“Which is why you should leave right now,” Kara continued, aware that she’d said too much, as always. Her big mouth had got her into all sorts of trouble over the years, and it would seem that this was destined to be another of those times.
She watched him swallow hard and wanted to trace her index finger down his Adam’s apple.
He watched her watching him.
“Well, that’s an unexpected development, English.”
“You’re telling me,” she said. “Leave. Please?”
Kara manoeuvred herself off the bench and stood to allow him room to get out.
“Should I finish my drink?”
“Nope.”
“I could take my shirt off?”
He was standing too close, his fingers on the buttons at his chest, his eyebrows raised suggestively, his expression caught halfway between joking and deadly serious.
“Goodnight, Dylan.”
Kara crossed her arms firmly, and for the briefest of seconds Dylan’s eyes moved down to the cleavage she’d just inadvertently served up like two oranges on a platter. She didn’t dare open her mouth for fear of what might come out. “Rip my dress off and take a proper look,” sprang unhelpfully to mind.
Dylan leaned down and touched his lips against her cheek; warm, tingly, and lingering for a second longer than could be deemed platonic. Jesus, he smelt like nothing on earth. She wanted to lick his face.
“Goodnight, English,” he said softly. “I’ll see myself out. And for the record… I’ve never felt less like leaving anywhere in my life.”
Chapter Five
Dylan jerked awake just before sunrise, his heart thudding. A bead of sweat slipped down his cheek as he pushed himself up to sitting. He was alone. No-one knew he was here. He dropped back heavily against the soft pillows, forcing himself to concentrate on the constellations glowing above him, chasing his demons away across the Milky Way.
This place was different.
These people were different.
He could be different too.
Chapter Six
Dylan had forgotten his jacket.
Kara noticed it the moment she walked into the hallway the next morning. His scent surrounded her as she took it down from the hook, and it took some supreme effort not to bury her nose in it and inhale deeply.
“I’m going out for an hour. I’ll see you at the club,” she called through to Sophie in the kitchen, then stepped outside into the warm Ibizan morning.
Hiring the Mustang had been a no brainer. She’d listened to all of the wise advice to go for an air-conditioned saloon, and then gone merrily against it the moment she set eyes on the cherry red vintage soft top with curves in all the right places. Just looking at it winking at her in the sunshine lifted her spirits sky high, and she dropped Dylan’s jacket on the back seat to take to the club.
Music on, roof down, ready to go.
Kara really hadn’t intended to follow the signs for Cala Vadella, so finding herself rounding a bend and looking down over the prettiest possible blue bay came as a surprise. Or half a surprise. Or not really a surprise at all, given that she’d been the one behind the wheel. Hell, it was a small island, all the roads led to the same place. Probably. Feeling suddenly conspicuous in the Mustang, she slunk a little lower in her leather seat, her hands wide on the wheel as she craned her neck up the beach to see if there was any sign of Dylan.
Nothing.
She parked at the end of the bay, next to a dusty collection of cars, and climbed out, slinging Dylan’s jacket over her arm as she walked slowly down the curve of local shops and restaurants that backed the beach.
Where would he stay? Villas dotted the cliffs around the bay; high end places with terraces overlooking the breathtaking view of the coast. Was he in one of those? She strolled from one end of the beach to the other, seeing nothing and no-one to offer any clue to his whereabouts.
The sun beat hard down on the top of her head as, unexpectedly deflated, she turned into the shade of the closest bar and ordered a tall, frothy coffee as she flicked through yesterday’s newspaper that had been left on the table.
Ibiza really was the most stunning place. The sweep of sand in front of the bar looked like an office worker’s fantasy screensaver, a snapshot of perfection that served as a reminder of bygone holidays.
And then that snapshot suddenly became even more perfect, because a tall, half-naked American with surf boy hair and abs to match jogged straight across it. Left to right he tracked across her vision, as though she was watching a movie. So that’s what he’d have looked like if he’d taken his shirt off last night. Kara lifted the paper hastily, not wanting to be discovered sitting around waiting for him. She wasn’t sitting around waiting for him. She just happened to be passing, and happened to have his jacket, and happened to spot him.
