by Nicola Marsh
He laughed. “Reid said the same.”
Her eyebrow rose slightly. “You guys still close?”
“We hang out when our schedules tee up.”
“Because he never mentions you.”
Duh. That’s because Jack had made certain of it all those years ago, telling Reid about Jess’s crush on him and how he didn’t want it to affect their friendship.
Reid had respected him for it. While Jack had felt like a heel, lying to the guy who’d soon become his best mate.
For Jess’s crush hadn’t been one-sided. They’d had some serious chemistry. Their one explosive kiss had been testament to it.
Exactly why there could never be a repeat. Jack had spent his childhood and teen years making mistake after mistake, being shunted from one foster family to the next, being a screw up.
No way in hell would he stuff up the lifeline Reid Harper had offered him. Even if it included pushing away the one woman he’d ever let get close enough to seeing the real him.
“Guys aren’t real big on chit chat,” he said, gesturing for her to take a seat.
Standing this close, he could smell lilacs, the memories of the way it had clung to his skin making him want to touch her so badly he ached.
“Yeah, so I’ve learned.”
Her slumped shoulders made him want to shake the defeatist out of her and bring back the sass.
“I presume you’re talking about your ex?”
“I’d rather not talk about him at all,” she said, the slightest quiver in her neutral tone belying her control.
“Reid said the guy was an uptight prick.”
“Reid says a lot of things he shouldn’t.” She shook her head. “I won’t discuss this with you.”
“Might help to get it off your chest.”
Poor choice of cliché as his gaze strayed there and bam! The nipple pasties were front and foremost in his mind again.
“Reid was right.” She sighed, a wistful sound that reached deep into his chest and tweaked at his hardened heart. “Uptight prick sums up Max nicely. Along with mid-life-crisis, philandering bastard.”
Jack’s hands curled into fists. “He cheated on you?”
She nodded, the wobble of her bottom lip reaching out to him like nothing else could. If she cried again, he was toast.
“We’re done and I’m glad.” She sucked in a deep breath. “So, where were we? That’s right, you heading back to Sydney.”
Grateful for the change of topic so he could regain control of the irrational rage coursing through his body at the thought of any asshole being dumb enough to cheat on Jess, he leaned back in the armchair and draped an arm across the back of it.
“I’m not leaving.”
Her chin tilted up. “Neither am I.”
“Hundred bucks says you can’t last an hour working alongside me.”
“A thousand says you won’t last a day.” She thrust out her chest for emphasis.
Damn, she didn’t play fair.
“Low blow, Jess.” He shifted in his seat. “You can’t go using your sexiness as a weapon.”
Her eyes widened and her delectable lips parted a fraction. “You think I’m sexy?”
If he hadn’t heard her tentativeness with his own ears he wouldn’t have believed it. For all her bluster and teasing earlier, she sounded exactly like she had a decade earlier: unsure, hesitant, innocent.
“Hell, you want me to make a damn list?” His gaze roamed her body and he wrenched it back to her face with effort.
“Please.”
How could one whispered word slug him harder than a knockout punch he’d sustained in his last foster home before he’d run away to the outback?
He shook his head. “I can’t play this game with you.”
“Why not?” She deliberately focused on his lips, licked hers.
“Because I’m not a dumbass twenty any more and you’re no longer a naïve eighteen.”
Rather than backing down as he expected, she did the one thing guaranteed to make his libido sit up and howl.
She placed her hand on the top of his thigh, one inch shy of his crotch.
“Don’t sweat it. I’ll have a week on the island to change your mind.”
“What frigging island?”
Her teasing, sweet smile filled him with dread. “Didn’t you know? Dorian’s flying us to the wedding venue, his private island in the Caribbean, so we can finalize details.”
“No way.”
Fire sparked her eyes to caramel. “Fine. If you’re not up to the challenge…”
Her fingertips edged closer to detonation zone and he leaped to his feet.
