Resisting You

Chapter 1

Noah

Stop shaking .

I clenched my hands together, trying to get them to stop trembling. A bad habit I’d had for as long as I could remember when I was angry. I shook. Literally, I shook everywhere. Hands, knees, belly… hell, even my eyes twitched if I was really pissed off.

I took a deep breath and did my best to calm myself, adjusting the wireless earbuds I wore.

“Do not sign me up for this, Kristen. I mean it.”

“A Bachelor Auction for charity will look good, Noah. You have to trust me on this. Every other single guy on your show is participating. Even your friend, the tattoo artist, is doing it! It won’t look good if you don’t.”

West was participating in this bullshit? That didn’t sound like him. Then again, after some of his tattoos went viral, he basically became as big of a celebrity as me and I was the one who referred Kristen to him to help manage his career.

I couldn’t help but wonder if that was a mistake.

“I don’t care that it won’t look fucking good, I’m not a piece of meat that can be bid on,” I snapped at her.

My voice echoed, bouncing off the walls in the small Atlantic City chapel and I winced, scanning the area, where several couples stood in line for impromptu weddings.

Across the room, I caught Rosa’s eye… Rosa Alvarez. The most gorgeous woman I’d ever laid eyes on. And the only woman I’d ever asked out who had turned me down.

Multiple times.

“What’s going on?” she mouthed to me from across the room.

I tried to wave off my anger, but even as I did that, my damn shaky hands gave me away. Her eyes fell to the tremor in my fingers and she dropped her cheek to her shoulder as if to say, Come off of it .

“Sir,” a woman’s voice said behind me. “This may not be a traditional church, but we’re still a chapel. And there are still people trying to get married here.”

“Shit,” I hissed and dragged a hand down my face. “I have to go, Kristen. My best friend is getting married any minute now. Just don’t… don’t sign me up for anything yet. Got it?”

She sighed. “Fine. You have until tomorrow to decide. But Noah, I’m telling you… not participating will be a mistake. You’re single and easily the show’s hottest eligible bachelor. It will go a long way in your contract negotiations for them to see how desired you are by the fans.”

That was sort of the problem. I didn’t even know if I wanted to resign on the show. Lately, I’d been dreaming of more serious roles. Movies. Theater. Roles that didn’t include sticking faux vampire teeth in my mouth and CGI blood pouring from a damsel’s neck.

“Just think about it,” she said. On that note, she ended the call.

From a marketing and public relations standpoint, I knew she was right. But it just felt wrong. It felt icky.

I already had to constantly put myself on display for this show— taking off my shirt and showing my muscles any time the writers demanded it. Not to mention, I’d nearly ruined what little relationship I still had with my brothers because of these PR stunts.

Luckily, we had managed to repair the damage… mostly.

I was already posing for every magazine, stripping off my clothes for every photoshoot, and now… now they wanted me to literally sell myself for a date night?

It’s for charity . Sure, that’s how they convinced you to degrade yourself. Couldn’t I just donate to that charity directly and call it a day?

Before I could cross the room back to where Rosa and my best friends, Reid and Hazel were standing, about to get married, Rosa was on her way over to me.

The scent of citrus clung to her and I smiled, knowing that she’d just eaten an orange. It was her favorite snack and she almost always had at least one on her at any given time.

I’d always found it hilarious… an orange. One of the hardest fruits to eat in public on the go. But that was Rosa for you. She never took the easy way.

Her fingernails slid across my shoulders and she touched me in a way that I was sure was meant to be comforting, but it lit me on fire. Her big, brown eyes concerned and tilted up at me and her pouty mouth curving into a worried frown. “Is everything okay?” she asked.

I took a deep breath and tugged the earbuds from my ears, stuffing them into my pocket. “Everything’s fine. Did they say how much longer?”

She shifted her bouquet of flowers into her other hand and looked at her watch. “Well, they said ten minutes fifteen minutes ago, so…” She ended the sentence with a shrug. “But then again, it’s a little unusual for them to have a request like ours.”

Since Reid and I were both famous… me more than him, but only because directors don’t get the same facial recognition as actors…

and Hazel’s star was on the rise, we had asked that they clear out any awaiting couples during the ceremony so that no one could slip in and snap any photos or record us.

Even now, in the waiting room, we had requested a security guard to make sure no one had their phones out.

Weird circumstances called for extreme measures. It wasn’t every day that your best friend proposed to your other best friend… and then they decided on a whim to get hitched that night in Atlantic City.

I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was nearing midnight. I had to be in Maple Grove for my sister’s wedding in the morning, too. It was a damn weekend of weddings.

I had to admit it was weird as hell that my sister, Ronnie was pregnant and getting married.

