The Reverse of Perfection (Bad Decisions Book 2) (3 page)

Didn't know I'd be so naked,

Stripped, bare, alone.

Exposed to the world

Holding my breath till the music starts

And then I'm filled up, flying

Nothing but happiness in my heart

When he stopped playing, Ariel glanced down at his hands, long fingers resting lightly on the ivory keys. Wait—when had she drifted over to the piano? Her hand curved around the edge of the curlicued music stand. Her bare leg was mere inches from his.

“Well?” Dylan asked.

“That’s a wonderful song,” she breathed, still caught in the swirl of music hanging in the air. “Did you write it?”

“
Naked
? Yeah. It was supposed to be about my first time onstage, solo. How I hoped it’d feel. But the label hasn’t sent me on a tour for this apparent stinker of an album, so it only exists in the music for now.”

That was a timely reminder of why she was here. Which was
not
to drape herself over a piano and stare at him with googly eyes, no matter how velvety his voice. Ariel straightened. “Quite the impressive performance, I’ll admit.”

Dylan hinged back from his hips, hooking his feet beneath the pedals. He craned his neck sideways as though scanning the floor. “I don’t see ’em.”

“See what?”

“Your panties. I was sure I heard them land on the floor in the middle of
Naked
.”

Another timely reminder. That all rockers were cut from the same cloth. Screw-and-scram artists. “Look, you made your point. You have…potential. I’ll polish it the best I can. Starting with a full makeover tomorrow afternoon. No discussion. Although I think you might be pleased with the results.”

He tucked his thumbs into the waist of his pants as he stood. “If it means getting out of these clothes, I’m all for it.”

“I thought that’s what you started to do five minutes ago,” she admitted with a self-deprecating laugh.

“Really?” His eyebrow winged up. “I wasn’t sure you’d react well to the obvious approach. To being, you know, manhandled.”

Quite correct. Ariel lifted her chin. “I would
not
appreciate being manhandled. I
do
like to be handled by a man who knows what he’s doing. There is a difference.”

“I know the difference.” Dylan picked up his blazer and held it over his shoulder by a single finger. “And I’ll prove that, too.”

Before Ariel could snarkily turn him down, before she could remind him that she was the one in charge, before she could do
anything
, he’d already moved in on her. Used his hips to press her into the curve of the piano. Used his shoulder to nudge her body into a better angle. And then his lips met hers. Softly. Not all bluster and brashness.

No, Dylan surprised her with his technique. His kiss was a faint brush of lips. Then another. A slow back and forth that had her opening her own lips in a silent plea for more. More contact. More kisses. More of
him
. Ariel even raised up on tiptoe to lean into that provocative mouth.

It worked. Dylan slid his hand along her waist, then up her side so his thumb lay just below the lower curve of her right breast. The fact that he was so near and yet not touching it made Ariel hyperaware of his fingers. The length of them. The heat of them searing right through her top, as though all the heat from playing
Naked
now seeped out of him. Dylan squeezed, pressing her in and up, bowing her to press her breasts into his chest.

And then his tongue swooped in. Licking. Languorously exploring—and that exploration had the added bonus of slowly rousing every infinitesimal strand of nerves in her mouth. Warmth swirled right along with his tongue. Except that trail of warmth took off on its own path, expanding through her body with each pulse of her heart, each pull of his lips.

Ariel didn’t want to do anything to jar the perfection of what was inarguably one of the top three kisses of her entire life. But she simply couldn’t contain her pleasure—or her growing excitement. A low moan broke from her throat.

As feared, that was enough to make Dylan ease back. He removed his hand first…still without lifting his thumb that last crucial millimeter to make contact with her now aching breast. With a final suck on her bottom lip, he lifted his head. Looked at her with bedroom eyes, heavy-lidded and somehow darker than when she’d first seen them.

“That’s what it’s like to be well-handled by a man. I need you to keep that in mind. Make sure you handle me just as well over the next few weeks.” Dylan turned on his heel to walk out with one heck of a cocky swagger. Which was when Ariel realized he’d just kissed her legs out from under her without even using two hands. The other had kept holding his jacket.

Ohhhh.

Dylan Royce was definitely not the teenager she’d watched bop around in those videos. He was all man. A very dangerous man. Because in proving how easily he could make women in the audience want him, he’d also proven how easily he could make
Ariel
want him.

And now that she did want him? Enough so that she had to ease onto the piano bench and let her head clear? It’d be impossible to look at him the same way again. It’d be impossible to ignore the chemistry between them. It’d be impossible to shadow him twenty-four/seven, stay impartial and do her job.

But if she didn’t, if Ariel screwed up at all handling Dylan, she’d be fired. Funny how that fear still wasn’t enough to dim the luster of his kiss.

CHAPTER THREE

Ariel sat on the edge of her desk to get out of the way of the rack of clothes being wheeled into her office. “Thanks so much for pulling all these and coming over on such short notice, Raimondo.”

“This is Hollywood,
chica
. Everything happens at the last minute. And now you owe me a favor.” He flashed very white teeth in his very dark face. Swarthy sexiness didn’t begin to describe the effect of his wide smile, tanned muscles bursting out of a tight yellow tee and a personality that made every woman feel like she’d be lucky to get in bed with him.

While Ariel enjoyed flirting with Raimondo—and did, to keep him on the string for emergencies like today—she’d never felt the slightest temptation to take him up on the less-than-subtle invitations to spend time together outside of work. He was a player. No doubt he’d show her a good time for a night or two, but then he’d move right along. The last thing Ariel wanted to be was interchangeable.

