Getting Tricky Read online

  Trick turned his face toward her knee. “We have to maintain our link, did you hear that? How does he know about our link? Do you think they need pictures? I guess he’s not an advocate for the pull-out method.”

  “Trick,” Lyla murmured, burying her face in the top of his head. “You’re not listening to the man. He’s trying to keep all of us alive.”

  “Uh, hello? Husband,” he said, clutching her legs tighter, squeezing them around his head. “I’ll keep you alive… We should do some mouth-to-mouth practice though, just in case.”

  “So when I call out your name, simply state who you want to be paired with,” the guide said, consulting his clipboard. “Kira Levine!”

  Why shouldn’t one of the most beautiful women in the world be first? She’d been on the bus this morning, but Trick had stayed with Lyla. Even when Lyla tried to get him to talk to his ex, to at least apologize for standing her up, he wouldn’t. As much as Lyla appreciated his loyalty, it wasn’t really fair to Kira that she’d been brought here and then messed around.

  “Trick,” Kira said and strode into view on the other side of the seating area behind the guide.

  “Could’ve seen that one coming,” Sadie said, returning to them and seating herself next to Trick.

  “Ok,” the guide said, taking notes and calling out another name.

  Lyla started to open her legs to free Trick, but he snatched them and pulled them closed around him. “Don’t you dare,” Trick said, maintaining eye contact with the model who was fixated on him, waiting. “I’m not going nowhere.”

  Combing her fingers through his hair, Lyla kissed his head. “Don’t make a scene. You’re the only person here who she really knows,” Lyla said. “I’m not getting into a cat fight. It’s one day, you can be polite, go on, go to her.”

  He hissed. “I hate how you say that,” he said, but exhaled and let her move her legs away from his body.

  Turning around to show her his displeasure, Trick’s eyes sank to her mouth. Lyla stood on the bench and bent over to put her arms around him before smacking a kiss to his cheek and whispering in his ear. “Don’t have sex with her.”

  Trick knew she was joking because he smirked out a fake and unimpressed, laugh. “If that Tony guy says your name I’ll put him in traction before I’ll let him walk an inch out of my eyeline with you,” he said, backing away.

  “Sadie Lawrence!” the guide called out as Trick turned to march over to Kira.

  “I’ll go with Lyla,” Sadie said, picking up Lyla’s hand.

  “Thank you,” Lyla said as the guide noted down the pairing. “I thought it was going to be like gym when whoever was left was just stuck with me.”

  Sadie nodded to the Cronies. “Looks like there are some issues over there. Guess it doesn’t pay to have an odd number in your group,” she said, then turned to Trick and Kira. “He’s really pissed off.”

  “I don’t see why,” Lyla said. “Kira hasn’t done anything wrong.”

  “Oh, come on,” Sadie said. “You two have been all over each other all morning, then the first chance she gets, she throws a spanner in the works.”

  “Please don’t forget that I’m miked,” Lyla said, pushing her chest toward Sadie who glanced down at the device attached to her jacket.

  “Hey, the point of reality TV is to be real,” Sadie said and leaned down to the microphone. “Kira Levine is a brat who deserves to be taken down a peg or two.”

  The guide finished pairing everyone. They were given a new bottle of water and a chance to use the restroom. Paul was talking to the guide when Lyla came back from the bathroom and Sadie came over with their map.

  “Do you know how to read maps?” Sadie asked.

  Sheesh, this was going to be a day. In a world of modern technology, the participants today were going to struggle. Some were already trying to open the maps in their phones, but it didn’t matter, they didn’t have GPS coordinates and there was no signal to patch into the satellites.

  The map was in a plastic pouch that was around Sadie’s neck. They’d have their work cut out today, the map print was small and it gave her an idea. “Trick has a Swiss Army thing on his keys.”

  Weaving through the other groups who were all poring over their maps, Lyla approached Trick from behind. “I don’t care, Kira, I really don’t,” Trick was saying.

