by Sami Lee
“I don’t recall that conversation.”
“Five nights in the beautiful Australian tropics, sharing a room with my good buddy, a fox of a girl with whom I occasionally do the bump and grind. Sex was implied.”
Of course Hayley had intended to have sex with Ty while she was here. They were, for want of a better term, friends who enjoyed a full range of benefits. She’d first met Ty eighteen months ago in Canada when she’d been bartending at a ski resort and he’d been trying out snowboarding in his usual, take-no-prisoners fashion. They’d bonded immediately the way that fellow Australians in foreign lands tended to do, and Hayley had landed in bed with him within three hours of their initial meeting.
It was the first time Hayley had ever done anything like it—sex as recreation. It was a revelation for someone who’d waited until university to lose her virginity to a long-term boyfriend. Who always waited at least five dates before letting a man remove even a stitch of her clothing. Who’d waited for almost a year for Mitch to notice her, like some pitiable creature in a 1970s romance novel.
With Ty, she hadn’t waited, and it had liberated her from the rules she’d always followed. He wasn’t the only man she’d gone to bed with over the past two years, but he had been the most regular. With Ty, everything was an adventure, and Hayley had learned to go along for the ride without expecting it to last. According to Ty, the wildest rides never did.
“You’re still in love with him, aren’t you?”
Ty had stopped walking and now looked down at her with a serious expression. Ty’s gaze was so rarely serious that Hayley caught her breath. “That would be pretty silly of me, wouldn’t it?”
Ty’s breath fanned her face as he sighed. He lifted a hand to her cheek and cupped it. “You’re not silly, Hales. You’re one of the smartest, sassiest girls I’ve ever met.”
Hayley had to swallow a lump that formed in her throat. “Thanks.”
“And I…” He held her gaze so steadily that Hayley froze. Oh no, surely Ty wasn’t going to say… “I really, really need to get into your pants. Like now. Ten minutes ago, in fact.”
“Oh…you dork!” Hayley gave his chest an almighty shove, sending Ty careening backward. There was no way she could have bested him had he been completely sober, but already unbalanced from too many rum cocktails, he was a…well, a pushover. He landed with a splash in the shallow water.
Hayley tried not to show how hard she was laughing when Ty glared at her. “You’ll pay for that.”
“Who’s going to make me?”
The menacing twinkle in Ty’s brown eyes was obvious even in the meager light. Letting out a squeal, Hayley bolted up the beach just as Ty rose out of the water. She headed for the resort but didn’t get far before Ty caught her around the waist, lifted her with one buff arm and tossed her over his shoulder.
“Ty!” Hayley tried for sternness but she was laughing too hard, and the position winded her. “Put me down!”
“I will—as soon as I find a bed. Where is the damn room anyway?”
From her inverted position, Hayley saw the discreet pathway that wound through the resort grounds. “You can’t haul me through the hotel like I’m a sack of potatoes!”
“Who says?”
Emitting a frustrated growl, Hayley hit the nearest part of him she could reach—his rock-hard butt. It only made Ty laugh. “Kinky. Gimme more.”
Full of devilish mischief and cocktails, Hayley slipped her hand beneath the waistband of his wet pants and touched skin. Hard and smooth, Ty’s skin never ceased to amaze and arouse her. He was all toned, hairless muscle and sinew, despite his tendency to party almost as much as he trained.
Her exploration forced a growl from Ty’s throat. He turned his head and nipped her exposed bottom with his teeth. “Hey!”
“You started it. Ah, fuck this.”
Hayley found herself upright again as Ty set her on her feet. She swayed a little but he held her steady against his body. She felt the solid ridge of his erection pressing against her stomach through his wet pants and gasped. Ty took advantage of her parted lips, covering them with his and sending his tongue on an exploration of its own.
He kissed the way he rode waves—with gusto and an unflinching killer instinct. Hayley willingly gave over to the swamping sensations his impudent lips always evoked. Anything to push memories of that other man, of that other kiss, to the farthest reaches of her mind.
