Hitman's Hookup: A Bad Boy Romance (56 page)

They were both glowing. Penelope was radiant in a tie-dyed dress, her long blonde and grey hair loose around her shoulders.

But all I could see was Olivia. The best part was that it seemed like all she could see was me.

I heard nothing that the Justice of the Peace said during the ceremony. Josh had to nudge me to hand the rings over. Olivia didn’t take her eyes off of me the entire time.

I mouthed a quick
Hi
near the beginning of the ceremony, but all she did was smile back at me with no other response. I felt like I was going to explode. I started bouncing on the balls of my feet. This fucking ceremony was taking forever.

Finally, after an eternity, my dad was kissing Penelope. Everyone assembled in the small chapel cheered, and my new mom and dad walked triumphantly down the aisle. Josh followed them.

It was only me and my new sister standing at the altar.

“Hi,” I said out loud this time.

“Hi yourself,” she replied, wiggling slightly as if she were trying to contain her excitement.

It was the sexiest wiggle I’d ever witnessed. She took a single step toward me.

“So I guess Robert showed you the video?” I asked her, taking a step forward of my own.

She nodded again. “Yes.” One step closer.

We were so close to touching. I could feel the air pulsating between us.

“So I guess you’re fine with everything?” I asked. Another step.

I didn’t need a response.

She jumped up and kissed me, her mouth open, her hands flying up to my hair. I lifted her off the ground, pressing her body against mine as hard as I could. We didn’t pull apart until I heard Amy yelling from the back.

“Get a room!” she yelled. Everybody laughed.

Olivia hung onto me, her feet still off the ground, beaming.

“So. What now?” she asked me.

“Whatever the fuck we want,” I replied. She giggled.

“DINNER!” Josh yelled. “Let’s go!”

I laughed and looked at Olivia, who was struggling to put her feet back on the ground. I held her tightly, not allowing her feet touch the ground.

“Where do you think you’re going, your highness?” I asked her.

“To walk to dinner,” she replied slowly.

I reached under her legs and lifted her up full into my arms. She shrieked with joy.

“I’m not risking you getting away from me again,” I muttered, kissing her hair.

“Don’t you mean you’re not risking
you
putting me down and walking away?” she asked pointedly.

“You will never stop busting my ass, will you?” I said to her.

She laughed and shook her head. “Never. And you know you love it.”

“I do,” I replied.

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

OLIVIA

THREE YEARS LATER

“I HATE YOU!” I screamed, picking up the sofa pillow and throwing it at Wilder’s head.

He was bleeding from the bottle I’d just smashed over his skull. He was shirtless, in black boxers, his muscles rippling as he held up tattoo-covered arms.

“Get. HER. OUT OF HERE!” I shrieked.

I could feel a vein popping across my forehead. I was raging.

“It’s not – it’s not what it looks like hon, I swear to God,” Wilder gasped.

“Oh really? Because what it looks like is that you’re with another woman.
Again.
”

I laughed manically, feeling like I was about to rip the hair out of my head.

“The only thing that’s different is that
this one
is a brunette,” I screamed, pointing at the skinny, topless co-ed who was cowering with the covers up around her in bed. I picked up a ceramic vase.

“Hon, seriously. Just put down the vase. Don’t throw that. Please,” Wilder said, his eyes pleading. “Just talk to me. We can work this out. I know we can.”

I held the heavy vase in my hand, jiggling it slightly as if feeling the weight fully. I was calculating how much this would hurt him if my aim was good. I set it back down, tears springing into my eyes.

“I’m taking the baby. You won’t see her again. Ever. I will
destroy
you in court.”

Wilder howled like a wounded animal. “You can’t fucking
do that!
” he screamed.

“Watch me,” I spat, picking the vase up again and throwing it at his head.

He wasn’t ready and only barely ducked out of the way. It exploded into a million pieces against the wall.

I marched out of the bedroom and ran smack into black metal lighting rigging. It crashed to the ground with a shatter.

“CUT!” Fox yelled. Everyone on set started laughing.

“Sorry!” I yelled out. “Forgot that was there.”

