Talbot’s voice was . . . a warm blanket, the sunshine coating my skin on a warm summer day. It was—hell, it was amused and laced with a little bit of heat, and it was the absolute sexiest thing I’d ever heard. It was also something that I shouldn’t be hearing.
Because the man had promised he wouldn’t look.
“You said you wouldn’t,” I exclaimed.
“Tammy—”
“How typical,” I muttered, both to remind myself that this was my common experience with men—that they didn’t keep their commitments—“of a man to not follow through.” Also, maybe I wanted to push him away. Just a little bit. No, I wanted to push him so far that he realized now what he would realize eventually.
That he didn’t have any interest in sticking by one Tammy Conners.
It was as simple as that.
Which was to say, it wasn’t simple at all.
Such an idiot. Why had I decided to embrace the fantasy?
Stupid. Capital S.
“Tammy.”
“Promises are so easy to make,” I grumbled, shutting off the water and cracking the door to the steam shower I really didn’t want to get out of. I hadn’t had a chance to play with the body wash, and it had actual gold flakes in it. Gold flakes!
“Tam—”
I yanked a towel off the heated rack, wrapped it around my head, which I had to say was a fair shade more difficult with the rubber-plastic-sleeve thing around my arm. But I managed, just like I managed to continue my tirade.
Inside, I knew I was being ridiculous, that it was his house.
That it wasn’t like he hadn’t just seen all I had to offer a bare half hour ago.
But deeper inside, I was grasping onto every straw that would make it so the man stopped being nice and sweet and funny and kind and an excellent giver of double orgasms—a fate that most men in my collection of twenty had definitely not been able to achieve.
“Look at me,” he snapped, firmly enough that my gaze drifted from the fluffy white towel over to the man in question. “Tammy,” he growled. “Are you looking?”
I was looking.
Probably very confused.
Because Talbot was in the bathroom, but his back was toward the shower stall. He’d pulled on faded jeans that clung to a truly glorious ass and a tight heather red T-shirt that seemed to kiss each muscled inch of his back. His hair was still a mess from my fingers tossing the shower-damp locks this way and that during our escapades, and I felt an actual itch in my fingertips to straighten it.
Or perhaps, to mess it up all over again.
“Tam—”
“I’m looking,” I wheezed out, unable to believe I could still want this man so much after I’d had him.
That wasn’t usually the case with me.
Typically, I was searching for more feeling, more sensation, for something to cling on to.
That clearly wasn’t a probably when it came to Talbot.
“Good,” he said. “Are you decent?”
I’d wrapped a towel around myself during my muttering. “Yeah,” I whispered.
“Good,” he said again, spinning to face me. “Clothes,” he said, plunking down the bundle in his arms onto the counter. “Hairbrush,” he added, setting it on the stack. “Courtesy of another gift bag. Do you want me to help you take off the cover?”
Clipped words.
Distance, I’d wanted.
And fuck me, distance I didn’t.
I nearly groaned out loud, because seriously, what in the fuck was the matter with me? Why was I tormenting myself? Why was I taking my own past and insecurities out on Talbot when he’d only ever been nice to me?
“Tammy?” he asked again, his tone still chill.
I was cursing myself every which way, so I didn’t have the energy to summon words.
In their place, I just nodded.
He crossed to me, long legs eating up the large space in mere heartbeats, and then his body was next to mine, the spicy, male scent of him filling the air, reminding my nerves, my lips, my nipples, my pussy of exactly how much it had liked being this close to him.
But, if he noticed my reaction, he didn’t comment on it.
Instead, his hand lifted, fingers gentle on my skin as he eased the cover past the stitches on the outside of my arm, down its length, and then off.
My breath froze in my lungs when he bent close, pressed his lips to the red marks encircling my biceps, where the cover had been tight to my skin.
Then he straightened, and those golden eyes locked with mine. “For the record,” he said, the words sharp and scalding over my body like a lash from a whip, “I’m not like other men.” That, I knew. That, I could have told him. But any words died on my tongue, because the man came closer, his lips a millimeter from mine. “I keep my fucking promises.”
With that, he was gone.
And I was left staring at his back, knowing that I was absolutely, irrevocably sunk.
Chapter Thirteen
Talbot
I’d left a flabbergasted Maggie back in the kitchen after she’d followed me around my house as I’d searched for another gift bag I’d shoved in some closet or another—before finding it in a cupboard above the washing machine.
I’d known it was somewhere around, knew that Tammy’s hair was too long and thick for my comb to be of any use, so I’d ignored Maggie’s words as I’d searched.
I’d ignored them long enough that her snapped out rebukes and sighs had evened out, until she’d gone absolutely quiet as she’d followed me, until she’d finally burst out, “What are you doing?” just as I’d entered the laundry room.
“Looking for something,” had been my response.
Which had led to more grumbling, more rebukes.
But by then, I’d found the brush and had disappeared back into the bathroom.
Now, however, I didn’t have any bags to be searching for, any products to unearth. It was just me and my publicist, who was, without a doubt, the person who knew me best in the entire world.
Her
