Instant Temptation (Wilder #3)(63)

He shook his head. Then let out a low laugh and nodded. “Okay, yeah, you drive me crazy,” he admitted. Hell, he’d told her as much. “But you also make me laugh. You make me feel good. And sometimes, Harley, when you think I’m not paying attention, you look at me like…”

“Like what?” she whispered.

“Like I’m worth something to you.”

“TJ.” She stared at him, her eyes two fathomless pools he could have drowned in. “You always have been.”

Simple words. Simple sentiment. Both went straight through him and warmed him in a way he hadn’t realized he needed warming. “And you wonder what you give me,” he murmured, reaching for her. But the front door on the lodge opened, and his clients came out to sit on the porch.

“Is that them?” Harley asked incredulously.

“Yeah.” They were trust-funders and sorority sisters. Ranging in age from nineteen to twenty-one, all some form of bottle blond, and in spite of his firm and absolute instructions to wear comfortable outdoor weather gear, they wore string bikinis, short shorts, and enough coconut oil to grease the entire WWE.

He’d read their files. They were skating through Cal Berkeley on their daddies’ dimes. They claimed that this trip was a “back to nature” trek, and that they were matching the price of Wilder Adventure’s fee toward a suitable “outdoor” charity to be named later.

He hoped that was true.

Annie was serving each of them a mimosa, per their request. She looked like she was battling either morning sickness or an aversion to their discussion, which was currently stuck on the party they’d all been to the night before last, where three out of the four of them had “scored.”

Jesus. He was getting old. He and Harley headed toward Nick, and the three of them moved to the porch together. TJ introduced Harley as his co-guide and photographer.

The girls—Shelly, Tandy, Lani, and no shit, Kitty—eyed Harley with varying degrees of disinterest.

“We’re not that much trouble, TJ,” Kitty murmured. “You could handle us on your own.”

Harley turned to TJ and gave him a look that he wasn’t sure he wanted to interpret. “How about it, TJ?

Want to…‘handle’ them on your own?”

Shelly—or was it Tandy—smiled. “We’ll be good, very good.”

Harley was still looking at TJ as she deadpanned, “Yeah, TJ, they’ll be good.”

“Excuse us a moment,” he said to the girls. “While I confer with my co-guide.” He grabbed Harley’s wrist just as she started to back off the porch.

No way in hell was she getting away.

“Nick will get you loaded,” he said over his shoulder. “Harley and I need a quick meeting.” He tugged her into the lodge and shut the door.

“Aw, they’re sweet,” Harley said as he tugged her through the main reception area and down the hall, walking fast enough that she had to run to keep up with him. “You can save all that money you were going to pay me and—”

“I’ll be saving nothing. I need the bodyguard.”

Her eyes went to his body. “A bodyguard,” she said doubtfully.

“You have no idea. They tend to think the guide comes as part of the trip. It’s awkward to fight ’em off.”

“Yeah, right. Are we really having a meeting?”

“Yes.” Right past the kitchen was a small pantry/storage area.

He opened the door and pushed Harley in ahead of him.

Harley turned in the small closet area to face TJ. “You always have meetings in here?”

He shut them in, gripped her hips, and backed her up against the door, pressing his lower body to hers, hard.

Apparently he was done talking.

And she promptly lost her ability to think clearly. Hell, she’d given up thinking clearly when she’d first parked and saw him. His look was your basic Gorgeous Alpha Outdoor Guy. Sturdy boots, cargo pants that fit across his butt perfectly, lightweight tech jersey—which looked and fit like a standard tee but was a quick drying, thin, webbed material that clung to his broad-as-a-mountain shoulders—and dark shades. He’d shoved those to the top of his head, revealing a slight sunglasses tan line on his temples and sharp green eyes, which softened whenever he looked at her.

He was drop-dead sexy.

He made her lose control, every single time. She couldn’t even think about it without feeling a rush of heat to her very core. It shocked her, what he could do to her with a simple kiss or touch. If they ever actually got completely naked together, she’d probably go up in flames.

Hell, she might go up in flames right there, the way he had her up against the door. “I take it the meeting is called to order?”

“Yeah. Take notes.” He slid a hand down her back, her thighs, then back up again, pausing to squeeze her bottom with a rough groan before settling a hand at the small of her back to hold her close.

She wanted to wrap her legs around his waist.

“God, Harley. I’ve been on the edge for some time now, and nothing’s worked. Don’t ask me why or how, but being with you works.”

Yeah. Her, too. At least when their tongues were tangling.

“You have a way of getting beneath my skin,” he said softly, spreading his fingers wide on her lower back so that the very tips of them slid beneath the waistband of her pants.