A pained sound burst from her as she realized what she was doing—using Ty to assuage the mixture of carnal need and emotional turmoil seeing Mitch again had generated. She placed her hands on Ty’s chest and levered herself backward, breaking them apart.
Ty gazed down at her in the scant illumination, his eyes turning serious again. He brushed the tips of his fingers over her cheek. “I don’t care, Hales.”
“About what?”
“That you’re in love with a dickhead who doesn’t love you back. I’m the one about five minutes away from having hot sex with you.”
The realization that Ty saw the depth of her tumult over Mitch’s reappearance in her life made Hayley’s face heat. “Ty, I’m so—”
“No apologies,” Ty cut her off. “No hearts and flowers, no strings. That’s what we always said, just fun and nothing more.”
Ty grabbed the hem of his wet navy T-shirt and stripped it off, revealing every muscle and every small tattoo that decorated his body. One on his left arm of a Looney Tunes character riding a wave, a yin and yang sign just above his right hip, and on his left pec a small red heart with a fissure running through it.
Reaching out, Hayley traced the outline of the heart-shaped tattoo on Ty’s pectoral muscle. Under her light touch, his flesh rippled. “You’ve never told me why you got this one.”
“There’s nothing to say.” Encircling her wrist with his fingers, he moved her hand away from that place, almost as if he didn’t want her touching the cracked heart that marked his skin. He urged her hand downward, until it encountered the bump at the front of his wet cargo pants. “I’ll talk all about this bad boy, though, if you want.”
Hayley chuckled. “Really? What’s to tell?”
“It wants inside your sweet, tight little body. Right now, I don’t care what you feel for that Murray dude.” Ty urged her palm to move over his hard-on. “As long as you’re feeling me.”
Hayley’s lips curved. “His name is Mitch.”
She shouldn’t have spoken his name aloud. It was like calling the devil and having him appear to insinuate himself into every stroked touch, every rasped breath. Mitch… Mitch. Would he respond with such open enjoyment if she took hold of his member and stroked? Would he rip open his pants the way Ty was doing, letting her know how badly he needed her touch on his bare skin?
Probably not. Mitch had to be in control of every situation. He couldn’t admit need because he’d see that as showing a weakness.
“Turn around, Hales. I wanna see your tatt.”
Ty’s voice rumbled, bringing her back to the man with her. Ty was so sexy when he got that focused gleam in his eye, when his body tensed with primal desire. Desire for her. If you can’t be with the one you love…
Hayley had a tattoo?
Mitch didn’t particularly like tattoos on women, but he’d give his right arm to be the one staring at Hayley’s right now. Where was it? On her back? On the heart-shaped swell of her taut little butt?
The sound of Ty Butler’s groan of appreciation made Mitch tighten his grip on the glass of straight scotch he’d poured himself a few moments ago when he’d stalked into his suite. He’d come out to recline on a patio chair, hoping the night air would cool the fire of raging jealousy that had turned his blood to acid, desperate to escape the memory of watching Hayley acting out several scenes from Dirty Dancing with some reprobate in a T-shirt who looked like he hadn’t shaved in a week. Instead of escapism he was now being confronted by the evidence of all he’d lost.
All he’d thrown away.
Throug
h the foliage, Hayley’s giggle filtered up to Mitch’s ears. “Stop it, Ty. Not here.”
“You’re shy, all of a sudden? Did you forget about Hawaii?”
Hayley’s voice lowered to an intimate thrum. An aroused thrum. “I could never forget about Hawaii.”
“I bet Pete still thinks about it too. He probably jerks off every time he remembers how you let him watch while I made you come.”
Holy. Mother. Of. God. Mitch froze, his heart suspending. Had Hayley participated in a threesome?
The idea stunned Mitch. The Hayley he remembered was sweet and innocent, someone who played by the rules. Yet now Mitch had to wonder if Hayley had ever been as pure and conservative as he’d presumed. It only made the fact he’d given up his one chance to be with her all the more galling. What if he’d asked her to stay two years ago instead of letting her board an aeroplane for parts unknown? Would she have explored her kinky appetites with him instead of a couple of random beach bums?
