Cherish Hard (Hard Play #1)

by Nalini Singh

  He was dressed in a classic white T-shirt that hugged his pecs and biceps, teamed with a pair of jeans that were well-worn and comfortable rather than being too tight—no showing off the goods like some of the men around here. Of course, that just made women all the more curious about what lay underneath.

  Confidence pulsed off him in waves.

  Ísa could definitely see the attraction, even if her own female hormones were still sulking at being denied another taste of a certain gardener.

  “Go for it,” she whispered to Nayna. “That’s your kiss target right there.”

  When her friend just stared at her, Ísa said, “Wild women, remember?”

  “Not humiliated women though.” Bland words that didn’t manage to hide Nayna’s disappointment. “Have you seen the woman he’s talking to?”

  Ísa glanced over just in time to see the gorgeous stranger’s eyes skim across the crowd and land on Nayna. Her best friend wasn’t looking, more interested in making sure her dress was covering her butt, but that dark-eyed glance didn’t skim away from Nayna as it had everyone else. Not until the busty raven-haired beauty in front of him put a hand on his forearm and literally tugged for attention.

  Ísa smiled. “If he’s not taken by that woman, and my instincts say he’s not,” she whispered to her friend, “then I think you’ve got a good shot. He was just staring at you.”

  Nayna was unimpressed. “Probably wondering what a nerd like me is doing in this den of freakily good-looking people.” Grabbing Ísa’s arm before Ísa could reply, she continued moving forward. “Come on, let’s at least go see some skinny-dipping.”

  Sadly, when they reached the pool it was to realize that their hopes of wild debauchery were premature. The swimmers all appeared to be in swimsuits. “We’ll be the skinny-dippers,” Nayna announced. “After the lights are off and everyone’s gone home.”

  Ísa’s shoulders shook. “Deal.”

  Her own smile wide, Nayna turned to grab a drink from the tray of a passing waiter, her sleek black hair shining with reddish glints under the outdoor lights. “You want one?” At Ísa’s nod, she passed across the first flute and was reaching for a second one when her hand collided with a big male one. “Oh, I’m so sorr—”

  Ísa watched her friend freeze as she came face-to-face with the man at whom she’d been staring earlier. The scruffy-jawed hunk smiled and said, “Here.” He handed over a flute of champagne. “I’m Raj.”

  When Nayna shot Ísa a frantic look, Ísa gave her “wild devil women” messages with her eyes before deliberately melting back into the crowd. She didn’t go far, wanting to be there if Nayna needed her. It wasn’t as if she had anything else to do—unlike Nayna, she wasn’t interested in breaking the rules with a single man at the party.

  None of them had the right blue eyes. Or the right sinful smile.

  She was going backward as she moved away from Nayna and the scrumptious Raj, so it was hardly surprising that she bumped into someone. Something cold and wet splashed against her bare upper shoulder.

  Shivering, she turned to apologize since it had been her fault. “I’m sorry, I wasn—”

  Blue, blue eyes looked into her own.

  * * *

  SAILOR HAD ONLY TURNED UP to this party because he’d promised Raj the company. His friend wasn’t a big party person—like Sailor, Raj was more interested in putting his spare time into his business than in frittering it away with random strangers. However, the couple hosting this party were clients who’d turned into good friends, and they’d really wanted Raj to attend.

  Sailor had come along so that Raj wouldn’t have to talk to too many idiots—his friend had less patience with said idiots than Sailor—but Raj had been swarmed by women the instant Sailor stepped away to grab a beer from the bar on the other side of the room. Sailor himself hadn’t escaped unscathed. Apparently, word had gotten around that Raj was in construction and Sailor a landscape gardener.

  All these filthy-rich women apparently found that a turn-on.

  Sailor barely stopped himself from growling at them like the feral beast they considered him. He wasn’t about to become some woman’s rough-sex fantasy, especially not when his own fantasies were going sadly unfulfilled. He’d have a few things to say to his cute redhead when he saw her again. She’d done some voodoo on him—he was comparing every woman he met to her. And all the other women were coming up short.

