“I try.” He winks, laughing when I raise an eyebrow. “I’m kidding. I don’t need to try.”
I smack his chest with the backs of my fingers. “You’re such an idiot.”
“It’s why I’m so endearing. I mean, who wouldn’t want a complete and utter idiot who makes kids laugh by singing Humpty Dumpy out of tune?” He carefully puts his things in the trunk of the car.
Warmth spreads through my stomach and I smile, leaning against his car, my eyes following him as he walks around it. “Oh, yes. A guy who can make kids laugh is the most undesirable thing ever. How dare you be so cute?” I roll my eyes and sit in the car.
“Cute? Did you just call me fucking cute?”
I look over at him. Well, he looks kind of offended. “Honey, you have dimples. Dimples. You are, by default, totally damn cute.”
“I am not cute.”
“You are.”
“Am not.”
“Are too.”
“Am not!”
“That. Do that again.” I turn in my seat gleefully.
“Am not?” He glances at me at the intersection. I nod. “No. Fuck off,” he laughs. “I’m not cute,” he says while grinning.
Right. I reach out and poke my finger into the dent of his dimple.
“You so are.” I rest my head against the back of my seat and drop my hand to his thigh. “And you don’t know it because you don’t need to try, remember?”
He clicks his tongue. “All right. You win. Smartarse.”
I grin and squeeze his thigh. His eyes shoot to me but he says nothing. I do it again and he shifts in his seat. My lips twitch and I squeeze his leg a third time. Again, he fidgets.
“Will you stop that?” he mutters, pulling up outside my apartment block.
“Are you ticklish, honey?”
“No. I’m not five.”
I open my door and swing my legs out with a giant grin on my face. “If you say so.”
I could swear that he mutters, “I do,” but I’m not entirely sure.
He heads to the trunk while I enter the lobby without waiting for him. He’s not five, after all. He can find my apartment without an escort.
He shoves his hand between the elevator doors and I jab frantically at the ‘open doors’ button.
“You dick!” I cry, tugging him into the elevator with me.
He laughs. “Don’t worry, feistypants. They have sensors. I wouldn’t have lost my hand.”
“Feistypants. I hate that.”
“Stop being so feisty then.”
“And let you get away with all sorts of shit? Never.” I reach down and squeeze his thigh.
“Fuck off!” he shouts, laughing.
“Tickle tickle.” I grin, grabbing both of his legs and squeezing several times very quickly.
The elevator doors ping open and I back out, laughing. Tyler walks toward me with a playful yet predatory glint in his eyes that makes me tingle all over. I walk backward until I hit my door, laughing, and he pins me.
“I warned you.”
“Technically, you didn’t,” I retort, flattening against the door like it’ll get me farther away from him.
“My bad.” He grins and grabs my sides.
His fingers dig into my sensitive spots and I scream a laugh. My knees buckle, my head throws back, and I grab his arms so I don’t drop to the floor. He tickles me intensely, my shrieking laugh mixing with his rich, deep one.
“Ty! Stop!” I beg through my laughter.
“Say I’m not cute,” he bargains.
“Never!”
“No stopping then.”
I somehow manage to dig my key from my pocket and shove it into the door. I push it open forcefully and fall through the open space. I regain my footing and dump my purse on the floor, still laughing, my sides aching and hurting from both my laughter and his tickling.
“Say it,” he demands, slamming the door shut and advancing toward me.
I shake my head, still walking, still backward.
“One last chance, Liv.”
“Or what?” I challenge. “What will you do if I don’t?”
He slaps his hands against the wall on either side of my head. “I’m not sure you want to find out.”
“Fantasies?” I look directly into those intoxicating, dark eyes.
“Plans,” he murmurs.
“I like plans,” I breathe.
“No, you don’t. You’re impulsive and indecisive and spur-of-the-moment.” He runs his nose up my neck. His breath coats my skin in a swath of heat that sends tingles through me. “It’s what I love about you. I love it when you don’t think.”
“Because when I do, I overthink to hell.”
“Precisely.” He smiles against my skin. “So stop thinking.”
“Even if I think you’re cute?”
“Especially that.” He laughs, his hands settling against my waist.
I expect them to slide down, to cup my ass and pull me toward him. They don’t. They flatten against the small of my back and linger there. The heat from his hold seeps through the material of my sweater.
The tension zings. It bounces off him and me, colliding in the tiny space between us and igniting like fireworks on the Fourth of July.
My chest heaves with anticipation. I want his touch. Despite my earlier thoughts about the sex overriding the rest of our relationship, when we’re here, like this, so close, I can’t help but need him inside me. I can’t help but want to be so connected to him.
“There’s more to us.” The words leave me, barely audible, unintentional.
“What do you mean?” he whispers into my ear.
“Than our addiction. There’s more, isn’t there? It’s stronger than our addiction. More intense, yet just as dangerous. It’s lingering under the blanket of our addictions.”
Tyler eases one hand around my front and up my body until he’s cupping the back of my head. “Yeah. Yeah, there’s so much more than our addiction.”
I press my face into his chest as Nana’s words come back to me. “When you’re in love, you’ll know it.”
“We are so fucked,” I whisper into his shirt. “So fucking fucked.”
He laughs quietly. Sadly. “You think that’s what this is? Fucked?”
“Feels like it.”
He cups my face. His palms are hot against my cheeks, burning into my skin as his gaze sears into mine. “Liv, when you see you and me as something other than ‘fucked,’ we can come back to this.”