Trouble: Tyler and Katie Read online

  “You letting it ride?” the croupier asked.

  “Yes.” I nodded as he made the last call for bets.

  “Oh my God, what was I thinking!” I cried when the wheel started spinning. I covered my eyes. I couldn’t look. We were about to lose twenty-two hundred dollars! Alex would have had a heart attack just thinking about it, even if it wasn’t his money.

  “You weren’t thinking, you were feeling.” Tyler’s voice was like honey dripping in my ear, so smooth and rich.

  “I was,” I agreed, opening my eyes to look up at him.

  “Want to sweeten this pot?” he offered, his eyes glittering darkly.

  “Ummm...” The double entendres were flying like fireworks on the Fourth of July.

  “Tell you what—if twenty-two hits, you spend the night with me.”

  I blinked at him in surprise, my breath catching in my throat.

  “Don’t throw me in the briar patch now...” I teased, making an old Brer Rabbit reference. “And what happens if twenty-two doesn’t hit? What then?”

  “Then I spend the night with you...”

  He lowered his lips to mine and kissed me.

  I’m kissing Tyler Cook!

  That was my only conscious thought. Everything else was feeling. His arms went around my waist, mine around his neck. It was like any first kiss—tentative at first, exploring, that sweet push and pull, a question asked and answered without any words at all. Tyler kissed me with all the expert skill of a man who’d done it thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of times, but he made me feel like I was the only woman he’d ever wanted to kiss, now or ever. His mouth made so many promises, I couldn’t keep track of them all.

  “Red twenty-seven!” the croupier called out, but I barely heard it.

  “I lost,” I whispered when we finally parted.

  “But I won.” Tyler kissed me again, this time quick, just a press of his lips. “Let’s go up to my room.”

  “You have a room here?”

  “Top floor.” He winked.

  “Is Harry coming with us?” I asked, glancing behind us at the bodyguard who followed us toward the elevator.

  “I got it from here, bruh.” Tyler gave the big man a nod as he pushed the up-arrow button. “We’re heading up to the room. We’ll be there all night.”

  His words made me feel weak around the knees.

  “Have a good night, sir.” Harry nodded to us as we got onto the elevator.

  “You too, Hair-Bear!” Ty called, grinning and waggling his fingers as the doors whooshed closed.

  “Hair-Bear?” I inquired as Tyler took out a key card and ran it down a slot. Then he pushed a round circle with a “P” in the middle, for Penthouse, I assumed. Top floor. I was moving on up.

  “You’d have to see him without his shirt,” he said.

  “Oh God.” I laughed. “No thank you.”

  “You could braid that man’s back hair.”

  “Ew!” I exclaimed. “Hasn’t he heard of manscaping?”

  “Harry’s wife does roller derby,” he snorted. “I don’t think she cares if he has hairy balls.”

  “Thanks for that visual.” I made a face as the elevator came to a stop.

  “You’re welcome.”

  We went down the hall and Tyler slid his card into the slot, opening the door to the penthouse.

  “Wow.” The place was bigger than Sabrina’s whole house. “It’s good to be a rock star.”

  “It has its perks.” Tyler tossed his leather jacket on the couch, toed off his Keds and then peeled off his shirt.

  The man had the body of a Greek god. And not one of the strange ones like Pan, or the creeper ones like Zeus, but a real Hercules type. The dirty blonde hair, the dark eyes, the two-four-six-eight pack abs, the wide shoulders and biceps so defined I had a sudden urge to lick them. A lot.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, trying to sound casual, like rock stars normally asked me up to their Penthouse rooms and took off their shirts in front of me, as he flipped on the TV and flopped down on the long, leather sofa.

  “Just checking the scores.” He’d turned the TV to ESPN.

  I took off my jacket and put it over his, along with my purse, but I kept my t-shirt on as I sat on the edge of the sofa. Tyler took his cell phone out of his jeans pocket.

  “Who are you calling?” I asked.

  “Room service.”

  “On a cell phone?”

  “Hey, Cliff, I need some broccoli … in the room… how long? ... right… see you then.”

  “Broccoli?” I grinned over at him. “How healthy of you.”