  Their hair wasn’t bright enough.

  Their curves weren’t dangerous enough.

  Their lips not kissable.

  It took a little fancy footwork, but he finally managed to disengage himself from the heiress who was trying to put the moves on him by complimenting him on his “delicious” biceps—why did that make him feel like a piece of meat when, if his redhead had said the same, he’d be strutting around like a peacock?

  Probably because there had been no calculation in those gray-green eyes when she’d pounced on him. Just want. Open, naked, unsophisticated want. His cock threatened to harden under the memories as he began to make his way back through the crowd. He’d just turned slightly to check if a red-haired woman he’d spotted out of the corner of his eye was his redhead when someone ran smack-bang into the front of his body.

  It was instinct to catch her around the waist so she wouldn’t fall.

  His first thought was that she had a gorgeous ass, his second that her hair was exactly the same color as his redhead’s. And his third, that maybe, just maybe, he’d found a woman who might banish his redhead’s voodoo spell.

  “I’m sorry,” she was saying as she turned, “I wasn—”

  Sailor’s breath rushed out of him. He saw her eyes flare, read the tension in her body, and tightened his hold around her waist just in case she was thinking about running away again. Heart thundering at having captured his elusive prey, he leaned down to murmur in her ear, “I got beer on your shoulder. Let me clean that up.”

  He didn’t give her a chance to respond before he leaned down to lick up the drops of beer that had hit her shoulder and collarbone, her breasts pushing into his chest and the soft puffs of her breath hitting his neck. He knew he shouldn’t be doing this, but his redhead wasn’t trying to pull away. Her breath had gone fast and shallow while her skin was soft and creamy under his mouth.

  When he raised his head, he saw that her pupils were dilated, much as they’d been after their kiss. “My name,” he said, “is Sailor. And I brought my truck.”

  Her throat moved as she swallowed… and one of her hands, it came to rest on his chest. After downing the champagne in her flute in one shot, she said, “I can’t leave my friend.” She looked back over her shoulder even as Sailor’s brain scrambled to unravel the meaning of her words.

  Then he got it, and every cell in his body roared to readiness.

  She was going to come with him.

  Forcing his thoughts into some sort of order, his body wrenching at the reins, he followed her gaze. “The pretty Indian woman in the dress that looks like it’s made of bandages?” It was hot, but nothing compared to his redhead’s painted-on gift of a dress.

  Or to her come-to-bed tumble of hair and soft, lush lips.

  When she nodded, he said, “Your friend will be fine. Raj is probably the safest man in this room.”

  Her eyes focused once more on Sailor. “Not you?”

  “Oh, when it concerns you, spitfire,” Sailor murmured, “I’m about as safe as a volcano.” After putting her empty flute and his mostly full beer on the tray of a waiter heading back to the kitchen, he used his free hand to caress the luscious cream of her skin, stroking his way over her shoulder and down her arm. “Tell me your name.”

  A sudden, determined glint in her eye. “I don’t want to have a name tonight.”

  Fire sizzled in his veins. “Are you looking to be bad tonight?” He’d get her name out of her, but he was more than willing to play a sexy game with her in the meantime.

  When she nodded, he crushed her tighter to hi
s body so she couldn’t mistake just how much he wanted her. “Any particular kind of bad?” He’d take anything that involved him devouring her.

  “I was considering skinny-dipping.”

  The ravenous thing inside him baring its teeth, Sailor released her only to link the fingers of his left hand with her right. “I think the pool is a little public don’t you?” No way in hell was he sharing her centerfold-ready body with anyone else; she was his redhead, and Sailor decided he had a distinctly selfish streak. “This property has access to a private beach.”

  Their hosts hadn’t announced that, no doubt because they didn’t want beer bottles and champagne flutes ending up on the pristine sand, but Raj knew because he’d worked on building this property. He’d given Sailor a short outdoor tour before they’d entered the party. “I dare you.”

  She held his gaze, sparks in her expression. “I have to tell my friend. For all I know, you’re a serial killer in your spare time.”

