Stripped

by Nicola Marsh

  Thankfully the photographer is busy changing lenses and doesn’t notice my flustered state as I reach for a water bottle from the cooler nearby and roll it across my forehead.

  ‘Heat getting to you?’

  I jump and almost upend the bottle. He’s snuck up behind me, the ratfink. His tone is silky smooth, as if he knows I’ve been perving on him.

  I turn and glare at him, annoyed by his smug grin and knowing eyes, and I realise something. If he’d changed in the cabana on the other side of us, the sun wouldn’t have cast him in shadow. Which could only mean one thing.

  He wanted me to watch.

  Two can play this game and I have a sneaking suspicion I’ll be better at it than him.

  ‘Yeah, it’s incredibly hot here.’ This time I roll the bottle across my upper chest, where the condensation transfers onto my skin.

  He’s riveted, staring at my chest like he wants to lick off the water droplets. The thought alone is enough to make my hand shake. I changed into a sundress after our meeting. It’s not particularly low-cut but what skin that is exposed is now moist and he can’t stop staring at it.

  ‘You’re...’ He drags his gaze off my chest and meets my eyes. His pupils are dilated amid all that gorgeous blue. I’m definitely winning this battle.

  ‘What?’

  I eyeball him, daring him to articulate what’s going on here. Disappointingly, he mutters something unintelligible and turns away, missing my victorious fist pump.

  ‘I can see your reflection,’ he says, sounding amused rather than annoyed, as I belatedly realise we’re standing near the trendy glass-enclosed poolside bar.

  ‘Good. Then you’ll know how absolutely pumped I am that this photo shoot is going so well.’

  He turns back to me. His pupils have returned to normal and he looks way too controlled. I’ll fix that. I’m not done with payback for that little cabana stunt yet.

  ‘Where do you want me next?’

  I flash him an innocent smile. ‘If you’re after the PG version, I’d like you to strike a casual pose over by the bar.’

  He swallows. ‘And if I want the R version?’

  I lean closer and his sharp intake of breath indicates he isn’t as controlled as he appears. ‘You’ll have to be a lot nicer to me.’

  I will him to say he does want it, that, despite our logical agreement to forget that kiss, he isn’t averse to doing it again and a whole lot more.

  I brace for him to fob me off and put an end to our verbal sparring.

  ‘I thought we agreed not to do this,’ he says, sounding gruff.

  ‘We’re just flirting. It’s healthy.’

  ‘The thing is, if you push me too far, it won’t stop there.’

  I resist doing a fist pump again. ‘Promises, promises.’

  He swipes a hand over his face, like he wants to eradicate my presence altogether. ‘This is a dumb idea.’

  ‘There are dumber.’ I hold up my hand and start ticking off a list by lowering my fingers. ‘Leg warmers. Crimped hair. Scrunchies. Acid-wash jeans—’

  ‘As much as I like hearing that you’re an eighties aficionado, can you be serious for one damn second?’

  Okay, maybe I’ve pushed him too far because now he looks plain tortured. ‘I don’t like mixing business with pleasure.’

  I shrug. ‘Me either. But we’re both adults. I’m pretty sure we can separate what happens out here from what could happen in there.’

  I point over his shoulder towards the luxurious villas scattered among the lush tropical gardens. ‘Or do you prefer it on the beach only?’

  ‘Fuck,’ he mutters, dragging a hand through his hair, ensuring I’ll have to smooth it before the next batch of photos is taken.

  He’s conflicted. I see it in the shadows scudding across his eyes like storm clouds, in the wry twist of his mouth. He wants me but doesn’t want to relinquish control.

  So I take pity on him. ‘The photographer’s ready to start shooting again, so why don’t you head to the bar?’

  He locks eyes with me and I glimpse something that gives me hope: indecision. ‘This isn’t over.’

  ‘I’m counting on it.’ I wave him away with a dazzling smile. I hope it hides how damn uncertain I am about this too.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Hart

  IT’S BEEN TOO long since I got laid. I need to remedy that pronto if all I can think about is taking my PR rep up against the nearest wall.

