3
I’m lyingon my back, the water lapping around my ears and the sun warming my body, when a shadow falls over me. I blink my eyes open and right myself, frowning as I look back over one shoulder toward the living room.
No more heads of the lawyers poking above the sleek minimalist furniture.
I turn back to the view, the carefully designed illusion that the pool edge hangs off the Hollywood Hills and looks down on the valley of West Hollywood. But it’s not the view that has me hypnotized. It’s the man standing at the top of the carved steps at one end of the pool.
He’s tall and strong, every part of him built with intention, from his carved torso and arms to his lean hips and the perfect ass I can’t see from here but could draw from memory.
From fifteen feet away, he feels my blatant perusal.
He expects it.
“Lawyers left for nap time?” I call.
Tyler strips off his shirt in a single movement.
His body is art. A canvas of lean muscle and tattoos I know as well as I know any part of my own body.
His attention is on me, as if the view, the house, the pool, all mean nothing. He walks down the steps into the pool, the water soaking his jeans. He doesn’t look down once, not when it claims his waistband, licks at his abs.
My thighs clench under the water.
I should tell him he’s getting wet, that we’re not cool after what went down inside, but I’m riveted by the look in his eyes.
I can’t do anything but let the water ripple around me, the hairs lifting on my arms and neck as he approaches, my nipples pebbling just above the water level. My heart hammers at his closeness, my palm flattening against the heated skin of his chest.
He frowns. “Where’s your ring?”
I nod toward the side of the pool. I didn’t want to lose it, to have the pool chemicals affect it. It’s there along with my necklace and the promise ring he got me before we split up for his tour.
Tyler wades across the pool to retrieve both.
My breath catches as he reaches for my hand beneath the water. He doesn’t lift it out, just slips the diamond ring over my fingertip. The metal and his touch are whisper-light along my skin, a sexy, possessive slide that ends in firm pressure as the band slides home.
He murmurs in my ear, “You’re mine.”
“You think I need a ring to remember that?” I tease.
“No. You remembered it every time we hung up on a video call this past month. Every time I told you what I’d do to you if we were together. But it’s not the same.” He wraps the necklace around my neck and uses it to tug me forward until our lips are almost touching.
A thrill works through me.
I’m mad at him. He knows it, but it’s harder when he’s this close.
I force a shrug. “Your billboard in Times Square kept me company.”
The crinkling at the corners of his eyes cracks my resolve. His thumb brushing my lips doesn’t help either.
“Too bad.” His beautiful voice breaks. “Because I fucking missed you, Annie Jamieson.”
His arms band around me as he crushes my body to his.
Yes.
Tyler’s mouth is hard and demanding, as if everything he’s owed is on the other side of my lips and he won’t stop until he’s claimed it all.
The broken prince I fell for, the relentless man he became, they twine together. I belong to both of them, both of him.