“It was a great take other than that ending,” Fox said. “We still might be able to use it. But to be safe, let’s review it and go ahead and get this mess cleaned up in case we need to shoot it again.”

A key grip ran over to pull the rigging up. A second later, I felt Wilder’s bare arms around me.

“You okay, Liv?” he whispered into my ear.

I shivered at his touch.

“I might be bleeding a little, actually,” I said, looking down at my arm. A red trickle was running down it.

“Do you need me to get the medic?” he asked.

I shook my head. “I’ll just go clean up…in my trailer,” I replied. I bit my lip and stared at him knowingly.

He grinned. “You nearly brained me with that vase this time.”

I looked at him devilishly. “Just trying to keep you in check.”

I walked off the set and through the soundstage door into the blazing Los Angeles sun. People were zooming by on golf carts and wandering the sidewalks. My trailer wasn’t far. I pulled the door open and was relieved to see nobody was in there.

I pulled down a paper towel and held it to my arm. The cut was superficial. A moment later the door to my trailer burst open. Wilder stood there in a black bathrobe.

“Gee, you could have at least counted to ten before running after me,” I said to him. “Way to make it obvious that we came back here for sex.”

Wilder grinned and dropped the bathrobe to the floor, still only wearing black boxer-briefs. He stepped across the trailer and wrapped his hands around my waist, squeezing his hands as he did so.

“I think everyone realizes that shooting a movie about infidelity isn’t the ideal way for newlyweds to spend their honeymoon.” He kissed me slowly, lifting me up onto the countertop.

I felt the tight black pencil skirt start to pull apart as he did so.

“Wait!” I screamed. “I need to get out of costume. Lydia will kill me if I tear this.”

Wilder groaned. “I’ll buy another one.” He kissed my neck.

I had to push him away. “Because that worked out so well last time?”

Wilder blanched at the reminder of a movie shoot in Finland where, during a between-takes tryst Wilder had torn off my ten-thousand-dollar vintage Galliano gown. Lydia had actually cried. I pushed him off me.

“This isn’t like the dress incident, but we’ll still have to re-shoot like three other scenes if I end up changing clothes in this one,” I insisted.

Wilder stepped away from me and let me get off the counter. I started to unzip my clothes but he stopped my hands.

“Let me do it,” he whispered.

I nodded. He started at my blouse, unbuttoning each of the dozen buttons slowly and deftly. I watched the tattoos on his forearms move and dance in the sunlight. Wilder had just been cast as the lead role in the next big superhero blockbuster. He was spending six hours a day in the gym now and looked like a marble sculpture.

I certainly wasn’t complaining.

I took a deep breath as he slid the silk shirt down over my arms, grazing my breastbone with his lips. He set the blouse on the countertop and made his way to the side zipper of my skirt.

The fabric fell to the floor and he took my hands to help me step out of it carefully. Then he unclasped my lacy bra, licking his lips and putting his palms over my nipples. He ran his hands down my stomach and down to my panty line, pulling the red lacy bottoms down over my thighs.

I put my hands under his arms to lift him up so he would kiss me. I was shaking already with anticipation and need. Wilder ran his tongue up my stomach and underneath my breasts.

When I started to moan, he stopped.

“What are you doing?” I asked him, annoyed.

He smiled at me. “I just wanted to see if you’d ask for more.”

“Why wouldn’t I want more?” I slapped him lightly on the arm, giving him my best ‘annoyed’ face.

Wilder laughed and then lifted me over his shoulder like a rag doll. “I lied,” he said. “I like when you’re annoyed. Your nose does this cute little wiggle and I wanted to see that happen.”

I shrieked as he carried me over to the mattress, throwing me down onto the bed and pulling off his underwear.

“I think we can get in two or three rounds before we’re called back to set, don’t you?” he said to me with a grin.

I smiled up at him, my arms laid flat above my head. Wilder was still just standing there staring at me. I squirmed.

“What are you waiting for?” I asked him impatiently.

He shook his head. “I don’t get a moment to enjoy how gorgeous my wife is?”

