One Night with the Sexiest Man Alive (The One 1)

Monday was going to suck. Tuesday was going to blow. By Wednesday, Teela figured she’d need an intervention. Evie would be happy to oblige. On Thursday, she was going to go out and buy a kitchen appliance she didn’t need and by Friday, God, if she made it to Friday without losing herself to thinking of Haydn, without being a procrastinating, unfocused wreck, she might just make it through the rest of the year.

He was that spectacular at making her feel special.

The pampering helped. The massage, the shared mutual-pleasure bubble bath, necking on the couch, then taking that energy to bed and spending it oh so wisely getting all hot and dirty. He’d made her chase her orgasm with a kind of savage determination she’d never experienced before. It was exhilarating and exhausting and next thing she knew he was standing there in that bizarre outfit because his training regime came on tour with him.

He looked indescribably awful. So utterly unlike himself or any character he’d ever played she’d had trouble keeping it together in the car on the way to the park. At one point, she’d sniffed him because she’d not been able to get the idea that he’d smell like Vietnamese food hidden in your apartment for a month out of her head.

In the park, while he went running, she’d responded to Evie’s Talk to me about the one-inch message with It may be small but it’s mighty, to which Evie replied Mighty hard to see. She’d win this debate by sending a photo of Haydn on the red carpet walk in Cannes where he looked immaculately melt your eyeballs handsome, with the caption Mine for the weekend, to which Evie said, fittingly, Well fuck.

All that came before the seaplane and the restaurant and the questions he asked and the way he listened. And now they were standing on the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge as the sun set, turning the sky shades of pink and gold and it was all she could do to watch the view and not Haydn. Thank goodness they were roped on to the climbing scaffold because when he held her hand, her knees got weak.

She wasn’t a weak knees kind of person. She was what other people described as a go-getter if they liked her, a ball-breaker if they didn’t. It had nothing to do with the altitude, the dizzying drop from the top of the bridge to the deep green sea below with its ferry traffic and departing cruise ships, and everything to do with how outside of herself she felt because she liked him.

Really liked him.

Not as the random experience of a lifetime she’d grabbed hold of for the memory, not as an idealized man made real from the celluloid heroes he played on screen, not as a next-level weekend lover, but as a person of worth and substance.

He was going to be difficult to forget, especially as he’d be out in the world making moves meant to be seen.

“You’re quiet. Are you okay?” he said, squeezing her hand.

They’d climbed with a family group who were busy posing for photos and hadn’t bothered to spare them a glance all trip. Haydn had worn a fake beard and bushy eyebrows because the climbing jumpsuit made everyone look like a Teletubbie so he only had to worry about disguising his face.

“I’m fine. Taking it all in.” Not the view so much as the state of her own emotions.

“Don’t get all philosophical on me. You’ll make me think I broke you.”

What was the point of introspection? Staying in the moment was the best idea. He’d be gone too soon, and she’d truly be feeling post-show blues for no good reason but that she’d let herself fall into a whirlwind romance. Heart first.

She put her hand behind her ear. “Tickets flap really loudly up here. Can’t hear you.”

“Shame, because I was going to describe in detail what I want to do to you when we get back to the hotel.” He ran a hand down her back. “You’re driving me crazy in that sexy little jumpsuit.” And settled it right over her bum.

“There is nothing sexy about this jumpsuit.” Absolutely no lie in that. It was unisex, shapeless and specially designed to keep you safe on the climb but offend your fashion sense in every way.

He gave her butt cheek a squeeze. “It’s totally sexy from where I’m standing because you’re wearing it.”

“Anyone ever mention you sound like someone clever wrote your lines.” And wasn’t that a good reminder that he was a master of creating a mood. She’d been looking out towards Sydney Heads, but at the contact she turned to face him. He wasn’t watching the view.

She gave his beard a little pull and was surprised at how stuck to his jaw it really was. What would it feel like against her face, against her thighs? Maybe he’d keep it on for a bedroom antics test drive.

“Someone clever often does. They write the memorable lines. I do my own meaningful ones. I’m a maverick like that. You think I’m spinning you a line.” He sounded a little indignant.

She thought this was all a lovely game, that he wasn’t so much spinning her a line as he was acting out a scene he’d no doubt performed before and would again. The co-star and the locations would change; the seduction would be the same.

“I think the city is beautiful and I’m grateful to be sharing it with you,” she said.

“Grateful, huh. Not exactly the feeling I was going for.”

“What’s the feeling you were going for?”

“I’d accept turned-on, hard up, horny.”

She laughed. “I can offer you chafed, tender, a tiny bit sore.”

He clasped her shoulder. “Shit, are you?” Genuine concern in his tone.

She shook her head. Not even a little bit. He took good care of her.