  She’s driving me insane.

  I know it’s wrong. It will muddy our working relationship. Then again, she won’t be on the island for long. Four weeks max. Why can’t we indulge this thing between us, and walk away unscathed at the end?

  Because I’m a realist and know that the clean break-up after casual sex is a myth. A fucking fairytale.

  I’ve never been involved with a woman, even physically, for longer than a week. It doesn’t make me a man-whore. It makes me smart. Women I screw know the score. We’re in it for a short time not a long time. Pure physical release. Fun.

  Yet I have a feeling that even if I spell it out for Daisy she’s the kind of girl to get under a guy’s skin. I like the way she doesn’t back down, the way she fires back quips, the way she fills out a dress. Yeah, I’m a shallow, narcissistic prick but I can’t stop thinking about her and I have a feeling I’ll be a mess until I slake my thirst for her.

  Kevin bollocked me after the shoot because I hadn’t looked over the next quarter’s projections and bookings are still falling. I wish I could shoulder the blame. I’d happily announce to the hotelier world I’m a nomadic hippy destined to run Pa’s empire into the ground. I’d do anything to stop the muckraking press from besmirching Pa any more than they already have. And that means I’ll take the Rochester hotels back to the top. I’ll show them.

  One thing not many people know about me: I never give up. I may not want this role thrust upon me but I’ll be damned if I screw it up and let Pa down—more than I already have over the years. I have a plan: regain consumer confidence in the Rochester brand, install quality management hierarchy, then leave.

  I can’t be tied to a desk. It’ll kill me. I’ve tried it before, after Pa invested in me. Back then I worked alongside him for two years after earning my degree, putting on a game face, as if running hotels was what I was born to do.

  Pa saw straight through me. He invented a meaningless job for me, ensuring I could travel as much as I wanted but still be semi-attached to the company. I mucked that up, focussing more on the foster kids outreach stuff than my bogus hotel job. It makes me feel even guiltier that I let him down, that the one job he entrusted me with I didn’t do properly. I felt like a fraud; still do.

  I’ll never understand how the gruff tycoon welcomed me into his life and gave me what I craved most: a family. He’s been my emotional touchstone for so long—my only one—that since he passed away I’m dead inside.

  Until Daisy.

  She’s the first person to make me feel anything other than repressed and shut off, even if it is only lust. I’d be a fool not to capitalise on it. She’s joining me shortly, on the pretext of scouting more locations for her bloody photo shoots to make the hotel brand more likeable in some media blitz. She’s insistent I need to be seen as part of the new brand to instil confidence in consumers and restore faith.

  What a crock of shit. She’s wasting her time. I have one of those faces that tends to scare off everyone. But I need this campaign to work if I want to escape the desk and return to what I like doing best: helping kids like me. Wary, resentful, terrified kids abandoned to foster systems around the world. They need me even if they don’t know it, like I needed someone way back when.

  Pa was my saviour, but at sixteen I’d already seen too much and endured too much, way more than any child should. Some people say I have a god complex. I don’t. I’m not na
rcissistic enough to think I can control everything around me, but when it comes to those kids I’ll do my damnedest to make sure they have a better life than I did for the first sixteen years of mine.

  I hear humming and something akin to lightness makes the tension in my chest ease. Daisy definitely has a thing for the eighties because as she nears the caves she breaks into a Rolling Stones classic, off-tune yet endearing.

  I smile. It feels foreign because I don’t do it a lot. Yeah, a sizzling sexual encounter with this bold, quirky woman is just what I need to take the edge off and get me refocussed on the job at hand.

  She pauses at the entrance, shielding her eyes to peer into the gloom.

  ‘Over here.’ I wave, knowing the exact moment she sees me, because her face lights up. It shouldn’t. I’m no good for her. Not in the way a girl like her expects. But I wouldn’t have asked her to meet me here if I didn’t have more than work on my mind and I’m done lying to myself.

