Provoke_ A Seaside Pictures Novella (Seaside Pictures #3.7) - Rachel Van Dyken Page 0,7

down on her bottom lip or looked directly into my eyes like my celebrity status didn’t mean shit to her. I was so used to the giddy screams and selfies, that I almost forgot how uncomfortable it was to be so…human.

So normal.

“You,” I huffed out. “You trigger me.”

“Because I’m a woman?”

I scoffed. “Hell no. My mom would kick my ass. It’s because…” A light went on in my head. Shit, was it because I wanted to impress her and I felt embarrassed?

“Because?”

“I like your smile,” I blurted. “And I don’t like being bossed around by someone who doesn’t know the full story of what happened. And I don’t like being told what to do. But the biggest trigger of all is that a stunning woman is here trying to help me, and all I keep thinking is, what if she can’t?”

Her smile was real this time as she pulled out a chair and sat down. “Well, we won’t know until we try, right?”

I scowled. “Did you purposely leave out the part where I gave you a nice compliment?”

She licked her lips and looked away. “No. I just didn’t want to inflate your head any more by telling you I liked it.”

Shock must have shown on my face because she laughed and then eyed the stack of papers.

“So…” I leaned forward. “Does this mean we can be done filling in the holes?” I frowned. “That came out wrong.”

“Very,” she agreed. “And yes, you can be done filling holes for the day, Braden. I’ll go over all of your results while you do what the production company wants you to do.”

My ears perked up. “What’s that?”

She tossed me a yellow notepad and grinned. “Write.”

I went to bed that night with two new songs and a smile on my face. Piper had ordered in pizza, which meant I smelled it first, inhaled five pieces second, yawned and waved goodnight third.

Just because she was hot didn’t mean I had to eat with her. Plus, part of me was terrified of letting her in when she was just going to be gone in a few weeks. At least therapists didn’t abandon you.

Great. Was I really so pathetic that I was worried about her leaving? Like I had a middle-school crush.

I groaned into my hands and tried to fall asleep, only to realize that I was too damn curious if she was sleeping already or not. Did she wear pajamas to bed? Was she a fan of nude slumber? Should I check?

I was screwed.

She was the first woman I’d seen in months that made me go, yeah, I want to kiss that mouth even though it’s attached to someone so prim and proper that I’m worried she’ll call me a sinner and knee me in the balls.

I got out of bed anyway, threw on a pair of gray sweats, and meandered out into the house with a gorgeous woman on my mind. One who had a mouth that liked to give orders rather than receive…anything.

Awesome.

The lights were all low, but the TV was on. She was watching some Netflix documentary I’d seen a few weeks ago, hugging a pillow to her chest, eyes wide.

She didn’t even hear me approach until I was next to the couch. “Creepy as hell, right?”

She jumped to her feet with a yelp, knocking over a perfectly good glass of rosé and spilling it across the coffee table.

Holding out my hand, indicating she should remain seated, I stepped into the kitchen, quickly grabbed a towel, and mopped the table clean. As I took one final swipe over the now-dry surface and pitched the rag in the general direction of the kitchen, I made the grave mistake of looking at her.

Because…damn.

She was wearing white linen boy shorts and a matching loose linen tank that most definitely did not hide the fact that she was nipping out.

I gawked and then in a hoarse voice said, “Did you break into my wine stash while I was sleeping?”

Her cheeks blushed bright red. “Maybe?”

“Naughtier than she looks, folks,” I teased with a grin. “At least you chose a good one.”

“Sorry.” She looked sheepish. “I couldn’t sleep so I figured it might help. And then my best friend back home was like ‘you should watch that cats documentary on Netflix.’ And because I’m an idiot, I assumed it was going to be happy, not about cats dying while someone filmed it.”

I made a face. “Yeah, not the best thing to watch at night.”

“No.” She groaned. “I can’t stop,