“I’m not taking my damn clothes off.” He yanked his arm from the woman’s grip.
“Sure, mon, no problem. I understand. Then you have to leave the nude area,” she said, holding up a walkie-talkie and shrugging. “If not, I’ll call my boss…my big, strong, muscle-packed boss.”
Anjelee, that little banshee, let out an unladylike howl and bubbly laugh, then plopped down onto the nearest lounge chair to enjoy the show.
Chapter Two
Jager peeled off his aqua polo shirt and dropped it on the pool deck at his sandaled feet. “There. I’m naked. You happy?”
“No, mon, all of it. You don’t take it all off, then you have to either leave the resort, or go to the straight-laced, wimpy side,” said the security guard whose name tag read “Maja”. She fought to suppress a grin while sweeping a hand down the length of Jager’s body.
Anjelee clamped her teeth over her knuckle as she scanned his bare torso. A hard, well-muscled one, at that.
Yum.
“Straight-laced, wimpy side?” He hooked his thumbs in his Levi’s belt loops, his eyes wide and regarding her with offensive disbelief. The muscle along his jaw ticked as he took a long while to consider those insulting words. Ha-ha, the woman appeared to be lumping him in with the prudes, and that made Anjelee grin in utter delight.
“You calling me straight-laced?”
The woman nodded. “Yeah, mon, but irie—as long as you take it all off...”
“Irie?”
“Means ‘everything’s going to be all right’,” the woman explained, eyeing his body with a gleam of hope in her eyes. Hope, no doubt, that everything would turn out all right in her world, too, in that she’d get the opportunity to see him full-bodied nude.
It irked her to admit it, but Anjelee couldn’t blame Maja at all. So she joined in and openly studied Jager’s nice physique. Only because she sat surrounded by such a sexually charged atmosphere did she allow the tingle between her legs to bloom into a simmering heat. The last time she’d seen his bare upper body had been weeks ago in Kabana, Hawaii, when she’d showed up at his hotel suite late at night to taunt him with her camera full of incriminating gay and bi pictures of his celebrity client, Mitch Wulfrum. But she didn’t recall Jager’s skin being quite so smooth and tan, nor did she remember the cut details of every toned muscle and lean line of flesh.
How could she have forgotten such male perfection?
Jager continued to plead his case on deaf ears. “Look, give me a break. I’m not straight-laced by any means. But I shouldn’t have to take my fucking clothes off and show my cock to the whole damn world just to get a chance to talk to her.” He gestured toward Anjelee with an annoyed flip of the hand. “It’s important.”
Anjelee’s gaze followed the faint whorls of chestnut hair that arrowed down his abdomen and disappeared into his denim waistband. His penis didn’t appear to be erect at the moment, but an impressive bulge filled the crotch of his jeans, and it promised a woman hours of pleasure.
But not this woman. Uh-uh.
Her mouth watered at a sudden remembered image. That night in Kabana, she must have awakened him from an erotic dream in his hotel room. She’d suspected it, due to the hard-on that had peeped out from the boxers he’d worn beneath his unzipped, hastily donned pants. At the graphic memory of it, she closed her legs to hold in a trickle of cream that escaped her vagina beneath the sarong. Her nipples darted against the fabric of the swimsuit cover-up. She squirmed on the seat reminding herself he was the enemy, the man who threatened to see her behind bars and her family plunged into permanent poverty. She wouldn’t allow that to happen no matter what sweet-talking scheme he might have up his ass. Her sister, Ali, needed her, and the money, now more than ever.
It could be a matter of life and death, as far as Anjelee was concerned.
“Sir, here on the nude side at Karibu, there ain’t nothing more important to the people than getting naked and partying. So if I let you in with clothes on, I’ve got to let everyone else. Then those here for naked fun will stop coming here, because they start feeling like the clothed people are just here to drool at them. And we can’t have that. Got way more nudist customers than prudes. We need them at Karibu Resort in order to stay in business, mon.” Maja shrugged. “Rules are rules, and money is money. Now you take it all off, or I’ll have to call my supervisor.”