  “I think you do, or I think you should,” Kira drawled.

  “Uh, excuse me,” Lyla said, hesitant to interrupt, but she also didn’t want to be accused of eavesdropping.

  Trick turned around and his fed-up expression became happy. “Babe. Did you miss me?”

  “Desperately,” she said, her eyes flicked to Kira, but she didn’t want to stare, so returned her focus to Trick. “Do you have your house keys on you?”

  “My house keys?” he asked. “No. They’re at the hotel. Why? Are we making a break for it? ‘Cause we can swing by—”

  “No. No problem,” Lyla said and turned away to see Sadie approaching with Paul and the camera crews, both of them.

  “Turns out we’re on the same path for the first two checkpoints,” Sadie said as she got closer.

  Of course they were. It made sense now why Paul had spent time with the guide, they were matching up the group, Lyla probably should’ve seen that coming. Everyone began to head off in different directions, and the four of them had no choice but to go together.

  With one camera crew far in front and another behind, everyone was miked before they started the trek, but it took a good five minutes of walking before anyone spoke. They were on a worn grassy path with a ditch on either side and trees flanking them.

  “So, Trick,” Kira said, her voice was slow and sultry, perfect for seduction, but her accent was too manufactured to be real. “Your dick’s been in every pussy here… does that make this awkward for you?”

  “Nope,” Trick said.

  Lyla and Kira hadn’t been formally introduced. But Lyla didn’t mind foregoing that mortifying pleasure. Introductions would be a bit of an insult to the successful model, shouldn’t everyone in the country know who Kira Levine was? And who was Lyla? A nobody as far as Kira was concerned.

  “What about you Lyla, is it awkward for you?” Kira asked.

  “Kira,” Trick warned.

  But Lyla wasn’t intimidated, she switched on her ability to let rude comments roll off. Kira wanted a reaction, so the last thing Lyla was going to do was give her one. “No,” Lyla said, but didn’t stop there. “And to be fair to Trick, I don’t imagine this situation is unique… Every time he goes into a nightclub there are probably several women he’s had trysts with… And we’re all adults here.”

  Kira wasn’t deterred. “But it must be difficult to know that your husband has such a… colorful past.”

  “I can’t judge him for where he’s been,” Lyla said. “I wasn’t around for any of that. We didn’t know each other… The only thing I care about is the future and what he does from here on out.”

  “But on the show, on your wedding night, he was—”

  “We were strangers,” Lyla said and smiled.

  The path narrowed, so Lyla and Sadie fell back to walk behind Kira and Trick. “Other women would not be so understanding,” Kira said, casting a glance over her shoulder.

  “If I were the same as every other woman on the planet, Trick might not feel for me the way he does.”

  Trick laughed. “Oh, snap, baby,” he said. “She’s got a point, Key, so just drop it, ok?”

  Kira and Trick exchanged a few more comments between themselves before Sadie took Lyla’s arm and drew her to a stop. When she glanced at those in front, Lyla guessed they were waiting for some distance to grow before they spoke.

  “Are you ok?” Lyla asked her partner. The rear camera crew was a good twenty feet away and had stopped when they had. The front crew would focus on Trick and Kira who were still walking and probably hadn’t noticed that the women had stopped.

  “Are you really ok with it?” Sa
die asked, seeming confused and shocked at the same time. Lyla smiled and nodded. “I didn’t even know that you knew about Trick and me.”

  “He told me,” Lyla said and then shrugged. “Well, I asked him… it was pretty obvious.”

  “Pretty… how was it obvious?”

  “It’s in the way you talk about him, you just… you know.”

  Sadie was taken aback and opened her mouth then huffed and closed it as she tried to figure Lyla out. “I know what?”

  “The effect he has on women,” Lyla said. “You get this look in your eyes.”

  Sadie’s mouth opened and she paled. “I don’t… I don’t feel anything toward him now, I mean we’re friends, I care about him, but… there’s nothing between us.”

