Page 31 of Kissing Games
‘I don’t think you’ve got any filming planned until tomorrow.’
Valentina stood and went to the desk. ‘I have things to do. Email, exercise, you know.’ She wanted to speak to her sister, her mamá, her abuelas. Speak to someone who might help her decide if she was crazy to even consider his suggestions. She looked at her watch.
‘It’s four thirty in the morning in Colombia,’ Charlie said, casually. ‘What time does your family usually wake up?’
Valentina gritted her teeth. How could someone so gorgeous be so perceptive? It was like he could read her mind.
She stared out the window at the low grey clouds shrouding the hills in the distance. ‘You are an insufferable man, Charlie,’ she said, her fingers drumming on the leather inlay. He laughed and she tried not to smile.
‘So I’ve been told. Give it a couple of days and you’ll be calling me far worse.’
She could hear him stand. A wave of goosebumps fluttered across her skin.
‘You can’t be a teenager if you ask your family for permission before you do anything,’ he said, opening the door.
She stalked back to face him. ‘Huevón!’
He laughed and she tried not to laugh with him. ‘See, I’ve gone from insufferable to dickhead in less than a minute. Soon you’ll be calling me setenta hijueputa, seventy times a son of a bitch.’
‘How do you know those words?’
‘I told you, I’ve been to Colombia, so I had to learn the basics. You know, ordering a beer, throwing my mates under the bus.’
‘You threw your friends under a bus?’
‘Not literally. It’s a phrase. You know, slagging my mates off, dissing them.’
She crossed her arms, digging her fingernails into her skin to offset the excitement fizzing through her. ‘Well, Charlie. I am not ready now. But when I am, I will let you know.’
‘Okay. Why don’t I give you my number? Then you can message me when you’re ready.’
She squeezed her lips together and he stepped into the corridor.
‘Or you could put a note under my door?’ he said over his shoulder. ‘It’s the last room on the right before the stairs to the attic.’
Bandit was still inside her room, seemingly in no hurry to leave.
‘You too,’ she said, pointing to the door.
Bandit ambled slowly out, standing beside Charlie and barking. Valentina took one last look at Charlie’s sparkling green eyes, then closed the door and threw herself onto the bed, huffing into the pillows.
Charlie Hamilton.
Valentina had met hundreds of gorgeous men in her life but none of them had affected her the way Charlie had. The men she came into contact with were attractive on the outside and vacuous on the inside. Tanned skin, veneered white teeth, glossy hair, manicured nails, toned and hairless bodies. They were the ubiquitous Ken dolls of Hollywood and utterly unappealing to her. She’d acted with them, posed on the red carpet holding their hands, done press junkets claiming they were her new best friends, but it was controlled and contrived. Just another act. None of it was real. Charlie was so real, he was his own law of physics, inexorably drawing her into his orbit. She was spun off her feet, turned inside out, thrown into disarray.
He was too alive. Too much.
She closed her eyes and pictured his. They were like sunshine through leaves. An ever-changing, swirling kaleidoscope of greens and golds. His jaw was strong with a faint shadow of stubble. His chestnut hair was short and thick, almost a buzz cut, and looked soft as silk. She wanted to feel its velvet softness under her fingers, his stubble against her cheek, his full, firm lips on hers, his hot tongue slipping inside her mouth. And as for the rest of him…
She moaned, rolling onto her back. Stroking her breasts, her nipples hardened. Her hips bucked of their own accord as she remembered his pull-ups in the gym. His naked back, his shoulders, his arms. His muscles would have made Michelangelo weep. She wanted to trace every line, every tattoo with her fingers, her tongue. Lower and lower as she followed the dragon south. She let out a cry of frustration. She had no control around him. Opening her eyes, she stared at the bed canopy.Focus!
She had goals, a plan. If the cosmetics contract finally came through, she’d have enough money to makeithappen. Her foot had been pressed to the floor since she was a little girl and she was almost there. But now, stuck in the Highlands of Scotland with nothing to do for the first time in twenty years, she felt rudderless. Could she take a holiday from her life? Allow herself to go a little crazy for a couple of weeks? Maybe even have a fling? She swallowed a lump of loneliness in her throat. It had been so long since she’d been intimate with a man. Her bedroom experience was pathetic. An immature fumbling disaster with one of her co-stars onLa Vida Familiar,then the flash and burn betrayal of stuntman Bryce. The longest sexual relationship she’d ever had was with her vibrator.
Valentina curled on her side into a ball. Charlie was so confident, so good-looking, so experienced. She was an amateur; she would only disappoint him.
She reached for her phone. Her younger sister, Isabella, would still be asleep, but she could send her a message. She sent a series of selfies pulling the worst faces she could. This was their private joke, Valentina seeing how against type she could be. Being beautiful was her job. It didn’t feel real and it didn’t make her happy. Making her sister laughwasreal anddidmake her happy. It helped ease the pain of being away from her for so long.
Four photos in and Isabella rang.
