by Lori Wilde
And it took every ounce of masculine strength he possessed not to march into her bungalow, climb onto that bed with her and make love to her all night long.
Jake clenched his jaw. He couldn’t, he wouldn’t act on impulse. He was a controlled man, but his erection was so hard he could barely draw in air. Dammit, he wanted her.
She’d done this to him. Made him desire her in a way he’d never desired another.
He tried to think of how lust had gotten him into trouble before. But this felt like so much more than just lust. This felt like…destiny.
Avery turned him on and turned him inside out.
His hand strayed to the zipper of his jeans, his fingers fumbled as his breath came hard and fast. He imagined it was Avery provoking him, stroking him.
Her fantasy touch caused every nerve ending in his body to jolt with awareness as he recalled the feel of her soft lips, the sweet taste of her tongue. He visualized her long, silken curls tickling his bare skin. He saw her full, pink lips tip up in a beguiling grin.
Daydream mingled with memory as his imagination escalated the scenario playing out in his head. His shaft throbbed. His pulse raced. His brain hung on one thought and one thought only.
Avery.
Stop, stop. You’ve got to stop this.
But it was too late for that. His self-control was shot. He was lost. Overcome.
He stripped off his jeans and touched himself. His rhythm was frantic, desperate. He felt in equal parts embarrassment and inevitability. He had to do something to alleviate the weighted need that had settled in.
Just get it over with. Quick. Empty out the testosterone. Get your brain back.
He closed his eyes, took in a deep breath and then did what he had to do to reclaim his sanity.
Avery.
A groan, half pleasure, half despair, slipped past his lips. How he wished she was the one doing this to him.
His blood pounded through his veins. There was no stopping now. What had the woman reduced him to?
And then the orgasm was upon him.
Avery.
Clenching his jaw, he shuddered as ribbons of milky heat shot up and spilled over his fist.
When it was over and he’d cleaned himself up, he collapsed onto the bed. In the bungalow across the way, Avery lay motionless on her bed, sated, as was he.
He could hear his own heartbeat, imagine the black, mysterious shadows of her darkened room. He inhaled it—the night—smelling thickly of his unsatisfying sexual release.
Dammit, he was here to do a job and he couldn’t concentrate. He’d never been so distracted. He was supposed to be catching a saboteur; instead, fate had delivered him an unexpected complication.
Avery.
Jake draped a forearm over his eyes. He had to find a way to get his brain back. Now.
And that’s when the cell phone went off that had the special ring tone he’d installed for when his boss, Dougal Lockhart, called.
Something was up.
HAD HE SEEN HER? Had he watched? Avery couldn’t stand not knowing. It made her feel irritable and antsy in spite of the orgasm she’d just given herself.
She thought about him in the bungalow across the way, that dark-haired, dark-eyed enigma of a man. Perspiration dewed her forehead. Her blood flowed thick with desire for him. She was already horny again.So, had he seen her or not? Had he watched her and touched himself as had been her intent? Or had he gone to bed, oblivious of her erotic peep show? Or…and she hated to think this…had he been disgusted by her behavior and shut the blinds.
At that idea a hot flush of humiliation burned her throat. Avery reached up to touch her lips. The kiss he’d given her on the set told her he’d been anything but disgusted, and yet she couldn’t help feeling insecure. She really liked this guy. More than she’d liked anyone in a long time.
Hell, you barely know him.
That might be true, but she couldn’t help the way she felt when she was around him—alive and yet calmed, stimulated and yet soothed, energized and yet balanced. On her own, she was a spinning top. If she ever stopped, she’d fall over. Hence she never stopped. But around Jake, she had the strongest urge to slow down and savor each second like a sinful bite of perfect chocolate cake.
So had Jake seen her and reacted, or not?
Anxiously, she swung her legs over the side of bed, pulling the sheet with her and wrapping it around her naked body. Then, holding her breath, she padded to the window and peeked across the way.
His blinds were still open.
Her heart jumped and she moved closer, squinting in the darkness.
She spied him then, pacing the bedroom of the bungalow across the way. Buck naked, cell phone pressed to his ear.
Air leaked slowly from her lungs as she took him in. The man was beyond magnificent. The reality surpassed any fantasy she’d dreamed up about him.
His body was a work of art, no two ways about it. Had any life-form on earth had a greater impact on her? Gorgeous was not a good word. Handsome didn’t begin to cover it. Exquisite lacked the necessary wonderment she felt at gazing upon this most masculine of males.
Lean, but muscular. Honed and toned and tanned. Impressive pectorals, abs that put washboards to shame. A sprinkling of dark hair trailed from his upper chest down toward his abdomen. Thick, ropey veins crisscrossed his torso, a testament to a good cardiovascular system. Her fingers itched to stroke him. She wished she was closer, could see more, could trace those lines of muscles and veins, sinew and bones down, down, down to the part of him that was uniquely and utter male.
Talk about well endowed! Avery licked her lips and moaned softly. Wonder what he tasted like? Earthy and rich and virile, no doubt. Salty and tangy and delicious.
She knew at once how special this moment was. The first time she saw her lover naked. She drank him in, committed every minute detail to memory.
