Getting Tricky

by Scarlett Finn

  “So, what happened?” he asked. “How come you’re not still with him?”

  Dropping to her back, she folded her hands on top of each other under her breasts. “Turned out, he wasn’t who I thought he was.”

  “Ah,” he said.

  “He won this national competition thing for the college and got popular overnight. We hung on for a while after, but he changed… kept trying to change me too. He didn’t want me to be me anymore, he wanted me to be what he thought he deserved. And he deserved a woman who’d worship him, especially in public. Didn’t take me long to figure out I wasn’t good enough for him. He kept telling me what a disappointment I was. How I should be grateful to him because he could do so much better. Eventually… he did.”

  Turning her head to watch Trick as he rolled onto his side, she didn’t like the pity in his eyes, but it was probably mutual. “Sounds like a dickwad, want me to look him up? We can pay him a visit.”

  “And what? Make out on his couch?” she asked.

  He grinned and bowed forward to touch his lips to her forehead. “Or we could just go at it… I’ll rough him up a bit first, hurt him for hurting my girl, then when he’s lying there bleeding, I’ll eat your pussy right there in front of him, make him watch me worship you.”

  Giving him a shove, Lyla was touched that he would make the suggestion, even if it would never happen. But she put him back on his side of the bed, and then flopped to her back and gestured downward over her hips. “The only…

  “Pussy?” he asked.

  “Yes, that… the only one of those you should be thinking about right now is Kira’s.” It was funny, if perplexing, to see his expression turn to disgust as he rolled flat again. “Did you leave her in the bar? I know that this is difficult for you, but Bunyan seems to think it’s guaranteed to pull in the ratings. And you did agree—”

  “It’s sex,” he said, “sex always sells.”

  “So why are you lying here with your buddy instead of seducing a babe?”

  “My buddy,” he muttered.

  She’d meant it to be a joke, now she feared she’d missed the mark. Lyla wasn’t renowned for her sense of humor or delivery or reading people, especially men. “Was that presumptuous? We’re not friends, we’re—”

  He laughed and turned to his side, resting his face near enough to hers that his chin prodded her shoulder when he spoke. “We’re married, Malloy, we’re more than friends… Getting close to you, spending time with you like this … it’s been the best part of this stupid show… Haven’t you had any fun? Even a smidge?”

  Turning her face to his, he was too close for her to focus properly, but she smiled anyway. “Maybe a tiny smidge,” she said. “I like listening to you play your guitar on Saturday mornings.”

  “Yeah?” he asked, his voice laced with comedic male pride. “I’m real good at that, huh? You like my music?”

  She nodded. “Because when I hear that, wherever I am in the apartment, I know both your hands are occupied and they won’t be coming at me.”

  He laughed and tilted to kiss her shoulder. In an unusual move, he left his lips there for a second, then began to graze them back and forth. “You know, Bunyan just needs me to have sex with someone,” he said and his fingertips began to gather her nightdress at her hip, pulling it high over her thigh, though they were both still flat on the bed. “He didn’t say it couldn’t be you.”

  “No,” she said, slapping a hand down on top of his. “I said that… And we’re alone, what are you thinking of, bringing him out?”

  As far as Lyla was concerned, the other Trick, his over the top persona, had no place when there was no one around to watch him perform.

  “If he was here, he’d be on top of you already. You’d never be this relaxed with him this close to you,” he said and rose to look down at her. “Do you trust me, Malloy? At all?”

  Touching his face, she felt the need to connect with the man who was going through torture of his own. It must be horrific for him to be spending time with the ex who’d broken his heart. Not only that, he had to sleep with the woman when his own feelings about her infidelity were probably still raw.

  “Completely,” she said. “And I can relax around him these days, because I know you control him, and you’d never hurt me. You’re the protective big brother I never had.”

  “Brother, huh,” he said and was looking at her mouth again for some odd reason. Lyla began to worry that she might have smudged toothpaste on her cheek or something. “Never thought I’d get where your Caligula guy was coming from…”

  Excitement made her turn toward him. “You remembered his name!”

