Wild Wedding Hookup
by Jamie K. Schmidt
Resort concierge Mikelina Presley is distraught when a groom-to-be disappears from his own bachelor party. With a lucrative commission at risk, she enlists gorgeous groomsman Bastien Ainsworth to help find him. But their fiery chemistry proves dangerously distracting! Can a sexy Florida fling become something deeper?
Guilty Pleasure
The Business of Pleasure
by Taryn Leigh Taylor
When Wes Brennan is arrested for a crime he didn’t commit, Vivienne Grant must prove his innocence. But the hotshot lawyer is also his ex, and now they’re spending their days—and nights—together. As the investigation unveils new secrets will their passion survive the fallout?
Pure Temptation
by Rebecca Hunter
CHAPTER ONE
TAP, TAP.
The knock on the front door of the cabin came in the open window, cutting through the sounds of the shower just as Daxon Miles was turning it off. He scrubbed his face and searched the ultramodern bathroom for a clock, but all he saw was tile, glass, and the wooden box filled with hibiscus-scented soaps and shampoos he had passed over earlier. How long had he stood under the shower, letting the water run over his body? After a long plane ride, it was surprising just how satisfying something as simple as hot water felt.
Tap, tap.
“Just a minute,” he called.
Daxon grabbed a towel and scrubbed the water from his hair, then wrapped it around his waist. The towel was just long enough to secure, though not by a wide margin. He would have thought that a super-exclusive resort like this would lean toward overindulgent for everything, including towel length, but like the rest of the bathroom, minimalism seemed to be the guiding principle. He stepped out through the glass door, his body drinking in the humid Hawaiian heat.
“It’s your personal healing coach.”
The sentence wafted through the window, hitting him hard in the middle of his chest. Daxon froze mid-stride. What the hell? It wasn’t the sarcasm dripping from those last three words that had his heart jumping in his chest. It was the voice.
Her voice. The sound of it flooded him with the same liquid heat he had fought off six months ago.
Impossible. It couldn’t be her...could it? No, it couldn’t. The hot shower, the beautiful beachside location, the Kalani Resort itself with its wish-fulfillment promise must have lulled him into a fantasy world where she was here, too. But that couldn’t be right.
The doctor’s strict orders to put his well-known focus on chilling out must be messing with his head. Why else would his mind have wandered to Kendall Clark? Back to those days in his suite in a different resort, the lush breeze blowing the curtains, when she was his physical therapist and he was trying not to be yet another douchey client with a hard-on. But her hands had felt soft and good in a way no physical therapist’s should—or had. And he had spent too much time wondering if the rest of her body was just as soft. Oh, how he had wanted to take her to bed on his final night there when they’d kissed, spend the whole night exploring her...except it didn’t happen. Which must be why he was hearing her voice, six months later, on the other side of the world.
“Be right there,” he called, pushing those memories away.
His focus here at the Kalani was getting himself back in top shape for the Moonlight Buttress free solo that’d be filmed live in two weeks. No ropes, no safety measures to fall back on. And absolutely no distractions. Which meant no thinking about Kendall Clark.
Daxon headed out of the bathroom, into the main room of his private cabin. Halfway across the floor, it occurred to him to grab a hold of his towel to keep it in place—because he didn’t need his junk hanging out. He made his way to the door, took a deep breath and turned the handle.
“Listen, I lost track of—” Daxon stopped mid-sentence, mouth gaping as he swung the door open and he caught sight of the woman standing in front of him.
Kendall Clark.
Was it really her? She seemed very real in the little entryway, cheeks flushed, her big brown eyes round, framed by the longest lashes—just like he remembered. He stared at those eyes, blinking, a little dazed. Her gaze swooped down, over his bare chest, then up again to his mouth, and his whole body prickled with awareness. His ultimate distraction was standing right in front of him...wasn’t she? He lifted a hand to reach for her, to make sure she was real. Halfway there, he thought better of it, so he rested that hand on the doorframe, trying to jump-start his stalled thoughts.
