The gleam in her sister’s eyes made her uneasy. “No way are you setting me up, so don’t even think it,” she said, remembering too well that she’d set Mariah up once, when she and Grey had split up—with disastrous results. Jade was discovering she didn’t like being on the receiving end of the ploy. “Just because you’re experiencing wedded bliss doesn’t mean I’m interested in the same.”
Mariah’s shoulders sagged in defeat. “What about a family?”
“What about it?”
“Don’t you want one?”
“I have one,” Jade replied, deliberately misconstruing Mariah’s meaning. “I’ve got great parents, that is when Dad’s not nagging at me to settle down, get married and start a family. Sort of like what you’re doing right now.” She flashed her sister a sassy smile, lightening the moment. “I have you and Grey. And, of course, my favorite niece,” she added with affection.
Kayla chose that moment to snuggle into her mother and let out a contented sigh. The sweet, peaceful sound whispered through Jade, tugging at maternal emotions she would have sworn didn’t exist in her. If she ignored them, maybe they’d go away.
Mariah grew serious. “I guess I just want you to be as happy as I am.”
“I’m happy.” She produced a bright smile, albeit a fake one. “See?”
As always, Mariah saw through her act. “And I don’t like the thought of you being alone.”
“Then you never should have married Grey and moved out of the condo,” she joked, and stood when a car pulled up to the curb. Two elderly women got out of the vehicle and ambled toward the items still up for sale.
Blessing the interruption, Jade glanced back at Mariah, intent on putting an end to their conversation. “Seriously, Riah, I’m a big girl, so stop worrying about me.”
Before her sister could lecture her further she headed toward the women and greeted them with a cheerful hello. The thought of growing old alone didn’t appeal to her, but letting another man close enough to manipulate her feelings and control her life wasn’t an option, either.
That’s why she’d created her own fantasy man. Because in her experience, fantasies were better than reality.
* * *
In Kyle’s estimation reality could be much better than fantasy, given the right set of circumstances. And he seemed to have them, in the form of Jade’s journal filled with intimate, secret thoughts and fantasies.
Setting his pencil in the crease of the accounting ledger spread open on the desk in front of him, he leaned back in his office chair and thought about the burgundy bound book in his possession. Now that he’d had a few hours to think about his actions earlier that afternoon, he experienced a slight twinge of guilt. A part of his subconscious nagged that if he was a gentleman, he’d give her back the journal. Chivalry had its place, he conceded, but this wasn’t the time to be virtuous. Not if he wanted to see if the chemistry between him and Jade was just a spark that would fizzle, or a spark that could spread like wildfire.
And that journal linked them in an intimate way that nothing else could come close to matching.
His plan was definitely reckless, but he’d always lived life on the edge. He’d spent the past few years working hard, then opening The Black Sheep and giving it everything he had to make it a success. During that time he’d dated his share of women. Nothing serious, but then none of those women had interested him beyond a few evenings in their company. The catch had been too effortless, their surrender too willing and easy. No spark. No thrill. And certainly no reason to continue the pursuit when everything was offered so freely.
That’s where Jade was different. Though he was attracted to her—she was too sensual of a creature not to stir his libido—it was on more levels than just a physical one. There was something soft and feminine about her. A fascinating blend of vulnerability and sweetness, though she did her best to hide it from anyone who tried to scratch past the surface. It was the woman beneath those intriguing layers that appealed to him and made him wonder what she was really like. Made him wonder about those provocative fantasies she wrote.
For six months she’d managed to thrill and excite him. For six months she’d rejected his flirtatious advances and dinner and date invitations. He wasn’t about to give up the one thing that gave him the ability to discover the many facets of Jade.
He glanced at his wristwatch. 11:10 p.m. He smiled, wondering if she’d dare to take that midnight swim. She’d been all prim and proper when he’d issued the challenge, but something told him that had been more for her sister’s benefit than his.