Not that Mitch would have been willing to share her with someone else the way Ty Butler apparently had. Mitch had always wanted Hayley Bryant all to himself. But she’d been Mack’s friend, a young girl his sister had mentored in high school, someone he’d promised to watch over. Seducing her then had been out of the question.
What about now?
You’re in love with a dickhead who doesn’t love you back.
Was Hayley really in love with him? Was she thinking about him while she was letting that asshole touch her?
“You were wearing that blue sarong and a white bikini underneath it.” Ty continued the recitation that Mitch couldn’t help but overhear, despite how much it killed him. “You let me tug aside those tiny triangles of material and suck your pretty nipples. You let me slip my hand beneath your sarong and stroke your pussy until you moaned. And you knew Pete wasn’t asleep. You knew you were giving him a hell of a show, and you loved every minute of it.”
Hayley gasped, the sound floating on the air as a drawn-out parody of the word yes. Mitch knew, just knew, that Ty Butler was touching her, stroking inside her feminine heat as he reminded her of what they had previously done together. Mitch didn’t know which was worse—facing the truth of Hayley’s history with another man or the knowledge that she was allowing that same man access to her body right now, while Mitch sat alone, forced to absorb every gut-wrenching word.
Get out of here, Wood. It doesn’t matter if she still has feelings for you, you’ve lost her forever. Do you really need this blow-by-blow reminder?
The only way he’d be able to escape without being detected was if he crawled on his hands and knees back to his room and slipped out the door. But Mitch wasn’t the crawling type. And then what was he going to do? Walk around the resort with a very obvious hard-on?
Because as horrific as it was to listen to Hayley giving herself over to somebody else, it was also hellishly arousing. Mitch was so hard the formerly loose fit of his trousers had grown unbearably restrictive.
“Yeah, that’s it,” Ty husked, his voice scraping along Mitch’s nerves. “You always get so wet when I talk about that night. You loved being the sole focus of two men, didn’t you? Loved knowing Pete was coming with us as he watched you fuck me.”
“Oh, Ty. Make me come.”
“I will, babe. Jesus, you are one hot piece of ass.”
Hayley’s whimpers mingled with Ty’s ragged breaths, the unmistakable sounds of two people climbing toward the pinnacle of sexual release. Mitch was dying where he lay, horror-struck and horny and filled to the brim with bitter, breathtaking regret. He could have had it all, but he’d denied himself the things he longed for because he thought it was the right thing to do. He thought his desires would repulse or scare Hayley, that he’d be too rough, too dominating.
But now she was with Ty, a man who clearly didn’t deserve her. How was that the best thing for her?
And what about you? Do you deserve her?
“You’re going to come like this, Hales,” Ty stated. “With me fucking you from behind while you’re wondering if anyone is going to stumble upon us. Maybe they’ll hang back and watch, just like Pete did that night.”
“Yes. Oh, yes.”
“Or are you too busy thinking about that loser who blew it with you and wishing you were with him and not me?”
A muscle ticked in Mitch’s jaw. As the loser who blew it, he felt on some level that he deserved to hear all this, to listen to how comprehensively Hayley had discarded him. To face how wanton and adventurous she’d been with men who weren’t him. This was his penance for mishandling things with her two years ago. He should have been kinder with her.
No. He should have been honest with her. He’d told her they couldn’t be together because he was her boss, instead of admitting how terrified he was. Terrified that he needed her too much, that those particular needs would frighten her, that he’d somehow tarnish her sweet innocence with his savage desire to own her completely, that in forcing her to submit to his whims he’d somehow break her.
The woman out there in the trees, making it with a man where anyone could see or hear them wasn’t so easy to break. The kind of woman who participated in three-way exhibitionism wouldn’t shy from what Mitch wanted. His dominant tendencies were relatively tame compared to that. Mitch might have laughed if he wasn’t in such physical and emotional agony. He tried to block out the reality of Hayley’s words, the passion in her voice as she begged the man she was with to do things to her Mitch wished he could do. That he pictured himself doing just to make it through this torment.