What the hell was going on right now? Was all this Hawaiian heat having some sort of rock-to-the-head effect? Because what he was seeing was Kendall, dressed in a red Kalani Wellness polo shirt and shorts that exposed miles of her lean, tanned legs. The same legs he had ached to touch for one, tantalizing week. Her long hair was back in a ponytail, the way she’d worn it in Costa Rica when she had knelt down... Shit. Not what he should be thinking about.
Daxon blinked a couple times, but Kendall was still there, staring at him. She was holding a tablet and looking all business. Or at least, she had been a few moments ago. Now she was gaping at him, too.
Her eyes narrowed. “Is this your way of saying hello?”
What? He gave himself a little shake and furrowed his brow. As her gaze traveled down his body, instinctively he looked down, too, and—fuck.
His hand was resting on the doorframe, which meant it was no longer holding his towel up. His brain hadn’t even registered that he dropped it, but clearly, his dick had been a lot quicker to believe that she was real.
“Shit,” he muttered. Daxon grabbed his towel off the floor and wrapped it around his waist again, but that did nothing to hide his growing hard-on.
Slick, Dax. Really subtle.
He straightened up and met her eyes again. “You might not believe this, but that was an accident.”
She gestured to his cock. “And that is, too?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes.” Daxon rubbed the back of his neck—with his free hand this time.
Then he found himself just staring at her again, his brain still malfunctioning, trying to process the fact that Kendall was really here. She stared back for a bit, and then a burst of laughter came from her sexy mouth. He blew out a breath and smiled. This was ridiculous. Thank God she didn’t look too pissed. Maybe he wasn’t the first asshole to drop his towel for her, though he really hoped this wasn’t one of her occupational hazards.
Finally, she caught her breath and gave him a look that suggested something between amusement and exasperation. “Classy.”
“That’s me. Come on in,” he said before his mind could fall into another gutter.
He stepped aside, and Kendall wandered into the main room of his cabin. A zing of raw attraction ran through him as she passed by, and Daxon paused in the hall and ran a hand through his hair, trying to get a handle on the situation. He had come to the Kalani to fully heal, away from public eyes, and she was his physical therapist? Either this was the world’s most improbable coincidence...or something else was going on. Daxon was betting everything on the latter, and he needed to figure out what that something was.
He watched her as she wandered over to peek at the view of the ocean through the French doors. She looked...different. What was it? Her hair was lighter, streaked with hints of blond. The taper of her waist, the curve of her hips, those fit legs—her body was just as distracting as before. Her skin tone was a little darker, from all the Hawaiian sun no doubt, but there was something else.
“You look good,” he said, following her in. “More...relaxed.”
That’s what it was. There was an ease to her that he hadn’t seen the last time.
Kendall turned. “Thanks, I think. You look very...relaxed, too.” She gestured to his current state of undress. “Well, most of you.”
There was a hint of a
smile on her lips, a good sign. But after that full-frontal greeting, he needed to tone this the fuck down.
“I’ll put on some clothes. In case you’ve seen enough of me for the day.”
She waved him off. “Nothing I haven’t seen before.”
Daxon frowned. She had thrown out that comment in the most casual tone, like getting a peek at him naked was just another part of her day, somewhere between taping up an injured wrist and paperwork. Not that she was supposed to be jumping with joy at seeing his dick, unsolicited, but, well, wasn’t she at least a little...impressed?
“I’ll be out in a minute,” he grumbled over his shoulder. But as he turned away, he caught her gaze wandering lower, like she was checking him out. Or at least he thought he saw it. Maybe that was his ego talking, but a guy could hope.
Daxon headed for the bedroom and shut himself in the large walk-in closet. He rested his forehead against the door and let out a quiet groan. Focus. Kendall Clark, the star of far too many of his fantasies, was sitting on the couch, a dozen steps away from his bedroom, and he still had the lingering remains of a hard-on. Time to get this situation under control.
