Tainted Kiss (Tainted Knights Book 1)

by Terri Anne Browning

  With the green backdrops in place and my lighting about as perfect as I could get it without a muse to work with yet, I headed for the table where I had left my camera equipment and my iPod. I’d had that damn iPod for eleven years. It had over ten thousand songs on it, and all the playlists I used while working. My roommate kept telling me I needed to get a new one, but every time I so much as thought about it, I felt like crying.

  My dad had given me that iPod when I was ten. It was the last present he had given me before he left for his tour of duty in Iraq. Three months later, his convoy ran over an IED. I lost everything the day two men had shown up on my aunt’s front door to tell us that my father was gone.

  Pushing those memories back into the deep, dark box where I tried to keep them, I pulled up my favorite playlist and hit shuffle. I was grumpy and tired, and all I wanted was a nap … or a really strong cup of coffee. Therefore, when the door opened behind me and Emmie walked in with a group of five guys and two girls who looked at least two years younger than me, I had to bite back a groan.

  Catching Emmie’s green gaze, I lifted a brow at her. “Really?”

  Typically, when I worked with Emmie, I had older guys to deal with. Most of the time, they were on good behavior, especially when Emmie was around. I didn’t know what to think of this group.

  The first one my eyes zeroed in on was massive, like he could bench press the four other guys stacked on top of each other with ease. His dark hair was long on top but the sides were shaved. He had a sun-kissed, golden complexion, but it was his eyes that had me taking a second look. They were tan, almost the perfect shade of sand. I had a knack for reading people, and from just the tilt of his chin, I summed him up easily.

  Douchebag. Probably a little narcissistic. Definitely not my type.

  Beside him stood a beautiful blonde whose eyes kept going back to the sandy-eyed muscle head. She had startling wide blue eyes that told their own story with every emotion she was feeling shining out of them so clearly. Her lips were full and naturally pouty.

  The guy who stood behind her couldn’t have been anyone but her brother; they looked so much alike. He was taller, but he had the same hair, the same eyes. He was fit, but compared to the other guy, I could tell he didn’t live in the gym.

  The blond guy was holding the hand of the second girl, and at first glance, I thought she was pretty, but when I really focused on her, I quickly changed my mind. Pretty didn’t even begin to describe the tall redhead. With her long limbs, slender figure, with just the hint of curves under her slightly baggy T-shirt and jeans, this chick was smoking hot. The way the blond guy held her hand so possessively had me pausing for just a second on their linked hands. I wasn’t sure if he held on to her so tightly because he couldn’t bear to let her go, or if he was making sure every guy in the vicinity knew who his girl belonged to.

  Two guys shifting behind the couple drew my eyes to them. Just as quickly as the first guy, I instantly summed them up. The one wearing the sunglasses was perhaps a bigger douchebag. His face looked like he had never smiled a day in his life. That made me sad, because my favorite thing in the world was to laugh, and I instinctively knew this guy’d had very little to laugh about in his lifetime.

  The guy beside him didn’t fool me with his relaxed face. His eyes were moving around the room, taking everything in all at once. I figured he was the voice of reason with this lot, but at the same time, a part of me suspected he was nothing more than a tool. He didn’t move like any of the rockers I had come across in the past. No, he was more refined, just as I figured his accent would be. He might look like a rocker, but I got the impression he came from a stuffy, old money family. Politics, I decided. Maybe.

  Then my eyes landed on him.

  He had blended in with the others when he’d first come in, so I hadn’t really looked at him. Now, as I took all of him in for the first time, all the oxygen seemed to evaporate from my lungs.

  Standing just over six feet, he had a lean build that I thought belied his strength. I instantly liked the gauges in his ears when normally holes that size in a guy’s ears would turn me off, but they suited him. His dark hair was cut short, but styled in a careless way that looked both lazy and sexy. His beard was neatly trimmed along his jaw, giving him a scruffy look. And the piercing in the middle of his bottom lip pulled my eyes right to his mouth. But it was his ink that had me taking an unconscious step toward him.

