As Hot As It Gets

by Jamie Sobrato

  Claire looked around the dark club and sighed. “I doubt we’re going to see much of anything now.”

  “I’m thinking I should go check out the problem and make sure it’s being handled.”

  Claire’s grip on his thigh tightened. “Don’t you have people to take care of stuff like that?”

  “Yeah, but this is a first for the resort. People may not be familiar with procedures yet.” But she was right, and he did trust his managers for the most part to handle the problem.

  The music had stopped. Around them, people were talking and laughing nervously. The club had taken on the hushed tone that always followed a power outage, as if people were afraid talking too loudly would keep the power from coming back on.

  Emergency lights kept the club at least dimly lit, enough that people didn’t have to bump into each other to get around. The lights showed the way to the exits, and normal procedure for a power outage was for people to be evacuated from the building.

  Employees gathered at the bar, and Mason could hear them discussing that very issue when the lights flickered and came back on.

  The club manager appeared on stage. “Thanks for your patience, everyone. We’re thinking either the storm’s hitting the island hardest right now or else there are too many people using the hot tubs at the same time.” People laughed, and he continued. “So let’s get this party rolling.”

  The music started up again, and the atmosphere in the club changed instantly back to its former level of joviality.

  “Close call,” Claire said.

  “Who knows if that’s the end of the problem though.”

  A few minutes later, Mike D. set their drinks on the bar, and soon after a waitress came with their appetizer platter.

  “Mmm, thanks for thinking of food. All this sexual anticipation’s making me hungry.”

  Claire picked up a shrimp and dipped it in mango sauce, then took her time biting into it as she kept her gaze fixed on Mason. He felt his groin stir and decided if he didn’t get Claire out of his system and off his island soon, he’d go insane.

  They devoured the appetizers and ordered a second platter, all the while keeping their eyes peeled for any nefarious goings on. But no luck. After an hour and a half at the bar, they both agreed that they needed to tackle the problem more directly.

  “You sure you want to do this?” Claire asked. “I can do the asking.”

  “Thanks, but I think it’s more convincing if I do it.”

  He caught Mike D.’s attention and motioned him over.

  “What can I get for you? Another round?” the bartender asked when he reached them.

  “Actually,” Mason said, leaning in close and speaking as low as possible over the sound of “Red, Red Wine” being played by the band. “I was hoping to order something that’s not on the menu.”

  Mike D. gave him a speculative look. “If I know how to make it, it’s yours.”

  “Not a drink.”

  “What then?”

  “I’ve heard there are special services to be had here for the right price.”

  “Oh yeah? Who’d you hear that from?” The bartender’s tone was more suspicious than helpful. Mason clearly hadn’t earned his trust, nor had he expected to so easily.

  He produced a fifty-dollar bill from his wallet and placed it on the bar, then slid it across to him.

  “For information,” Mason said. “I’m looking for a little third-party companionship for my girlfriend and I, if you know what I mean.”

  The bartender’s expression softened. “I think your meaning’s becoming clear to me.” He picked up the money and tucked it in his chest pocket. “What kind of companionship are you interested in?”

  Mason tried his best to look like a sleazebag. “A little S and M action, maybe?”

  “For you or for the lady?” He nodded at Claire, who was doing her best to look bored.

  “For her,” he said. “I like to watch.”

  Mike D. nodded. “Got it. Who told you you’d find something like that here?”

  “Another guest at the resort. One of your happy customers.”

  “I’ll need your name and room number, plus five hundred dollars cash up front.”

  He could have ended the conversation right there and fired Mike D. on the spot, but he wanted to see just how much information he could gather and how many of his employees might be involved. For all he knew, this was just the tip of the iceberg.

  He withdrew five hundred from his wallet.

  “Whoa, man,” the bartender whispered. “No big money exchanged over the counter. You gotta wait till I bring you your bill. Then pay for the drinks and the other stuff at the same time. Got it?”