  Calmer now because she wasn’t going to run away—not that she’d get far before he caught her, Sailor released her wrist. “Do you want to take a photo to send her?” he asked, resisting the temptation to bite down on her lower lip as he stroked his hand up under the temptingly high hem of her dress. “Just in case I do away with you?”

  “Hmm, good idea. It’s always the ones who don’t look like serial killers.” With that pert comment, she reached into her small and glittery black purse and took out a phone.

  The message was on its way seconds later, a reply received not long afterward.

  “Done?” When she nodded and put away her phone, he used this thumb to stroke her inner wrist and got a little shiver in response.

  His body reacted as if primed. “You want to hang out at this party any longer, or are we going skinny-dipping?”

  10

  Public Nakedness with a Certain Gardener (Blame the Moonlight)

  ÍSA WONDERED WHAT THE HELL she was doing.

  Being a devil woman, she reminded herself. Having fun for a change. Not being a grandma at twenty-eight years of age.

  Still, she couldn’t stop second-guessing herself as Sailor led her out of the house through a side entrance that opened out into a small, manicured garden. “I’ll have to take off my heels,” she whispered when she saw the pebbled path snaking through the garden.

  “Want a piggyback ride?” A playful grin. “I promise not to molest your thighs.”

  Goose bumps broke out over Ísa’s skin, her nipples tight. Reckless as she was feeling tonight, she might just have taken him up on his offer if she hadn’t been worried her damn dress would split in two. “Maybe when we’re naked,” she said instead, Devil Ísa in full flower.

  Groaning, he doubled over as if she’d punched him.

  Her lips twitching despite the melting sexual heat liquefying her bones, she leaned down to slip off her heels.

  The man named Sailor waited, his hand firm around hers, until she was done. Taking the heels from her, he carried them in his other hand as Ísa padded beside him on the grass that lay on this side of the pebbled path. The path ended at a weathered wooden gate, which, when opened, put them at the top of a narrow walkway that led down onto a beach Ísa couldn’t yet see but could hear.

  Her heart crashed in time with the waves as they made their way down to the beach while the mansion behind them pulsed with light and music. But she didn’t turn and run away, she didn’t stop and talk herself out of it, she didn’t attempt to be a sensible adult. She followed a gorgeous, blue-eyed man down a dirt pathway to an effectively private beach.

  The sand that had been tracked onto the path was gritty under her feet, the air coming off the sea cool but not cold.

  “The water’s going to be icy, isn’t it?” she whispered to his broad back.

  “Don’t worry, spitfire. I’ll keep you warm,” was the deep-voiced response. “Stop here.” Jumping down to the beach, he reached up to grab her by the waist, swinging her down as if she were a featherweight.

  Something fluffy and mushy came to life inside Ísa. “Here?”

  Shaking his head, he said, “Raj said there’s like a little cove area—not a proper cove, but caused by— There.”

  Ísa saw it at once. A huge tree had fallen into the water at some point and smashed up against some rocks where it appeared to be stuck. Between the jutting rocks on either side and the fallen trunk was a naturally created pool. The water within it was pretty calm, and it looked as if they could get to it by clambering over some rocks that didn’t appear too sharp or slippery.

  Of course, she’d be walking over those rocks naked.

  Ísa looked up at the moon. Imagined it shining on the stark white of her body. Gulped. “Will you close your eyes while I go in the water?” Even Devil Ísa wasn’t up for blinding him with her glow-in-the-dark form.

  A glance back. “What’re you going to bribe me with?”

  Ísa scowled. “Not pushing you into the water right now.” It was a toothless threat given his muscles and her lack of them.

  Rubbing his jaw, he said, “Three tongue kisses. That’s my price, and I’m not budging.”

  Ísa wanted to pounce on him all over again. “Two,” she countered.

  “Nuh-uh. Three. Or I’m keeping both eyes wide open.” Leaning in, he pressed his nose to hers. “I really want to keep my eyes wide open.”

  And Ísa really wanted to kiss him and run her hands all over that sculpted chest. “Three,” she whispered.