  “You know I wasn’t really calling for broccoli, right?” Tyler tossed his phone on the coffee table with a laugh.

  “I know.” I slid across the sofa, so my hip was touching his. “So, we’re gonna do… what? Stay up here, get stoned, and have mind-blowing sex?”

  “That was the general idea.” He put his arm around my shoulder, pulling me even closer. “You down with that?”

  “Are you up for it?” I quipped, sliding my palm from his chest downward. He shifted his hips, waiting, his gaze never leaving mine as my hand reached his crotch.

  “Always.” He wasn’t kidding. The man was packing quite a bit of pipe in those jeans.

  “Girl in every city, huh?” I snorted.

  “I’d be lying if I told you no.” He shrugged, hips moving almost imperceptibly as the slow, steady motion of my hand began to create friction.

  “I figured.” I couldn’t fault him for his honesty. “Did you tell him to bring up condoms?”

  “They’ve got those in bowls on the coffee table like appetizers.”

  “Holy crap, they actually do.” I had to do a double-take, which distracted me from the task at hand. So to speak. The bowl I’d thought was filled with wrapped candy was, in fact, a bowl filled with condoms. It was also filled with black Twizzlers. That explained the licorice smell, that dark taste in his mouth, but I knew that. Everyone who followed Trouble knew Tyler Cook loved licorice.

  “Every hotel we go to.” Tyler rolled his eyes. “It’s in our contract. Rob insists.”

  “Condoms instead of peanut M&M’s with the green ones removed?” I laughed. “Guess it makes sense. He doesn’t want Trouble derailed by STDs?”

  “Not to mention rugrats.”

  “Yeah, that would put a damper on the whole rock and roll lifestyle, wouldn’t it?” I glanced around the room. The living room alone was bigger than my whole apartment, and the sliding door walked out onto a balcony that was bigger than my bathroom. “That view is amazing. Detroit doesn’t look so bad from up here. Especially if you squint. I could almost believe I was somewhere else.”

  “The view’s the same to me everywhere we go.” Tyler grabbed the remote, muting the television.

  “The same?” I scoffed. “You’ve been to Paris! You’ve been everywhere.”

  “Big buildings, tiny little people, tiny little cars.” He tossed the remote beside him on the couch. “It’s all just busses, hotels and dressing rooms.”

  “Except when you’re on stage.” The memory of him and his guitar, the heat of that moment, watching him perform, made me flush. It was what drew me to him in the first place—the talent, the energy, the sweet, sublime manifestation of a rock god on stage.

  “That’s the only good thing about it,” he agreed.

  “The only good thing...” I wiggled around on the couch, turning and sliding my leg over both of his, straddling him. Now I felt his erection riding the seam of my sex, felt it even through my jeans and his. “Until now you mean.”

  “Yeah, this is pretty good.” He smiled up at me and put his hands on my hips, settling me into his lap, denim against denim, a delicious friction.

  “Pretty good?” I scoffed, wiggling in his lap. “I can do better than pretty good.”

  “I have no doubt.” His hands moved up to my waist, holding me still. “But if I just wanted sex, I could have had Harry bring up the Oompa-Loompa.
The guys say she can suck the chrome off a tail pipe.”

  “I bet that’s true.” I rolled my eyes. “So, if you don’t want sex, what do you want?”

  “I didn’t say I didn’t want sex.” He grinned. “I said I wanted more than sex.”

  “Well I’m not going to marry you,” I blurted out. We both looked at each other and cracked up.

  “Good, I’m not proposing.” He dropped me a wink. “But that, right there—that’s why I wanted to hang out with you.”

  “What? Where?” I glanced around, behind me, down at my shirt, like there might be something visible he was looking at.

  “You make me laugh.” He laughed.

  “Oh no pressure there.”

  “See? Like that!” He laughed again. “Besides, you have a mouth that was made for kissing.”

  “I do?”

  “Yeah...” He touched my bottom lip with his fingertip. “It’s pouty one minute and mischievous the next. It goes up at the corners when you’re thinking dirty thoughts. Just like that. You’re like a sweet angel and a hot little devil all rolled into one sexy package.”