Peeping around the edge of the paper, she breathed out a slow sigh of relief. He’d passed by the bar, and was now walking along the rocks around the edge of the beach, a brown paper bag in his hand. Where was he going? There must be a pathway up to one of those villas she’d seen. She wasn’t surprised. Leaving her coffee half finished, she put the newspaper back on the counter and moved outside to watch Dylan’s retreating back, her head tipping quizzically to one side as he kept on going along the rocks. A frown puckered her brow. Short of diving into the water, he was fast running out of places to go. And then he stopped, and stepped sideways onto a boat moored out in the bay.
Kara squinted. And then really squinted. Her feet started to move before she was even aware of it, carrying her closer to inspect Dylan’s unlikely digs, automatically slinging his jacket over her arm. She picked her way along the uneven path hewn into the rocks around the edge of the bay, past several impressive looking boats along the way, until she drew closer to the boat moored at the end.
Oh. My. God. What was that thing?
At that moment movement caught her eye, and she noticed Dylan up on the roof deck with his back to her. If she walked away real quiet, there was every chance he’d never know she’d been here. She wanted to do that. She definitely wanted to do that.
“Hey, Danny Zuko! You forgot your jacket!”
That was it. When she got home she was booking herself in to have her jaw wired together. In fact, make that a lobotomy, she’d clearly lost her marbles. Why the hell else would she be standing there like one of the Pink Ladies holding her T-Bird boyfriend’s jacket?
Dylan turned, startled to hear a woman’s voice, recognising it a second before he saw her. English.
“Some folks would consider this stalking,” he said, enjoying the look of indignation that crossed her face.
“And some people would say thank you for returning their jacket,” Kara shot back, emphasising the English word. “Nice place,” she added, deadpan, casting a speculative glance over the boat. Then, “The Love Tug?” She read the name of the boat out loud, nodding slowly. “Well. You’re full of surprises.”
An illogical urge to defend the old boat rose out of nowhere, and he found himself patting the railings like the owner of a loyal pet. “She’s pretty special, huh?”
When Kara nodded, her long dark ponytail bobbed like a high school cheerleader’s, and her denim mini couldn’t be have been any more minimal without being a belt. She was certainly faithful to those cowboy boots. The expanse of smooth, honey-gold leg between the boots and the skirt brought him full circle, right back to those cheerleaders.
He jumped down onto the lower deck. “I was just about to make coffee to have with these.” He held up the bag of still-warm Danish pastries that he’d just bought from the tiny bakery at the other end of the beach. “Join me?”
She scanned the gap between the sea wall and the boat doubtfully, and he held out his empty hand.
“I can put a shirt on, if you like,” he murmured silkily as she stepped past aboard. “I’d hate you to be overcome by the urge to rip my shorts off.”
Kara stomped on his foot as she passed him, her
cowboy boot heavy on his sneaker as she twisted it.
“Sorry.” The insincere smile that accompanied her apology said it all.
He grinned as he took his jacket from over her arm and stepped inside the cabin, nodding his head for her to follow him. She wandered in slowly, her wide eyes drinking in every bizarre detail of the place he currently called home.
Running a finger across the buttercup yellow work surface, she came to a halt opposite him.
“Is this place yours?”
Dylan could see that Kara was trying to work out if his taste ran to roller boots and disco balls.
“For now.” He lifted the lid on the sugar pot and looked at her. Fuck, she was crazy-hot. “Sugar?”
Her presence seemed to fill every bit of the cabin with a low, simmering heat; one wrong word could set her off like a firework. She radiated energy, and being around her gave him an undeniable high.
She held up two fingers, and it took him a second to realise that she was referring to the sugar.