And he wasn’t about to leave anything to chance.
Closing his accounting ledger, he put it away then grabbed his keys from the corner of his desk. He walked out of his office and into the lounge area where his bartender was helping one of the waitresses clear off a recently vacated table. The earlier crowds had dissipated, though the regulars who usually shut down the place were still present.
“Do you mind closing up tonight, Bruce?” Kyle asked. The other man had become a trusted employee and had his own set of keys to the place.
“Not at all, boss,” he said with a congenial grin. “Have a good evening.”
Kyle grinned right back and headed for the front door. “Oh, I plan to.”
* * *
Blowing out a frustrated stream of breath, Jade closed her sapphire blue journal with a snap and gave up on the fantasy she’d been attempting to write. All she’d wanted was to escape and indulge in a private, romantic interlude—the kind she inexorably lost herself in, becoming one with the fantasy she wove.
Her wish wasn’t to be.
All she could think about was a moonlight swim. But not with her imagined lover. Someone else had invaded that particular fantasy, someone with features that were unnervingly similar to those of her fantasy lover, but whose wicked smile and smoldering blue eyes were no illusion. Kyle was all too real, possessing a blatant male sensuality that seemed to come as naturally as breathing, and that left her with an aching, yearning feeling after every encounter with him.
And that sensation was something no fantasy lover could compete with.
Cursing Kyle Stephens’s gorgeous head and this crazy weakness she seemed to have for him, she put her journal on the nightstand and slid from her new four-poster bed. She padded through her shadowed bedroom to the open sliding doors leading to her balcony, pushed aside the cream-hued sheers in front of the screen, and gazed out across the landscaped courtyard of palm trees and shrubs that separated her wing of condos from half a dozen other units.
And Kyle’s condo.
She knew exactly which one was his, and even with only a crescent moon to illuminate the way, she zeroed in on his bedroom balcony, which was dark and currently vacant, along with the rest of the condos. He’d caught her a few times while she’d been watering the plants out on her own terrace, and hadn’t had any qualms about flirting with her from across the courtyard, while other residents watched the amusing exchange.
A smile touched her mouth. It was hard not to like someone as playful and easygoing as Kyle. It was even more difficult to keep from giving in to the impulse to go out with him. She knew. She’d been fighting that particular temptation for six months.
She’d lied to her sister that afternoon about not being interested in Kyle. In the light of day it had been easy to lie to herself. Now that she was alone in her big, quiet bedroom with a journal full of fantasies for company, there was no denying the truth.
She was attracted to Kyle Stephens, with an intensity that frightened her because it went beyond anything she’d ever experienced. More and more lately, the wanting consumed her thoughts, teased her senses and enticed her to be a little reckless and wild.
She’d rebelled plenty since her breakup with Adam, but her defiance had been personal, a way to prove to herself that her choices were her own, and that she’d never let another man mold her into something she wasn’t.
But beneath the flair, sass and brig
ht and sexy clothes, there was a woman who was still vulnerable. A woman who didn’t trust her judgment when it came to men and relationships. A woman scared of falling so hard and fast for a man that she’d do anything to please him, as she had with Adam. It was safer to avoid any kind of emotional involvement and stick to her fantasies.
Her fantasies had been sacred, a way to safely escape from reality…until Kyle’s offhanded comment today.
Meet me for a moonlight swim tonight.
She was certain he’d just been teasing and meant nothing more by the suggestion than to use it as an excuse to flirt and ruffle her composure.
It had worked.
Feeling restless, she opened the screen door and stepped out onto the terrace. The terra-cotta tiles were cool beneath her bare feet, a welcome contrast to the sultry summer night. The fluttering hem of her pale pink, silk chemise whispered around her thighs as she walked up to the wrought iron railing. She was acutely aware of the sensuous material sliding across her belly and the tips of her breasts, teasing her like a lover’s playful touch. And when she closed her eyes, it was Kyle’s hands she imagined.
