Twister: Party Games, Book 3 (2 page)

Nice? Nice? How about earth-shattering? Soul-rocking? Life-changing?

Scary?

No, not scary. Scary was waking up in your bed to find someone you trusted trying to pin you to the mattress. Scary was knowing the whole world wanted to watch your every move. Scary was suffocating and sour and horrible, and there was
nothing
suffocating and sour and horrible about the way she’d reacted to her first moment with Lachlan McDermott. Nothing.

The second he’d pulled his helmet from his head her sex had fluttered with interest, her belly had fluttered with nerves, her mouth had turned dry, her pulse had kicked up not just a notch but three, her heart had slammed into her throat and she’d resorted to the only defense mechanism she knew. Climbing from her car, she’d become the person she’d stopped being sixteen years ago.

The flirty, sarcastic, confident model, Kole.

She’d slipped into the safety of Kole and Kole’s
femme fatale
poise. Wore
her
like a suit of armour. As the first sexual innuendo had fallen from her lips she’d
known
there and then it was Kole Lachlan was looking at. Kole he was caressing with his eyes. Kole the fearless goddess, not Cameron the private woman. Kole he was responding to. She could see it in the tension in his body, the flaring of his nostrils and
everything
was turned upside down.

Everything was turned upside down, inside out and back to front, and her simple plans for the night went right out the proverbial window. Leaving her reeling.

She’d come to the party to meet Lachlan McDermott, and instead he’d met Kole, bloody Kole and, by the raw desire in his eyes, he wanted her.

Damn it. Damn it, damn it, damn it.

Her heart thumped harder in her chest. She gave her hips an extra little swing, knowing how good her backside looked in tight leather. She’d made millions from her backside. Millions. She’d been able to buy a Central Park West penthouse apartment in New York by the age of nineteen, one year into her modeling career, thanks to how good her backside looked, and while she hadn’t modeled for sixteen years, she hadn’t spent those years slouching. She’d renovated houses, restored classic cars, planted gardens, walked dogs…physical and dirty and demanding activities. Activities to find who she was if she wasn’t—

A soft noise behind her made her heart thump a little harder. Lachlan had sucked in a breath. A soft one, to be sure, but a breath. A sharp one.

She’d affected him as much as he had her.

Idiot. It was
Kole
that had affected him, not her.

A cold numbness stole over her limbs and, for a wavering moment, she almost stopped. Almost turned around and hurried back to her beloved Mini, jumped in and drove away. None of this was what she’d planned. She’d planned to meet Lachlan, be introduced to him by Lillian and hopefully have a conversation. Instead, she was pretending to be someone she no longer was as she walked away from him.

Damn it. Again.

There wasn’t any doubt he still watched her. She could feel his gaze across the dark distance. Her nipples pinched tight and her pussy throbbed.
Throbbed
. Fluttered and squeezed and carried on in such a way she didn’t need to slip her fingers over her folds to know they were damp.

But was he looking at her with lust? She remembered what Lillian had told her about his strict no-model rule.

She caught her bottom lip with her teeth.

For a second back by her car she’d thought he was going to kiss her. He’d taken one step toward her, an unspoken intent charging the air between them, but then stopped when she stepped from the shadows and he saw her. Then…oh, man, the expression on his face. Shock, hunger, haunted contempt finished off with studied indifference.

He’d recognized her. From her Kole days, no doubt, and in that recognition came a world of emotions she so wanted to analyse.

Unable to stop herself, she threw a quick look over her shoulder. She couldn’t help it. If the man standing behind her truly was as wonderful as Lillian said he was—in her unintentional, ironically sisterly way of course, complaining about how protective he was, how determined he was for her to have a grounded life, how focused and no-nonsense he was in his own life—Cameron wanted to do so much more than argue over a parking space with him.

Kiss him? Or even
more
than that?

Her gaze found Lachlan still standing by his bike, his tall, lean frame easy to make out in the shadows, and her heart beat quicker.