  “I know that,” Lyla said with a nod. She really wasn’t stressed, no matter how much everyone else wished she would be.

  “How are you so cool with this?” Sadie asked like she just couldn’t get a grasp on how calm Lyla was.

  “Look, this is the way it is,” Lyla said. “I can’t ask him to apologize for a past that I wasn’t a part of. Sure, there are times I worry that I won’t live up to the thrills he’s had before. But when it comes to specific women and will he, won’t he?” Biting her lip, Lyla tried to figure out how she could make it clear, but didn’t really have the language, so she just exhaled and turned her eyes back to Sadie. “If he’s going to screw around, then he’s going to. If he’s going to dump me, then he’s going to. Would I be heartbroken? Sure. But… I have to enjoy him while I have him. I can’t stress about what might or might not happen, and if I start driving him crazy with my paranoia, I’ll kill the relationship. If I have worries, I tell him what they are. But I try to be sensible about it.”

  Sadie folded her arms, assessing her friend’s wife. “I have noticed, you know.”

  “Noticed what?”

  “That he’s different, he’s different with you.”

  She hoped in a good way. “I can’t speak to that. I didn’t know him before me, did I?”

  “You knew the stories, the media portrayal,” Sadie said and when Lyla dropped her eyes and smiled, Sadie got closer, making Lyla look up at her.

  The women shared a moment of silence, just examining each other and slowly Sadie smiled too. They both knew it. The Trick that played up to the camera wasn’t the same one that made them smile like this. They both loved him, in different ways, and tolerating, or playing with, the character was part of embracing him.

  “Yo, what’s the problem?” Trick’s voice carried from further up the path and they both turned to catch up. It took them a minute, but as they got closer, Lyla read the concern in his eyes and it didn’t lessen even after she smiled. “You ok?” he asked her when she got within ten feet. “If you need something, sweetheart, we can go back to the—”

  Reaching up, Lyla closed her hands around his face and pulled him down. He came without any fight and she closed her eyes as she opened her mouth under his. The camera could have their field day and the public wanted love. But all she wanted to do was show her man how proud she was of him.

  He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her off her feet when she touched his tongue with hers. Squeezing her tighter and tighter as their fervor grew, Trick held her close, making it hard for her to breathe, but all these layers between them would be frustrating him.

  When her head fell back, she moaned and threw her arms around his neck, as he kissed her throat once. “Ok, I wasn’t expecting that,” Sadie said.

  Trick rubbed his cheek against her neck before Lyla brought her head forward and pushed on his shoulders to ask for her feet back. “Thanks, Say,” Trick said, keeping his arms around his wife. “Whatever you said to her down there, it worked.”

  This time when he tried to kiss her, Lyla let their lips touch, but she kept it short. “I didn’t say anything that would warrant… that,” Sadie said.

  “I kind of like that no one gets it,” Lyla said, smiling at her husband. “And shocking people is kind of fun.”

  “You sure shocked me… and feel free to do that any time,” he said and lowered to kiss her, but she bowed back.

  When he groaned, she laughed, he’d just never know what he’d get with her in any given minute. “Can I have a ride?” she asked and his brow crooked as he lifted his gaze to the woods behind her. “A piggy-back ride.”

  “Not as fun as what I was thinking, but sure,” he said and turned around to let her leap up onto his back.

  “Uh, he’s my partner and I have to look out for his wellbeing,” Kira said as they started to walk again. “And I really think that if he’s carrying anyone, it should be me.”

  “And she’s the only one allowed to suck his dick, so yeah, she gets priority, deal with it, Kira,” Sadie said.

  Locking her arms around Trick’s neck, Lyla rubbed her face in his hair and opened her hands on his jacket. But she didn’t want to feel the fabric, so she fumbled for the zip and pulled it down to the middle of his chest then unbuttoned the shirt he had on underneath. She knew he was wearing a vest and a tee-shirt, but still moved her lips to the back of his ear.

