Bad Reputation Read online

  “I would get into it but I’m rather enjoying this thing you’re doing with your lips right now.”

  “What?”

  “I think it’s called smiling.”

  “Funny,” Peyton laughed despite her sarcasm.

  “Mm. I like that thing, too.”

  “What – laughing?” she snorted.

  “Yes. You should do it more often. Along with, you know, letting loose and living your life.”

  Still marching backward, Peyton closed her eyes. She sighed as a small wave washed forward onto her feet. “I’d love to.”

  “What’s stopping you then?” Connor asked. But just as Peyton opened her mouth to answer, he spotted something in the sand, glistening elegantly under the arch of her bare foot. Glass. A long, skinny shard just inches from piercing her flesh.

  “Watch!”

  Before Peyton could step down, Connor grabbed her, yanking her into his chest by a handful of her shirt. With a short gasp, Peyton grabbed his shoulders, looking down and behind her to see what he’d pulled her away her from. “Fucking beer bottle,” Connor exhaled, one arm still wrapped firmly around her waist. He breathed a hard sigh of relief, staring at the glass as if it could feel his accusing glare. “Sorry if I hurt you,” he murmured to Peyton when he turned back to face her.

  “It’s okay,” she breathed hard, eyes fluttering as she looked up at him.

  And suddenly, with her arms still around his neck, her lips just inches from his, Connor processed the sensations on his skin. The fact that his palm was resting on the naked small of her back, his hand having inadvertently pushed her shirt up while pulling her close. And of course, there was the fact that her naked breasts were pressed up hard against his bare chest, fully exposed by the neckline that he so forcefully stretched while saving her from the splinter of glass. Holy fuck. Connor felt his lips part as he stared into the blue of Peyton’s eyes, fixing his gaze on them instead of looking down at her perfect, indecent body. He wanted desperately to but he was having enough trouble controlling himself. The look in Peyton’s eye – a mixture of lust and complete shock – had Connor thinking of every last thing he wanted to do to her. It filled him with a hot, burning need to show her all the other ways he could make her body feel something good and new. Clenching his jaw, Connor watched Peyton bite her swelling lips. He took immense pleasure in the touch of her fingertips curling against his skin, scratching the back of his neck in a way that couldn’t be interpreted as anything but need. Jesus Christ. Connor grated his teeth. One little thread – that was all his self-control was hanging on by.

  So definitely, the last thing he needed was to look down and see Peyton popping out of her shirt.

  Besides, feeling it was enough to get him hard as a rock.

  “Fuck,” Connor breathed, watching Peyton process the stiff throbbing she felt against her body. He let his eyes dip just a little as her red lips parted, her breathing jagged now as she – was she, or was he imagining it? No – she was pressing up against him, rubbing herself slowly, torturously against his erection. Squeezing his eyes shut, Connor groaned, reveling in the moment, his own fingers curling now, itching to fist the cotton of Peyton’s top and rip it clean off her body.

  But suddenly, despite his aching need, he felt an irritating sense of responsibility.

  “Peyton, what are you doing?” he exhaled his question, breathing hard against her heaving chest. Her response was a hasty ramble.

  “I don’t know – I’m not drunk. I know you think I am, but I’m not.”

  Connor nodded, pulling her tight. “Okay, you’re not,” he murmured quickly, more than ready to accept her words. He fixed his gaze on her lips as he felt them come closer. “I trust that you aren’t.”

  “I’m not,” Peyton repeated, her fingers sliding up the back of his neck and into his hair. “I just – ”

  Don’t say it, she scolded herself. Don’t admit it. Don’t say it. Don’t do it, just don’t.

  “I want you so fucking bad.”

  She sucked in a deep breath.

  The words had come out of Connor’s mouth before they could even escape hers. They made Peyton’s fingers curl hard and grasp handfuls of his hair. “I do too,” she couldn’t help but return. She wished she was lying but she wasn’t. She wanted Connor Schaffer. She hadn’t stopped thinking about him since he caught her eye that night at the top of The Green Room – since he’d watched from afar her till she let her gaze plead for him. Even after the 2AM calls, she’d been unable to stop thinking about his unblinking urgency as he ran to get Blake away from her. Barely an hour before that moment, she had called him repulsive. But with one desperate look across a rooftop, he’d made her his priority, no questions asked.