  “Oh, right man.”

  “And write your information on a napkin and put it inside the bill folder, too.”

  Mason nodded. “Got it.”

  Mike D. left to deal with another customer, and Claire gave Mason a look. She leaned in. “You’re actually going to hire a dominatrix?”

  “How else will I know who’s performing the service?”

  “Oh, I don’t know—ask Mike D. once he’s busted?” she said, her tone making it clear she wasn’t ready to play S and M games with another girl.

  “You weren’t so afraid to get it on with a woman last night.”

  “Screw you.”

  “Exactly.”

  “You know I was just toying with you. I am so not into chicks. Especially not scary chicks in leather and spikes.”

  “Damn, you just spoiled my fantasy.”

  She rolled her eyes and propped her elbows on the bar. “Can you remind me of exactly why I’m helping you in the first place, because I sure as hell can’t remember.”

  A burly bald guy sat down on the other side of Claire and offered her a flirtatious smile. She tossed her faux-blond hair over her shoulder and smiled back.

  Mason felt an unexpected wave of possessiveness well up inside his chest.

  “Hi. You here alone?”

  Claire said nothing for a moment. “You might say that,” she finally purred.

  Mason leaned in and placed his arm on the back of her bar stool. “Or you might say she’s here with me, and then you’d be right.”

  “Doesn’t seem like the lady wants to be here with you.”

  Was he actually having this conversation and the two that had come before, or had he just stepped into somebody else’s crazy life when he put on the bad wig and the glasses?

  “Trust me, I’m the one she’ll be leaving with.”

  “I think she’s the one gets to decide that,” he said, then looked at Claire. “You want to dance, pretty lady?”

  She tossed Mason a look that dared him to stop her and said, “Actually, I’d love to.”

  He resisted the urge to pick her up, throw her over his shoulder and carry her back to his suite caveman-style.

  Instead, he shot Claire a look and downed his vodka. What he needed was a double.

  “Hey,” the guy next to Claire said. “You got a problem with the lady dancing with me?”

  He was standing up now, coming over to Mason.

  “Looks like you’re the one with the problem,” Mason said as he set his glass on the bar and stood up.

  Actually, Mason was clearly the more screwed of the two. If he got in a fight now, his wig would go flying off and blow his cover. Over Macho Man’s shoulder, he could see Claire gloating, clearly enjoying her revenge.

  He made a mental note to give her a good hard spanking when he finally got her alone.

  The guy with the overdose of testosterone gave him a shove. “You think so? Let me show you the problem I’m talking about.”

  The jerk-off drew back his fist, and Mason was preparing to duck, when a bottle shattered on the bald guy’s head. He swung around to find Claire looking barely apologetic.

  “Sorry, but I’m not gonna dance with you if you beat up my date.”

  “You bitch.”

  “Okay, I’m definitely not
dancing with you now. I like to stick with fully evolved humans.”

  The bald guy was bleeding from the scalp, rubbing his head as beer dripped onto his shoulder.

  “It’s time for you to leave,” Mason said, feeling completely inadequate for being more worried about his wig than he was about Claire’s honor.

  A bouncer Mason had never met before finally noticed the situation and appeared beside them. “What’s going on here?”

  “This asshole’s insulting my girlfriend and trying to start a fight.”

  “Looks like he’s the one with the injury.”

  “I had to do something to stop him from hitting my Jakey,” Claire said in a baby-doll voice he’d never heard her use before. She batted her eyelashes, Little Miss Innocent now—though she didn’t do innocent very convincingly.

  “I think you need to step out, dude,” the bouncer said to Macho Man. “I’m sure you’ll have a better time at one of the other clubs on the island.”

  “What the hell? I wasn’t doing nothing wrong!”

  “Come on, man. And you should probably drop by the clinic and make sure you don’t need any stitches on that cut.”

  Mason and Claire watched as the bouncer led the guy out of the Cabana Club by the elbow.