How about at midnight?
Biting her bottom lip in indecision, she glanced over her shoulder. The digital clock on her nightstand glowed 11:48 p.m. A moonlight swim sounded deliciously decadent on such a warm night, and chances were Kyle was at work, in bed or had found someone else more willing than she.
Reckless. Wild. Undisciplined. For three years she’d written about such behavior. Now she wanted to experience it.
* * *
It was a perfect night for a moonlight swim, and he wasn’t there. Relief mingled with a disappointment Jade hated to admit to feeling and refused to analyze.
She slipped through the gate surrounding the shimmering pool and recreation building, which housed a game room, a small reception hall for parties, a sauna and a private gym. The exclusive amenities were for resident’s use until 10:00 p.m. nightly, unless a later hour was requested for a party or some other occasion.
Tonight, except for the cast of silver moonlight, all was dark and quiet.
Dropping her towel on a lounge chair, she stepped out of her sandals and stripped off the cover-up she’d thrown over her one-piece swimming suit. Without testing the water, she dove into the pool. The water was cool and refreshing, and as she made quiet laps from one end of the pool to another, her body adjusted to the temperature.
Water sluiced over her limbs, like a languid, silken, head-to-toe caress. Feeling uninhibited and a touch on the wild side, she basked in the luxurious sensation, and the sleek, smooth way her skin felt when she brushed her fingers over her arms, across her thighs.
Her fantasy was heaven. The only thing missing was her imagined lover.
She came up for air at the shallow end, and her body jerked in fear at the figure crouched at the edge of the pool where she’d surfaced. Alarm seized her, stifling the scream that would have erupted had her heart not been jammed in her throat.
“I knew you’d come,” the intruder said.
Hearing the deep timbre of Kyle’s voice, and recognizing those broad shoulders and that dark golden hair cast in moonlight, her terror subsided into anger. “You scared me to death!” she said in a low, furious hiss of breath. Feeling naked and exposed, as if he’d known what she’d been thinking moments before, she backed up, sinking lower into the water, until it lapped around her shoulders and covered the taut peaks of her breasts. “What are you doing here?”
His bad-boy smile was hard to miss, even in the shadows. “I invited you, remember?”
She frowned at his choice of words, so hauntingly familiar. “I thought…” Her sentence trailed off as he straightened, pulled his shirt over his head in one smooth, fluid motion, and tossed it aside.
“You thought what?” His voice was as mesmerizing as the fingers slowly unbuckling the belt at his waist. He popped the snap on his jeans, stealing the coherent reply she’d been about to utter. “That I was joking?” He unzipped the fly of his pants, the erotic sound rasping across her nerve endings and heightening her awareness of the fact that they were alone. “That I wouldn’t come?”
Her pulse raced as he hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his jeans. “Both, I guess,” she managed to say. “I didn’t think you were serious.”
“When it comes to you and me, I’m very serious.” So serious that when he began inching the denim over his hips, the sinful gleam in his eyes dared her to watch.
He was shameless. If he was brazen enough to undress in front of her, then she was going to be just as bold and watch.
He met her challenge, and with all the lazy, practiced ease of a male stripper, he gyrated his hips and shimmied the jeans down his thighs. The only thing missing from his act was a G-string. Instead, he wore striped boxer shorts. The single article of clothing saved her quickly evaporating sanity.
His feet were bare, and he stepped out of the denim and dropped the pants on top of his shirt, then turned toward her again. His chest was as wide as she’d thought, and powerful looking. A light sprinkling of golden hair swirled around flat, brown nipples and arrowed down a lean torso and belly. His waist was trim, his body hard and honed, but not overly muscular.
He was masculine perfection. He was everything she’d ever dreamed of in a man, a breath-stealing combination of sin and sensuality.
Oh, Lord, where had that thought come from?
“More?” he asked. His fingers snapped the elastic band of his shorts, drawing her attention to the only part of him he hadn’t bared, but seemed more than willing to.
