He stayed on his back, staring at the starry sky. “This is a first.”
“Aw, that’s sweet. I’m glad I could be your first dry hump. In America, that’s how we spend high school.” She held out a hand for him and he let her pull him up.
“I went to high school in New York. There was a name for girls like you.”
“Cock tease, I remember it well. I don’t sleep around. And I told you before any of this started that I wasn’t putting out.”
He wrapped his arm over her shoulders and started them back up the path. “True, but you didn’t mention that I would be.”
Chapter Ten
Holly stepped out on the lanai and held up her cell phone. She breathed a sigh of relief as the bars lit up on the display. Her interlude with Harm on the beach had put her behind schedule and she couldn’t afford to be without her phone. She dialed up her voicemail and turned to look at the house.
Most of the lights were off, allowing the stars to reflect off the glass facade. But the upper corner glowed like a beacon. The sight drew her eye and her breath. Unaware of his audience stood Harm, enjoying a shower for the world to see.
Not that there would be many looking. With the rocky outcroppings along his shoreline, no boats would get close enough, and his villa was higher than the house beside his or the collection of bungalows he owned. Right now she was the only one enjoying the view.
What she wouldn’t give for a pair of binoculars so she could study his muscled physique. Water sluiced down his honed body, the showerheads attached to an interior wall. The muscles of his ass flexed as he moved, his back rippling as he pushed water from his hair.
“Come on, turn around.” Holly blinked at the sound of her own voice, unaware she’d spoken. She slipped her phone into her pocket, then looked up to find Harm had done as she wished.
“Oh my.” She pressed her hand to the base of her throat and stared.
She’d known he was long and thick from their time in the sand, but she hadn’t imagined this. The fat head of his hard cock hovered at his belly button. No wonder he wore his shorts so low, he had to have room for all of that.
She tried to tell herself to turn away, but when he took himself in hand she knew she wasn’t leaving until the show was over. He gave one long stroke, two, and then froze with his hand choking the tip.
What kind of move was that? Puzzled, she drew her gaze up his body and nearly fell over. He stared straight at her and gave a salute with his free hand.
“Oh my lands, what do I do?” Her tummy swirled with anxiety and her skin prickled with embarrassment. She glanced at her phone, but doubted the voice-guided search function had an answer for this one.
Harm knew what he wanted, because when she dared look back up he was hard at work on his cock. It should feel awkward, but instead it felt deliciously naughty watching him pleasure himself. He’d had a graduate class in oral sex, so maybe this was like an undergraduate course in the proper hand job.
He placed his forearm on the glass, staring down at her as he worked his cock with long strokes, pausing every few passes to squeeze the darkened head. She studied him, her mind wondering about how much of him she could take and still enjoy.
Her womb clenched as visions raced through her mind. In the shower with him, she could kneel and lick him like a Popsicle. They could face the sea the way he did now and his entire cock could slip through her nether lips, teasing her until she climaxed. And then he could fuck her, spearing her against the wall of glass and she’d search for something to hold onto. Finding nothing she could bend over and let him have control, taking her as deeply as he needed.
Her moan drifted out to sea as she clenched her inner muscles and forced fantasy from her dirty mind. If this were happening to a friend, she’d tell them to turn away and run. And she should find a safe distance behind a locked door. But not until she saw the show clear to the happy ending.
She studied the way Harm passed his thumb over his ripe head at the top of every stroke, his movements growing faster with each pass. If she ever got the chance to play his cock, she’d have him lie down. She could use two hands and build her speed, watch his face change as he got close.
From this far away his hand blurred. His expression tightened before his head dropped back and he gave a roar she heard through the glass. His pleasure shot at the glass, three long spurts she watched slowly drip down towards the floor.
Harm washed everything clean with a handheld shower head, turning off the shower and shutting off the light without ever looking her way.
Harm searched the house for Holly the next morning, hoping to find her before she woke and coax her into acting out the sexy dream that had woken him before dawn. She had him feeling like a needy, out-of-control adolescent, and the sooner he taught her how grown-ups play, the better.
When he found her room empty, he knew she must be down at the meeting house, ready to lead the models on a marathon day. He made his way there, surveying the landscaping as he went. The bungalows were booked for the rest of the season so he needed to have any disruptive work done now. Plus, Marco had told him yesterday about a family who could use the cash. He’d learned quickly the people on Anguilla wouldn’t accept money, but they’d never turn down a chance to earn it.
The lavender sky welcomed the morning, casting an eerie glow to the white spider lilies in his gardens. Holly’s lilting voice carried out of the meeting house and he found his steps quickening. He paused at the door, wondering if he ought to bother with her at all. He didn’t need this, didn’t need her.
Maybe today would be different, the spell of yesterday broken by her sexual selfishness. Who wanted a lover so keen on taking? Yet his cock stiffened in his shorts, making him glad he’d pulled on a white t-shirt in case his dick decided it couldn’t be contained.
He pushed open the door and saw the meeting hall was empty but for Holly and one of the men in black. Again. Hadn’t yesterday taught the man how hot it got under the Caribbean sun?
The harsh smell of coffee hit him first and the warm smell of cinnamon drew his gaze to the kitchen. He’d built the long building as a place to hold parties and house recreation equipment for the bungalow guests. The Anguillan government wouldn’t allow him to run a hotel, so the meeting house was his loophole for providing the amenities of the resorts to his renters. He’d hired a family to handle the cleaning and food in exchange for living quarters on the second floor. A clever plan that had paid for itself the first year.