  “I’ve wanted you,” Peyton clarified, her words were like a key that opened the floodgate. With a deep rumble, Connor pulled her in, one hand sliding up her back, the other cupping her jaw. A short gasp escaped Peyton’s throat as his hand parted her mouth, holding it open for himself. He eyed it for a good second, savoring the sight before closing his hot lips over hers, kissing, sucking, biting till she moaned against him. She had never felt so hot, so desperate for someone that she couldn’t identify all the feelings of pleasure taking over her body. He had her by the lips, by the jaw, by the waist, by the back. It was electrifying. It felt like he was touching her everywhere.

  Well. Almost everywhere. By now, Peyton was desperate for him to cover all bases.

  “Take me inside,” she breathed urgently, her command compelling Connor to instantly pull away from their kiss. He stepped back to look her in the eye.

  “Yeah?” he panted, staring at her for only a second before his eyes fell to her chest. She was exposed, indecent, her top hardly serving any purpose anymore. Connor swallowed hard as he took her in, growing visibly harder with every second that passed. “Fuck,” he gnashed his teeth, unable to blink. His hungry eyes gaped in disbelief until Peyton broke the silence.

  “Please,” she pleaded.

  And just like that, he easily surrendered. “Okay,” he breathed hastily. With one last kiss and two greedy handfuls of her body, Connor took Peyton into his arms, carrying her not so quietly back into the house.

  12

  Connor could hear the sound of someone in the hall – probably Poppy – asking where he was. Standing under the steady pitter-patter of the rainfall shower, he did his best to tune her voice out. He needed this moment. After last night’s torture, he needed a release.

  Because despite the fact that they had both desperately wanted to, he and Peyton had not had sex.

  Shortly after they’d come through the door, Jackson’s voice had rung out from the great room. Connor had had Peyton pressed up against the door when they heard it, his tongue trailing the swell of her breast and her ribbed tank top in a puddle at her feet. He’d stretched the straps till he could pull them off her shoulders and push them off of her body. She was just about to do the same with his swim trunks when they heard Jackson.

  “Hello?” his deep voice called out accusingly, as if he immediately suspected intruders. And suddenly, he was up, his footsteps bounding toward the front door. Peyton pushed Connor off of her so fast that he could hardly react. She was up the stairs by the time Jackson made his way to the foyer, where Connor stood holding Peyton’s tank top over the massive tent he’d pitched beneath his trunks. Immediately, Jackson laughed and clutched his stomach.

  “Fuck, man, I thought you were some robber,” he said before his eyes caught hold of Peyton’s top. “Of course you hooked up with one of them already. Which one? Kyle was telling me he was gonna beat you to it but I guess he’s never gonna beat you to shit, huh?”

  Connor had laughed it off and luckily Jackson was too drunk to further question him about which of the girls he’d been with. Heading up to his room, he’d prayed that Peyton would be waiting for him in his bed but when he got in, he was surprised to see someone else between his sheets.

  Poppy, wearing an ivory satin
negligee.

  She was asleep sitting up, which had Connor assuming that she had dozed off while waiting for him. It wasn’t uncommon. Back when he had parties at his Doyers Street apartment, there were often female guests who crept into his bed before he went to sleep. Generally, they were awake by the time he got in and generally, they had sex. If the girls were asleep, he either found another or waited till the morning.

  But with Poppy, none of these options applied. For the first time in his life, Connor was uninterested in the gorgeous girl who’d taken it upon herself to hop between his sheets. For the first time, he had his heart so firmly set on another woman that he found the idea of sleeping with anyone else was simply irritating.

  So Connor opted to crash in Jackson’s room since Jackson was back asleep downstairs. But after a few hours of tossing and turning, he got up and returned to his own room, which, to his relief, Poppy had vacated.

  Hopping in the shower, he thought of Peyton.