He was so bad, and he knew it, too.
Knowing all it would take was the slightest look or word to give him the incentive he waited for, she chose to change the subject. “I didn’t accept your invitation, so why did you bother to show up?”
“You’re proof that wishful thinking counts for something.” He strolled to the pool’s steps and casually descended, making the water ripple toward her in tiny silver-tipped crests. “Since you refused my invitation, what made you come?”
A fantasy. One that had somehow become tangled with reality, more and more with each passing second.
He continued advancing, a sensual creature staking a claim. Her stomach tightened in anticipation and apprehension. The game threatened her senses, mocking every lecture she’d ever given herself on the repercussions of getting involved with an aggressive, too confident man.
Before he could touch her, and before her better judgment totally deserted her, she sank below the water and kicked off the bottom toward the deep end. She didn’t surface until her palm flattened against the other side of the pool.
Kyle was nowhere to be found. The water looked murky and dark, and she searched for a rippling along the surface, a shadow, anything to indicate Kyle’s location. He popped up ten feet away, found her, and disappeared beneath the water again.
Heart pounding, and not knowing what he intended, she headed toward the shallow end in an attempt to elude him. She played mouse to his cat, trying to outsmart him and anticipate his direction and strategy.
He was a far superior opponent. Calculating her next move. Slowly advancing. Silently circling.
The game turned personal, the stakes her surrender. Without a word she knew it, could feel it in the predatory way he stalked her.
It was a matter of time before he caught her.
He cornered her at the shallow end of the pool. She crouched by the ledge in the direct center while he approached from the middle, leaving his right and left side clear. Knowing she had a fifty-fifty chance of evading him, she gave the impression of feinting to his right, but once she was underwater kicked off the side of the pool to circle around to his left.
She’d barely begun to hope she’d fooled him when strong fingers clamped around her ankle and pulled her backward. Her first instinct was to panic and struggle, but not knowing how deep they were she could only trust the man slowly reeling her in.
Large hands skimmed up her legs, up the sides of her thighs, over the curve of her hips, until he finally anchored an arm around her waist and pulled up. When they broke the surface, she was breathless. Not from lack of oxygen, but from the sleek, slick body pressed so intimately along her back, her bottom, her thighs. Her swimsuit was little protection against the scorching heat he generated.
“Gotcha,” he murmured into her ear.
His own heavy breathing touched her neck, and her breasts swelled in response. “Let me go.” She gripped his arm and squirmed, but his hold didn’t budge.
“You never answered my question,” he countered, easing them toward the side of the pool at the shallow end. “What made you come tonight?”
She had no answer, at least not one that made any sense to her, or one he wouldn’t gloat over.
“Was it because of this?”
The hand splayed on her belly slid up and cupped her firm breast in his palm. She gasped in shock, then groaned as his thumb flicked over her nipple. The tip instantly hardened, giving him the answer he sought. Yes.
He upped the stakes of the game.
Reaching the edge, he turned her around and boosted her bottom onto the side of the pool. Before she could scramble away, he eased her legs apart with the heel of his hands and stepped between. His long fingers hooked beneath her knees and pulled her toward him until her thighs hugged his hips in a purely sexual manner.
She gasped. He was aroused, hard and throbbing against her. The only thing preventing him from sliding deep within her body was her swimsuit and his boxer shorts.
Her response was hot, liquid and illicit.
A strangled sound rose up in her throat, part thrill, part fear. She could feel herself tumbling, falling…for him. She tried to scoot back, but his hands gripped her hips, forcing her to feel the passion she kindled in him.
“Don’t be so shocked, Jade,” he said, his tender smile at odds with his body’s fierce need. “This is what you do to me. You turn me on, physically and mentally. I’ve never made a secret of wanting you, but now you’ve found out for yourself.”
Her Sexiest Fantasy (The Sexiest Series Book 2) Page 3
