by Sabrina York
Smoking Holt
A Tryst Island Erotic Romance
by Sabrina York
Smoking Holt
ISBN 978-0-9891577-2-8
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Rebound Copyright © 2013 Sabrina York
Edited by Monica Britt
Cover design by Wicked Smart Designs
Electronic book publication August 2013
Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/). Please purchase only authorized electronic or print editions and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted material. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.
The publisher and author(s) acknowledge the trademark status and trademark ownership of all trademarks, service marks and word marks mentioned in this book.
The publisher does not have any control over, and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.
Dedication
This book is dedicated toDesiree Holt, Gina Lamm and Alexandra Cross. When you read the book, you’ll know why, if you don’t already.
Acknowledgements
First of all, thanks to my amazing beta readers, Charmaine Arredondo, Carmen Cook, Shelly Estes and Hollie Reith. My deepest appreciation to Wicked Smart Designs for a rocking cover, and to Monica Britt for helping me whip this novella into shape.
Thank you so much to my dear writerly friends for your support: Avery Aster, Sidney Bristol, Cerise de Land, Delilah Devlin, Tina Donahue, Kate Hill, Desiree Holt, Gina Lamm and Kate Richards. And to Crystal Biby, Dee Thomas, Angie Lane, Laurie Peterson, Regina Ross and Ronlyn Howe, I adore you.
To all my friends in the Greater Seattle Romance Writers of America, Passionate Ink and Rose City Romance Writers groups, thank you for all your support and encouragement.
Chapter One
It was raining. The patter of the raindrops pounded a relentless tattoo on the umbrella over her head, but Bella didn’t care.
It suited her mood.
The night was dark, damp. She could hear the restless crash of the waves on the beach, but couldn’t see anything beyond the veil of mist. Thunder rumbled in the distance, as though the gods wanted to grumble a complaint about the way life was turning out, but lacked the inspiration to give it full force.
Yeah. The weather suited her mood perfectly. Hunkering deeper into the patio chair, she took another deep draw on her cigarette.
She hated the taste, the smell, the burn in her throat, but there was a deep satisfaction in the action. Watching the embers flare. Seeing the paper darken and curl and then waft away in a drift of smoke. As though she could burn away all the petty annoyances, all the disappointments, all the failures of her life.
No one knew she still smoked—not her sister Kristi, not her mom, none of her friends. That was part of the thrill, she supposed.
Her secret rebellion.
She reached for the tumbler of whiskey—her not-so-secret rebellion—and tipped it back. Then filled it again. A warm glow infused her as the spirit slid smoothly into her veins.
God, she needed this.
Time to herself. Time to smoke and drink with no one watching or judging or, for fuck’s sake, nagging.
She’d come to the beach house she shared with her friends two days early—breaking the rules and not signing in on their online calendar. Because, fuck it. She needed to get away. So after a dismal meeting with her distributor, picking up some new sample items, she headed straight for the ferry, a dark cloud of doom swirling around her.
Her business was struggling; bills were piling up. Her love life was miserable. That last date with Jeremy had been a disaster of shit-storm proportions. And to top it all off, everything seemed to be going just swimmingly for Kristi.
Bella had no right to be jealous of her older sister, who had finally connected with the man of her dreams—the guy she’d been in love with since fucking college. But damn it, it pissed her off. Everything always seemed to work out for Kristi. All she had to do was show up, flash that bright smile and the universe laid everything right at her feet.
Bella had to work, slave, fight for everything. Every goddamn little thing.
Kristi’s coffee bar was thriving. Somehow she and Lucy had done everything right, setting up shop in Montlake, the heart of computer nerd country and a short hop from the bustling University of Washington. On a bad day there were lines out the door. Bella’s boutique was lucky to get ten customers a day. Granted, she had a more select clientele, but if she didn’t find a way to drive more customers to her business, it was going to have to close. And then what would she do?
Go sling Americanos for her sister?
How mortifying would that be?
And how awful would it be to let Abel and Mirriam go? Mirriam had two kids. She needed this job. And she was damn good at it.
Bella scrubbed her eyes with the heel of her palm, as though that could make her seething thoughts settle. But they didn’t. Couldn’t.
Like a heat seeking missile, they settled on the other frustration burning a hole in her gut. Her love life.
She snorted. Love life. Right.
A couple of dates with a guy, who only wanted to “tap that” as he put it, did not a love life make. She should have known Jeremy was a douche nozzle. He had all the hallmark tags. Hell, he waved red flags like a semaphore expert.
But she was no expert in reading the signs. Clearly.
She’d allowed him to flirt with her, then woo her and then finally seduce her.