  A wild grin. “Damn. I knew I should have asked for five.”

  Laughing because he made her want to do things like that, made her feel young and carefree rather than a woman who was old before her time, she leaned in and kissed him soft and sweet. “No tongue till you keep your promise.”

  “You’re a tough negotiator, spitfire.” Tugging her forward, he led her to a higher part of the beach. “We should be able to leave our stuff here.”

  It was an area on the sand made distinctive by a particular gathering of rocks. It’d be easy to find in the dark afterward… though the closer she got to skinny-dipping, the more it didn’t feel dark at all. That moon was freaking big. And Sailor was already putting her heels on the sand and tugging off his T-shirt.

  Dropping it on the sand, he reached down to pull off his shoes.

  When he saw that she wasn’t moving, he stopped. “You change your mind?”

  He looked like she’d just told him she was taking away his puppy. So adorably disappointed that Ísa wanted to jump on him and kiss him stupid for making her feel more wanted than she’d ever before felt in her entire life. “No,” she said, and put her purse on his T-shirt. “Just nervous. And I don’t have much to take off.”

  “You’re really mean,” he said, his tone solemn. “Putting thoughts like that into my poor male brain.” Undoing his belt after putting his socks into his shoes and setting them aside, he pulled off his jeans and threw them onto the growing pile of clothes.

  Black boxer briefs didn’t really hide much—especially not the hard ridge of his sizable erection.

  Breath catching, Ísa had to force herself to turn away and not stare. “I won’t look,” she promised.

  He laughed. “I don’t mind. I like my sexy redhead looking at me.”

  Sexy redhead.

  Ísa’s stomach clenched. Oh, she liked being thought of that way. As a sexy redhead. The kind of woman who might be a femme fatale if it struck her fancy. The kind of woman who was about to go skinny-dipping with a relative stranger with demon-blue eyes.

  Glancing quickly over her shoulder because she had no self-control, she saw that he was facing the water… and that he’d stripped off his briefs while she hadn’t been looking. God. She was about to go skinny-dipping with a man straight out of a female wet dream. Complete with that incredible tattoo around his left thigh and another one high up on his right shoulder.

  “Hurry up, spitfire, or I’ll come help you.”

  Biting down hard on her lower lip because
she wanted nothing more, Ísa quickly unzipped her dress before she could lose her nerve. It took a ridiculously short time to wriggle out of it. That done, she almost tore off her panties. “Okay, let’s go,” she said to Sailor after shifting so that she was directly behind him.

  Reaching back, he threatened to squeeze her butt. “No hands,” she said with a laugh, pushing those playful hands away… but not too hard. Excitement skittered across her skin. “Go, before I lose my nerve.”

  He laughed as if that was the funniest thing ever. “Spitfire, yesterday you accosted an innocent stranger in a parking lot, and tonight you’ve decided to go skinny-dipping with a party full of people only minutes away. You have nerves of steel.”

  A sexy redhead with nerves of steel.

  She was starting to really, really like Sailor. Not just his body. Him.

  But he was moving now, and she did everything in her power to keep up. No way did she want to get left behind buck naked while he was safely covered by the night-dark water.

  “Be careful on the rocks.” Sailor reached back a hand. “Here, grab my hand. I won’t look.”

  Trusting him because he’d kept his word so far, Ísa took his hand and he got her safely to the point where they could slip into the water. He went first and swam a little way in the other direction.

  Ísa dipped in a toe. “It’s freezing!” she whispered loudly.

  “Duh. It’s the New Zealand ocean. At night.” Sailor ran his hands through his hair. “My self-control is coming to an end. I’m about to turn around.”

  Gritting her teeth, Ísa sat down on the rock… then slipped in all at once. “Oh God! My insides are freezing!”

  He laughed that big warm laugh that made her want to smile and swam back to her. She didn’t resist when he pulled her against his body. He was hot and beautiful and it was dark and cold and they were in the sea.

  Naked.

  Something steely hot poked her stomach. “Is that your phone?” she asked, pressing closer instead of jerking away. “I hope it’s in a waterproof case.”