“Dorian and Zazz are counting on us.” Her smug smile as her gaze zeroed in on his hard-on made him want to haul her over his knees and spank her. Hard. “You can’t say no.”
His cock twitched in agreement.
He was so screwed.
CHAPTER THREE
Burlesque Bombshell Basics
Seamed stockings elongate the leg and draw a man’s eye to the thigh, where lace-tops or garters are guaranteed to have him salivating.
“One week all expenses paid jaunt to the Caribbean and you look like this?” Chantal stuck her pinkies in the corners of her mouth, screwed up her nose and threw in a cross-eyed grimace. “Are you for real?”
For Jess, this entire trip was all too real. “This isn’t what I want to do, you know that.”
Chantal snorted. “Give me a break. You’d seriously rather be stuck behind a desk with your nose buried in a dusty book in a dead-end town than head to the Caribbean with a hottie like Jack?”
“Jack’s work.”
“And play.” Chantal smirked as she swept a bundle of costumes off a chest in her office and dumped them on the desk in front of her. “Take your pick. Any one of these will guarantee he’ll play.”
“I’m not a dancer,” Jess said, her wistful gaze straying to a pale pink satin corset with ebony ribbon lace-ups. “And even if I did wear any of this stuff, I wouldn’t have a clue how to play with a guy like Jack.”
“So you do want to play?”
Jess made a zipping motion over her lips. Who was she kidding, denying she’d like nothing better than to get sweaty and naked with the delectable Jack?
He hadn’t changed a bit. If anything, the last ten years accentuated his rugged looks. He’d been big and bronzed in the outback: six-three, ripped and tanned. There may be a few more lines fanning the corners of his eyes and deeper grooves bracketing his mouth now, but with that lazy Aussie drawl, unruly dark blonde curls and wicked smile, one look at Jack had catapulted her straight back to the time she’d been crazy for him.
Then he’d taunted her, thrown down a challenge expecting her to back off like she had ten years ago, and something inside her had snapped.
She was sick of being good all the time. Sick of being the small town girl who always did the right thing by everybody: her mom, her cousin, even her rat-bastard ex.
Most of all, she was sick of how lost she felt. All the frikking time.
Inadequate and mousy and frigid—three harsh accusations Max had thrown at her when she’d confronted him with her suspicions. He’d been lashing out, trying to assuage his guilt and blame her for his infidelity. She knew that, but it didn’t stop those words echoing through her head like an old warped vinyl.
All it had taken was one word from Jack…sexy…and she’d known what she had to do.
She had to get laid.
By a guy so totally, mind-blowingly hot that he’d eradicate every nasty insinuation Max had ever made.
Max may have uttered the hurtful words but deep down in a place she didn’t want to acknowledge, a small part of her believed him. Their sex life had been tolerable. Nice. Nothing like the sizzling erotica she read in secret on her e-reader and nothing like the scorching tales she’d heard backstage here since she’d been helping organize Zazz’s wedding.
Her gaze drifted to the outfits strewn across Chantal’s desk
and envy shot through her. No wonder the girls who worked here had hot sex. They knew what to wear, what to say and what to do to get noticed.
They flaunted their sexuality while she hid behind sensible business suits and low-heeled pumps and a prim ponytail.
“Whatever you’re thinking, I like it.” Chantal winked and pushed the scraps of satin and lace toward her. “These samples arrived today and I can always get more. You’re welcome to take your pick for playtime with Jack.”
With part reluctance, part fascination, Jess picked up an ivory corset with garter attached, savoring the slide of satin between her fingertips.
What would it be like to wear something this scandalous—to have Jack’s hands all over it—all over her?
Then reality set in. Even if they got to that point—and by the evidence of how much he still wanted her fresh in her mind from a few hours earlier by her bold hand-on-his-thigh move—what if she screwed it up by her inadequacies?
“Wish I could be like the Bombshells,” Jess said, replacing the corset on the desk and glancing at the framed pictures of the stunning dancers that graced the stage nightly.
