Wild Temptation (Wild, #1)(83)

But hey. That’s what you get when you put a northern girl in a southern climate when the North is pretty much still in winter.

After ten minutes, a wipe-down, and a reapplication of my makeup, I head out to the waterline. The photographer is a nice, friendly, thirty-something woman who’s famed for her beach shots. It’s evident to see—the positions she asks me to contort my body into is practically fucking yoga. I’m half tempted to ask if she’d like to shoot me in the downward dog position.

Of course, she’ll likely give the other girls, who are holed up in different hotels, the same instructions. I just have to hope none of them can do yoga, because then I’ll be pissed off. Right now, my fitness regimen is all that’s keeping me balanced. If I hadn’t been doing basic to medium yoga for three years, I’d be flat on my ass.

After an hour, we call time on the shoot and I head back to the hotel. I wrap a towel around my shoulders, more to keep the sun off me than anything, and head up to my room. It’s not the best hotel in the state, but it has amazing views of Santa Barbara and its pier. Heading down there is on my plan for tonight.

Go to the pier, grab a glass of wine somewhere, then back to my room. Maybe for my vibrator.

Knowing I’m hours away from my family, my friends, Tyler—it’s surreal. This is only the second location shoot I’ve been on that’s taken me this far away from my home.

Before, it didn’t matter. Before, there was nothing tying me down to my home city. Now, though, it’s different. So different.

Now, there’s something—somebody—anchoring me to Seattle. He makes me want to go home right now. To go to the airport and hop on the next flight out of California. Two nights without him seems crazy although it’s nothing new.

Perhaps the difference is in knowing that, back in Seattle, he’s within walking distance. I can walk, run, or drive for only a few minutes and I’ll be at his door.

Here, though… Here, we’re nowhere near each other.

Two days ago, faced with the prospect of walking away from him, I thought I missed him.

I was wrong.

Missing someone isn’t the idea of leaving them. Missing them is knowing you’re so close yet so far away.

Seattle to Santa Barbara isn’t the hugest distance in history. For example: he could be back in London. That would be a distance—a whole country and an ocean would separate us.

I guess… I guess I’m in a constant state of missing Tyler. We’re so close physically. I know what makes him tick. I know he likes it when I suck lightly on the pulse point at his neck, how I run my nails down his back…. He knows where and how I like to be kissed, how to restrain me, what to say to me to get me wet…

But emotionally, we’re worlds apart. In theory? In theory, we might as well be London and Seattle. I’m the plane in Seattle, stuck on the runway, hesitating at takeoff. He’s the driver at Heathrow airport, waiting for the client who may never show.

We’re so close yet so far apart.

I wish—with everything I have, everything I am—that I could push past the heaviness of my past and leap recklessly into his arms. I wish it didn’t have a hold on me.

All I have is the knowledge that I’m not broken. I don’t have nightmares. I don’t have flashbacks. I don’t suffer because of it—I’m not depressed or anxious.

I’m perfectly normal if you don’t count my affliction for addiction to a single person.

I’m whole. I’m just a person with a demon from her past that causes her to fear. Find me someone who doesn’t have that, whether it be a nightmare or a broken heart from a high school boyfriend, and I’ll applaud your ass as you run out into the sunset.

I change from the bikini, stuff it into a bag to send back down, and slide into a pair of shorts and a shirt with spaghetti straps. I pour a glass of wine and step onto the balcony. It leads straight from my “front room,” and the view covers the whole beach. I can see the pier, the stores on the street beside it, the people streaming through the streets.

It’s a whole different world. One day, I’d love to live somewhere like this. Somewhere busy yet quiet. Somewhere packed yet empty. Somewhere you can step out your door and breathe in the salty sea air without the chill of Seattle.

I settle back into the chair and sip my glass. At least I stopped at a store before I got here—thank you, Google Maps, for your expertise on where I should purchase wine.

I set the glass on the table next to me and gaze out at the beach. There are people wandering… Playing, kissing, dancing…



His hands are all over my body. His fingers stroke me in the most intimate way, caressing each of my curves in turn with the same amount of reverence. He’s worshipping me, leaving no part of me untouched by the softness of his fingertips.