  His left arm was completely bare, but his right was covered in a sleeve. For a moment, I had no idea what I was seeing. A woman’s face? A back street? I wasn’t close enough to see them clearly, but the others were the same. One second they were one thing, and the next, something completely different.

  Optical illusions. Two pictures in one.

  “You remember what I want, right?”

  I had to force my attention away from him.

  Mentally scolding myself for letting some guy affect me so strongly, I gave Emmie a tight smile. “I got ya, babe.”

  “I’ll be up in my office if you need anything. I have a conference call I couldn’t reschedule,” she informed me with a twist of her lips. “And if these guys give you any trouble, kick their asses.”

  I found myself smirking at her, despite the maelstrom still swirling through me because of some guy I had just set eyes on.

  “Will do,” I assured her. “No worries. I’m sure we can knock this out in no time.”

  “Travis should be here in about an hour,” Emmie promised. The face I made had her lips twitching. “Don’t worry; he won’t get in your way. He learned his lesson.”

  I clenched my jaw, unable to return her smirk this time. “Let’s hope. Otherwise, you might be peeling his dead ass off the street after I throw him out the window.”

  “Noted.”

  Everyone was quiet until Emmie was out of sight. Once the door closed behind her, I heard more than one relieved sigh come from the guys. It was amusing to see how Emmie could control the bands she worked with. At the same time, I could understand their tension. Emmie Armstrong could make or break an up-and-coming band. Hell, she could make or break one that was already established and at the top of their career. She was that powerful, and not just in the rock world, but the entire music industry. I was grateful she had picked me to work with her, because one word from her had been all I needed to kick-start my career.

  Turning away from my now captive audience, I went back to my iPod and turned up the volume. When that caused a few groans from the guys, I grinned, some of my earlier bad mood fading.

  A soft laugh came from right behind me, and I turned with my camera in hand to find the blonde girl leaning against the table.

  “I’m Kassa,” she said, offering her hand. “And if you plan on torturing these guys with your choice of music all morning, I’ll make you my new best friend.”

  Laughing, I shook her hand. “Santana.”

  “Daddy was a guitar player, right?”

  I snapped my head around and met the sand colored eyes of the man who was moving closer to my new friend protectively. He was way too over-protective. Seriously, did he think I was going to bash her head in with my camera and eat her heart?

  “Something like that,” I muttered, forcing a smile for the guy with way too many muscles. How did his shirt not rip when he breathed?

  Kassa shot him a glare. “Be nice, Gray.”

  He rolled his eyes, but kept his mouth shut.

  I wondered what kind of magic spell this girl had over him. She commanded; he obeyed. I doubted that happened with any other person.

  Mentally shrugging, I turned everything else off in my head and got to work. “Emmie has given me a few ideas to roll with, so let’s get started. I think we will start on a few group shots first. I’ll email them up to Emmie to see what she thinks. If she likes the way things are going, then we can move on.”

  I waved them over to the green screen and grabbed the blond guy who was still holding the redheaded girl’s hand, pulling him
into place where I wanted him.

  “What’s your name?” I asked as I took in his clothes. Like the others, he had on jeans and a T-shirt.

  “Jace,” he told me with a smile I figured he used to win over his fans.

  “You’re the front runner, right?”

  He nodded.

  “Good. Stand right there. Don’t move unless I tell you to.”

  I grabbed the moody looking guy next. “Do you glare at everyone, or am I just lucky?” I teased, hoping to get him to relax a little. It didn’t work, so I just positioned him where I wanted him.

  “Everyone,” the girls both assured me.

  “Name’s Sin,” he grumbled in a low, deep voice.

  My brows lifted. “Really? Your momma give you that name?”

  “Your momma give you yours?” he shot back, still not relaxing so much as a single muscle.

  “Touché.”

  Once I had Sin where I thought he would look best, I glanced at the other three. Gray was busy watching Kassa. The tool was watching everything with bored eyes. And the last guy…

  Dammit. My mind went blank to everything else as I let my eyes drift over to Mister Delicious and his incredible ink.