Chantal snapped her fingers. “You can be.”
Jess didn’t like the maniacal gleam in her cousin’s assessing stare. “What do you mean?”
“You’re not leaving ‘til the end of the week, right?”
Jess nodded, her palms clammy at the thought of what she could potentially do with Jack on the island if she had the guts.
“Well then, you’ve got three days to brush up on your seduction skills.” Chantal scooped the outfits off the desk and dumped them in her lap. “Spend some time with the girls in rehearsal. Watch. Listen. Learn. Practice.”
Chantal wiggled her hips. “A little shimmy here. A little pole dancing there. You’ll have that poor guy falling at your feet.”
Jess’s first reaction, an instant rebuttal, was quickly replaced by something else.
A flicker of excitement. A genuine thrill that maybe, just maybe, her plan to seduce Jack and erase the regrets of the past had a chance.
“That idea’s not half bad,” Jess said, knowing it would take more than a few dance moves and risqué lingerie to lend her the confidence to snare a guy like Jack. But what’s the worst that could happen? She empowered her inner vixen that had spent far too long cowering in a corner?
Chantal whooped. “You go girl. Take whatever you need from wardrobe. Soak up the girls’ expertise. And give the guy a taste of hot island nights, Bombshell-style.”
Jess wrinkled her nose as her cool wool blazer chafed the back of her neck and her plain, ill-fitting blue top bunched around her bra strap.
Her, a bonafide Bombshell? She clutched the raunchy outfits tight.
She needed all the help she could get.
Jack needed a beer and a blonde.
Not necessarily in that order.
The beer would settle his nerves; the blonde would take the edge off the relentless hunger pounding through his veins. Hunger for Jess.
So he was horny? Big frigging deal. Hadn’t been a problem before. Girls went for guys with an Aussie accent who could cook. With a constant babe smorgasbord on offer, he could afford to be choosy.
Not tonight. Tonight he needed a blue-eyed, busty blonde the opposite of Jess with her carefully tied back brunette ponytail and her big, brown, wary eyes. Eyes that saw too much. Eyes that seemed to look straight through him. Eyes that skewered him better than any pork rotisserie.
He spotted his date for the night the instant she strutted into the club in four-inch spangly stilettos and a slashed-to-the-waist, thigh-skimming red dress that accentuated her sizable assets.
Blonde, beautiful and brazen, her imperious gaze swept the dim interior of the club, sizing up the crowd. She smiled and half-turned to talk to a friend who’d sidled up behind her.
Jack downed the rest of his beer and stood. He didn’t want to waste time. He needed to shed the unease crawling under his skin, to rid his memory of Jess and the way she’d made him feel with one touch of her hand on his thigh.
He was hard just thinking about it. Something that hadn’t happened when he’d looked at the impressive blonde.
He rolled his shoulders and shook out his arms, feeling like an idiot. What did he think this was, a frigging prizefight?
He took two strides toward the blonde when her friend stepped out from behind and laughed at something the blonde had said.
Jack stopped. Shock peppered every preconception he’d ever had about the woman who was one hundred percent hands off to him.
The woman clad in a skintight, knee-length black dress, her glossy brown hair loose and tousled, her eyes sparkly and her lips glossed, her long legs bare and ending in towering come-fuck-me heels.
Jess.
He had to get out of here. Pronto. But like a train wreck waiting to happen, he stood rooted to the spot, gawking like a randy teenager.
She wouldn’t look up, wouldn’t scan the room; it wasn’t her style.
But the Jess he thought he knew, the shy, young girl with an enormous crush, was nothing like the woman before him and with a boldness that turned him on even more, if that were possible, she checked out the guys in the club. And he wanted to beat each and every one of them to a pulp.
With unerring precision, she honed in on him, their gazes clashing across the room and he could’ve sworn something indefinable sizzled in the air, invisible and incandescent.
Shit. Where was the corny crap coming from? Getting laid would’ve stopped him from getting soft over Jess but she’d shot that plan to hell.
