First his sac and now his balls. He was really going to have to stop having these conversations with Faith. Especially with other people in the room. In some sort of sick, twisted way, it turned him on.
“I think we’ll go with this one first,” Tim said, pointing to the poster of Faith standing in front of Ty. “We’ll use the locker-room shot at another time. Or choose something else from that shoot,” he added, sounding suddenly exhausted as he headed for the door. “I need some Tylenol.”
“Tim, wait,” Bo called after him as she followed him out the door. “You didn’t hear my ideas for the captions.”
“I feel sorry for that guy,” Jules said as he stood.
“I like her.”
“She’s like an aggressive Chihuahua who thinks she’s a pit bull.”
“I think that’s what I like about her.” Faith stood and Ty lowered his gaze from her lips to the pink long-sleeved T-shirt with a heart and angel wings covering her breasts. Gone were her black pants or loose beige skirts. She wore a pair of jeans that hugged her waist and thighs, and had on a pair of furry Pocahontas boots. Without her loose, dark clothes, she looked younger. Softer and definitely less uptight.
“She’s bitchy.”
Faith grabbed a big leather purse with a gold chain strap. “She’s spunky. Kind of marches to her own beat.”
“Your mom marches to her own beat, but I don’t see you embracing her spunkiness.”
“My mother’s not spunky. She’s got problems.” Faith cast a glance at Ty before she headed toward the door. “The biggest being that she acts like she’s sixteen.”
“Mrs. Duffy,” Ty called out to her. “Can you stay a minute?” He needed to settle things between them.
“Sure,” she said over her shoulder as she stopped just inside the door. “I’ll be right with you.” As she spoke to her assistant, Ty’s gaze lowered from her blonde hair and back to the metal buttons closing the back pockets of her jeans. Kissing her had been a massive screwup. He could pretend it hadn’t happen, but Ty liked to confront potential situations before they became real big problems.
Faith turned and left the door slightly open. “Is this about the other night?” she asked as she moved toward him.
“Yes.”
“Good. Then you know about it.”
Of course he knew about it. He’d been there while she’d sucked on his neck.
“I’ve been so disturbed by it all week,” Faith continued.
Ty rested his behind on the edge of the table and folded his arms over his chest. He didn’t like the sound of that.
“At first I was horrified.” She shook her head and her hair fell from behind one ear. “I was just so…so grossed out.” She crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “All I could do was just stand there.”
Grossed out? She hadn’t acted grossed out as she’d kissed him like it was her job and she was working on a big, fat bonus. Irritation pulled at his brows. “You did more than just stand there.”
“I might have said something. I don’t know; I was in shock.” She looked down at the toes of her boots and her hair fell over her cheeks and hid her face. “It’s forever etched in my brain.”
His too. That was the problem.
“God, I just want to take an ice pick and dig it out.”
His irritation turned to anger and settled in his belly right next to the aching part of him that liked the way her butt looked in those jeans. “Maybe you should have thought about that before you gave me a sucker bite and begged me to touch you all over.”
“What?” She looked up. “What are you talking about?”
He pulled one side of his turtleneck down and exposed the little purple mark she’d left on his neck. “This.” His hands fell to his sides and gripped the table. “I didn’t even notice it until the next morning when Sam pointed it out at light practice.”
She plopped her purse down on a nearby chair and stepped forward. The cool tips of her fingers brushed his neck as she pulled the side of his turtleneck back down. The cool touch spread heat down his chest and straight to his groin. “That’s hardly noticeable.”
“It’s faded since Sunday.” He looked up into her face and his gaze lowered to her mouth just inches from his. “I had to make up a story about a waitress.”
Her eyes looked into his. “Did they believe you?”
The last time she’d been this close, her mouth had been on his neck and she’d bitten his earlobe. “
Touch me,” she’d whispered, and God, he’d wanted to touch her and more. “Yeah. They did.”
“Sorry.” She frowned and stepped back. Her cheeks turned pink and she shrugged. “I guess I was caught up in the moment and got carried away.”
“Even though you were disgusted, horrified, and grossed out?”
“What? Oh. I wasn’t talking about that.” She gestured to his neck. “I was talking about walking into my apartment and finding your father on top of my mother. Naked. Having sex.” She pointed to the ground. “On the floor in front of the fire.”
Now it was his turn to ask, “What?”
“Your father and my mother…and I walked in on them.”
“Wait.” He held up one hand. “My father knows your mother?”
“Obviously.”
He thought of the woman he’d met the night of the photo shoot. She hadn’t been bad looking, just overblown and a bit tacky. Exactly his father’s type. “And you walked in on them having sex?”
“Yes, and it was disgusting. They were…” She lifted her palm as if she could stop the painful memory. “Doggy. I think.”
“You’re kidding?”
“I wish!”
Even though his father dating her mother could only end in complete disaster, Faith looked so distressed, he had to laugh.
“Oh.” She pointed at him. Her short nails were painted a light pink. “You think that’s funny? The man who never laughs?”
“I laugh.”
She turned her slim finger toward her chest. “At me!”
“Well, you’re so freaked out, it’s funny.” She also looked a little indignant and cute and sexy, standing there in her pink shirt and boots.
“If you’d seen what I saw, you’d be freaked too.”
“Believe me. I have seen it.” Pavel had never purposely flaunted his sexual exploits, but he’d never been all that discreet. “The first time was when I was about seven.” He’d walked into the living room and seen his father having sex on his mother’s antique credenza. His mother hadn’t been home at the time.
Her pink lips parted and she gasped. “I was five! And she’s sneaking him in at night and he leaves before I get up in the morning. He’s like a ghost. If they weren’t so loud, I wouldn’t know he was there.”
Ah. That explained his father’s sudden disappearances and sudden reappearances. Ty hadn’t seen much of the old man, and figured it had to have something to do with a woman.
“And they kick Pebbles out and make her sleep with me.”
“Pebbles?”
“My mother’s dog.” She pushed her hair behind her ears and dropped her arms to her sides. “Pebbles hates me and the feeling is mutual. She snaps and snarls at me all the time. Except when she needs something. Like a place to sleep.”
He tilted his head to one side and looked at her. “Why don’t you kick her out?”
“I tried,” she said through a sigh. “But she looks at me with those beady little eyes and I just can’t be that mean. Now every time Pebbles jumps in bed with me, I know that Pavel’s in the other room getting naked with my mom.” She made a face and shook her head. “I probably wouldn’t be so disturbed if it wasn’t my mother moaning and carrying on like someone is killing her.”
It wasn’t the sort of reaction he’d expect out of a former stripper and Playmate. Especially an unrepentant stripper and Playmate. He didn’t really know what he’d expected. Maybe someone who thought sex was no big deal, no matter who was having it. At least, that had been the attitude of the strippers he’d known. “Huh.”