  “I do listen when you talk, sweetheart,” he said, draping an arm over her hip as she touched her palms to his chest.

  They’d never laid like this before, in bed, together, facing each other, her body almost nestled to his, just a couple of inches between their forms as her fingers spread on the warm flesh of his hard chest.

  It felt peculiar to be so close to him, so close that the heat of him was permeating the thin cotton of her nightdress and warming her nude body beneath.

  Maybe that was it. All she was wearing was this thin nightdress. Yes, the garment had wide straps and hung down to her ankles, though it was gathered high around her thighs now, but she’d never been so accessible to him. Even the bikini would’ve taken more effort to get off as it had knots. This nightdress would take only seconds to shed.

  Why was she thinking about taking off her clothes? Lyla knew she’d never get naked with Trick. Just. Never.

  “Malloy?”

  The sound of his voice startled her and she tipped her head back to see him looking down at her, his arm curled beneath his head for support. “Why does your voice sound all low like that?” she asked, but her heart was doing something weird.

  It could be a palpitation. Maybe it was a coronary. It wasn’t painful, but her pulse was definitely irregular. Her stomach was agitated too, like it was roiling and jumping; but it was happy, not unpleasant.

  Picking up her chin in his thumb and forefinger, Trick tipped her head back farther and rubbed his thumb back and forth just a fraction. Lyla couldn’t work out why he wasn’t answering her or why he seemed to be falling asleep as his eyelids got heavy. Maybe there was a gas leak and he was feeling the same effects she was.

  But before she could ask if he felt ill, sound carried from the suite. “Where are you? You bastard!” Paul shouted through the suite.

  “Damn,” Trick said, flopping on to his back to rub his hands on his face.

  “Wait… are you both in the bedroom? Together?” Paul called. “Where is the camera? Get over here!”

  Trick unbuttoned his pants and grumbled as he tugged them down a bit. “You take the room tonight, baby,” he whispered. “Kick me out and lock the door, ok?”

  “Kick you out? Why—”

  Rolling over on top of her, Trick thrust an arm around her back just as the camera appeared in the bedroom doorway. “Come on, baby, just a little nookie,” he said, rubbing his face in her hair.

  “Trick,” she screeched and pushed at him. “Get off me!”

  “Oh, baby, you get me hard then turn it off. Don’t go cold, hot stuff. Play with me.”

  He pressed a hand to her waist, not her breast or between her legs, but her waist, then he growled against her neck. “Stop it,” she said and this time when she gave him a shove, he rolled all the way off her and exhaled. “Get out of here! All of you!”

  Moving off the bed, Trick muttered something to himself and then began to stomp off toward the camera, holding his jeans up with one hand as he did. When he got to the camera, he gave it a push. “If I’m not getting any, you’re not getting an eyeful, shift it.”

  Climbing off the bed, Lyla rushed over to the door to close it behind all of them when they were over the threshold. Turning around, she fell against it and closed her eyes. Pressing her hand to her forehead, she felt bad for Trick, out there taking the heat fr
om Paul who would be pissed that he’d been ditched and because Trick was not with Kira as he was supposed to be.

  This felt like it was getting complicated, but she couldn’t figure out why. Nothing had changed. Had it?

  Except now that she knew Kira had hurt Trick so badly, she really didn’t want him to sleep with her. Didn’t want him to lie in bed with her and open himself up to her, he could get hurt again and…

  Her hand slid down to her mouth to stifle her gasp.

  She was jealous!

  Lyla didn’t want Trick lying in bed with Kira, sharing his secrets with his ex, not now that he did that with her, his wife. Lyla wanted to be his outlet for emotion, if he was stressed or needed to vent, she wanted to be the one he came to, just like tonight. He’d needed to tell someone about Kira, and indirectly to tell someone how difficult this was for him, and he’d chosen to tell her.