  I want Daisy.

  ‘You’re not going to leave me here at high tide, hoping I’ll wash out to sea?’ She steps into the cave and lowers her hand, her head swivelling as she turns a full three-sixty. ‘Wow, this is spectacular.’

  ‘I thought you might like it. For the shoot,’ I add, hating how clipped I sound, like I’d rather be doing anything other than this. I’m not a people person, never have been, and it irks that I’m so fucking horny for this woman I sound gruffer than usual. ‘In another few hours when the sun sets the light in here is fantastic.’

  ‘It’s like something out of a fairytale.’ She stops spinning and her eyes are wide and bright. Fuck. I’m not the knight in shining armour someone like her deserves. I should get the fuck out of here now. But my cock has other ideas. ‘How did you find this place?’

  ‘It was my go-to place when Pa first brought me to the island.’

  Why the hell did I blurt out something so honest? Some of the light in her gaze fades at my terse response and I hope she’ll gloss over it.

  ‘When was that?’

  No such luck. ‘He discovered I existed when I was sixteen, so around my seventeenth birthday.’

  She wants to ask more. I can see the blatant curiosity all over her face. But she surprises me. ‘This would’ve been a perfect hideaway for a teen.’

  I nod, characteristically uncomfortable discussing anything regarding my past. ‘I’d bring a book, some snacks, and hang out. I liked the peace.’

  After growing up in foster homes where yelling was often the main method of communication, I thought I’d discovered paradise in this cave. I haven’t been back here for a decade and now I regret asking her to meet me here. It means too much and I’m overwhelmed. My throat tightens and there’s a constricted band around my head, squeezing until it aches.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  Damn, so much for my famed poker face. ‘Let’s go scout a few more locations.’

  If she registers my sudden panic she doesn’t show it. But she does something far more frightening. She crosses the distance between us to stand in front of me, close enough I can smell the resort’s signature exotic fruity body wash, a heady blend of strawberries, lime and coconut. I want to gobble her up.

  ‘At the risk of sounding crazy, I’m all about the ambience of places. How a house feels, whether it’s good or bad, that kind of thing. And this cave feels incredible, so I’d like to hang out for a bit.’

  ‘You’re right, you’re crazy.’

  I don’t want to stay. Not with her standing too close and staring at me like she can see all the way down to my soul.

  ‘So I’ve been told.’

  I hear a hint of vulnerability in her voice and it slays me. I don’t want to ask. I shouldn’t. But I find my stupid damn mouth not working in sync with my head.

  ‘Want to talk about it?’

  ‘Not really,’ she says, but her expression says different, like she’s swallowed a lemon.

  ‘Guy troubles?’

  Belatedly, I remember what she blurted when we were both uncomfortable during our first meeting in my office, something about ending an engagement and not dating much since. I’m an idiot for asking something so personal when all I want to do is escape this place right now.

  ‘Something like that.’ She sighs and it makes me want to cuddle her. ‘I was engaged to a jerk. Typical good-on-paper guy who’s very different once you have to live with him.’

  ‘Good on paper?’

  She gives a wry chuckle devoid of amusement. ‘The type of guy every woman would love to be with. Financially stable, owns his own house, charming, confident, good-looking.’

  ‘Like me, you mean?’

  ‘You’re far from charming.’ She looks at me, but she’s not really seeing me. She’s caught up in memories of some dickhead who hurt her.

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘The usual. Once I moved in he became a demanding, control-freak bore. So I left after three months.’ She’s not telling me everything, her voice is high and tight, and she shakes her head, as if trying to clear it. ‘Best decision I ever made. That was a year ago and I haven’t looked back.’

  ‘Single and loving it?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  But she doesn’t sound like she loves it. She sounds morose and sad, courtesy of my stupid questioning. So I do something even stupider. I reach for her and haul her into my arms. She’s smaller than I remembered from that night on the beach. Then again, we didn’t do much hugging then. It was more a pawing.