She saw him straighten slightly as their stares met, saw his shoulders square and his chin lift before, with a sharp shake of that dark head of his, he turned back to his bike and climbed astride its seat.

A soft sigh slipped past Cameron’s lips.

She’d unsettled him.

No. Kole had unsettled him. Not her. And Kole was a very different woman to Cameron.

And yet she’d slipped into her skin so easily. It was like she hadn’t been anyone else but the flirtatious, confident woman for the last sixteen years. What did that mean?

It meant Lachlan McDermott pushed sexual buttons she’d shunned long ago.

Why was that? The power of his presence?

She had to admit, the guy had personal intensity to spare.

And sex appeal. Big-time sex appeal. His eyes had positively smoldered with indomitable potency and challenging power. And his body…the snug jeans and black leather jacket did nothing to hide the sheer athleticism of his form.

Lengthening her stride, she made her way to his house. Funny, she’d thought of the multi-million dollar waterfront property as Lillian’s for the whole drive over, but now, after a mere minute in his company, it was Lachlan’s. Another reason to be unsettled.

This is foolish. Coming here. Being here. Dressing like you are. Behaving like you are, like Kole again. She brings nothing but—

“Cam!”

Cameron started at the laughing shout. She watched a willowy young woman wearing a skimpy LBD leap down the stairs of Lachlan’s house and run toward her across the people-peppered front lawn.

A lithe body slammed into her, two long, almost gangly arms wrapped around her in a suffocating bear hug, and before she could do anything but laugh, Lillian McDermott—utterly delightful, monumentally innocent super model—planted her full, glossed lips on Cameron’s mouth and kissed her.

“I
knew
you would come.” Lillian grinned when she finally deigned it okay to let Cameron go. “All that blustered complaining and grousing about staying away from crowds didn’t fool me.”

Cameron raised an eyebrow, watching the younger woman practically quiver with nervous energy. “I’m only here for a little while,” she said, lacing her fingers through Lillian’s. “As much as you don’t believe it’s possible, I do prefer to
not
be around a crowd anymore.”

Lillian let out a dismissive snort. “
Pft
. Crowds schmowds. This is just a few close friends and work colleagues. I’m sure you know most of them. Frankie is here, by the way. She told me she wants to talk to you about the New York shoot.”

Cameron shook her head and gave Lillian a smile. “No work talk tonight. I’m not here as Cam Winters, photographer. I’m here as your friend.”

“And to check my brother out.”

Cameron’s stomach dropped. “Excuse me?”

Lillian laughed, tugging Cameron closer to her side before sliding her arm around Cameron’s shoulders. “C’mon, Cam. You think I didn’t notice?”

Cameron swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. “Notice what?”

“That every time we chat about life outside a photo shoot, you steer the conversation around to Lachlan?”

“Do I?”

Lillian nodded, nudging her hip against Cameron’s. “You do. And you weren’t even considering coming tonight until I mentioned Lochie would be here.”

Forcing calm through her body, she cast Lillian a sideward glance. “I think you may be reading too much into things, my young apprentice.”

Lillian laughed again. “Are you quoting that movie again? The one with the space ships and light swords and Harrison Ford without wrinkles?”

Phew, she’d dodged a bullet there. Lillian may be right about her reason for coming to the party, but Cameron wasn’t prepared to discuss her burgeoning interest in Lachlan. “They’re light sabers, child,” she answered with a grin and a haughty tone, as if bestowing Lillian with an important life lesson. “Light sabers. And yes, I am. Now, take me inside and show me this grand chaos you’ve designed. I expect to be playing a game of Spin the Bottle with Russell Crowe and Hugh Jackman before the hour’s up.”

Lillian pulled a face. “Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe? Fine, you can take the oldies. I’ll happily settle on Chris Hemsworth, thank you very much.”

Five steps later, they entered Lachlan’s house. Five after that, Lillian laughed a greeting at someone who looked a lot like Kylie Minogue and Cameron took the opportunity to slip away from her host.