She’d thought there’d been something there, a flicker of attraction at least. Turned out it was only a notch on a bedpost—a bedpost scarred with other notches.
And on top of all of that, despite her determined vegan dieting, she’d gained another pound. Honestly. One bacon bender had wiped away all her hard work. Like a sandcastle obliterated by a tsunami. Of bacon.
Kristi could eat like there was no tomorrow and still somehow seemed to be curvy, not plump. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair at all.
Bella stubbed out her cigarette and lit another. Not that she was chain smoking. She wasn’t. She just knew once everyone else showed up for the weekend, she’d be back to chewing nicotine gum. It was now or never.
The house would be full this weekend, if everyone who signed in showed up. There would be no opportunity to sneak off for a smoke.
Why that made a sizzle of exasperation curl through her gut, she didn’t know. It had nothing to do with the fact he was coming. Hell, she didn’t even think about Holt Lamm anymore. She had purged him from her mind completely. Completely.
And she wasn’t addicted.
Smoking was a rebellion, not a habit.
She could quit anytime she wanted to.
She just didn’t want to.
But she didn’t want anyone else to know. And didn’t want to think on why. Surely she didn’t care what they thought of her.
Bella Cross was a freaking rebel. Everyone knew it. Her tattoos and piercings screamed it. She was the daughter of a minister. She owned a sex shoppe. Surely that illustrated her bone-deep mutinous nature.
Tipping back her second drink, she poured another, ignoring the wobble of her hand
. It was her intention to get shit-faced tonight. Maybe then she could forget about—
No! She wasn’t thinking about him. She wasn’t.
God damn Holt anyway. Why did he have to be so fucking good looking? He was tall and muscular and solid. His hair and eyes were dark, his hair long and wild—just the way she liked it. And he simmered with repressed sexuality.
Well, maybe not so repressed.
Yeah. That was what pissed her off. The fact that he fucked anything in a skirt—tied it down and fucked it—but he wouldn’t even look at her sideways. He never flirted with her. Not the way he flirted with Emily. And Kaitlin. And—for fuck’s sake—Kristi.
It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair.
Everyone wanted Kristi. Every guy she’d ever even liked or dated or slept with just really wanted Kristi.
Shit.
She should just give up on men and become a nun.
Could nuns run sex shoppes?
Well hell. What did it matter? In six months she’d be broke. Her little shoppe would close.
She could be a nun then.
Probably better smoke all she could now.
She was in the process of lighting another cigarette—preparing for impending nunnery—when a light flared behind her.
Crap! No one was supposed to be here until Friday!
Bella whipped around and glared into the living room behind her. And her heart froze in her throat. A tall, dark form emerged from the shadows in the hall. Irritation—and something else entirely—crawled through her belly.
As though she had conjured him from her dismal ruminations, Holt Lamm had arrived on Tryst Island.
He saw her and his steps slowed. He dropped his duffel onto a chair and headed for the slider.
Bella glanced at the cigarette she held. The pack on the table. The saucer filled with butts. Oh, sure, she could scramble and try to hide it all, but she would fail. And, according to the whiskey swimming through her veins, she didn’t give a shit if he knew or not.
She was a fucking rebel. And if he didn’t like it, he could go fuck himself.
Hell, he was probably the only person on the planet—aside from herself—he hadn’t fucked.
She snorted at her own inebriated humor.
That was half the fun of being drunk—your thoughts seem clever for once.
The door slid open and Holt stepped out onto the deck. Bella turned to study the gloomy marine layer and sucked in another draw on her cigarette, deliberately ignoring him.
Which was stupid.
But necessary.
He sat in the patio chair by her side and shook the raindrops from his head.
She didn’t look. Didn’t need to. She knew what his long locks looked like wet. And dry. And pulled back. And flowing freely. She’d memorized every aspect of his being.
The heat rolling off him in waves was probably pure imagination on her part. Nobody could be that hot and not just burst into flames.
“Bella.” His voice was a low rumble, which she found provoking. Probably because of the hint of rebuke threaded through the word. Still, the sound of her name on those lips made her restless. Itchy.
“Holt.” This, she blew out in a puff of smoke. The breeze caught it, danced it away. Would that she could dance away as well.
The thought of spending the next two days alone with him was torture. Absolute torture. Every time she so much as glanced at him a ping of pain hummed through her soul.
He leaned back in his chair, stretched his long legs out under the glass table and threaded his fingers over his belly. Her gaze fixated on his boots. Why did he have to be wearing boots? And leathers?
The fact that he rode his Harley almost everywhere was just one more thing that annoyed the shit out of her. Surely it wasn’t because he was a much more authentic rebel than she.
“No one’s supposed to be here until Friday.” Okay. She probably didn’t need to snap like that, but goddamn it anyway. Why was he here?