  Mason looked at Claire when the coast was clear. “What, exactly, were you trying to do there? Test me?”

  She smiled. “No, just issuing you a warning. Don’t screw with me, and don’t ever try to set me up to get freaky with a dominatrix. I can make life complicated for you.”

  “Trust me. I figured that out the first time we met.”

  “Apparently not.”

  “You don’t really think I expect you to act out an S and M show in front of me, do you?”

  “How the hell should I know? You’re the one hiring her.”

  Mason glanced down at the bar and noticed that Mike D. had delivered their check inside a black leather bill folder. He opened it and found their bill along with a pen.

  “You won’t have to do a thing, I promise. That is, until after she leaves. And what’s with calling me ‘Jakey,’ by the way?”

  “Oh,” she grinned. “It’s just the first name that popped into my head.”

  “Anyone I should know about?”

  “I don’t know a single guy named Jake. I promise.”

  He withdrew the money from his wallet and tucked it into the leather folder, then took a drink napkin from the bar and wrote his new fake first name, Jake, along with his own last name, Walker, which was common enough not to matter. Then he wrote Claire’s room number beneath it.

  When Mike D. appeared again, he slid the leather folder across the bar to him.

  The bartender opened it, eyed the money, and closed it again. “All right man, you’re set. I can have your drink order to you by nine o’clock.”

  Mason nodded, his gut a weird swirl of emotions. Fury that his own employees were conducting illegal activities on his resort. Excitement that he was finally going to get Claire alone again. And dread that once he had her alone, once he’d had his way with her, it still wouldn’t be enough.

  9

  CLAIRE DIDN’T KNOW what to do with Mason alone inside her hotel room, with a dominatrix-for-hire possibly showing up at any moment. It was one of those awkward situations where conversation seemed inappropriate, but hopping into bed seemed premature for once in their bizarre little relationship.

  Mason was lounging on her bed in his bad wig and his even-worse glasses, still managing to look damn sexy in spite of the disguise. He was thumbing through her copy of Chloe magazine, pausing to admire the scantily clad women and chuckling over the articles about sex and how to please men in bed.

  “You actually read this?” he said.

  “No, I just buy it for the pretty pictures. What do you think?”

  “I think you don’t need any of these lame sex tips. You’re pretty far advanced past the it’s-okay-to-make-sexy-sounds-in-bed stage.”

  She couldn’t help but smile. “I didn’t realize anyone needed to be told to make sex noises.”

  “According to the editors of Chloe magazine, you’re wrong.”

  She stretched out on the bed beside him and started reading over his shoulder. “Oh, and it’s okay to touch myself?”

  “Do you need my permission?”

  “It says right there, ‘Guys like it when a woman takes the initiative to help work herself toward an orgasm. And the sight of you touching yourself will get him hotter than ever.’”

  Mason gave her a speculative look. “I think you proved their theory today.”

  “It’s no theory,” she said, elbowing him. “There’s not a straight guy on earth who doesn’t love to see a woman masturbating.”

  “I can’t argue with that.”

  “What other gems of advice do they have in there?” Claire tried to keep reading, but having Mason so close, so warm, so right-there-on-her-bed, was a bit of a distraction.

  Even more distracting was the realization that she’d spent the entire afternoon with him and had thoroughly enjoyed herself. Aside from the janitor interruption and the incident with the big bald guy, she couldn’t think of the last time she’d had so much fun out of bed.

  And maybe she’d overreacted to the dominatrix thing a bit by flirting with the bald guy. Definitely a poor judgment call on her part, but Mason had behaved admirably, and she’d loved that he hadn’t been chomping at the bit to be a tough guy.

  “So, um, were you worried about your wig falling off earlier?” she asked, barely able to keep from giggling.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know, when that bald guy was harassing us.”

  He was silent for a moment, and then she noticed his abdomen quaking with silent laughter. That sent her over the edge, and she erupted in a fit of giggles.