She moved through the crowded house, not making eye contact with any of the other guests. She didn’t enjoy mixing with people anymore, preferring her own company. Besides, apart from Lillian there was no one here Cameron truly wanted to interact with. The only reason she was here hadn’t made an appearance in the house.

Perhaps he was still trying to find a space to park his bike?

The junction of Cameron’s thighs throbbed at the thought of Lachlan McDermott and his Ducati. He’d looked sexy climbing off the thing. Sexy and intimidating and powerful.

Everything she knew he was. Everything that made her nervous. So nervous she’d resorted to subterfuge to speak to him.

She slipped her way through a particularly tight knot of partygoers cheering on a game of Suck and Blow and paused for a moment when she recognized Lillian’s agent in the line. Frankie Winchester was staring with gaping shock at a tall man Cameron somehow knew. Or maybe didn’t.

She watched as the man lowered his head toward Lillian’s feisty agent, watched as his lips brushed over Frankie’s. Cameron’s pussy throbbed some more. Not because it was Frankie and a somewhat familiar guy, but because Cameron all too easily could feel Lachlan’s lips brushing over hers.

Her sex constricted. Her nipples grew tight. She’d prepared herself for a physical reaction of
some
kind to Lachlan McDermott, but not this. This was all a bit…a bit, damn it, this was all a bit too unsettling.

Turning from the Suck and Blow game, she continued through the house. She’d come here to do one thing. She’d come here to meet the media mogul, and by jingoes, that’s what she was going to do. Meet him, introduce herself as Cam,
not
Kole, and ask if she could get him a drink.

And maybe something more.

Cameron stomach clenched. She wanted to kiss him, but the trouble was who
would
do the kissing? Kole? Or Cameron?

She didn’t want to think about that. She couldn’t. If she did she’d probably head for her Mini and get her gazillion-dollar arse home.

Weaving her way through the raucous crowd, she found herself at the bottom of the massive sweeping staircase leading up to the house’s main bedrooms. Climbing three steps, she stopped and studied the people around her. Maybe she would find Lillian again. Or go looking for the bar. Or maybe—

“Excuse me,” a familiar deep voice rumbled behind her, “but I do believe you’re in my way.”

Her heart leapt into her throat. Her sex pulsed, her breath caught. He was behind her. After all this looking and he was now behind her.

What did she do now?

“Or maybe,” Lachlan continued, voice deeper, strained and controlled, “that was your intention?”

A teasing, sexy smile curved Cameron’s lips and, before she could consider what she was doing, she turned and gazed up at him. Up. It had been a long time since she’d needed to look up to meet a man’s gaze. A long time. Her pussy squeezed with tight heat. She liked it.

Never have before. Why now?

The question unsettled her. And made her…curious. Everything about Lachlan McDermott made her curious.

And aroused. Damn, so very aroused.

Even the arrogant way he looked at her.

He stood on the step one up from hers, his eyes still smoldering challenge. He raked a stare over her body, from top to toe and back to top again. The leather jacket was gone, but that didn’t do anything to lessen the sheer male potency radiating from him. God, he turned her on.

Or is it Kole who’s turned on? Do you really
like
being her, regardless of what happened to you? Do you want to be her a—

“You found a parking spot, I see?” she asked, killing the unnerving thought.

His nostrils flared at her mocking question.

“And now,” she continued, “you’re ready to play?”

He didn’t say anything, just bunched his jaw and studied her.

She let her smile move beyond teasing and sexy to downright provocative. A Kole smile through and through. “Can I interest you in a game of Suck and Blow? Seven Minutes in Heaven? Spin the Bottle?”

His nostrils flared again. Once. And then he was pushing past her, his body grazing hers as he descended the stairs. A fissure of raw sexual energy pulsed through Cameron at the brief contact and she sucked in a silent breath, watching him storm down the stairs.