  Initially stiff and resistant, she soon melts into me, her cheek resting against my chest. It feels weird. When a woman’s in my arms I’m not offering comfort. It’s a prelude to sex and the mere thought of getting down and dirty with Daisy has my cock hardening.

  I try to ease my hips away before she thinks I’m a callous prick only out for one thing. Which I am, but now isn’t the time, not when she’s like this.

  Why the hell did I have to pry? I never do that. I don’t give a shit about other people’s problems because I’ve always had enough of my own. And then I have to go and hug her...what the fuck?

  She resists and tightens her arms around me, then presses against me. She lifts her head slowly and looks up. I’ve succeeded. The sadness has gone. I should be glad. But what I see has the potential to undo me far quicker: burning desire.

  Her eyes glow with it and when her tongue flicks out to moisten her bottom lip I’m a goner.

  I claim her mouth like I’ve yearned to do since the first illicit taste two nights ago. I’ve never clashed teeth with any woman, but with Daisy I’m too eager and our incisors bump. Either she doesn’t care or she doesn’t notice because that tempting tongue sweeps into my mouth demanding attention. I give it to her. Our tongues tangle and explore, so fucking hot.

  She moans in the back of her throat while hooking a leg around my waist. I grind against her, indicating where I’ll be very soon unless she stops me. She doesn’t and I know this will end how I hoped: with me deep inside her.

  But I need to make sure this isn’t the monumental screw-up I know it is. So I wrench my mouth from hers and drag in breaths to ease the tightness in my chest.

  ‘Are you sure you want this?’

  A coy smile curves her lips and I want to claim them all over again. ‘I have a hankering for some sexual sorbet.’

  ‘You’re into kinky shit?’

  She laughs. ‘I haven’t had sex since Casper so you’re going to cleanse my sexual palate, so to speak. Break my drought, that kind of thing.’

  I snort. ‘Your dickhead ex was named after a ghost?’

  She laughs and I feel the corners of my mouth twitching to do the same. If I don’t smile very often I laugh even less.

  ‘This doesn’t have to mean anything other than physical release. I want you. You want me. Let’s not complicate this.’ She t
aps my ass with her foot—she still has her leg hooked around me—and I realise I’m wasting time talking and thinking. She’s articulated exactly what I want. ‘Give me my sorbet, now.’

  In response, I slide my hands under her dress and encounter warm, round ass. I love that she’s a thong girl. I hoist her up and she wraps her other leg around my waist. She’s so light and when she buries her face in the crook of my neck I feel like some superhero rescuing the damsel in distress. It unnerves me. I couldn’t rescue myself when I was a kid, I can never be the type of guy a woman depends on.

  I lower her to the smooth sand at the back of the cave, on the exact spot I used to sit as a teen. Our mouths fuse again, hungry and demanding, as my hands knead her ass until she moans. I drag my fingers through her cleft, through the wetness of her folds, until I reach the nub I’m searching for.

  Her pussy is so wet and my cock pulses with each circle of my thumb on her clit. Around and around until she’s panting and writhing beneath me.

  ‘So...good,’ she murmurs, her hips arching as I slip a finger inside her, another, mimicking what my cock is yearning to do.

  She writhes and arches and comes apart on a low groan, which surprises me. I pegged her for a screamer because she’s loud when she talks. But there’s something infinitely sexier about that groan, like it’s been dragged up from deep within.

  I unzip and make quick work of a condom, sliding into her while her eyes are still closed, her lips curved in a small sated smile.

  She’s tight and the friction against my cock is so fucking good. Her eyes snap open when I slide out and plunge in again, burying myself to the hilt.

  I can’t decipher the emotion in her eyes and I don’t want to. So I pick up the pace, pounding into her over and over, craving a mind-blanking release. I don’t want to think, I just want to feel the assured dazedness when I come.

  She angles her hips and I’m a goner. My balls contract as I thrust in one last time and the oblivion takes over. Mindless, unadulterated pleasure, swamping me in a wave I don’t want to resurface from.