When Hayley moaned, “Oh, Ty, I’m coming. Fuck me harder, I’m coming,” Mitch inserted his own name for that of the other man. He imagined himself fucking Hayley as she convulsed around him. His cock twitched and burned with unfulfilled longings, but he refused to jerk off while listening to Hayley screw somebody else. He could exert that much control over himself, at least.
The sounds of their combined groans and whimpers told Mitch they’d climaxed together. It was like having a sword slice through his gut. That their mutual pleasure was so much worse than everything else might be illogical, but Mitch didn’t want Hayley sharing her orgasms with anybody else. He wanted her to save them for him, to beg him for each and every one after he’d spent long hours teasing her to the point where she was no longer in control, where she gave herself over to him in every way. Her body, her heart, her mind. He wanted every part of Hayley Bryant to belong to him, just as he always had.
Their whispered voices faded into the night as Ty and Hayley slipped along the path, presumably to their room. Their room. No doubt the uncouth surfer dude would have her there too. If Hayley were sharing Mitch’s room he’d certainly take advantage of it. He wouldn’t sleep a wink all night. He’d make it his mission to keep her in a constant state of arousal, to make her tremble with desire and weep his name over and over before he gave her the ultimate ecstasy then finally took his own.
Mitch had always been a goal-oriented person, a planner. He was the type who identified what he wanted and did what it took to get it. He’d made a mistake two years ago by letting Hayley slip away from him. He wouldn’t make the same one again.
Enjoy your night with her, Butler. The thought was bittersweet in Mitch’s mind as his intentions formed, hardening like granite. It’s going to be your last.
Chapter Four
Hayley awoke at dawn with a heavy heart. Beside her lay a man who had spent the better part of the preceding eight hours satisfying her every sexual need, but as the sky beyond their suite’s window turned a pinkish gray, all she felt was empty. Tequila had made her decisions for her last night. Now that it had well and truly worn off, Hayley was less than proud of herself.
She’d assuaged her longing for one man by using the body of another. What kind of person did that? The answer was simple—a desperate one. All Hayley had wanted was to forget about Mitch, to pretend every feeling she’d ever had for him hadn’t returned in a rush the second she’d laid e
yes on him in Bar Evoke. She’d thought Ty could make that happen. Yet what little sleep she’d had last night had been plagued by dreams of Mitch.
Hayley slipped out of bed, unsurprised when Ty didn’t stir. He worked hard, played harder and dropped like the proverbial log when sleep called. Besides, there was no reason Ty’s slumber should be disturbed by guilt. She was the one who’d behaved dreadfully.
After taking a quick shower, Hayley dragged on the first sarong and tank top she found, and silently slipped away from the source of her guilt. The salt-scented air outside balmed her soul as she breathed it in. She strolled lazily through the grounds, letting the tranquility of her surroundings sooth some of her disquiet. Bilby Island was a beautiful place. Perhaps she ought to consider Kylie’s offer and take a job here, for a few months at least. Until she figured out what she really wanted to do.
Back when she’d worked at Mitch’s intern, she’d thought she’d had her future all mapped out. She’d thrived on the demands of corporate life, and she’d longed to make a name for herself, be a success. The transient life she’d lived over the past two years, a life devoid of possessions and schedules and goals, had shown her the only thing that truly mattered was the moment, the here and now. The future didn’t exist until it became the present, and the past couldn’t hurt you if you didn’t let it.
Were you true to that edict last night when you let the past consume you?
Hayley released a weighty sigh. Thinking back on all she’d said to Mitch as they’d danced, she was forced to face how bitter she’d sounded. And recalling how she’d drunk too much and made a spectacle out of her relationship with Ty purely for Mitch’s benefit made her face heat with shame. Perhaps Mitch had been right to reject her two years ago. Maybe she was simply too immature to handle a man like him.
As she turned onto the path that would take her down to the beach, a flash of movement to her left arrested her attention. Her steps faltered as, through the plate glass windows encasing the resort’s gymnasium, she saw a man running on a treadmill. Although those windows would provide a spectacular view of the Pacific Ocean, the man’s head was bent, his gaze intent on the machine’s digital display.
