Page 61 of Spark
“Really?”Esme asked, her eyes going bright, the glimpse of pre-teen happiness tugging at Tyler’s chest.“I mean, I guess that would be cool.Sure.”
“I know it’s not quite the same as friendship bracelets,” Tyler’s mother said, “but Chloe’s sister, Grace, and Tyler’s friend, Declan, are doing paper crafts with some of the smaller kids who are here.I bet they’d be grateful for a hand, especially from someone skilled enough to have helped with all these beautiful lanterns.I can take you over there, if you’d like.”
Esme gave a single-shouldered shrug, but she answered fast enough to call out her nonchalance.“Okay, yeah.As long as there’s time?”
She looked at Chloe, who nodded an enthusiastic approval.“Plenty.Tom’s not picking you up for another forty-five minutes.Go, have fun.Come find me if you need anything.”
Tyler mouthed “thank you” at his mother once Esme’s back was turned, and she winked in reply before guiding Esme to a large table in the corner.Declan Riley, whose wife, Tess, headed up the emergency department at Remington Memorial Hospital, sat at the table with his four-year-old son beside him and his daughter in a highchair on his opposite side.Maxwell’s daughter, Isla, brightened as Esme sat down beside her, happily showing off the pink and purple paper she’d been folding into a fan, and Tyler turned to Chloe, grin in place.
“I’d say that’s a success,” he said, and her smile in return was total perfection.
“Your mom is a saint.Thank you so much for putting her up to this.”
Tyler lifted his shoulders, keeping his shrug easy.“What makes you think I had anything to do with it?”
Chloe’s laugh had him dead to rights.“Oh, I don’t know.Maybe because I know you well enough to know that you totally did, you’re just not taking the credit?I hate to break it to you, Tyler.”She arched a brow at him, and man, she was the most beautiful brand of fierce.“But deep down underneath all that cyborg stuff, you’re a nice guy.”
His pulse hitched.Flared hotter.Pushed his laugh right out.“I’m no angel.”
She laughed again, wrecking even more of his composure.“Well, there’s your mistake.You don’t have to be an angel to be a nice guy.You just have to be a good person.I mean, look at my brother.”She gestured to Ryan, who was now talking with Dallas over by the fireplace, both of them laughing.“He’s the biggest hothead in at least three counties, and he’s definitely no angel, either.But he’s still a great guy.So are you, whether you want to admit it or not.”
“I don’t think you’d still be calling me a nice guy if you knew what I was thinking right now,” he said.Her lashes fanned up, her lips parted just slightly in surprise, but she didn’t pull back.
Instead, she set his world on fire with nothing more than a smile.“Try me.”
Something not in his control had him moving closer to her, his heart hammering a hot, steady beat ofyes, yes, yesin his ears.Whether it was the celebratory mood of the night or the way she’d been killing him in that dress for hours, or—hell, the pure ease he felt whenever she was anywhere near him, Tyler couldn’t tell.More to the point, he didn’t care.
He wanted Chloe.He’d wanted her again since the minute he’d kissed her goodbye at her apartment last week.The minute he’d seen her at the Thirty-Third two days later.The minute he’d seen her walk in the goddamn door tonight, and every minute in between.
And inthisminute, he was finally tired of fighting it.
“I’m thinking of the way you shiver when I kiss the spot where your neck meets your ear,” he said with gravel he didn’t even try to curb.“How your whole body trembles with how good you feel, and how hot it is that you’re not afraid to show it.I’m thinking of the sound you make right before you come, like you’d chase your pleasure to the end of the world.But most of all, I’m thinking about how badly I want you again, and that I was a fucking fool to believe that one time with you would be enough.”
They stood in complete silence for a minute, her eyes on his and his chest loaded with far too much heat.
But then, she smiled, and Tyler didn’t have a single regret.“You have one hour to see everyone you need to see and make up a believable excuse to leave.I’ll meet you at my place in an hour and fifteen minutes.And Tyler?”
The look Chloe sent him over her shoulder would’ve made him fall just a little bit in love with her, if his damaged, fucked up heart were capable of such a thing.
“I hope you weren’t planning on getting any sleep tonight,” she said before walking her perfect peach of an ass away from him.
19
Chloe had no idea how she made it through the next sixty minutes without exploding in front of every single person at the party.She smiled, she posed for photos with her siblings, she made sure Esme had been safely handed off to Tom with the paper fan Isla had made for her, all of it passing by in a blur.She was aware of Tyler moving through the room and mirroring her strategic withdrawal.He was fucking hotness personified in that snug button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up to reveal just enough of his forearms for her to feel it in her knees, so really, she’d have to be dead not to be.But something about him pulsed through her like a drumbeat, heightening her senses and making her breathless, and by the time she kissed Addison and Ryan goodnight and got into her car to race home, she was fizzing with anticipation.
When she caught sight of him outside the front door of her building, her anticipation tipped into pure, hot need.
“Hi,” Chloe said, the word barely out of her mouth before Tyler was on her like a wildfire.Their mouths slammed together, the kiss frantic and messy and completely burning her up, and God, she’d never felt anything so sexy in her life.
“Do you have any idea,” Tyler said, trailing kisses across her jawline and up to her temple, “how badly I’ve wanted to taste you all night?”
She laughed, then let out a sigh as his hands tightened around her back and she grew hyper-aware of his cock pressing into her belly.“I absolutely do.”After another kiss, she recovered enough of her wits to realize that, although it was mostly deserted due to the late hour, they were still on a public street.“Do you want to come upstairs?”
“I absolutely do.”
They made it into the building and through the elevator ride without incident, although the want sparking between Chloe’s thighs made her power walk it—not the best fun in her three-inch heels, but she’d readily sacrifice her feet for the cause.Tyler was only a half-step behind her, and as soon as they crossed the threshold and she had the deadbolt locked behind them, they crashed together, all hot skin and hotter need.He wrapped an arm around her back, his mouth pressed to her bare shoulder and his palm flat on her spine, and her body buzzed with so much want, she gasped.
“Tyler,” she murmured, arching up to fit against him.