  Her own wig was hot and itchy, and she couldn’t wait to rip it off and hurl it across the room. As she laughed, it got knocked askew and half her platinum-blond hair hung in front of her face.

  Mason got control of himself. “Here, let me fix that for you.” He reached for her wig, but she pulled away.

  “Don’t you know it’s impolite to adjust a woman’s wig?”

  His own wig was sitting cockeyed on his head, giving him a vague resemblance to a Muppet—a sexy Muppet, but still a Muppet. Claire’s laughter erupted all over again, and she fell back on the bed.

  “What?” he said, feeling his wig and adjusting it back to its proper position. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you it’s rude to laugh at a man’s hairpiece?”

  “Sorry,” she said. “I know how sensitive you guys can be about that stuff.”

  Mason stretched out beside her where she’d flopped back on the bed. “There’s a quiz in here they say you’re supposed to share with the guy in your life. I guess that’s me, at least for tonight, huh?”

  Claire rolled her eyes. “I refuse to be rated by one of those quizzes. I don’t care what the subject is.”

  He read the title, “‘What’s your Sex-Q?’ I guess that’s like your IQ, but for—”

  “I got it.”

  “You don’t want to know what your Sex-Q is? Or what mine is?”

  “I think I have a pretty good idea already.”

  He tossed the magazine aside and smiled. “You’ve got a great laugh,” he said. “Very girlish. Sexy.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  He was looking at her mouth, and Claire realized then how badly she was aching for him, how badly she wanted him to cover her body with his and kiss her senseless.

  “Yeah,” he said, about to kiss her.

  There was a knock at the door, and they looked at each other at the same time as if to silently say “Uh-oh.”

  “The dominatrix,” Claire whispered. “We didn’t even talk about how to handle her!”

  “I’ll just tell her we changed our minds—or better yet, that you got pissed at me for wanting to join in on the action and now you’re refusing to go throug
h with the threesome,” he whispered.

  “Oh sure, pin the blame on me.”

  Mason stood up from the bed and checked his wig and glasses in the mirror, then made adjustments before going to the door.

  When he opened it, there was a woman in a black coat standing there holding a black duffel bag. Claire was pretty sure she didn’t want to know what was in the bag.

  “Hi, Mike D. told me to come.”

  “Oh, right,” Mason said, affecting a sort of “dude” accent that Claire struggled not to giggle at. “We got a problem here with my woman.”

  “I need to come inside. I can’t just be standing around out here looking conspicuous.”

  “Oh, right.” Mason stepped aside. “Come on in.”

  He tossed what Claire supposed was meant to be a reassuring look at her, but she was still not keen on having this situation in her hotel room.

  “The thing is,” he said after closing the door, “My girlfriend doesn’t want to do what we hired you for.”

  Claire studied the woman’s features in case she needed to recall them later. She was thin, probably pretty under her heavy makeup, with dark brown hair and brown eyes. Her nose had a little bump from a previous break, and she looked more like a woman playing dress-up as a dominatrix than an actual whip-wielding pro. Claire supposed it would be pretty difficult to get top-of-the-line dominatrix services on a remote private island in the middle of the Caribbean.

  The woman looked dumbfounded. “Um, I can still do it with you.”

  “Sorry, babe. I’m pretty sure she’ll have me swimming with the sharks if I do that,” he said as he jerked his thumb toward Claire on the bed.

  She did her best to look pissed off and pouty. “You better freakin’ believe I will.”

  “You know, there are no refunds,” the woman said.

  “No big deal. I’ll just take it out of her allowance. She’ll have to stop shopping for a few weeks to pay for not doing girl-sex for me.”

  Claire picked up a pillow and threw it at him, hoping she was doing a convincing job of being the jealous girlfriend. “Screw you!”

  “Whatever. I’m out of here then.”

  “Hey, um, I didn’t catch your name.”