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TATE
I tried the alarm code. The house keys. I tried from inside the house. And from the rear door. Nothing worked.
I couldn’t get the garage to open.
My new car was arriving today, and I needed access so I could store it somewhere other than the front—I knew without a doubt that the party Rachel was throwing tomorrow night, much to my disappointment, would fill the driveway with cars and random bodies.
Groaning in frustration, I shoved open the French doors and approached Wren’s unit. She called it the pool house because it was beside the pool, but it was nothing more than a shoebox apartment filled with the most random crap I’d ever seen. The doll’s head cookie jar freaked me out with its one eye and hair falling out, not to mention the wine stoppers made from Barbie heads. The girl had a weird obsession with dolls.
I opened the door and walked into her apartment, calling out her name. “Wren?”
Her voice echoed down the hall as she squealed in surprise, and then something thudded on the floor, followed by a crash and groan. “Wren,” I called again.
Another groan. And then she called out, “Help!”
I walked down the hall toward the sound of her voice and paused in the doorway of what I could only assume was the second bedroom, set up to be her studio, before rushing over to her. She was lying on the floor on her back, completely covered in paint and possibly only in her underwear. It was hard to tell because it looked like a rainbow had been massacred in there. Paint tins were scattered around her, paint splattered the walls and floor, and a ladder had fallen on top of her.
“What the fuck happened?” I grabbed the ladder and pulled it off her, carefully setting it to the side.
“You,” she growled. “You happened, Tate.” She pushed herself up but slipped in the paint and collapsed again with a groan.
“Me? What did I do?”
“You scared me, and I fell off the ladder. Now help me up.”
She was covered in paint, and I had expensive clothes on. I cringed. My shoes already had paint on the soles. I didn’t want to wreck my jeans too. They were my favorite pair.
“Tate?” She lay there, a pained look on her face with her hand held in the air expectantly.
I rolled my eyes and reached out to pull her up. She was slippery and sticky with paint and lost her balance. Falling into me, her body pressed against mine. Soft and warm. And paint-covered. My favorite jeans were ruined, but for some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to care right in that moment because my arms were around her and it felt...nice. Her cheek nuzzled against my chest and she breathed in deeply, letting out a sigh, and I quickly lost my train of thought.
“Did you just sniff me?” I grasped her shoulders and pushed her back, suddenly aware of how inappropriately close we were standing. If Rachel had seen us, she’d have flipped her shit and caused a scene.
She pressed her lips together and shoved me in the chest. I stumbled back, tripped over a paint can, spilling blue everywhere. My once white shoes looked like a packet of skittles had thrown up on them. Dammit.
“I couldn’t help but sniff you. That stench you call aftershave is way too overpowering,” she said and frowned down at the mess on the floor. I chuckled because I wasn’t wearing any aftershave. What she was smelling and seemed to enjoy so much was. All. Me.
“So, you gonna tell me what you were painting? And why you were up on the ladder?” I looked around the room and noticed the walls were bare. Plain white, not a drop of color to be seen, yet she was on the ladder with her paint tins.
“You’re standing on it.” Wren huffed and bent over to pick up the scattered tins, her perfect ass on full display in her panties. I tilted my head, a little disappointed she wasn’t wearing a thong, and watched as she straightened all the spilled tins and sighed. “It’s ruined.” She collapsed on the floor in a puddle of paint.
Cringing at the mess she just sat in, I took more notice of the large canvas she’d spread across the floor. When I first walked into the room it looked like a drop sheet to catch any mess, but now that I was paying more attention to it, I could see I was wrong. Colors swirled together, and splotches blended with strokes and... I shifted the ladder to the center of the room and climbed up the paint-covered rungs to get a bird’s eye view of her painting.
“Holy shit.”
“What? You hate it, don’t you? Think it sucks?” Wren grumbled.
“No. It’s fucking incredible,” I said, completely in awe of the image I was staring at. A Horse. A black stallion running along the beach kicking up water with the sun setting behind it. And it was covered, ruined by spilled paint. “Is there any way to save it?”
“No. It’ll go in the trash.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Whatever. Not like anyone would pay money for it or anything.”
“Are you kidding? It’s amazing. What was the ladder for?”
Wren shrugged. “I drop the paint from a height and see where the splotch lands, then use my brushes and hands to turn the drops of paint into an image. I was up there dropping blue paint to darken the water when I fell.”
My chest clenched. I did that. I scared her so she fell and ruined a masterpiece. I looked her over, she was lucky she hadn’t broken anything. But was that blood? “Are you hurt?” I crouched down in front her and peeled the bottom of her yoga pants up.
“What are you doing?” She screeched and ripped her leg out from my grasp.
“Relax. I was just checking your leg. I think it’s bleeding.” I held up my hands defensively as though approaching a wild animal.
“It’s fine,” she said, pushing herself up to her feet and wiping her chest with a rag she picked up off the floor. Her breasts pushed together as she used the cloth to wipe the paint from her hands before handing it to me.
She asked something but I was distracted by her. “What?”
Wide hips.
Smooth, soft stomach.
And breasts.
Breasts that were more than a handful. Full. Round. Larger than Rachel’s plastic-filled ones. I knew without a shadow of a doubt they were all real too.
Growing increasingly aware that I was staring like a pervert at my landlord after almost causing her a serious injury, I cleared my throat. “Did you say something?”
She rolled her eyes, snatched the rag from my hand and walked out of the room toward her bedroom, mumbling to herself quietly.
She was fucking sexy.
“I asked what you were doing here, Tate,” Wren called from the open door of her room while I hovered in the hall like a creep.
“I tried to get into the garage but it’s locked.” I raised my voice so she’d hear over the...running water? Jesus, she was having a shower. And the door was open.
I rubbed a hand through my hair and walked down the hall back to the living room. I mean, who did that? Showered with the door open while someone was in their apartment.
Me.
I would.
But that’s because I posed for photos in my underwear, with my hand on my junk and stripped naked in front of countless people regularly backstage. So showering wasn’t a stretch.
“I know.” Her voice echoed through the small house as she shut off the water.
I frowned. She knew I couldn’t get into her garage. I stalked down the hall toward her bedroom. “And what, you just decided to not let me have the code even though I pay fuckloads of money?” I came to a stop in her doorway.
She turned and faced me in nothing but a towel, hands on her hips and a scowl on her face. “You rented the house. Not the garage. Read the lease.”
“What?” I took a step closer but stopped when she arched an eyebrow at me. I was in her room. I’d crossed a line and even I could admit that was wrong. I should have left. Walked away. But my feet were frozen to the spot. My eyes trained on the drops of water rolling over her cleavage and getting soaked up by the fluffy white towel.
“The lease, Tate. You know, the legally binding contract that stipulates the conditions upon which I let you live in my house.”
“Lease.”
“Holy moly. I’d have thought a guy like you would have read the lease and memorized it before signing it.” She spun around and walked into her closet.
“A guy like me?” I leaned against the wall and waited for her to reappear. She didn’t, but her towel did. I swallowed. My mouth so dry.
“Yeah, you.” She poked her head out of the door, hiding her body. “Someone so determined to have every single person who steps foot on the premises sign an NDA. I’d have thought you’d know to read before you sign.”
“Shit,” I cursed and stormed out of the room to the sound of Wren giggling in the closet.