Hell, she and I had always been the cynical ones in the family. I would have bet my Datsun that I would have gotten married before her… and I was never getting married.

Not because I didn’t believe in love or anything like that. I did—I do .

My lifestyle as an actor just isn’t conducive to wedded bliss.

I've seen it a million and one times—my friends on the TV show will fall in love and a year later, they’re married.

Their wedding photos splashed all over the covers of magazines.

And once the media has no more wedding fanfare to talk about, their speculations start—is a baby on the way? Is someone cheating on the other?

Most of it’s bullshit… some of it’s not. But none of it is anyone’s business but their own.

Sooner or later, the pressure takes its toll on the marriage. The cheating rumors become true. Or they’re not true but because we, as actors, have to take our clothes off and make out in front of the camera, your partner starts believing it's true. I wasn’t sure which scenario was worse.

Then the next thing you know, the tabloids are reporting on your very real divorce.

No, thank you .

And that’s the life I had signed up for. I knew what I was getting myself into. Before I was a famous actor, I dreamed of being on a hit TV Show and being a recognized face and name. But young Noah Blue Tripp had no idea what he was in for.

As much as I loved the idea of a wife and a family someday, it couldn’t be now. Not while my acting career was in full swing.

It wasn’t fair to this future non-existent wife. And it wasn’t fair to any of our children.

I’d already seen how the media wolves had gone after my brother when his wife died… reporting about me and her funeral and splashing his late wife’s image within every tabloid magazine available. I wouldn’t do that to someone I loved… not again.

Nope, I wouldn’t be getting married until I was through with acting. And I loved acting. I guess I just needed to find a woman I loved more than my career.

Which begged the question: if I knew I didn’t want to give up my career yet, why was I so damn intent on getting Rosa to go out with me?

Rosa wasn’t the kind of woman you tossed aside after a few dinners and a wild weekend. She was the kind of woman you kept forever and did your damnedest to keep her happy.

My gaze connected with hers, concern filling her wide, brown eyes. Ignoring my knotted throat, I shoved my hands in my pockets, my fingertips skimming against my vibrating cell phone. No doubt, it was my publicist calling me back.

Rosa’s brows lifted and she smiled. The kind of smile that could make you forget your own damn name, it was so spectacularly beautiful. “Are you ready for this wild night?” she asked.

I snorted a laugh and raked my hand through my shower-damp hair. “You think this is going to be wild?”

“You don’t? Our besties decided on a whim to get married in Atlantic City! It’s already wild.”

I shrugged. “If you say so.”

She didn’t know Reid like I did. He was anything but wild.

In fact, this was the craziest thing I’d ever seen him do. I wouldn’t be surprised if after this short ceremony, he and Hazel went up to their penthouse suite with some late night room service and called it a night.

It was a bummer West couldn’t be here. Reid, West, and I had become nearly inseparable over the last year or so.

Rosa tilted her chin higher. “Well, I’m ready for anything.” She tucked her black sparkly clutch beneath her arm.

“Oh yeah? How so?” I teased her. “You got bail money in that tiny ass purse?”

“Bail money. Safety pins. Band-Aids. Mints…”

“And let me guess,” I interrupted. “An orange?”

She smirked. “Nope. I finished that orange twenty minutes ago.”

I rolled my eyes and leaned back against the flowered wallpapered wall behind me. “Oh yeah. You’re ready for a bitchin’ night.” I grinned.

“Let’s not forget, my passport,” she said pointedly and tugged her clutch open, yanking out a small covered passport case.

“You think we’re leaving the country tonight? When Hazel and Reid literally have a show tomorrow?”

“They have understudies,” she said, giving me a little lift of her shoulder and a lot of attitude.

“What else have you got in there? Is that like Mary Poppins’ magic bag?” Shit just seems to keep coming out even though it seemed barely big enough to hold a cell phone.

“I’ve got a Tide stick, hand lotion, condoms, and my pocket rocket.”

I paused, every nerve ending in my body coming alive. “You brought condoms and your pocket rocket?” I repeated carefully.

She stood taller in her heels—all five-foot nothing of her—and the tip of her nose barely hit my chin. “I did. You need me to show proof of those, too?”

“No,” I answered fast.

Fuck my life. The last thing I needed was to think of Rosa using those condoms with another man. Not when I’d tried so damn hard for years to get her to go out with me.

And the pocket rocket? Fuck, that was sexy… imagining her lithe little body writhing in the sheets, moaning, getting herself off.

Stop it. I squeezed my eyes shut, willing the images out of my mind. She’s made it perfectly clear that she wasn’t interested in me that way.

She turned away from me, snapping her purse shut. And I was pretty sure she didn’t think I saw that small smirk splayed on her plump mauve lips.

Fuck me. Maybe tonight would be wild, after all.