  “You make it sound like you’re the one winning here.” I eyed him from my perch in his lap. “You do realize that you’re the rock star, right? That every single girl in that room would have killed or died to be in my position. Literally, this position, right now?”

  “Fuck them.” He tucked my hair behind my ears, his gaze never leaving mine.

  “No, Tyler...” I leaned in close to whisper. “Fuck me.”

  “Mmm, I thought you’d never ask.” He slipped a hand behind my head, his mouth slanting, tongue probing, and a thirteen-year-old in my head screamed, “I’m kissing Tyler Cook!”

  Of course, that wasn’t all we were doing. The thirteen-year-old me would have been aghast at the places we put our hands—and our mouths—as we made out on the hotel sofa. Tyler had my t-shirt off and my bra undone before I knew what was happening. Not that I protested. I was more than eager to return the favor, but the man was already shirtless, so I had to improvise.

  I had his cock in my mouth when the door exploded with a furious, self-important knock only a cokehead could deliver. It was so loud I would have screamed if my mouth hadn’t been full. Tyler groaned, his hand in my hair, looking at me with those hot, smoky eyes.

  “Don’t go anywhere.” He pointed at me as he got up, yanking up his jeans and tucking everything in as best he could.

  I heard him talking to someone, knowing it was “room service”—apparently that Nickelback song was accurate, every rock star had a drug dealer on speed dial—and decided to use the time to run to the bathroom. Three beers and four shots had gone right through me. I grabbed my t-shirt and found the restroom, gaping at its size. I’d been in nice hotels before, but never in a penthouse. This place was huge. You could have played baseball in the bathroom. Okay, maybe not baseball. But definitely croquet or a little racquetball. The tub was big enough for two. Maybe three.

  Not that I was into sharing. I wanted Tyler Cook all to myself—and the strangest thing of all was that I had him. I knew it wasn’t for long, but however long it lasted, I was going to make the most of it.

  “You in there?” Tyler knocked.

  “I’ll be right out.”

  I gave myself a pep talk in the mirror, straightening my Trouble t-shirt, Tyler’s smirking face on the front of it—my bra was somewhere in the living room and my nipples were hard, but I wasn’t about to go find it. Besides, I wasn’t going to need it anymore. Because I was going to go out there and have some mind-blowing, organ-blowing, life-blowing, one-night-stand sex with my favorite rock star.

  Was this real?

  My hands shook as I dried them on the plushest hand towel I’d ever seen, and I studied myself with an unbiased eye, smoothing down the hair Tyler had mussed with his hands during the sofa blowjob, running a fingertip under each eye to smooth out my smudged eyeliner, and thanking God I’d worn nice underwear—just in case.

  I found Tyler in bed, stripped down to his boxers, smoking a joint. The lights were low, the bed giant—king size, and fit for a giant king, someone like Henry VIII—and the covers were pulled aside for me, an invitation.

  “Not so fast.” He pointed as I was about to crawl onto the huge, high mattress. “Bed rules. You’re wearing far too many clothes.”

  “Bed rules?” I looked askance at him, hands on my hips.

  “Have to strip down to your underwear. At least.”

  “Are there any more bed rules I should know?” I lifted the ends of my t-shirt, pulling it slowly over my head.

  “What’s your safe word?”

  “I don’t have a safe word.” I let my t-shirt drop to the floor. He’d already seen that much anyway.

  “You really do like to live dangerously.” He blew a smoke ring, looking over me appreciatively as I stood there wearing just my jeans.

  “Any more rules?” I undid the top button of my jeans and that attracted his gaze like a lion spotting prey.

  “You can smoke in bed, but you can’t eat crackers.”

  “No crackers in bed, got it.” I wiggled my hips, edging my jeans down.

  “Cookies either. Or any other thing that might leave crumbs.”

  “Who are you, the princess and the pea?” I snorted, stepping out of one leg of my jeans, then the other. “Is that it?”

  “Just one more bed rule.” He held up one finger to stop me as I approached the bed wearing just a pair of panties.

  “Okay, what?”

  “No fighting.”

  “No fighting?” I laughed. “Tyler, we just met, I’m pretty sure it’s not going to come to that. At least, not tonight.”

  “You wanted to know the rules.” He shrugged.