That was refreshing. Most girls back home would break out in a cold sweat just being near the sugar bowl, yet here she was telling him to pile it in. He picked up the mugs and glanced towards the door. “In or out?”
“Undeniably fabulous as this place is…” She cast her eyes dubiously around the cabin. “…let’s go sit in the sun.”
Dylan followed Kara out and gestured for her to climb the small stepladder onto the roof terrace.
“Don’t look up my skirt, Sailor,” she warned over her shoulder.
Dylan tried to look away as she went ahead of him and failed entirely.
“You looked up my skirt,” she said matter of factly, as he stepped onto the deck and handed her the coffee mug. He shook his head and attempted an innocent expression as he opened up a couple of deck chairs and a rickety table.
“Thanks for bringing my jacket over.” He sat down, ripping the bag of pastries open and spreading the brown paper out beneath them on the table as a makeshift plate. “Choose your weapon.”
Kara perched on the chair opposite his, her attention caught by the still warm, sweet-scented pastries.
The girl clearly had a serious sweet tooth. Dylan tucked that snippet of information away in case he ever needed to get into her good books in the future.
“Look. I’ll come straight to the point,” she said, picking up a cinnamon whirl and teasing it apart with her fingers. “My shirt comment last night was… regrettable.” She paused to enjoy a mouthful of the Danish, and Dylan took a slug of coffee and watched her eat.
“Regrettable?”
She nodded, reaching for her coffee. “We’re going to be working together for this entire summer. We need to get along.”
She lifted her eyebrows at him, looking for his agreement as she pulled off another large chunk of cinnamon whirl.
“I can see that,” he said easily.
“Thing is… I’m what you’d call a ‘what you see is what you get’ kinda of girl, Dylan,” she said. He wasn't sure whether or not she was making fun of his accent. “So I’m going to be honest from the get go, so there’s no misunderstanding later.”
Whoa. This girl was turning out to be freakin’ amazing. A ‘what you see is what you get’ girl? He’d had plenty of women over the years, and not one of them could have ever been considered that.
Devious, yes.
‘What you see is what I want you to see?’ Totally.
“What I’m saying is this. I think you’re sexy, Dylan Day.” He jerked his eyes up to hers, even more surprised. “In an obvious kind of way,” she added, deflatingly, then popped the last of her pastry into her mouth.
“I think there was a compliment in there somewhere,” he said dryly, reaching for an ensaimada from the table.
“Yeah, yeah. But I find lots of men sexy, so it’s no biggie.”
“Okay then. Not so much of a compliment.”
“Hey, I’m not here to stroke your ego, Sailor. I’m here to say let’s not go down the obvious road.”
“And that would be?”
“Dancing around each other. Pretending the attraction isn’t there, and then falling into bed.”
“Are you suggesting we just have sex now and get it over with?”
She placed her mug down slowly on the table and looked at him with school ma’am eyes.
“Err, no, obviously not. I’m just saying let’s acknowledge the attraction like mature adults, and then agree not to act on it for the good of the club.”
“I knew that was too good to be true.”
She shrugged. “Are you going to eat that?” she pointed at the last remaining pastry on the table.
He pushed it towards her. “You like things that are bad for you, English.”
“It’s my downfall. I like sugar. I like fast cars. I like sexy men.” She licked sugar residue from her fingers, and Dylan’s body reacted with interest.
“I let myself have the sugar. And the cars.”
“Two out of three ain’t bad.”
“Hey, it worked for Meatloaf.”
“Do you always let hairy rockers from the eighties dictate who you screw?”
“Everyone needs a yardstick. Meatloaf just happens to be mine.”
She stood up, smoothing her hands down her minuscule skirt before holding one of them out to him across the table.
“Deal?”
Was it a deal? Could he spend the summer around this woman without either killing her or drilling her?
“Should I spit on my palm before we shake?”
“That’s disgusting. Just shake, Sailor.”
Her hand was warm and firm, just as he imagined the rest of her body would be if he ever had the chance to find out.
