Page 49 of My Charming Rival (Stars In Their Eyes 1)
I was quick to the draw, a gunslinger in the Old West.
Snap. Snap. Snap.
I grabbed shots of Riley and Avery exiting their respective cars. I snagged images of them walking hand in hand to a metal bench outside the smog facility. I recorded their every move for digital posterity, thanks to my sturdy and dependable top-of-the-line camera that I didn’t even need a flash for, so they had no way of knowing I was lurking nearby as they settled in on the bench.
I zoomed in as they chatted, as she smiled and looked in his eyes, as he tucked a strand of her brown hair behind her ear, as he ran a hand down her bare arm, then as he leaned in for a soft kiss on the lips. The tabloid readers would go wild. They loved a tawdry tryst. The entire time I made sure to capture her right side. That would be my gift to her, since Hollywood itself was the gift that kept on giving—there was always something to photograph.
Soon, they stood up and walked back to his car. She slipped into the passenger side, and they drove a few hundred feet down the street.
“Are you going to shoot more?”
I scrolled through the window on the back of my camera, checking out the night’s take. I had easily snapped more than one hundred pictures of them.
“I believe my work here is done.” I rose, grateful to be free of the crouch. William stretched, too, as he stood, then handed me my helmet. I hopped onto the back of his bike and we rumbled off to the library.
“What’s next?” he asked, as I unlocked my own scooter.
“I hand these over tomorrow in the early afternoon.”
“Do you have another stakeout?”
I shrugged. “Who knows what shenanigans tomorrow will bring? I see the client for lunch, then volunteer at the hospital. But do you want to meet up in the afternoon? The hospital is close to campus.”
“What do you do at the hospital? Distribute Band-Aids from your ever-present stash?”
I rolled my eyes. “Aren’t you just a funny guy?”
“Why, thank you,” he said, adopting a deliberately smarmy grin. “Seriously, though. Do you do medical stuff? Like a shot clinic?”
I reined in a grin that threatened to spread across my face. I found it adorable that William had no clue about medicine or hospitals, just like he was amused at my lack of language skills. I shook my head. “I don’t even have a bachelor’s degree, William. No one is going to let me give shots. I bring my parents’ dog to visit the kids. Jennifer’s trained as a therapy dog.”
He reached for my arm and trailed his fingertips down my bare skin. Goosebumps rose as I shivered from his touch. “The fact that you do that is completely cool. Which also means it makes you even hotter,” he said.
“Thank you. So you want to meet me and you can go with me on whatever shoots I’m on in the afternoon, and we can fine-tune wedding plans?”
“All work and no play,” he said with a mock sad face.
“Of course. We are only business partners.”
“All business. Unless…”
Neither one of us said anything for a few seconds, and I thought about how angry I’d been a few hours earlier when he’d been following me, and here I was now, paired up with him, getting high on that fine line of tension between the two of us.
I could take another hit. Inhale him.
But that would only mess with my plans. Make me lose focus. I couldn’t risk that. “I have to concentrate on school and work,” I said softly, but it was barely a protest.
“Seems to me, Jess, you’re pretty damn good at both school and work,” he said, and reached for one of the loops on the belt buckle of my jeans. Gently, he tugged me closer, and I let him pull me into his orbit.
“We’re in the parking lot of the library,” I pointed out, but it was hardly a no. More like an observation. He wrapped his hands around my waist, lifted me, and sat me on his bike.
“Now you’re on my bike,” he said playfully, his hands never leaving me. His hands made it harder for me to remember why I had to keep him at arm’s length. Because when he was that close to me, I didn’t want any distance. I knew I had to concentrate on school and work, but at the moment I could only concentrate on him.
“Now what?”
“Now this,” he said, pressing his strong thigh on the inside of mine, gently nudging open my legs. He moved closer, wedging himself into the space between my legs. Heat flared inside my body as my belly executed a series of backflips that would do an Olympian proud.
His stormy gray eyes remained fixed on me, blazing more intensely as he stroked my thigh with his thumb. I wore jeans, and I wished terribly that they would simply go poof, that the fabric would disappear and I could feel his touch against my skin. But then I’d be naked from the waist down on a bike in a parking lot, and if that’s not a recipe for awkward, I don’t know what is.