He’s not your lover.
Maybe not yet, but one way or the other, Avery was determined to make this man hers.
“THE INCIDENT of food poisoning at the resort was not accidental,” Dougal Lockhart told Jake over the phone.
“How do you know?” Jake asked.He paced the length of the bedroom. The night air drifting in through the open window was warm against his skin. His nerves were stretched as taut as piano wire. He splayed a hand to the nape of his neck, dug his fingers into tense muscles. He was trying to listen to his boss, but his mind was on Avery.
“Taylor just got another threatening letter,” Dougal said. “I’m forwarding it to you. But he’s claiming responsibility for the food poisoning.”
Guilt tore at his gut. This had happened on his watch. While he’d been busy thinking about Avery and doing things he shouldn’t have been doing, someone had been tampering with the resort’s food supply. “You’re sure it’s a he?”
“Not certain, no. Just using the pronoun for convenience. It could just as easily be a woman.”
“And Taylor honestly has no idea who could be doing this to her?” he asked.
“She’s in a position of power, and there’s some people who’ve made value judgments against what she does for a living.”
“Yeah, but having an opposing opinion is one thing, taking it to this kind of extreme is another.”
“I agree.”
“Have we put the people closest to her under a microscope? Turned over every rock. Looked in every nook and cranny.”
“Been there,” Dougal said, “repeatedly. Taylor doesn’t have much family. Her husband, Daniel, who’s my best friend. That’s about it.”
“No parents, siblings?”
“No siblings. Mother died when she was a kid. Father passed away a few years ago and left her the airline. No aunts or uncles, cousins are distant. She does have godparents.”
“What about them? Could they be responsible? So often this kind of thing goes back to loved ones.”
“Her godfather is General Charles Miller.”
“Oh,” Jake said. “Well,
it’s not like he’d do something like this.”
“No.” Dougal’s sigh reverberated over the airwaves. “I’m beginning to think we’re never going to catch this saboteur.”
“What’s the saboteur hoping to gain from this?” Jake asked. “What’s his or her motive? Revenge for something? They’re not trying to extort money from her, right? So financial gain is out of the picture.”
“Not so far. From the gist of the threatening letters, I get the feeling the perpetrator wants to scare her into closing down her operation. Some wacko who feels sexy fantasy resorts are immoral.”
“Ah, the moral crusader,” Jake said. “They’re often the most difficult culprits to get a bead on.”
“I know. We’ve looked at some of the people who protested her resorts when she first opened them, but came up empty-handed.”
“It’s frustrating.”
“Yeah. Listen, just be extra vigilant. I hate to fail, and I’ve promised Taylor we’re going to catch this guy.”
“Will do. Anything going on at any of the other three resorts?”
“Not so far. Looks like all the action is in L.A. Taylor is sending out a team of investigators to see if they can find out how the food got tainted, but we want to keep it on the Q.T. Don’t want to alarm the guests.”
“Gotcha.”
“Remember, until proven otherwise, everyone is a suspect,” Dougal reminded him.
“I always assume that.” Jake’s gaze drifted to the window. That meant Avery was a suspect, whether he liked it or not. Could she be behind this? Was that why she was coming on so strong? She’d figured out who he really was and she was toying with him?
Immediately, he dismissed that thought. He didn’t know her well, but his instincts told him Avery was totally aboveboard. From what he could tell, the woman hid nothing. But he couldn’t afford to make any assumptions. Until the saboteur was located, he had to be on guard.
And then after that?
“Let me know if anything out of the ordinary happens. If the perp hadn’t taken credit for the food poisoning, we would have put it off as an accident.”
“Will do.”
“Good night.”
“Night.” Jake hit the end button and tossed his cell phone on the dresser. His gaze fell on the gauzy curtains blowing in the breeze. Tension knotted his stomach. What was Avery doing over there? Had she gone to bed? Was she still awake?
He shouldn’t care. He shouldn’t be thinking like this, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. Like a moth to a flame, he felt drawn toward the window.
Naked as the day he was born, he stepped in front of it, never expecting to find her standing at her window staring straight at him.
Their eyes met, gazes locked.
His breath stilled in his lungs and he felt an overwhelming urge to exit through the window, stalk the few short feet between them and climb into her bedroom.
Avery’s sweet perfect mouth formed a startled O.
Jake’s cock hardened instantly.
Avery raised a hand and for one stupid moment he thought she was waving, beckoning him over. He actually stepped closer to the window.
And then she snapped closed the blinds.
Leaving Jake standing there feeling like a fool.
12
To truly bond with a man, engage him in competition
—Make Love Like a Courtesan
A WIDE ARRAY of mask-making supplies greeted Jorgie when she walked into the room where the event was being held. Preformed, white plaster masks had been laid out on a long folding table. There were three different kinds—the simple eye mask, called a columbina; the full-face mask, known as a volto; and the suggestive, long-nosed mask, dubbed a nasone in Italian.
