Page 61 of Wicked Duty
A knock on the car window acts like a bucketful of ice to the face. I release Callum and spring back against the seat.
“Miss Marlow?” A hand waves through the tinted glass. “Are you coming?”
Skin flushed, I avoid meeting Callum’s eyes as I venture out into the midday sunlight, forcing my focus to shift. It’scompetition time. I need to keep my head in the game, not make out with my bodyguard like a lovestruck teenager.
I touch my fingers to my tingling lips. But damn. That kiss was good.
Shaking my head, I will my body to calm itself and walk over to join the competition officials and other models.
The way my heart clenches…I can practically hear it issuing a deadly warning. If I keep this up, I’ll be in danger of falling for my bodyguard. And that can’t happen.
Callum is ignorant about my true connection to Viktor Roguilin, and I want him to stay that way. I can already picture the disgust in his eyes, if and when he finds out.
Once he discovers what kind of person I really am, he’ll never choose to stick his neck out for me again, let alone kiss me.
I try to shove aside the memory of his lips on mine but fail.
These warm feelings bubbling through me refuse to simmer down.
Chapter 23
Callum
Lucy Marlow needs to quit kissing me, or she’s going to start something neither of us has the strength to stop.
After I’ve parked the car, I text a guy to go water her plants before joining the rest of the fashion circus as they invade a small, high-end boutique. Yes, I’m apparently the garden room guard now too. What the actual fuck…
Wow, this place is something else. Racks of designer clothing populate the floor, framed by walls with bright modern art canvases. Makeshift dressing rooms accommodate the models who traipse in and out sporting different styles they’ve put together on their own.
I think anyway. I’m not really paying attention. With Lucy here, the other women barely even register.
That kiss… I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do with her. Will every single half-decent conversation from this point forward conclude the same way? Will we continue to switch from fighting like cats and dogs to making out every chance we get?
I grab the back of my neck. If Darren ever learns about my behavior with Veronika’s friend, I’m screwed. He hired meas Lucy’s bodyguard because I’m always professional. Always perfect. I don’t fuck up. Especially not like this.
I convince myself it won’t happen again. Once Lucy sashays out of that little changing room, though, I have to admit that I’m deluding myself. I’m fucked.
My gaze tracks her every move. Through each wardrobe change. While the makeup artists paint her face. While the stylists brush her pretty purple waves…
Her type of beauty is unnatural. No woman should be that gut-wrenchingly gorgeous, period. Every time Lucy rises from the makeup chair, I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from pushing her into a changing room, ripping her clothes off, and fucking her up against the wall.
That stupid kiss in the car revved up my hormones, distracting me when I need to be bracing myself for a stunt like the one she pulled at her first audition. While she does seem calmer today, I can’t relax. The moment I do, she’ll catch me off guard.
I watch her, wondering if I’m imagining the way she’s softened a little. I don’t think so.
Her sharp edges seem blunted, her wicked blades dulled.
Even in front of the camera, her vulnerability shows in her poses. The photographers eat it up.
Out on the street, one of the photographers—the guy who snapped her winning shot last night—tosses a series of directions at her, and she incorporates each one in a flash, no problem, no hesitation.
“Go, Lucy. Stand in the water.” He gestures to a concrete fountain in the center of a pedestrian square, where shining droplets fall from an angel’s hand in an endless loop.
“On it!” She marches straight for the fountain’s lip and climbs in.
Working the emerald gown for all she’s worth, Lucy strikes several poses in the water. Within moments, her splashing draws an audience. A live, organic crowd of regular people on the Manhattan streets.
I shift to the right to get a better view of the fountain and perimeter beyond. All the cameras are focused on Lucy, including the phones in the street.