“I told you that Dylan will mention your store whenever he’s asked about his wardrobe. I can’t give you more than that. And I don’t owe you a favor, PKCL Publicity, LLC does.” Ariel softened her statement with a remonstrative smile and teasing flutter of her eyelashes. But it was important to keep him in line. Remind him who had the upper hand. Because the moment she let the power dynamic reverse, she’d never get it back. Her performance was already under scrutiny, her job on the line. There could be no slipups.

“When should I come back for these?”

“An hour.” Ariel immediately reconsidered. Dylan seemed to have more than a bit of an attitude about his old wardrobe. She agreed with him that it was horrendous. But she didn’t know him well enough to know if his pissiness was due to caring about what he wore, or caring about being told what to do. Hoping for the former didn’t lessen the chances of it being the latter. If he argued about every piece he tried on, it could take a while. “Better make that two.”

“Is this one as special as he thinks he is?” Raimondo encircled her shoulders and gave her arm what seemed to be a commiserating rub. Ariel, however, knew it to be fifty percent commiseration, fifty percent an attempt to graze the side of her breast with his hand. Not the first time he’d attempted the move. Being so obvious about it, and the fact she’d seen him do it to at least three other publicists and an assistant, made it not worth getting upset over.

Today’s reaction, though, surprised her, because he made her remember yesterday’s kiss with Dylan. The smoking-hot kiss where she’d shamelessly arched into his touch, trying to get him to touch her breast.
Not
her best moment. Certainly not a professional one, for many reasons.

Reasons that she’d spent all night repeating. Easy to do, since sleep had been impossible. Every sense kept replaying things about the kiss. The exciting rasp of his tongue. The melody of the song he’d played just prior to the kiss—because Dylan’s performance had evaporated her mental walls and left her all quivery and turned on before he ever touched her. How he’d looked at her with such intensity that it didn’t just feel like every other woman in the world had disappeared—it felt like the rest of the whole world had dropped away.

Ariel’s reasons were rock solid. One, Dylan was a boy-bander. If men were drinks? Boy-banders were orange soda, and real rock stars were thick, heady Guinness. Why settle for the pale imitation? Although…that kiss, the charisma, the wit…he’d surprised her by being much, much more than anticipated. Which meant moving right along to reason number two.

Two, she’d sworn off rockers. Their MO could be summed up the same way Ariel went through a bag of Doritos on the couch while watching a Hallmark Channel movie. They just grabbed women by the handful and immediately moved on to the next.

Three, he was a client.
An amazing kisser of a client,
her subconscious muttered.
Not the point
, her ambitious side muttered back. The point was that Ariel valued her professionalism.

Four, he was a client,
and
her job was on the line already. Mixing romance and/or lust into an already complicated assignment would be flat-out stupid. An epically bad decision.

“Ariel?” The second squeeze of her arm brought her out of her head and back to the realization that she had yet to answer Raimondo. And that his hand was scooching closer and closer to body parts he had no business touching. The man never passed up the opportunity for an accidental grope. Ariel usually paid enough attention to not let him that close. She still had to be off-balance from her time with Dylan. Bizarre. Now she’d have to extricate herself—politely—from his octopus-like embrace.

“Sorry, Raimondo.” Ariel tried to shrug out of his grip, but it only tightened. She slid off the desk. But that only tucked her in closer to his side. “I guess the answer is that I’m not sure yet. I’m not at all sure about him. Not who he is or how good he can be.”

“All you have to do is ask. I’ll tell you exactly how good I am.” Dylan swung through the doorway, dressed in another of his ridiculously baggy and layered outfits. His hair, however, was vastly different. Obviously, the appointment she’d sent him to at LA’s priciest salon had been worth every penny. They’d sheared off a ton of the length. Now the sides and back were all short, the top gelled straight up from his forehead. The view of his laser-sharp cheekbones was unobstructed…aside from being distracted by the near-sparks coming from his eyes.

“Dylan,” she gasped. Partly in surprise at his arrival, and partly at his vastly improved look. “I wasn’t expecting you yet.”

“No kidding.” He sauntered closer, hands deep in the pockets of black pants, and jerked a chin at Raimondo. “Want me to start by decking the guy trying to cop a feel?”

“No!” Although the thought of her honor being defended did send a shiver of feminine appreciation through Ariel. The hard edge to Dylan’s voice made it clear that it wasn’t an empty threat. It bordered on funny how quickly Raimondo released her and took several quick-shuffle steps back to his clothes rack. “Raimondo is here to do us a favor. To do
you
a favor, actually. With a full wardrobe redo.”

“Thanks.” Dylan extended his arm to grab the doorknob. Voice still dripping shards of ice, he announced, “You can go now.”

Raimondo lunged for the door. Who knew he was such a coward? “
Adios
, Ariel.” As soon as he cleared the threshold, Dylan slammed the door shut behind him.

“What was that about?” Ariel asked, crossing her ankles and bracing her palms on the desk.

Dylan jerked a shoulder. In a borderline surly tone, he said, “I didn’t like seeing him paw you.”

Somebody had a temper. Admittedly, when it was aimed at protecting her, Ariel couldn’t exactly complain. “Flirting with Raimondo is just good business. Nothing ever happens. You decking him would’ve undone months of strategic hair flipping and smoldering glances.”

“Too bad. Anyway, I thought you
wanted
me to be a bad boy.”

Biting her upper lip barely kept the smile from escaping. “Not the kind of bad that gets you tossed in jail for assault.”

In her shoebox of an office, it took only two steps for him to be in her space. “Maybe you should write up a list.” Dylan bracketed her hands on the desk with his own. Then he leaned forward, his lips a breath away from hers. “The places where I should and shouldn’t cross the line.”

Dylan was baiting her. Being deliberately provocative. The problem with that? It wasn’t just annoying. It also happened to be turning Ariel on. A lot. “You’re getting close to one right now,” she warned.