  Rushing to the bed, Lyla climbed on and hid under the cover. She was his friend. That’s all it was. She wanted to be his friend, his close friend. Being allowed to see the truth of the man behind the character was a privilege and as dumb as it was, she wanted to be something special to him.

  His life was filled with people, male and female, and she still didn’t know all of them, she may never know all of them. Trick had friends at every level of every definition of the word, who the hell was she to think that she might ever qualify in the upper echelons of that?

  He made her laugh. Made her feel safe. Played with her. Helped her to relax, even about the sex stuff that she was clueless about. Trick just made everything easy and he didn’t judge her. Lyla had to be careful. If she started to think he was important to her and started to think that she might want to be important to him, she could lose more than her dignity. She could lose her heart.

  TWELVE

  Lyla had been weird all day.

  Trick couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her, but she wouldn’t look at him. They’d had to do a bunch of bullshit team-building stuff in the hotel today and he hated every second of it. Mostly because the cameras were there, getting in everyone’s faces, asking questions, and urging him to get as close to Kira as possible.

  Exactly what Paul was lecturing him about now.

  Sitting on the couch in the lounge area of the suite he was sharing with Lyla, Trick couldn’t stop thinking about his wife who was in the bedroom, alone, while he was surrounded by the crew, focused on the director who was pacing back and forth on the other side of the coffee table in front of the opposite couch.

  “So as soon as you can sneak off, do it,” Paul said. “Kira knows this is why she’s here, so she’s not going to put up any fight. Be polite, buy her a drink, flirt, we’ll catch as much of it as we can, but don’t be too obvious, this is extramarital, remember? We want it to be clandestine; that makes it hotter.”

  Trick felt sick.

  He couldn’t relax.

  Curling one hand around a fist, he squeezed and gave himself a silent pep talk. Goddamnit, this was Kira, he’d had sex with her a thousand times. They weren’t asking him to do anything he hadn’t done before. And she was hot, if he just thought about her features, and not her personality, he’d get it up, he could do this.

  Her boobs… was that what had done it for him before? No, they weren’t responsive, weren’t as high and full as Lyla’s, hadn’t featured in any of his recent fantasies, not the way his wife’s had.

  Her ass, that was it, he could just grab hold and… Skinny and flat, that was how he remembered Kira’s ass now. Her ass didn’t register at all, even in the tightest dress. She was all bone, no tone, not like the way Lyla’s looked in her bikini when he—

  “Hey, are you listening to me?” Paul asked, snapping his fingers and pulling Trick from his reflection.

  “No,” Trick said, getting more agitated as his anger level rose. “I wasn’t. You want me to fuck her, so I’ll fuck her. I don’t need a step-by-step guide.”

  “Good,” Paul said and reached into the equipment case that was on the couch behind him to pull something out. Tossing it over to him, Trick had to think fast to catch it… and he took a second to register what it was: a box of condoms. “Be safe. Give us ten minutes to get setup, then come down.”

  Paul herded the guys out of the suite. Trick listened to the automatic lock click in to place. Inhaling, he blew out his breath and shoved up from the couch. He had to see Lyla before he went out, but Trick already knew this was going to be the most awkward conversation of their relationship.

  Last night, in bed with her, he’d felt accepted, needed… just like a regular guy lying with his woman. If Paul hadn’t interrupted them, he’d have kissed her for sure. She seemed to have put this line between the real him and the character he played. She believed that the character would letch over her, but believed it was impossible for the real him to have any kind of intimate feelings for her. And her comment about him being a brother? He didn’t know whether to laugh at that or spit.

  Going around the couch, past the armchair at the head of the table, he stuffed the box of rubbers into his jacket pocket and gave the bedroom door a push to let it swing open on its hinges. There she was, his wife, on the floor at the end of the bed, standing on her head in her yoga gear. Man, she had a body, and she didn’t even know it. He loved watching her do her yoga; she evened her breathing and closed her eyes, and just seemed to lose herself in it.

  He knew she did something to stay in shape and yoga was just a part of her regime; she was way more physical than she realized.