  Sin nudged my arm with his elbow, and I realized I was actually gawking at the guy. Gawking, for fuck’s sake!

  I could feel heat filling my cheeks as I quickly looked away, but not before I realized that he was doing a little looking of his own.

  Determined to focus on work, I nodded my head at Sin. “Stay there.”

  His eyes told me he had seen the way I’d reacted to his bandmate. I wanted to punch him in the face when I saw that smirk teasing at his lips. Now he smiled? Douchebag.

  Needing a distraction, I crossed back to Kassa and grabbed Gray’s arm. He didn’t budge at first when I tried to pull him back to the green screen, but then Kassa pushed his shoulder and, with a huff, he finally let me move him.

  With three out of five positioned, I stepped back, mentally planning the shot.

  Trying to, at least.

  My focus kept going back to those tattoos, which quickly had me thinking about the piercing in the middle of his lip. How would it taste? Did he have other piercings? His tongue? Maybe …

  Shit.

  Shaking my head to clear it, I waved the guy who still seemed like he didn’t truly belong with the others over. “Can you stand here for me …?”

  “Cash,” he offered.

  “Of course it is,” I muttered mostly to myself. “Stand here, Cash.”

  “Can we help?” the redhead suddenly asked. “I don’t want to just sit around doing nothing.”

  “Sure.” I didn’t normally like help. I would rather do it all myself than get frustrated with someone who didn’t do what I wanted or needed them to do exactly when and how I needed it done. I couldn’t concentrate fully on what I was doing right then, so for once, I welcomed the offer. “Emmie left a box of T-shirts over there somewhere. Can you grab them? You probably know these guys’ sizes better than I do.”

  I stepped back again, taking the four guys in. I tried to lie to myself by saying it was for the shot, but it was because I was actually nervous to approach the last guy.

  Holy hell, I had never been shy before. Never. I didn’t get tongue-tied with people like my roommate did, especially with guys. I was normally in complete control, yet suddenly, I felt like nothing made sense. All over some guy I had just seen.

  Grimacing at how pathetic I felt, I pulled up my big girl panties and turned to smile at the guy. “I’d like for you to stand here, please.” There. My voice didn’t sound weak or even nervous. I was kind of proud of myself for not letting any of the emotions swirling around in my head show.

  He just stood there for a long moment, his eyes traveling from the top of my head down to my ballet flats. I liked the way he was looking at me; the way his hazel eyes that were more green than brown didn’t linger on my chest in a leering kind of way, but with obvious interest.

  I tried to hide my shiver as he slowly stepped forward, and was thankful that my bra was thick enough to hide the effects just his appraisal had left on my body.

  I hadn’t been affected so easily in a very long time. Okay, so maybe never this easily or quickly.

  This freaking strongly.

  As he moved to stand where I had asked him to, his arm brushed against mine. I tried not to let my reaction show, but the zap of electricity that shot through my arm and straight to my heart, making it jump start and take off like a bullet train was impossible to hide.

  The surprise I saw in his eyes told me he had felt something similar to what I’d just experienced, and that scared the hell out of me. I didn’t need a guy messing up my life right then, especially an up-and-coming rocker who probably was out fucking a new girl every night. Yeah, no thanks.

  Pushing everything I was feeling back into that deep, dark place where I put everything else I didn’t want to deal with, I flipped a button in my head and turned off everything except work.

  With everyone in place, I started testing the lighting. I was in professional mode, refusing to let my emotions screw up the job I was hired to do for Emmie Armstrong.

  The redhead, who told me her names was Kin, started handing out shirts. They were gray with a Templar shield on it with the letters TK in the middle in a tarnished silver. It was simple, yet perfect.

  “You guys change your shirts, and we’ll get this thing started,” I told them as I moved back to the table where the rest of my gear was.

  By the time I had changed lenses, they were all dressed. I took a few test pictures, but each time I looked at them, it felt like something was off. They didn’t look like a badass rocker band. It was too … perfect.