The art supplies lay on another table adjacent to the one with the masks. A generous assortment of colorful feathers sprawled across one section—ostrich, peacock, turkey. There were a myriad of ribbons in every hue of the rainbow and braided trim of rich fabrics, along with Swarovski crystals, beads, buttons and felt. The tools included scissors, X-Acto knives, primer paint, craft glue, heat guns and sandpaper.Jorgie reached for the long proboscis of a nose mask.
“Remind you of anything?” Quint’s low deep voice caused her to jump and her face to heat.
“You are such a perv,” she said, battling against the flush of guilty pleasure rising up her neck. Because, let’s face it, the noses on the nasone masks looked unsettlingly like dangling male appendages.
“Is that the mask you’re going to pick?” he asked.
She clasped her hands behind her back. “No, of course not.”
“You going with the full mask, then? Or the coquettish columbina?”
“Since we’re a team I thought we’d choose together.”
“Casanova favored the nasone.”
“What a shocker, but you can stop lobbying for the nasone. We’re not going for the penis mask.”
“Jorgie!” Quint chuckled. “I’m shocked.”
“That I know what a penis is?”
“That you would say the word in public.” He looked over his shoulder at the other participants filing into the room.
“Yeah, well, it’s what everyone is thinking.”
“Your boldness surprises me.”
“I’ve learned a lot lately.”
“Like what?”
“If you let the threat of embarrassment stop you from doing things you’ll spend your life on the sidelines. Let’s go with the full-face mask.” She snatched one off the table and tucked it under her arm.
“Okay,” he said, still laughing, and followed her as she moved on over to the art supplies. Several minutes later, they found a workstation and spread out their equipment as Maggie Cantrell explained the specifics of mask-making.
“At the end of this workshop,” she said, “two Venetian artists who specialize in masks will serve as judges. The winner of the competition gets to take out one of the villa’s boats for a private lunch on one of the nearby islands.”
That brought noises of enthusiasm from the group.
“Ready, set, get to making your masks,” Maggie encouraged.
The steps for mask-making were written on a large eraser board positioned at the front of the room, and Maggie put on a video to play featuring a Venetian artisan speaking heavily accented English.
Twenty minutes later, they were elbow-deep in hot glue and sequins and shiny glass beads. They were laughing and joking and working as a team. Amazing, how much fun they were having doing something as simple as making masks. She hadn’t played like this since she was a kid.
“Does your face always light up like sunshine when you’re relaxed?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I guess I don’t relax much.”
“Your boyfriend didn’t do fun stuff like this with you?”
“Are you kidding? Brian was afraid of looking ridiculous.”
“You mean he would never do this?” Quint pulled a comical expression with crossed eyes that had her giggling.
“Never.”
“Sounds like a dullard.”
“I was just as dull.” Jorgie told him about being called conventional.
“Nah, you weren’t dull. He inhibited you. Why were you with him?”
Jorgie paused, pondering the question.
Quint raised an index finger that had a shiny crimson button glued to it and he waggled it at her, making her giggle again. “Unless it’s too painful to talk about, in which case you can tell me to mind my nosy business.”
“You know,” she said, “I haven’t thought about him once since I got here. I guess I wasn’t as invested in him as I believed.”
“He wasn’t right for you.”
“How do you know? You never met the guy.”
Quint shrugged. “When was the last time you laughed this hard?”
Ages and ages, and when she did laugh this hard, it was because of Avery. In fact, she couldn’t think of a single time Brian had ever made her laugh.
“There’s more to life than laughter,” she said, feeling a little defensive.
“Yeah, but laughter makes life worth living.” Quint winked. He leaned over for the hot glue gun sitting on the table beside her. His elbow brushed against her, and she knew it wasn’t accidental. “Jorgie?”
“Yes?”
“This is me and you, right? No Casanova, no Lady Evangeline?”
He peeled the button off his index finger and for one lightning-quick second she saw honest emotion in his eyes, but he quickly looked away.
Her own heart moved, beat faster in response. “Um, could you hand me that spool of aqua ribbon?”
He passed her the ribbon.
She took it from him, pretending to concentrate intensely on the mask so she wouldn’t have to answer his question. She dipped her head and a hank of hair fell across her face. Irritated, she pushed it behind her ears. “Dumb hair.”
“What do you mean?” Quint asked. “Your hair is beautiful.”
“No, it’s not. It’s blah brown.”
“It’s the color of pecan pie.” He was peering at her as if he loved pecan pie, and he was standing so close she could smell his darkly sexy Quint scent. A shiver swept through her in spite of the warm evening.
“How about peacock feathers?” she asked, picking up one long, lovely plume. “Or should we go with ostrich? It’s fuzzier, but the peacock is more dramatic.” She held up both to compare. “What are we going for here? Tactile or visual?”
“Visual is always good, but there’s nothing like touching.” He made grabby motions with his fingertips.
“So the ostrich?”
“Your mask, your call.”
“You don’t like rocking the boat, do you?”
He smiled, shrugged. “I’m easy to get along with.”
“Doesn’t that make you sort of superficial?”
One eyebrow cocked up. “You’re saying I’m shallow?”
“I’m saying you skim through life.”
“What’s wrong with that?” he asked. “It’s easier.”
“You keep going whichever way the wind blows and you’ll end up far from where you really want to be,” she predicted.