  “Tell me if you get cold,” she said, sliding her flat hands inside his shirt to spread them on the planes of his warm, hard chest.

  Lyla hadn’t meant for this to be intimate, but she kissed behind his ear, then kissed him again, and again. She’d been on the receiving end of his neck kisses and knew how good they felt. She hadn’t realized it would feel good to give them.

  Boosting higher, she used his grip on her thighs as her anchor point to slide her hands deeper into his shirt and reach more of his neck with her mouth.

  “Is this a team-building exercise or a dirty vacation?” Kira sneered.

  “When my wife’s around, my thoughts are never far from dirty,” he said.

  “She’s all over you,” Kira said. “Does she know there are other people here? I thought this show of yours was in trouble because she didn’t want you.”

  Lyla stopped kissing her husband.

  Paul wouldn’t mind that being stated because anything could be cut in editing, but she didn’t like the way Kira said it. The show portrayed her as a prude, Lyla knew that, and she’d learned to adopt that role in front of the cameras. Now that she’d been intimate with Trick, she didn’t feel so inhibited, she felt… free, and it was enlivening to think she might get to explore the sexuality she’d always kept closed off inside herself.

  But, the cameras were rolling. Oops. “Put me down,” Lyla said, pushing at Trick’s shoulders.

  “No,” Trick said, squeezing her thighs tighter. “She’s just being a bitch, baby. Ignore her. You kiss me any damn place you like.”

  “She’s jealous,” Sadie said.

  “I’m not,” Kira said. “Why the hell would I be jealous? I could’ve had him if I wanted him.”

  “Oh, really?” Trick asked on a disbelieving laugh. “When are we talking about? ‘Cause I don’t remember ever thinking about proposing to you.”

  “You didn’t propose to her,” Kira said and laughed. “Your manager probably did, or Sadie.”

  “You want to see me propose to her? You want to see—”

  Lyla planted her hand over his mouth. “Ok, everyone needs to calm down. This is silly. Kira, I apologize if I made you uncomfortable. You’re absolutely right that my behavior is inappropriate. Trick, put me down, please.” He stopped, but didn’t let her down. “Please, Trick. Just behave for a minute.” Grumbling, he bent his knees and put her on her feet, but he immediately pulled her to his side. “Let’s just all work together to find these checkpoints and avoid talking about personal issues.”

  No one agreed with her, but no one argued either. It was going to take a lot to get this group working together, but for the sake of the camera, Lyla had to keep her cool and forget about her intimacy with Trick for the day. She had to remember her role and it wasn’t to be a woman in the throes of early passion.

  Her role in this show
was to be smart and sensible. Smart and sensible women didn’t grab men and kiss them. No, they read the map, helped with directions, and gave everyone a chance to participate… and they kept their mouths to themselves.

  NINETEEN

  Trick had been like a petulant child when it came time for them to separate. They’d managed to find two checkpoints together as a group, but the third was different for the two pairs. She and Sadie had to go one way, while Trick and Kira went the other.

  But he’d loitered on the path and when Lyla went to check if he was ok, he kissed her and held her close, refusing to let her go. Eventually, he had to, because the day was getting on.

  She and Sadie found their marker and were back somewhere in the middle of the pack. Trick and Kira were dead last, not by a short amount of time either, they were back almost an hour after everyone else. While Lyla joked about Trick having to make an entrance, he didn’t laugh, and he wasn’t in a good mood.

  Her husband wasn’t in a good mood for the journey back or throughout the group dinner. She didn’t understand, but didn’t have time to question him.

  When they returned to the suite, she got together the items she needed for her shower and went into the bathroom to wash her hair while the crew set up the equipment Trick needed to host Boys Night from right there in their suite.

  Tonight, Boys Night was a live one-off Wednesday night special, except, Trick wasn’t there in the studio. So, the crew for Opposites were setting up a camera, lights, and two laptops to let him Skype into the studio with the guys. Everything was being setup on the coffee table to face the armchair at the end of the table, with the window behind it.