Chapter Twelve #3
She settled her gaze on him, still testing the waters of Tyler Demming, King of the Courts.
Here on this porch in the middle of Costa Rica, he was tender and uncertain, and this Tyler felt like her own private Tyler.
And it made him all the more attractive.
So close to his face, she smelled his cheeks, his breath, his skin, the memorable scent of athleticism and vibrance.
Eau du Tyler Demming. He melted her to putty with that smell.
It was a click of pheromones, a made-to-be match.
The night around them seeped through the porch screen, musky and heavy and humid. “Ugh!” she cried, slapping the backs of her arms against the mattress. “God, it’s hot. How am I supposed to fall asleep like this?”
He smiled, pursed his lips, and blew a stream of air toward her forehead. “That doesn’t help.” With a playful shove, she pushed him away. “ ’Cause you’re hot, too.”
“That’s what she said.” One side of his lips hitched upward, and when hers did the same, he did not look away.
And there it was. The space between them so small she could cross it in a split second.
Her brain put up a feeble fight. So what if he was a celebrity and she was a teacher on the cusp of losing her job, and what did it matter that he had been self-centered when he was twenty, and who cared if she had a toddler at home who was probably right now eating sugar straight from a bowl?
Here she was not eight inches away from Tyler Demming and she felt her skin throb in places that had not throbbed in a long time, except for the rare mosquito bite, but never there.
And now there was pulsing like a stubbed toe, only much, much more pleasantly.
What would it take to cross that divide?
Lust? Evidently.
Nerve? Definitely.
The pickleball was in her court.
Lulu leaned toward him. She could feel the heat coming off his skin, see the soft sheen of moisture on his temple.
His scent—she was a junkie for it. That dizzying Tyler musk, seething off him like crack.
Tyler’s eyes traced her hips, his gaze slid down to the hollow of her neck like a tongue and flitted across her nipples.
“Lu?” he asked, his voice husky.
She moved to meet him, closing the chasm of inches.
The brush of their lips felt like a struck match. He touched his mouth to hers, kissed her gently once. Twice. His fingers lifted a strand of her hair off her face, and his soft touch sent a tingle down her back that reached her toes.
More. More. She wanted so much more. Her desire, so long kept at bay, was way too intense for all this teasing. She rolled on top of him, and when she closed the space between their faces, she felt starved for him, wanted to devour him. The more she tasted, the hungrier she grew.
Readily, greedily, he matched her passion, stoking her fire.
As they kissed, his hands roamed up her loose T-shirt, and she arched her back, pressing her body toward his as his fingertips skated up along the sides of her ribs and his thumbs grazed her sensitive nipples.
Breaking their kiss, Lulu gasped for breath as her lungs called for air.
Then she dove back in and kissed him with an eager desperation, voracious for the feel of his tongue inside her mouth.
And imagining his tongue was not his tongue and her mouth was not her mouth.
Lulu’s fingernails met his rib cage, and she scraped them down along those accordion ridges.
Tyler, shivering at her touch, ran his tongue up the length of her neck and groaned his desire into her ear.
His fingertips threaded down her belly and skimmed inside the waistband of her boxers.
With torturous patience, his fingers slipped down.
When he touched her, her whole body went up in flames. She wanted all of him. Screw fries and a Coke. She wanted the all-you-can-eat buffet.
A heavy crunching sound from the jungle outside froze them both. Unmoving, lips an inch apart, Lulu breathed, “What was that?”
Tyler sat up suddenly, alert as prey. Another sound, this time more clearly like a footstep.
Or a paw step. Of a very large animal. A twig snap.
His pupils flashed, drawn to a rustling just outside the screened porch.
“Did you hear that?” he whispered. “There’s something out there. Right outside. An animal.”
Lulu was sitting now, too, the intensity of her desire socked in the gut by fear. She pressed her vision, searching the darkness for movement. “There!” Lulu said, pointing at the shadow of a creature dodging into the undergrowth.
“Oh my god!” Tyler’s breath came in staccato puffs. The fear in his voice was tinged with excitement. “Oh my god.”
“What? What is it?” Lulu’s heart pounded. “What if it’s a jaguar?”
“What if it’s a peccary?!”
And in one swoop, Tyler launched himself into his shoes.
Lulu’s pulse thrummed. That creature prowling around right outside was no lizard or bird.
The weight of the footsteps indicated only one thing: predator.
She would not be left here to wonder if Tyler would be mauled or eaten or if he would bring back barbecued peccary ribs.
“I’m going with you,” she insisted. He wasted only a second opening his mouth to protest, but she was already shoving her feet into her hiking boots.
In the span of a heartbeat, they slipped out the screen door, Tyler with one arm waving his flashlight ahead to cast light into the jungle and the other stretched out to keep Lulu behind him.
Lulu was having none of that protective caveman bullshit.
Heart pounding in her throat, she turned on her flashlight and swept the beam across the trees. Beside her, the brush rustled.
She swung her light. Her beam caught a bulky form behind a tree. The figure moved out from behind the trunk and into the spotlight. Gasping, Lulu took a step back.
She would know that famous face anywhere.
“Oh good. I found you,” said Sapphire Roe.