  Last night, Connor had seen a new side of her. He had seen her when she wasn’t worried about looking after Kensie. She was loose, happy, free. There was an adorable little glimmer in her eye that made Connor wish that Kensie slept for the majority of the day. Then Peyton could be unoccupied, free to throw caution to the wind and for once, have fun.

  And do things like admit to him that she wanted him.

  “Fuck,” Connor groaned, balancing himself with a forearm against the marble wall of the shower. Wrapping his hand around himself tighter, he stroked faster, remembering the way Peyton had thrust her body against him last night. He clenched his jaw at the thought of his greedy hands on her breasts, her back arching as his mouth closed over her tight nipple. He breathed hard between his gnashed teeth as his mind replayed the torturous sounds that he had drawn from her lips. It was the memory of her moaning whimper, the way she said his name that finally brought Connor to a twitching, guttural finish. “Christ,” he exhaled hard with a last grunt, catching his breath for a minute before turning the shower head off.

  “Thinking of me?”

  Connor jumped at the voice that greeted Connor when he stepped out of the bathroom. Looking up, he saw Poppy standing in front of his closed door, wearing a peach-colored bikini underneath a loosely crocheted cover-up. Despite the variations of “what the fuck” that coursed through his brain, he kept outwardly calm. “What are you doing in here?” he asked, tying his towel around his midsection. But it was too late. Poppy’s eyes had already feasted hungrily on what she so clearly wanted. Pouting, she let her gaze linger on Connor’s towel before looking up and batting her feathery lashes.

  “I was waiting for you last night.”

  “I saw.”

  “Then what? You were too much of a gentleman to take what was waiting there for you?”

  Connor laughed as he grabbed a pair of boxers from his suitcase. “I’m no gentleman,” he replied. “I just wasn’t interested.”

  Poppy pretended to gasp. “Connor Schaffer, how incredibly rude. I’d take offense if I didn’t know for a fact that you’re a liar.”

  He laughed. “Come again?”

  “Well, you’re a screenwriter. It’s your job to make up stories - no?” Poppy said, sauntering over and plopping down on his bed as he got dressed. Leaning back on her hands, she fixed her stare on the knot of his towel, as if willing it to fall before he could pull his boxers up underneath. Connor watched her as he she watched him. She was doggishly assertive when it came to sex – he’d give her that. Normally, he’d happily give in but today, it wasn’t happening, and he was almost as surprised as she was.

  Grabbing the first pair of jeans he saw, Connor yanked them up onto his body. “Sorry. I know it seems in line with my character but if there’s one thing I actually don’t do, it’s lie,” he said before grabbing a T-shirt off the dresser and heading downstairs.

  In the afternoon, most of the crew boarded The Regina, a one hundred-sixty foot yacht named after Russell’s second wife.

  “I don’t know. It kind of felt like a job yesterday,” Kensie said as she and Peyton sat on the white couches at the stern of the boat, watching Jackson teach the others to fish while Connor and Kyle laughed about something or another by the bar. “Like, it feels like I should be with a nice guy like that,” Kensie said, gazing at Kyle, “but then I feel almost like he’s… too nice.”

  “What? Too nice? Kensie – ”

  “No, no, hear me out. I’m not saying I need bad guys like Blake but I think I need someone who’s at least got a little bit of bad boy in him, you know what I mean?” Kensie asked.

  “I guess. As long as you recognize that Blake’s not the type you want to be with,” Peyton said, wondering if Kensie was keeping mum about getting any sort of texts from Blake recently. Her only comfort was knowing that since arriving, pretty much nobody had been getting service on their cell.

  “Yeah. I mean Blake’s… he’s just… going through things. He’s not a bad guy deep down, he’s just – ”

  “Kensie!”

  “Okay, fine, he’s horrible, yada, yada! But my point is that I need a man with an edge to him. Someone who’s bad without being actually bad. You know?”

  Peyton said something or another in response. She was trying to listen and give her full attention but for once, she was too busy reliving her own memories from the night before. It was hard not to with Connor standing a few yards away, eyeing her every couple of seconds and then biting back his grin before returning his attention to Kyle.