Goal number one: fully heal his injured calf so he could face off with Moonlight Buttress on schedule. Goal number two: keep his overeager cock down and safely covered. Because Kendall didn’t strike him as the kind of woman who enjoyed a flasher. Even if she may have been checking him out.
He grabbed a pair of shorts and T-shirt and slipped them on. He ran his hand through his wet hair a couple times and hung his towel on a hook, then rested his hand on the door handle.
Apparently his brain had started working again because he was almost sure he knew who had set this up. Calvin. His business partner and producer’s last words before he got on the plane to Hawaii sank in. I arranged a special wish for you, one I know you’ll love. The asshole had set this up, probably assuming that Daxon had, in fact, slept with her back in Costa Rica and wouldn’t mind a repeat. Dax had guessed Calvin’s wish for him would be misguided, but this was an epic miss. Because spending hours a day with hot-as-hell Kendall Clark was the polar opposite of relaxation. More like excruciatingly tense. Hard in every way.
* * *
Kendall Clark didn’t do hesitant, fumbling girlishness. Definitely not around high-profile men in general, and especially not around Daxon Miles in particular. So as soon as Daxon left the room, Kendall plopped down on the sofa and took deep breaths, trying to get her runaway pulse under control. Because despite all the rehearsals in front of her bathroom mirror, that greeting didn’t go anything like the one she’d planned.
In the entryway, as her eyes had wandered south, a rush of tempting heat had spread through her, shutting off all reasonable thought. Then the memories of Costa Rica flooded back. Seven long days of trying to ignore all those perfect, taut muscles. That sharp pull of sexual interest that came anyway each time she touched him, each time she felt him move under her hands. As she tried like hell to focus on her job.
She could sense it all starting again: the client crush she never should have had, the one she had tried so hard to resist, was taking hold. And she definitely didn’t do celebrity client crushes.
Plus, Daxon Miles made her nervous. Kendall had assumed his love of danger was all an act, a show he put on for his bazillions of YouTube followers. Who the hell in his right mind would actually want to dive off cliffs just for fun? But after a week in Costa Rica with him, she was forced to admit that, number one, he truly did love these stunts, and number two, he wasn’t crazy. Okay, number three, he was hot as sin, but she wasn’t counting that realization.
She might have even written him off. It wasn’t like she’d never had a hot, ultra-fit client before. But the conversation she’d had with him back then about the difference between high risk and high consequence—the one that stretched long beyond working hours—had her questioning all her safe choices. The things he had said that last night in Costa Rica had stayed with her, bubbling inside when she was debating whether or not to accept a job at the Kalani Resort and move to Hawaii. With enough preparation, Daxon really was up for just about anything, and she...well, over the past six months, she was trying harder to be. But ignoring her risk-averse nature certainly didn’t come easily.
When Sheila Alleyne, the Kalani’s mysterious “wish maker,” had contacted her about this assignment, she’d said Daxon Miles had specially requested her. Though each guest at the resort was entitled to a “wish”—a special request to be fulfilled during their stay—she had never heard of a personal request like this. Wishes were usually more along the lines of a personal chef or a paragliding instructor, and Sheila and the staff took care of it. Kendall had tried hard not to waste her time contemplating questions like How the hell did he know I was here? or Do I just ignore the scorching-hot kiss that happened in Costa Rica while my hands are on his thighs? Instead, she’d focused on the reason she hoped he’d requested her: because she was a damn good physical therapist. Thorough, methodical and careful.
But for a guy who had personally asked for her, Daxon had seemed awfully surprised to see her at his door. Then again, her first clue that she wasn’t getting the full story was in Sheila’s words: he also wished for you as a personal healing coach. The Daxon Miles she knew would never use words like that. The man wasn’t really the type to wish for help with anything. And what the hell did that title mean? The only service she was giving him this week was physical therapy.