  When her eyes popped open and she noticed him, she smiled and let her body descend into an elegant crab shape before slowly rising to her feet. “Oh, good, I wanted to ask you something before I forgot.”

  At least she wasn’t being as distant as she had been all day. Today, he hadn’t felt that she was pleased to have him within three feet of her or even to hear his voice. She’d just closed down. But now she was smiling, was she pleased that he was going to Kira? That he was going to be intimate with another woman?

  “Ask away,” he said as she went to her laptop case in the corner of the room.

  If she asked him to stay, he would, he’d already made that promise to himself and to Sadie who had been glaring at him for most of the last two days, since Kira showed up. He’d thought having one of his closest friends on this trip with him would give him support. As it was, he felt a bit like his network was falling apart. Sadie was pissed at him, Lyla was being distant, and Kira… well she would just love that he needed her help.

  “Will you sign a picture for me?”

  “Will I…?” Lyla actually pulled a picture out the front of her laptop case and brought it over with a Sharpie, wearing a grin. Did she know what was going on here? “You want me to sign a picture for you?”

  “Not for me,” she said, putting the pen in his hand as she spread the picture on the dresser. “It’s for my cousin, Avril. She asked before the wedding and I forgot, I didn’t think it would be appropriate to ask you then.”

  “But you thought it was appropriate now?” he asked, watching her pop the cap off the pen for him.

  “We’re friends now,” she said. “You said we were buddies last night.”

  “Friends?”

  Lyla pushed his hand down toward the picture, what was she doing? And why would she still not look at him? Well if this was what she wanted, he would do it for her. As Trick moved the pen to the paper to sign it, he began to think about what he wouldn’t do for her… was there anything on that list?

  “Thank you!” she exclaimed when he was done and picked up the shiny sheet to blow on the ink to dry it.

  All he could see was his woman standing there with her back to him, paying such careful attention to the picture while ignoring the real him. Putting the pen on the dresser, Trick took a step forward and slid his hand around her waist. He was going to kiss her neck, in that sweet little spot beneath her ear that made her whimper.

  Except she took his hand away from her
belly and moved it aside so she could walk across the room and slip the picture back into a folder in her laptop case. “Lyla—”

  “Paul already told everyone I was sick, so just tell them you left me up here in bed and you won’t have to worry about saying anything else,” she said, chipper as she turned to lean against the wall between the chair and the nightstand. “I feel sort of guilty that I get a night off and you have to do all the work.”

  Only Lyla could say she felt guilty on the night her husband was going off to sleep with another woman. Pinning his eyes on hers, Trick wished he could make her understand how important she was and how she deserved so much better than this.

  “Ask me to stay,” he muttered.

  He hadn’t meant to say it. But he had to let her know, if there was a choice, he was choosing her.

  But she just smiled that Lyla smile that told him she was about to say something self-sacrificing like it was no big deal. Something no other woman would ever say. “Don’t be silly,” she said. “I wouldn’t do that to you. This is what you want… I’m happy for you, honey.”

  Happy for him because she thought Kira was such a catch? Except he’d caught that fish long ago and let her swim free without chasing her because he knew she wasn’t worth it, she wasn’t half the woman Lyla was.

  “If you change your mind, call down, ok?” he said and she nodded.

  “I won’t, but thank you for considering me,” Lyla said and her smile got even wider. “Now go have fun… Go on!”

  She encouraged him out the door with a wave of her hands and there was nothing else he could say, so he went. Leaving the bedroom, he marched across the suite and out into the hallway to head for the elevator.

  Lyla was going to spend the night alone in their suite and he was going to spend the night with Kira. His wife didn’t give him grief or make him feel guilty about what the studio were asking him to do. But happy for him? Could she really be happy for him? Maybe she was happy for him because she knew the start of the affair was the beginning of the end of their marriage. How many weeks would the studio ask him to string both women along? After sleeping with Kira, his chances of ever getting intimate with Lyla dropped into a minus percentage.