She let go of his hand. “See you at work.”
Dylan touched his fingers to his forehead in salute.
He watched her pick her way off the boat onto dry land, all long limbs and swinging hair. A pang of regret bloomed in his chest. She was right of course, and she’d only said what he probably wouldn’t have had the good sense to.
He’d secured the management job at the club by the skin of his teeth. Any other boss would have asked for references and resumes. Lucien Knight had given him a shot without any of those things, and common sense told him that any romantic entanglement with Kara could jeopardise that trust he’d been awarded without having earned it.
From his vantage point on the roof deck he kept his eyes on Kara’s marching figure as he drained the last of his coffee.
She passed by the small black hatchback he’d guessed must be hers, then walked right on by the moped that would have surprised him a little but not too much. He laughed out loud when she swung herself over the driver’s door of the bright red Mustang convertible at the end of the row of shops and restaurants. Even from the far side of the beach he could hear the engine as she gunned it and left the bay in a cloud of sand.
Hell, he’d always loved Mustangs.
Kara Brookes was something else. She’d turned up unannounced, eaten his breakfast, called him sexy, and then left him for dust with nothing but a tingling palm and a growing case of frustration.
Chapter Seven
Sophie was already at the club when Kara arrived a little while later. She’d made a start on opening the stock boxes, and was kneeling on the floor surrounded by scanty lingerie and sex toys.
“Just a normal day at the office I see.” Kara dropped her bag down on the floor with a grin.
“Free samples,” Sophie said, holding up an edible, erect penis with a look of barely disguised horror.
"Classy," Kara laughed. “Lunch?”
Sophie made a ‘no-way’ face and put the choc-cock back in its box.
“Where did you get to?”
“Just giving the old Mustang a good airing,” Kara said, aware she sounded vague but reluctant to mention her visit to Dylan.
“Just don’t get yourself arrested,” Sophie said.
Kara faked offence. “As if.” Th
ey both knew she was perfectly capable of it, and she’d only wriggled off the hook one time back home because she happened to have been pulled over by a cop who’d had the hots for her in college.
“It’s just that I noticed that Dylan’s jacket had gone out of the hallway.” Sophie didn’t look up from the box she was slicing open, but Kara heard the speculative hint behind her words all the same. There was no getting anything past that girl.
“Mm. I dropped it back for him while I was out.”
Sophie glanced up, her eyebrows high above questioning eyes.
“What?” Kara rolled her eyes. “You asked me to be nice to him. I was being nice.”
“No, it’s nothing,” Sophie pulled open the carton in front of her. “It’s just…”
Kara dropped down on her knees beside Sophie and reached for an unopened box, already knowing exactly where Sophie was heading with this conversation.
“Soph, don’t worry. The last thing I’m interested in is getting involved, especially with some guy who we don’t know from Adam. He could be a mass murderer for all we know.”
“He doesn’t strike me as a mass murderer,” Sophie said neutrally. “I like him, actually. Easy on the eye, too.”
“You think?” Kara studied the inventory list for the box she’d just opened without really taking in the details. “He’s okay, I suppose.”
“You suppose.” Sophie smiled. “You suppose?”
“What do you want me to say? He’s hot? Okay, I suppose he’s hot. Kind of. If you like that sort of thing.”
“You like that sort of thing.”
“Are you telling me or asking me?”
Sophie placed the handcuffs she’d been examining for quality back in the box and twisted to face Kara, her hands on her knees.
“Kara. We’ve been friends for more than half of our lives. I know you well enough to know that Dylan Day is exactly your type, so don’t even bother denying it, okay?”
Kara sighed. “Soph, I know what you’re thinking, but trust me on this. I’m not about to have a holiday romance and end up broken-hearted again. See these fingers?” She held out her hands. “Burned. After what happened with Richard last year, I’m well and truly off that whole romance shtick.”
Knight and Day (The Knight Erotic Trilogy, book 3 of 3) Page 4