  God help me, Peyton thought when Poppy Somerville splashed the guys from the water, forcing them to roll their eyes and peel off their wet T-shirts. Can’t even be mad at her for that one, she thought as Connor balled up his T-shirt and tossed it aside.

  Lord. That rock-hard torso. She had felt every ridge of it last night. As her eyes trailed downward, Peyton recalled the other part of his unreal body that she’d felt last night.

  It had been as impressive as was rumored, and she had surprised herself by wanting it. Instantly. By being a hundred percent sure that she was ready for it. She hadn’t had sex in about six months but she was certain she could handle Connor because she’d never, not even once in her life, been so incredibly turned on. Whatever he’d done to Peyton had ruined what she’d known of arousal. It had disrupted something in her entire being that for years had made her complacent – content with mediocre sex and mild attraction. That type of knock-your-socks-off, sweep-you-off-your-feet, get-you-literally hot-and-bothered kind of lust didn’t actually exist. That was for movies, Peyton told herself during college, during her first big relationship. It was a gross exaggeration of reality, and it simply didn’t happen in day-to-day life, she’d decided.

  Except it did. And it felt so good that Peyton couldn’t even regret it if she tried. Why should she? As it turned out, Connor Schaffer was not only fucking gorgeous but also a decent man.

  And she liked him.

  “I think I need a man like Connor Schaffer.”

  Peyton smiled. But then she blinked, realizing the words hadn’t come from her own mouth. Looking over at Kensie, her eyes fluttered. “Kensie… say that again?”

  “I think I need a man like Connor Schaffer,” Kensie repeated. “I know I keep flip-flopping about which one I want but I’m pretty sure it needs to be Connor because he’s got that edge to him that I like. And I don’t think I ever stopped crushing on him, really, ‘cause he’s like, a good guy who’s a bad boy, so it all works out. With Kyle, it’s just like… he’s so pretty and he’s such a nice guy. He’s America’s sweetheart. I don’t think I’m normal enough to be with someone like that. Right?”

  Peyton stared. For the first time since last night, she stopped fantasizing about Connor and started thinking about Kensie. “I… don’t know. I liked the idea of you and Kyle,” she said genuinely. “Did he seem interested when you were talking to him last night?”

  Kensie wrinkled her nose. “Not really. He kept talking about work and the scenes. Like, I didn’t
expect him to try to hook up with me on the first night but I kind of thought he’d start planting the seeds and being a little flirty. But he wasn’t.”

  “Maybe he’s gay,” Isabel said, flouncing over. Kensie laughed.

  “That can’t be true because gay guys love me,” she said, twirling a lock of Isabel’s blonde hair as Isabel shook the ice in her empty drink cup.

  “You said we were going to have a cannonball contest once you finished your drink,” she reminded Kensie, whose eyes lit up.

  “Oh my God, I totally forgot!”

  And with that, she and Isabel joined Jackson and a few others in a cannonball contest, which Kyle recorded on his iPhone. With everyone distracted, Peyton chewed on her lip, waiting for Connor to approach her. She could feel him trying to all day but whether it was Poppy, Kyle or Jackson, he was constantly bombarded.

  When she finally did see him coming from the corner of her eye, her heart began to actually pound. Jesus, girl, Peyton teased herself. Is this you having a major crush again? She hadn’t felt this kind of fluttery excitement since liking Josh Roberson in high school. But this was like Josh times a million because just feeling Connor’s body close to hers made Peyton squirm again. Watching him approach made her press her knees together and flex her thighs. It didn’t help to see his sexy hands as he gripped the neck of his beer bottle, bringing it to his smooth, curving lips.

  “Don’t give me that,” Peyton scowled jokingly.

  “Give you what?”

  “That look.”

  “Trust me, that’s the least of what I want to give you right now.”

  Peyton closed her eyes. “Don’t,” she whined softly.

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t make it harder on me than it already is,” she pleaded with a sheepish smile.

  He laughed. “Then don’t make those sexy fucking sounds that you make.”

  “Fine. I won’t,” she blushed, hugging her knees to her chest as Connor took the seat beside her.