  Sighing, I walked around each guy. I adjusted Gray’s shirt, tucking just the front of it into his jeans.

  “Put your hands in your pockets,” I commanded.

  His brows lifted, but after a quick glance over my shoulder—probably to check with Kassa—he did as he was told. His shirt looked in danger of splitting over his biceps, but I liked how the material tightened over his chest. I moved on.

  Jace wasn’t a problem. Neither was Sin, whose scowl actually worked for the shot I wanted to get for Emmie. It was Cash who was throwing everything off.

  I grabbed his shirt in both hands, balling it up to give it a more wrinkled and rumpled look. His hair was styled, but it was too preppy-looking. Lifting myself to my tiptoes, I ran my fingers through his hair a few times, giving it a little bit of an unkempt look.

  To my left, I thought I heard Mister Delicious mutter something under his breath, but I didn’t allow myself to think about what was wrong with him.

  “Cross your arms over your chest,” I instructed Cash, and when he did, I gave him a pat on the head. “I like that. You don’t look as put together.”

  “See?” Jace said with a grin. “Even she thinks you’re too preppy, Cash.”

  Cash flipped him off, making the other guy chuckle.

  Finally, I let myself look at the last guy. I still didn’t know his name, and even though I was dying to ask, I knew it was better if I didn’t.

  My iPod took that moment to switch to the next song, and when “Starving” came on, just as my eyes locked with Mister Delicious, my heart actually skipped a beat.

  Holy hell.

  I was in so much trouble.

  THREE

  Kale

  My hands balled into fists as I watched Santana run her fingers through Cash’s hair. I had always liked Cash, but right then, I wanted to stomp his ass into the ground.

  When I had first laid eyes on her, everything inside of me had gone still, then hard. Fuck. Her thick, glossy dark hair had come out of its ponytail and reached her waist, and she tossed it over her shoulders so often I wasn’t even sure she knew she did it, but I thought it was cute. When I saw that the daith in her left ear was pierced, I couldn’t help wondering if she did it because she suffered from headaches or if she just
liked the piercing.

  Did she have other piercings?

  She wasn’t wearing a single drop of makeup, yet her dark eyes popped out of that gorgeous face. It had taken me over five minutes to force myself to look away from them. Her nose was small, cute almost, but her lips …

  Those big, luscious lips were made for wrapping around a man’s dick.

  Her voice wasn’t soft and sweet, but husky and full of authority. She knew what she wanted; how to take charge and make sure everyone around her followed the orders she handed out. She wasn’t hard like Emmie, but I could see how those two could get along so well while working together.

  Then she had turned up the music on her outdated iPod. Her taste in music matched that of a teenaged girl who hadn’t decided whether she loved or hated the world yet. It was kind of adorable, and I’d wanted to slap Gray on the back of the head and tell him to shut the fuck up when he had started complaining. However, I hadn’t been able to get my tongue to work because she had laughed and the part of my brain that controlled motor skills had shut down for a full minute.

  My reaction to Santana was instant and intense. It should have scared the hell out of me. I’d heard about chicks making a guy lose all sense of reasoning, and the next thing they knew, they were hitched with three kids following them around, calling them daddy. Some guys heard those tales and considered them horror stories.

  Not me.

  I wanted all of those things. Some day. I was twenty-two. I had plenty of time for all of that.

  Finally, she dropped her hands from Cash’s hair and patted him on the head like a dog. I hid a grin, loving that she was treating him like some well-behaved pet.

  After taking a second to inspect her handiwork, she then turned those big brown eyes on me.

  I vaguely realized her playlist had switched to a different song, and when the lyrics hit my brain, I watched her cheeks fill with pink, but she didn’t look away as I first thought she might.

  I watched, entranced, as the tip of her tongue snuck out and brushed over her bottom lip, leaving a sheen of moisture behind. My body tightened painfully, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even remember how to fucking talk. What the hell was this girl doing to me?