  “Do you apprise all your bedroom guests of this set of rules?” I crawled into bed, taking the joint from him. He watched me with dark, lustful eyes.

  “I have them posted over my bed at home.”

  “Really?” I took a hit and held it. God, I hadn’t smoked weed in so long. Alex hadn’t approved.

  “Written in permanent ink and laminated.”

  “You’re lying.” I blew smoke out the side of my mouth and handed the joint back to him. “That’s my bed rule. No lying.”

  “Okay, Katie.” He took a hit, holding it for a while before blowing the smoke out. “I can live with that.”

  “Gimme.” I reached for the joint.

  “Greedy girl.” He smiled, watching me put it to my lips. “There’s plenty more where that came from.”

  “I have no doubt,” I croaked, trying to hold the smoke in and talk at the same time so I could catch a better buzz. I was already a little drunk. Okay maybe a lot.

  We passed the joint back and forth, getting high and not talking, but it was a comfortable silence. I loved the mellow that weed gave me, like every little thing was gonna be all right—thank you, Bob Marley. Any nervousness or inhibition I had just melted away. At some point Tyler brought out a fifth of Jack Daniels and we started doing shots in bed along with the weed. It was a heady combination. We smoked the joint until it was gone, gone, gone, and the bottle of Jack stood half-empty.

  “I’m gonna fuck you, sweet, sassy Katie.” Tyler turned and whispered this into my ear. He hadn’t touched me since I crawled into his bed, although my body was soft and open, anticipating it. I felt like a rag doll—he could have done anything to me, and I would have let him. I wanted him to.

  “I’m going to fuck you so hard you forget your own name.” His hand moved down my belly, thumbing my hip bones, strumming down, down. “I’m going to fuck you so hard you forget mine.”

  “Not a chance.” I looked at him through half-closed eyes, his face above mine, meeting his gaze. The lamp light was low, and he was in shadow. He could have been anyone, but he wasn’t. He was Tyler Cook, and I wanted him. “I couldn’t ever forget your name.”

  “Say it.” His hand moved over my shaved mound—thank God I’d actually shaved ev
erything, arms, legs and pits, before the concert, because I hadn’t been much for personal grooming since Alex dumped me. I had spent an hour in the bathroom bent over like I was doing yoga, getting every last little bit of body hair, as if I believed I had a shot. And here I was. In Tyler Cook’s bed. With Tyler’s hand moving between my thighs as I parted them.

  “Tyler,” I whispered, reaching out to touch his cheek. He had a little bit of stubble there and I found it incredibly sexy. I imagined what it would feel like rubbing against my thighs and shivered.

  “Oh fuck, you’re so wet.” He groaned, his finger slipping between my bare lips. My clit throbbed, a steady heartbeat.

  “You did that.” I half-smiled, feeling my nipples harden as he circled my clit with one finger like a shark circling prey.

  “I haven’t even started.” That lazy smirk lifted one side of his mouth, his gaze moving over my body. I felt the heat of it, as if everywhere he looked, he was touching me, caressing me.

  “Oh God,” I gasped when his fingers—two of them—slipped inside of me, his thumb taking up the slack, strumming my clit.

  “Not him, me.” Tyler’s mouth on my ear, my neck, licking, sucking, biting.

  “Oh Tyler,” I assented, lifting my hips to meet the motion of his hand. I had no idea what he was doing down there, but it was so good it made me crazy with lust. His hands were the most skilled I’d ever known. He played me just like an instrument, by knack, feel, intuition, and a great deal of magic. “Oh my God, Tyler!”

  “Yes,” he urged, fingers plunging, the wet squelch of my pussy filling the room. “I want you, Katie. I want you to come for me before I fuck you.”

  Oh hell. That was so hot. My body was on fire with wanting him. Tyler’s tongue traced over my collarbone, flickering downward toward my nipple. They were rising pink points reaching for his mouth. I watched him suckle through half-closed eyes, his chin buried in the flesh of my breast, tongue lashing, fingers improvising a sweet song between my thighs.

  “Oh Tyler!” I cried, calling his name as I arched and writhed on the bed. “You’re going to make me come so fucking hard!”