He picked up the whiskey bottle, checked the level and then took a swig. “I finished my project early. Decided to take the rest of the week off.”
Yeah. Someone else with a thriving business. Someone else with an enormously successful career. She grunted and muttered under her breath, “Must be nice.”
“And why are you here on a Wednesday?”
As if it was any of his business. She glared at him. “Slow week.” Fuck. Every week was a slow week. Abel and Marianne had agreed to cover the store. With so few customers, merchandise was gathering dust on the shelves. Why not come here and lick her wounds in private?
But it wasn’t private.
Not now.
If she wasn’t so drunk—and if the last ferry hadn’t already sailed—she would just go home now. She tipped back her glass and drained it, though it was still half full. Then she attempted to wrestle the bottle from him. He didn’t seem to want to release it.
“Haven’t you had enough?” he asked.
The idiot.
She snarled at him. No words. Just a snarl. He let the bottle go with a shrug, raising his hands in the air and she filled her glass. To the fucking brim.
“I didn’t know you still smoked.”
Yeah. There it was. Finally. She’d been waiting for that bomb to drop.
She lit another cigarette—although there was one already burning—and glared at him through the billow of smoke. He was so annoying with that chiseled jaw, those full, lush lips and slumberous, heavy-lidded eyes. That goddamned five-o’clock shadow drove her fucking crazy.
“Does Kristi know?”
Fury and frustration and hunger roiled in her chest. Why couldn’t he ever, like once, think about her? Why was it always about Kristi? “Fuck you, Holt. I don’t answer to anyone.”
He laughed, which pissed her off even more. “No. You don’t. Do you?”
What the fuck was that supposed to mean?
She opened her mouth to ask, but before she could, he added, “You always did march to the beat of another drummer.”
Something in his tone—something that definitely wasn’t scorn—snagged her attention. Was she just drunk, or had that been a tinge of…admiration? She narrowed her eyes and studied him. “What is that supposed to mean?” Though she voiced her thought, the question lacked her trademark bitterness. The prospect of Holt having even a smidgen of respect for her was tantalizing. Dangerous, perhaps, but tantalizing.
He took another drink from the bottle and shrugged. “You just live your life the way you want. Say what needs to be said. You don’t give a shit what other people think.”
“I give a shit.” But this, she mumbled. There was a distinct difference between not giving a shit and letting people think you didn’t give a shit. She’d made an art of the latter. The scary truth was, she probably cared too much. Sometimes it hurt, how much she cared.
She turned away, away from his too-observant, simmering gaze, away from his heat, and stared out into the night. A shiver took her. The evening was cold and damp. She should probably go inside.
Instead, she lit another cigarette.
He snorted a laugh.
“What?” she snapped.
“You already have two going.” She flicked a glance at her impromptu ashtray. Yup, sure enough, there were two cigarettes already burning.
She shrugged and forced a devil-may-care tone. “What can I say? I have an oral fixation.”
He went still at her side, prompting her to look in his direction. The fire in his eyes seared her.
“What?” Again, a snap. God, he was irritating.
He licked his lips as though he wanted to say something, but the words were stuck in his throat.
“What?”
A tiny smile quirked on his handsome face. “If you didn’t hate my guts so much, I’d be tempted to give you something else to fixate on.”
Her heart thudded painfully. And not just at the sudden, scalding image of her lips wrapped around Holt’s cock. She fiddled with her lighter
. “I-I don’t hate your guts.”
“Really?” He took another swig of whiskey. And then another. “You could have fooled me. You called me a—what was it again?—a douche nozzle?”
“You were acting like a douche nozzle. I mean, really. What decent man dates five women at once?”
“They all knew the score. There was no agreement of monogamy. And what else am I? A peckerwood. A horndog.” His voice dropped an octave. “A degenerate.”
A red tide crawled up her neck. Yeah. She’d said all those things. But she hadn’t meant them. Not really.
“If the shoe fits…”
“But it wasn’t what you said…it was how you said it. As though it tasted bad.”
She didn’t like the wounded expression on his face, or the throb in this tone. Had her careless words really cut that deep? She didn’t like the way that made her feel at all.
So she went on the defensive.
“You’re the one who can’t stand me.” She didn’t know why she said that out loud. Or why the words seemed to wrench from the very depths of her soul.
Oh. Wait. She did know why she said it.
The whiskey.
But, it was the truth. Whenever he glanced at her, the tiny lines around his mouth would tighten and his attention would slide away—toward Kristi, or some other female. Whenever he wandered into a room and saw her there alone he would just veer off in another direction. And when he spoke to her—whenever he deigned to address her directly—his words were curt and clipped.