“Yeah, rules are rules, Jager.” Anjelee added a snort.
His penetrating, hazel eyes found hers across the distance. He held her gaze with a withering stare, eyebrows inverted, nostrils flaring. He snorted back. “Yeah, is right. And you, more than anyone, know ‘money is money’.”
Touche.
Anjelee decided not to bite at his sarcasm. Instead, she curled her hands into fists when he shoved his fingers through his short-cropped, brown hair leaving it standing on end. It was the kind of messy that made a woman long to muss it further…or simply grab him by the ears and drag his head down between her legs.
“Fine,” Jager huffed at Maja. To Anjelee, he barked, “Then turn around.”
When his command finally sunk in, laughter bubbled from deep inside her. “Turn around?” She pressed a hand to her chest. “Me?”
“Yes. You.”
She tapped a fingertip on her chin and made a play of fluttering her lashes. “Uh, let me get this straight. We’re at a nude pool, and you want me to turn around while you take off the rest of your clothes?”
He grumbled through his teeth, “Yes. Now turn around, goddamn it, or I’m not taking my pants off.”
There was no stopping it. The hysterics burst from deep inside her belly in an explosion too forceful to suppress. She plopped back on the lounge chair and curled up in a painful fit of hilarity that made her stomach ache and tears puddle in her eyes.
“That’s enough,” he snapped. “This isn’t funny.”
“N-no, you—” Anjelee cackled, cutting herself off as she tried to point at him. She gulped in a lungful of air and fanned herself. “I-I’m telling you, if you don’t stop it, you’re going to make me pee my pants.”
He rolled his eyes. “Funny. You’re such a comedienne.”
“Oh, wait.” She stood, held one hand up and wiped the blur of moisture from her eyes with the other. She couldn’t look at him, she just couldn’t. If she did, she knew she’d start rolling all over again. “I can’t pee my pants because, just like everyone else here, since I’m at a nude resort... I’m. Not. Wearing. Any.”
“Yeah, I noticed. Believe me, I noticed.”
The unmistakable lust in his voice caught her off guard. At last, she glanced over at him and instantly knew it to be the worst mistake of her life.
He stood there naked. Adonis-like naked.
Holy freaking gods above.
Undeniably, drool-worthy gorgeous.
With his wide shoulders held high, his hands fisted and his feet planted apart, she decided she’d never seen anything more magnificent in her entire, sorry life.
With the exception of Keefer.
She frowned. Jager was right. This wasn’t funny. In fact, there was nothing funny about this whole situation anymore. The sight of his narrow hips and crisp nest of dark hair cradling a huge cock, even in its soft stage, was enough to make her want to sob with regret. But her pussy wept, not her eyes. The spot between her legs dampened in female response to the mental images bombarding her brain, cruel images of that shaft getting erect and pummeling her, bringing her to the brink of ecstasy and back. She could easily envision his long, muscular legs flexing as he thrust harder, faster, deeper inside her.
And that pissed her off to no end, almost more than the devastation he could potentially represent in her life.
Unholy crap on a damn stick, what she wouldn’t give for a shot of tequila right about now.
She glanced across the pool and located Keefer. The man was so infuriating. As usual, he had no clue. He stood in the waist-high water at the swim-up bar joking and laughing with two naked cou
ples and the bartender. He held Anjelee’s pinà colada in his hand, every now and then taking a leisurely sip of it as if he had all the time in the world. Well, what did she expect, anyway? Nothing lit a fire under Keefer Giles’s ass, not even the possibility that another man could be threatening her, or moving in on his “best friend”—ha, like he’d give a half turd if anyone did show a romantic or sexual interest in her. Nope, nothing made her dear old pal, Keefer, jealous, and nothing would ever flip the switch in his brain to cause him to look at her as anything more than his little party buddy.
So if he’d even noticed her exchange with Jager, he made no indication of caring, and he made no effort to meander or swim his way back to her across the big pool to check out the situation.
The prick.
