Page 3 of Flirtatious

Sliding off the bed, I walk toward the bathroom with the oversized bathtub, the main reason I wanted to come to this hotel. It was a risk since it’s the best hotel in the Tampa area, but once I saw the picture of the bathtubs in their suites, I knew this was the place I wanted to hide out and simply relax for a few days.

I turn on the hot water full blast and drop a lavender bubble bomb in to create the perfect luxurious bath experience. As I undress out of my favorite pink yoga pants and white T-shirt that says Superstar in silver across the chest, I catch a glimpse of myself in the enormous bathroom mirror. Two days of gorging on junk food hasn’t done nearly as much damage as my personal trainer claimed it would.

For a moment, I pose and smile at the thought of what Mitchell would do if he saw how much I ate in the past forty-eight hours. The guy would have a total meltdown and order me to work out twice as hard for the next month.

“See? I knew a couple days being bad wouldn’t do that much damage,” I say with a laugh as I climb into the tub.

The water stings it’s so hot, so I quickly turn on the cold water to balance things out so I don’t give myself second degree burns from the waist down. I pull the cooler water back toward me, which eases the temperature a little, before leaning back against the edge of the tub and closing my eyes.

This is all I wanted when I ran away. Not to fall off the supposed wagon, unless you count candy, cookies, potato chips, and diet soda falling off the wagon. Not to hurt anyone. Just to relax in a tub full of bubbles that smell like flowers after eating too much food that’s bad for me for a couple days.

Meanwhile, the entire world outside this hotel suite is spinning out of control worried about what I’m doing. That’s their problem, not mine. Maybe they should try some of Ainsley’s Zen shit. Maybe then they’d calm the hell down.

CHAPTERTWO

Liam

The late Aprilsun feels good on my skin, so I push off heading inside to take a few more minutes out here on my balcony. Glancing back toward the glass doors, I see Wilder pacing back and forth through my living room. Every day it’s something more stressful with him. If our parents only knew how much trouble he brought into his life simply by being Wilder.

Then again, I doubt my father would be able to see that if it was written on a billboard and he was forced to stand in front of it for hours. Something about my younger brother makes Kane Jackson believe in things that simply don’t exist.

I try not to agree with Cade and Alex about Wilder, but he makes it hard. Damn hard sometimes.

Today’s crisis involves someone he’s been seeing. For as much trouble as he gets into, he always seems to find room in his life for romance. You’d think they’d see him and all the nonsense he brings with him coming from a mile away, but he flashes them that Wilder smile and they get a look at his tats and piercings, and before you can say “You should have run by now,” he’s got himself a brand-new love in his life.

He tried to talk to me about whatever this new one’s doing last night, but I got the hell out of that conversation before it turned into an hour long discussion of whether or not he should drop all the other ones. It seems this one thinks it should only be the two of them in this relationship. My younger brother has never defined exclusive exactly that way.

As all of this rambles through my brain, threatening to ruin a beautiful day I was hoping to have all to myself, I hear the sliding glass door open behind me and know I should have run like his new love interest. Crashing into my quiet enjoyment of this sunny morning, Wilder sits himself down on the chair across from me and shakes his head.

As if he’s got such a tough life that I should feel bad for him.

“It looks like I’m going to have to stay a little while longer. Hope you’re okay with that.”

I let out a heavy sigh. I don’t really have much of a choice. He’s family. Yes, he’s an asshole and yes, he’s an imposition, but my mother pulled me aside last month and begged me to let my brother stay here for a while so she and my father could enjoy some peace and quiet together. Since I thought I’d be on a job somewhere already, I happily agreed.

And then that job fell through when the client’s husband realized his wife was the one sending herself threatening notes just to get attention and she didn’t need security guarding her against herself. That left me here with my least favorite houseguest in the world.

Who now has just announced he’s going to have to stay here a little while longer. To other people, that might mean a day or so. To Wilder Jackson, that could mean months.

Or even longer.

I cringe at the idea of the two of us being permanent roommates. If only his new addition to the harem wasn’t so insistent on being the only one in his life.

“Explain to me again why you can’t go hang out with one of the multitude of people who’ve paraded through here in the past few weeks?”

Wilder gets a faraway look in his eyes, like I’ve asked him some deep question that makes him rethink everything he’s ever thought about love. Or parades. You can never tell with him. He’s a weird combination of a dreamer and a criminal, so his thoughts go off in tangents I don’t even try to understand anymore.

“They’re nothing to me,” he says in a tone that sounds like he’s making some grand pronouncement. “Chris is the one. I know it.”

I know what I say next won’t register with him the way it would with other people, but I say it anyway because someone has to inject some logic into our lives here. “Then break it off with all the others. This isn’t rocket science, man. If this one’s the one, then go balls to the wall with this relationship and forget the others.”

And just like that, his grand pronouncement look like he’s posing for a statue fades away and he sags back in the chair. “I know this is the one. I’m sure of it. I just don’t know if I want to give up everything I have going with everyone else yet. You know how it is.”

In truth, I don’t. I can’t fathom running my life the way he does. Or more correctly, the way he’s been allowed to since he came into our family. Nothing ever seems permanent to Wilder, despite the fact that he claims he’s found the perfect soulmate or the perfect job or even the perfect club to go to practically every week.

That’s not who I am. He’s all over the place, scattered with everything from his thoughts to his feelings. I’m the opposite. I like my life calm and stable. The last thing I need is unnecessary drama, something my younger brother seems to crave.

There’s no point in discussing that with him, though. He thinks his life is perfectly grand. That he causes upheaval everywhere he goes doesn’t seem to faze him in the least.

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