He plunked his beer down in the cupholder on the ledge, grasped the sides of his t-shirt, and lifted. His smooth, tanned skin came into view, and I sucked in a breath. He could be on the cover of a fitness magazines.
Once he got big, maybe that was something I should look into.
Crap. It was getting harder to keep the business side separate from our personal relationship when we were alone, and I wondered if I should quit trying to do it.
Troy stepped out of his flipflops, and I moved to make way for him to climb into the hot tub beside me. The water sloshed around as he dropped into the seat opposite me and spread his arms out across the back edge. It was an invitation to climb into his lap, but I couldn’t take him up on it yet.
“You told your mom about your audition.” I said it soft and conversational, just loud enough to be heard over the jets.
The ease in his body vanished. “She called you, huh?”
“Actually, she came over.”
He scrubbed a hand over his face, then lifted it as if in surrender. “Sorry I didn’t give you a heads-up. I was going to, but she was mad enough with me, I didn’t think she’d want to talk to you right away.” He peered at me cautiously. “How’d it go?”
“Okay-ish?” I said. “She was upset in the beginning, but we got to talking, and I think that helped.” I’d been able to convince her to stay longer, and by the time she’d left, we seemed to be back on solid ground. “I think she just needs a little more time to process it. It sounded like there were high hopes for you to take over the business.”
His expression turned grim. “Yeah.”
“How was your conversation with them? Are you okay?”
His gaze drifted away from mine as he contemplated how to answer me. “It wasn’t great. I know how much he wanted me to have it, and when I turned it down that hurt his feelings, but . . . I had to. I don’t want it.”
His attention shifted back to me and his hand dipped down into the water, finding mine resting on my thigh. He pulled my hand up until it broke the surface, and then his fingers played with mine, enticing me to lace ours together.
The color of his eyes was deeper in the low light. “I’m glad it’s finally done. It feels good to have it out there, not hanging over my head anymore.”
His subtext came through loud and clear, but I frowned as I stared at our joined hands. “I want to tell her about this too, but we can’t right now. One thing at a time.” I felt flushed and it had nothing to do with the temperature of the water. “I’m not sure what we’d say. I don’t even know what ‘this’ is yet.”
Our hands sank together under the water, but the connection wasn’t enough for him anymore. Troy leaned forward and scooped me up into his arms, pulling me into his lap.
His lips brushed against the edge of my ear. “What do you want it to be?”
It was strange how I had no problem telling him how I wanted sex . . . but talking about emotions or our relationship? It made me skittish. I squirmed in his hold, both against the discomfort of his question and the rush of desire his embrace caused.
So, I lobbed the ball right back into his court. “Well, what do you want it to be?”
His laugh was throaty. “No way. I asked first.”
Instead of answering, I stalled. “Charlotte was curious about you after the auditions. She asked if you have a girlfriend.”
He ran the tip of his nose along the curve of my neck and enjoyed the pleasurable shiver that ran through my body. “What’d you tell her?”
“I said I didn’t know.” I was short of breath from his seduction. “Is that how you think of me?”
He hesitated, but not out of fear. It was cautious optimism. “Do you think of me as your boyfriend?”
“No way, I asked first,” I teased, although I was entirely serious.
He sighed dramatically and slid his arms tighter around me. “I thought you weren’t the kind of girl,” he mumbled against my shoulder, “to get all twisted and suddenly be too scared to do something. But it’s okay, Erika. I’m not scared.” He planted a kiss on my skin right beside my bikini strap. “You’ve made me reckless like that.”
I inhaled sharply at his reference to the song I’d written years ago. It seemed to carry far more meaning now. Did ‘Reckless’—a love song—describe the way he felt about me?
“Yeah, you’re my girlfriend.” He stated it as a fact. “My amazing girlfriend, who wrote me a song and got me an audition and said she believes in me.” His warm mouth roved up my neck. “She’s also hot as fuck.” His fingers skimmed up my spine, finding the hook at the back of my top and undid it with lightning speed. “And she loves being topless too.”
I laughed softly as the tension went out of the fabric and the peach swimsuit top began to float in the churning water, tethered to me by the tie still done behind my neck. I made quick work of it and slung the sopping swimsuit over the side of the tub.
I wasn’t worried about the neighbors seeing. The jets were running, and my breasts were below the bubbling water line, making it hard for Troy to even see me. He used his hands instead to discover my curves and I wrapped my arms around his damp shoulders.
I whispered it in his ear, my voice rasping with need. “Are you going to fuck me out here?”
His smile was sly. “Maybe. Why? You think someone might see?”
“More like hear. Dr. Lowe’s girlfriend isn’t quiet when they use their hot tub.”
He went stiff and awkward.
“What is it?”
He made a face. “You know I’m friends with Cassidy, right? I mean, I was in high school when she was with Preston. That whole situation is fucked up.”
I wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but I tried to piece it together. “Dr. Lowe’s girlfriend . . . used to date his son?”
“Yup.”
“Well, I guess that explains how Dr. Lowe met her,” I said quietly. “She’s half his age.”
“Like I said, fucked up.”
I gave Troy a plain look. “Yes, we should definitely cast stones from our glass house.”
He laughed like I was being ridiculous. “I didn’t mean because of the age thing. You know I don’t care about that.” He softened, returning to his playful self. “What I do care about is getting the rest of this bikini off, and then getting you on my dick.”
I feigned a dreamy, dramatic look. “God, you say the most romantic things.”
He chuckled knowingly. “You love it.”
I really did.
Troy
It was three days before the videos were posted on Stella’s site, and by Monday my life became chaos. When I walked in to teach my bootcamp class, one of the other trainers joked loudly, “Hey, the pool boy’s here!”
Two of the women at the gym asked for my autograph, which was just fucking weird. What else was surprising was how I was leading in the fan poll. But Erika said she wasn’t surprised at all.
She’d been the one to tell me my audition video was up, right after it was posted last Friday afternoon. I’d been at a jobsite, helping the guys hang drywall when my phone buzzed.