So, as usual, she was on her own. In fact, the more she thought of just how alone she really was, the more shallow her respirations became. Gods on high. Jager was here for her, and not in the way she’d like a man. He was here to drag her back to California or Hawaii, or wherever the hell the jurisdiction would be for what crime he perceived her to have committed against his client.
“Shit. This can’t be happening.” She could have sworn she’d covered her tracks. She’d booked her flight under an alias name with a fake I.D. and passport she’d paid dearly for, and had come here with Keefer—though Keefer had assumed it to be just a jack-off trip of fun and sun. He’d planned their trip to chaperone his clients who’d booked with the travel agency he owned. He’d wanted to insure things went smoothly for them, though it was more for him to write his own vacation off on his taxes. For Anjelee, she hung out here simply to await Jager’s—via star, Mitch Wulfrum’s—electronic transfer of funds into a non-U.S. account until she could set the money up in a new account under an assumed name. She’d sent the email anonymously, but based on the wording and its similar content to her last bribe in Kabana, Hawaii, Jager would have known, as she’d sort of wanted him to, exactly who had sent it.
And he would have known that she meant business.
But apparently, so did he. Yep, here he was naked and looking hotter than just about any man she’d ever encountered, while insisting on seeing her behind bars. Sweat trickled down her spine and a wave of dizziness had her gripping the chair for support. Can an American citizen really do a—what the hell do they call it?—citizen’s arrest in Jamaica and extradite the person back to the U.S. against their will? Or was he bluffing?
Since she had no idea one way or the other, there was no stopping the thudding of her heart. She knew she was being a pussy, but still, that familiar sensation assailed her, the one where her head threatened to blow right off her shoulders when a mixture of fear and anger boiled in her blood.
Aw, no, and here comes that feeling of trapped suffocation closing in around me, too.
Under her gasping breaths, she muttered, “I gotta get the hell out of here.”
Anjelee jerked her scrutiny from Jager and snatched up her beach bag. Any other time, any other person, she might consider slinking right up and propositioning him for a little fun if the mood struck her. She would flirt outrageously and pursue anything from drinks, to dinner companionship, to a night of endless, no-strings sex.
But not this time. Not with Jager Manning, wannabe cop, her possible jailer, the Grim Damn Reaper.
She had to leave. There was no other choice. She’d have to flee to another resort, or all the way across the world, anything to get away from him before he apprehended her for initiating a second threat to his client after she’d lied and promised she’d destroyed Mitch Wulfrum’s celebrity-damning pictures and would never demand another cent.
No more time to think about that stupid risk she’d taken.
Run!
Without bothering to slip on her bikini bottoms beneath the sarong, she tore out across the hot tiled pool deck, losing her flip-flops in the process.
“Hey, where ya going?” Keefer called out.
Screw you. Now you ask, you son of a bitch.
Her bare feet didn’t touch ground long enough to burn on the heated surface. She leaped over lounge chairs, dodged tables topped with umbrellas, and raced up the concrete walk leading to the building where her suite was located. Her fake passport, I.D., and cash were in the room’s safe. And her jewelry. Her stomach twisted and lurched. Yes, she might have to pawn off her few pieces of precious jewelry just to survive in hiding until the money showed up in her account. So it was important she made a quick stop in the room before slipping downstairs to the bellhop to request a shuttle to the airport and on to another resort.
Or better yet, to another planet.
Anjelee shot up two flights of stairs. Her pulse pounded, and her braless breasts bounced painfully under the thin garment. She dug in her bag as she went, finally closing her fingers around the room key. Her hand trembled when she slid the electronic card into the slot.
It bleeped red. “Crap.”
She slid it in again, this time slowly, forcing her hand to stay steady. Green. “Thank God.”
Anjelee burst into the cool, tiled room. She tossed the key on the dresser and paced back and forth between the king-sized bed and the French doors. Their luxurious suite overlooked the breathtaking expanse of the aqua, Caribbean Sea, but both the room and the view went unnoticed. All she could think about was Jager standing there magnificently naked with that I’m-going-to-nail-you gleam in his eyes. What the hell should she do?