Her last assignment with him in Costa Rica had been her most memorable as a travelling physical therapist for many reasons... Daxon being one of them. Kendall had started to think her memories had mixed with fantasy, overexaggerating his appeal. But no. When he opened the door earlier, tousled wet hair, strong jaw and piercing grey-green eyes, she remembered why she had turned him down that last night. Daxon Miles was trouble. Shirtless, his hard, lean muscles flexed in stark relief. Up close, the raw sexuality of his body was almost irresistible. Another wave of heat rippled through her. Trouble. Especially for her, who seemed to have been born with an extra-large caution gene.
Daxon entered the room again, and the scent of him—freshly showered and very male—wafted in the air. She shivered as he brushed by her. Definitely trouble.
He took a seat at a safe distance on the couch and leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs. All the surprise from their greeting was gone, and in its place, he was giving her that smile. The one that said he knew exactly what effect he had on women. He had been melting panties with it for years between all the skydives and cliff dives and free climbs, if the tabloids were to be believed. She should know better, but that look was pulling her in.
“I promise I won’t flash you again,” he said, eyes glittering. “Unless you ask for it.”
“You know, most people start conversations with ‘hello’ or ‘how have you been?’”
His smile spread wider. “Do you really think I’m aiming to be like most people?”
Everyone with internet access knew the answer to that.
“Let’s just get this started.” Kendall opened her tablet and found the bullet points for the introduction. “Welcome to the Kalani,” she said, reading straight from the notes, in her best professional voice. “I want to make sure your stay is everything you want it to be.”
Kendall almost rolled her eyes. Everything you want it to be. Yeah, that definitely had sexy overtones.
She scanned the rest of the key talking points Sheila had given her for the meeting. The wording of the resort’s welcome was carefully chosen so as to flatter—and not to bruise any egos. God forbid. But she got the feeling that the whole Fantasy Island appeal of the Kalani Resort would take this conversation in the wrong direction. Time to go off-script.
“What are you doing here, Daxon?”
He blinked at her in surprise, then frowned. “Taking a break, healing my calf. Relaxing.” He said that last wo
rd with plenty of sarcasm. “Lying low before my next filming. My producer’s the cautious type, and he thinks this is the best option.”
“I see,” she said slowly. “He’s the one who booked your stay here, right?”
Daxon nodded.
“So you don’t want to be here?”
He hesitated, rubbing his jaw. “I do.” His gaze was laser-sharp, and she squirmed under his scrutiny. It felt like he was planning, calculating, waiting for the right moment to...what? Drop his towel? No, he already did that. But the pull she had felt six months ago was just as strong now, like they were picking up right where they left off that last night.
In the hallway of a luxury hotel in Costa Rica, lit by the setting sun, oh, Lord, what a kiss they’d had. The whole world had been his soft mouth and his hard body, moving against hers. The feel of it was still so easy to recall, the physical memories, dreamy and ethereal. His big calloused hand cupping her jaw. Hungry strokes of his tongue as their hips fit together. Gasping for breath as he came in for more. And the hunger in his eyes as she broke the kiss off, long after it had gotten out of hand. The memory was still vivid. Very vivid. But she could think about that later...after she got through this first session.
“Let’s get started,” she said again. She scrolled through his files on her tablet until she found the one she was looking for: the doctor’s report she’d reviewed a few days before. “You tore your calf a few weeks ago, Grade 1, and it still hasn’t fully healed.” She looked up at Daxon. “The doctor thinks the slow healing is a combination of not enough physical rest and possibly stress.”
Daxon shrugged. “I doubt it’s stress. I have the best job in the world. Cliff diving last season, rock climbing this season and a bunch of other adventures planned for the future.”
“But a free solo climb has absolutely no margin for error. One missed foothold, one loose rock, one bee sting—if anything goes wrong, you could die.”
Taming Reid Page 17
