wine.

Wow. That was impulsive, even for me.

“Liv? Are you sure?” Dayton questions.

I close my eyes briefly before looking into hers. “I didn’t think about it before. That right there was an impulsive decision. I thrive off impulse. I have nothing to lose. Not really.”

Nope. Nothing to lose but a job. Good going, Liv.

“You’ll do well working for me.” Aaron sips his whisky. “Split-second decisions make success, not piss-assing around until you’re sure.”

“There we go, then. I’m already an asset.” I snort then turn to Dayton. “Your dress fitting is tomorrow, right?”

She nods. “At eleven. Are you coming with me?”

“Are you shitting me? Of course I’m coming with you, you idiot. I want to see this beauty!”

“She could turn up in a garbage bag and I’d still marry her,” Aaron says quietly, leaning over to kiss her.

Tyler slides his arm around my waist. “Are you ready to go? Leave the lovebirds to it.”

I nod, finishing the rest of my wine. Thank fuck there’s food to come—three glasses on an empty stomach probably isn’t the smartest idea of my lifetime.

We say goodbye to Day and Aaron, and with his arm firmly wrapped around my waist, Ty leads me toward the Seine. There’s a chill in the air, a crisp, almost bitter chill. It makes me curl in closer to him for the warmth I know his body can provide me.

He obliges, his grip tightening as I move closer. Neither of us says a word as we approach the river. Neither of us needs to say anything. It’s a comfortable silence. One that could transcend time, binding us together in a way I can’t possibly conceive of right now.

It’s a silence that says all the right things at all the right moments.

And I apparently need to pause on the wine for a while… Or maybe not. Maybe the magic of Paris is casting itself over me. Or I watched way too much Peter Pan as a kid and still have a misplaced belief in fairies.

I sigh.

“What’s up?” Ty asks, his breath fanning across my cheek. Warm, ahhh.

“Just thinking. Too much.” I frown. “Way too much.”

He laughs. “Let’s get you food. And I demand you stop thinking.”

I raise my eyebrows. “D’you see a bed, mister? Nope. Me neither. Shove your demands.”

“Shove them where?” he hums against my neck.

“Up your ass. Up my ass. I don’t particularly care right now.”

His lips curve. “Yes. You need food, babe.”

He hands two tickets to the girl behind the glass and whisks me off toward a boat. Oh, it’s a nice boat. I’m not a boat fan, but the wood piping and classy interior has me swooning. Tyler leads me onto it, holding my waist the whole time.

The top of the boat is open, ready for tourists to sit on and stare at the city as the boat travels along the Seine. For a moment, I believe that’s where we’re going until Ty stops to talk to the host and he waves his hand.

He leads us to the back of the boat. His hands part two curtains, and with a nod, Tyler guides me behind them.

A whole section of the boat to ourselves.

Hot damn. What is he planning?

M
y butt has barely touched the seat when he orders for us both in fluent Fr
ench. I stop and stare at him in disbelief. He can speak French?

“I spent a lot of time here while my parents were setting up their hotels,” he explains, answering my unsaid question. “Speaking French seemed…natural.”

“I can barely speak English.” And that’s true. Sometimes I forget how to speak my own language.

Ty smirks. “I lived in London for most of my life. France is a stone’s throw away from England. It’s not like you growing up in Seattle, where your closest ‘foreign’ language is French Canadian.”

“Most of your life? Where else did you live?”

A waiter enters with a bottle of rose wine and two glasses. He pours a little in one glass and asks Tyler to taste it. He does, nods, and the waiter pours two glasses before disappearing. I grasp the stem of mine and lean forward.

“We lived in the US for a few years. My parents were ready to expand over there when Uncle Brandon—Aaron’s dad—went international with his business. Mum had been considering it for a while, but Dad really pushed her into the leap.”

“How long did you live there for?”

“About three years. We lived in New York. It was my parents’ central base for the restaurant and hotel business. I sometimes wonder if they would have been as successful if it weren’t for my aunt and uncle, but then I think the same for the other way around.” He shrugs a shoulder.

“And you really never wanted to take it over? The business?”

He shakes his head. “Tessa is my twin, so it would have always been a fifty-fifty stake. I just… I don’t care. That makes me sound like a right twat, but I don’t. It’s not interesting to me. I refuse to do something just because it’s expected. I’m not my sister or my cousin.”

I run my finger around the top of my glass. “I respect that.”

“Really? Most people think I’m a fucking idiot.”

“You are, but I still respect it.” I take some bread from the basket between us and tear it apart. “My dad was a professor in math. He used to give me extra lessons to make sure I got it, you know? But I didn’t. I never understood math, despite his best efforts. I barely scraped by to graduate high school. He was pissed when I went to college and studied art, but hey. I didn’t see why I should put myself through torture to make him happy.”

A long moment passes between us. Our dynamic shifts. We go from two people drawn together by chance to a couple brought together by fate’s coincidental timing.

“My dad wanted me to run the company with Tessa the way he does with Mum. Of course, that was never going to happen when she got married.”

“Is she okay, by the way? That must suck. I remember Day talking about the wedding after she and Aaron got engaged.”

Tyler’s lips twitch. “She’s a Stone. She’s taking his arse and she’s hanging it out to dry while wringing it out. Pre-nups are legally binding, something that knob forgot when he fucked about on my sister.”

“Good. He deserves to be trampled by a donkey.” I finish my wine just as our food is delivered.

I dig in as soon as we’re left alone. So I’m hungry. I cut a piece of meat off the thigh on my plate and put it in my mouth. Salty but sweet… It’s duck. Something I usually cringe at eating. Somehow, the French have made it not cringe-worthy. Combined with sautéd potatoes and salad, they’ve made it damn tasty.

We eat in silence. My eyes are almost fixed on the window and the city as we float past it. The Musee d’Orsay, Notre Dame, Le Palais… We pass them slowly with barely any effort.

I wish I had my phone for pictures, but while staring at these uninhibited by a lens, I understand why Tyler said no. The photographer who says no to pictures—go figure.

I set my knife and fork on my plate and turn on the seat. The seat stretches the whole way around the back of the boat, and windows line the space above it. Except for the very center, which is windowless.