“Yep. There’s only one choice. Leave.”
She dragged her suitcase out from under the raised bed, ripped off the cover-up and dug for something more appropriate for travel. She found a floral, t-back top and set it aside on the bed, then drew out a pair of jeans and pitched them up on the mattress along with the shirt. Panicked, she rushed around the room in nothing but the sarong, scooping up anything she could get her hands on. She hurled shoes in the suitcase mixed in with all her slut-wear and the many slinky dresses she’d brought for the resort’s nightlife disco parties. To that she piled on g-string swimsuits, skimpy boy-shorts, toiletries, anything her shaking hands could grab hold of.
“Maybe go hide in some remote corner of some godforsaken, fifth-world country no one’s even heard of. For the rest of my shitting life.”
Something rattled across the room in the vicinity of the next room. Her head snapped up on a gasp. She clutched the bag of sex toys she’d been about to pack, pressed them to her bare breasts and stumbled to her feet. Goddamn it, her legs felt like rubber.
Her gaze honed in on the jiggling knob of the door that separated their suite from the next one. All the keys here were plastic cards...except for those that went with the doors between suites. They were there in the event guests desired connecting rooms to enlarge their space, or to offer more seclusion for multiple couples who wanted to mingle and interact privately—sexually—among themselves.
But Anjelee and Keefer didn’t know the people on either side of them, so that damn door should stay locked.
Could it be that asshole, Jager, or was a stranger trying to break into her room? Great, just what she needed at a critical time like this.
The knob jiggled again.
She stifled a scream and gripped the bag as if it would protect her from the devil himself. She backed up and reached for the phone’s receiver, brought it shakily to her ear and tried to recall the number to the front desk. Was it one, zero, what?
The door swung open and crashed against the wall. Anjelee shrieked. Why she dropped the phone instead of the toys, she didn’t know, but it clattered to the tile floor and out of reach beneath the bed.
Speak of the fucking devil.
“Jager.”
“Calling someone to come and help you escape?”
He planted his sparsely furred, muscular legs apart and crossed his arms over his chest. And doinking bugs alive, he was still nude. She tried to avert her stare, but there was no ignoring that half-erect, long cock jutting out from the nest of brown curls. Her pulse had been raci
ng out of fear, but of all idiotic things, it suddenly went into turned-on mode.
Damn it.
“What do you think you’re doing here?”
He strolled into the room and lounged back on the bed right in front of her. Holy foley, did he ever look magnificent and virile. And apparently, based on his hardening cock, the prick was getting off on this chase.
“Keeping an eye on you so you don’t fly the coop, of course.”
She winged the zippered bag at him causing a toy inside to spring to life. Over its buzz, she hissed, “You’re not the boss of me.”
He caught the sack against his chest without even taking his burning gaze off hers, never making an indication he noticed one of her many vibrators clanking against all the others in the bag. “I am now.”
“What, are you a thief or something? How did you get in here?”
He winked and rubbed two fingertips together. “You should know. Money talks. Sometimes even nets you a door key…for the right price.”
“Oooh.” She stomped a foot. “You jerk!”
He chuckled and braced one arm behind his head. The bag of pulsating sex toys was tucked under his other arm like a football. His biceps bulged and, accompanied with the sarcastic laugh, his abdomen rippled like low, powerful waves on the ocean’s surface. Waves with deadly sea snakes slithering beneath the surface, no doubt.
“I wear that badge proudly,” he boasted, grinning with a mouthful of perfect white teeth. “At least in your company I do.”
“Get out.”
He launched to his feet so quickly, she stumbled backward against the nightstand. “Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.” He scratched his head in mock reflection. “Something just occurred to me. Did you just call me a thief a minute ago?”
Anjelee’s fury had been simmering low and in check—until now. She smacked her hands on her hips and screeched, letting it erupt into a full-blown geyser. “Uh, hello there, breaking news. You’re the one who burst into my room without permission. Or are you too dunce to realize what you just did? It’s called breaking and entering, and it’s against the law.”
Karibu Heat (Sequel to Kabana Heat) Page 2