She said something to the blonde, who glanced his way then headed for the bar, before Jess wound her way through the crowd toward him.
He had ten seconds to do the smart thing, the right thing, and get the hell out.
Instead, he stood there like a schmuck, bracing for impact. Because that’s what would happen, no doubt about it; a crash of monumental proportions that could potentially damage them both.
“What’s a respectable chef like you doing in a place like this?”
She stopped less than a foot away, invading his personal space, too damn close. He could smell a hint of her lilac shampoo overlaid with something stronger, something more potent.
Desire.
He was a dead man.
“Do you come here often?” He mentally cringed at the trite line but he seriously wanted to know. Is this what she’d been doing since she’d dumped that gutless prick ex? Hanging out at seedy clubs, scoping guys?
He sure as hell hoped not. Belatedly realizing why the hell did he care?
She laughed, a soft sound that shot straight to his groin. Yeah, like everything else she’d done and said since he’d laid eyes on her again hadn’t.
“Some of the girls from the club come here to unwind.” Jess shrugged. “I don’t get to Vegas often and felt like letting off a little steam tonight.”
That made two of them.
“Why?”
She eyeballed him. “I’m a little edgy.”
Edgy? What the hell was that? Code for toey? Because he knew what toey meant. Aussie for horny. And with her unwavering stare fixed on him, damn, did he know what horny was.
“Because we have to work together?”
“Don’t flatter yourself.” She rolled her eyes. A vast improvement on staring at him with that beguiling mix of wonder and intrigue and need. “I’ve got a lot going on, stuff to think about.”
“And you thought it’d help coming here?” He swept his arm wide, encompassing the writhing bodies jamming the dance floor, the wall-to-wall sleazes scoping the talent, the DJ surrounded by groupies.
“I want to try new things.” She spoke so softly he had to lower his head to hear her and if it wasn’t the damndest thing, she leaned into him so her hair tickled his nose. “Step out of my comfort zone. Jazz it up a little.”
Her palm splayed against his chest, right over his heart, which jack-knifed.
; His skin burned through the cotton of his shirt, like she’d branded him. He had to shrug her off and leave. Now.
But he made the fatal mistake of locking gazes with her again and he was a goner. If he could barely handle her bold and feisty, he had no hope against her defiant vulnerability.
“I’m tired of being good,” she said, her fingers clutching at his shirt, making him wish she’d rip the damn thing off.
Shit. Jess was ready for experimentation and by the way she wouldn’t let go of him, she’d chosen her candidate.
“Being bad isn’t everything it’s cracked up to be.”
He should know. He’d been a rotten kid, so bad his dad had taken off when he was four and his mom at six. He’d been shunted between foster homes for years, alternating between trying to be the model kid to being a rat-bag when his niceness got him nowhere.
He’d gone bush at sixteen, worked his way through outback cattle stations, doing everything from mustering to branding to cooking.
Until he met Reid and Jess Harper and for the first time in a long time he stopped wanting to be bad.
In different ways they’d redefined him. He’d never forgotten it. And it should be the number one motivation to keep his hands off this luscious woman.
“You wouldn’t understand.” She stared at her hand resting on his chest, her brows rising as if surprised, before she removed it. He irrationally missed her touch. “You’re a celebrity. You travel the world, have your own TV show, socialize with the rich and famous.”
“None of that equates to being bad.”
“It’s freedom to do what you want when you want.”
“And you don’t have that?”
She gnawed on her bottom lip, her expressive face showing a clear battle, indecision warring with a yearning to unburden. “That one month holiday in the outback? The only time I’ve been out of Nevada. Since then, I’ve been working as Craye Canyon’s librarian, being the dutiful daughter, the perfect fiancé, the town sweetheart.”
She dragged a finger across her throat in a slashing motion. “I’m done.”
In that moment, he understood why travelling to the Caribbean was so important to her—why she’d tried to scare him away with her bold moves.