“No, you don’t,” I retorted. “Your wife demands sex. You must give it to her with no hesitation.”

Wilder smirked at me with a sexy little grin. “I was right, you know.”

I squinted at him. “Right about what?”

“I told you that you’d fall in love with me that first night we met.”

He kneeled down next to the mattress and lifted me up with his hands behind my back. I wrapped my legs around his torso and scooted my naked body closer to the edge of the bed until his eyes were level with mine. He pushed my hair back from my face and smiled.

“Well, this is the only time I’ll let you be right, so you better enjoy it,” I retorted with a smile.

Wilder ran his fingers down my cheek. “I fucking love you.”

“I know,” I said. And I meant it.

STAY IN TOUCH

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AUTHOR’S NOTE AND STEP WILDE SOUNDTRACK

I grew up on romantic comedies:
You’ve Got Mail, While You Were Sleeping, 13 Going on 30…
I once watched
The Princess Diaries
sequel seven times in as many days.

I love great romantic movies. Even more: I love great romantic movies with great pop soundtracks. I routinely daydream in movie montages.

STEP WILDE would not have been possible without Taylor Swift and her
1989
album (the deluxe edition, naturally). I listened to it on repeat two hundred times while crafting this story. I normally hate listening to music while I write, but this experience has me interested in writing more novels with soundtracks shaping the landscape and the characters who walk out of my head and onto the page.

I drew a kernel of inspiration for STEP WILDE from Swift’s music video for “Wildest Dreams” – with liberal creative license applied. I loved the idea of two co-stars falling in love with each other and having it be a secret to the rest of the world. I moved the setting from a 1950s film set in imperialist, colonialist Africa (not romantic in my mind) to modern-day Italy. And of course, there was no marital infidelity in STEP WILDE (or really any infidelity in this book other than Hailey’s).

These are the
1989
songs that were on heavy rotation and make up the “soundtrack” to this novel:

“Style” – Wilder and Olivia walking across campus during their first night together in college.

“Blank Space” – If Hailey Holliday had a theme song, this would be it.

“I Know Places” – when Wilder invites Olivia to Tuscany to escape the press; that concept was one of the first in my mind when I sat down to write.

“Wildest Dreams” – when Olivia and Wilder are walking through the Tuscan vineyard at sunset discussing his infamous ‘Wilde Child’ dick pics…all the way to him confessing his love in the middle of an NYC rainstorm.

“All You Had to Do Was Stay” (Ryan Adams cover) – when Olivia is back in Los Angeles remembering the events that took place post-Italy.

“Clean” – when Olivia is sobbing to her mother in New York while (unbeknownst to her) at that very moment, Wilder is running through the city streets to his dad’s garage.

“How You Get the Girl” – when Olivia and Wilder finally reunite at their parents’ wedding.

“This Love” – when Olivia and Wilder have sex during their “on-set” honeymoon.

“New Romantics” – As the “credits” roll. (I told you I love movies).

I hope you enjoyed reading this story as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope it provided you an escape the way a great romantic comedy film does. These characters are as real to me as people I’ve met in real life. Thank you so much for being a part of this “wilde” journey with me.

Vesper Vaughn

February 2016

HITMAN’S HOOKUP SOUNDTRACK AND AUTHOR’S NOTE

I had so much fun with STEP WILDE’S soundtrack, I continued my obsession with allowing music to shape my stories for crafting HITMAN’S HOOKUP.

This time there was less of a focus on individual scenes having background music and more of an overall playlist that kept me typing away in the early mornings. I’ve listed them in order of most played to least played. I have this thing where sometimes I just have to listen to the same song over and over and over again. Several of these play counts are in the dozens and that’s only from writing this book.

“The Hills” – The Weeknd: This would totally be the trailer song for this book.

“A Punchup at a Wedding (No no no no no no no no.) – Radiohead: The opening scene with Cruz sewing himself up in his apartment.

“Girl and the Sea” – The Presets: The visit to the sex club.

“Prophecy” – Remy Zero: Cruz and Lily climbing the ventilation shaft out of Flea’s apartment.