“Harm, you’re awake.” Holly approached him, a cinnamon roll in hand.
His stomach clenched and he pressed his hand against the muscles, an old habit that died hard. He was the healthiest he’d ever been, and yet some things still triggered pain. “Don’t be mad.” She leaned in for a kiss and he took a step back. Surprise widened her eyes and she frowned.
“I’m not.” He opened his mouth to explain that where she saw breakfast, he saw poison, but shut it before he bothered. She didn’t need to know his medical issues. It had taken him years to understand the nuances of celiac disease and he couldn’t enlighten her in minutes.
“I think you are.” She tilted her head to the side, her long ponytail teasing her shoulder. Her fitted white shirtdress with a flared skirt had him thinking about pin-up models. “Should I apologize?”
“What for?” He shifted his stance, enjoying every second of the hesitant way she glanced at the photographer. After last night, she had no room to judge eavesdroppers.
“Staring?” She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, the gold flecks in her hazel eyes flickering with amusement.
He shook his head. “Next time you should have a front row seat. But then you’d be expected to participate in the show.”
“See, I told you things would get weird.” She checked the bangle watch on her wrist. “Can we table this discussion until the weekend?”
“It’s Thursday.” If she thought she was holding out on him that long, she had another think coming.
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br /> “And I have a photo shoot to run, by myself. My to-do list would make you cry. And I have to squeeze in time to get the condo set up, convince the department store to increase their orders, sweet talk an awards show into using our designs for a skit they’re doing, and a million other things.”
He leveled his gaze at her, remembering how he would use work as an excuse, a shield to protect himself from disappointment. Had he been as transparent?
“I told you we are better as friends.”
“And when I disagreed you took me for a ride and then couldn’t keep your eyes off me. Sweetheart, there are benefits to friendship, and with so much to do winding you up, you deserve to get unraveled. As often as possible.”
“Not going to happen.” She stepped closer and flattened her palm against his chest. Her touch sent electricity surging along his nerves, a bolt of intensity that kindled the fire of yearning left smoldering from last night.
He leaned down and brought his lips to her ear and the warm scent of honeysuckle filled his lungs. “I’ll have you, in every way possible.”
She pushed at his chest and took a step back. “Harm, sweetheart, I’m a pretty great friend. That’s all I have on offer.”
Before she could say more, half a dozen models wandered in with a laundry list of complaints. He hung back, watching as she soothed the ruffled feathers and laid out her plan for the day.
She made the packed agenda sound like a play date. Her animated gestures and playfulness had the room laughing. She was in her element, positively glowing as her eyes danced with glee. Pride swelled in his chest. She was living her dream, a passion she’d turned into a reality. And it looked so sexy on her.
That same wild enthusiasm would carry over to the bedroom, of that he had no doubt. A woman with such blatant sensuality, such dedicated determination, might just be the best he’d ever had the pleasure of tangling the sheets with.
And he would. As she smiled at him across the room, he knew there was nothing he wouldn’t do to make her his. Even wait for her.
Chapter Eleven
Holly’s hands were still shaking when she slammed the door. How dare those retail rodents spring this on her on the final day of the photo shoot? She’d been completely transparent about adding on a day of shooting for the Sassy V website, ensuring them the catalog shots would be complete first. And they turned her honesty against her, their bullying suggestions still ringing in her ears. She’d held it in for the last three hours, keeping up the professional spit and polish and she couldn’t contain it for another second.
She dropped her handbag and let loose a string of expletives her father would be ashamed of, punctuating her statements by throwing her sandals down Harm’s long hallway. Heat burst through her, forcing her to move. She jumped until her shins ached, shook her fists and screamed until her throat burned.
Harm leaned into the hallway from behind a wall, his brow creased with concern. If she weren’t so damned pissed, she might be embarrassed.
“I need vodka.” She marched down the hallway, past Harm and straight for the wet bar. Expensive crystal glasses lined the mirrored alcove but she didn’t see a single bottle. She pulled opened the fridge below, finding nothing but imported water. She pushed it closed and the crystal rattled.
“There’s some at the meeting house, but I find running more effective.”
She spun on her heel, her temper flaring at his daring grin. The last thing she needed was a lecture. She needed to calm the fuck down so she could run damage control. But if she got anyone on the phone right now, she’d wind up causing more trouble than she solved.
“Why don’t you run and get me some vodka then.”
“You should—”
“Oh, you don’t want to play with me right now. You will lose. I have taken down bigger men than you.”
“No, you haven’t.” He crossed his arms over his bare chest and stood up straight, reminding her of his muscled physique. One he probably honed surfing all day while she was working and dealing with bureaucratic bullshit.
“Oh, fuck you. You don’t know a thing about me.” She headed for her room, picking up her shoes along the way. Her phone sang from the entryway, but there was no way she was going to try and be civil now.
“You know what else works for burning this off?” Harm stood in her doorway, his doorway really, all chiseled and perfect.
Holly tossed her shoes at her trunk. “You’re not getting this, and I’m too pissed off to be polite. I am never sleeping with you. Like ever. You’re hot as fuck and I think you’re a pretty great guy, but you ditch the women you sleep with as fast as the used condom.” She pressed a hand to her chest. “You do use condoms, right?”
“I’m not stupid.”
“Then believe me when I say I’m not the droid you’re looking for. You want someone who wants the same recreational fuck, and I am not that girl.”
“No, you’re more the Princess Leia type, ready to kick ass and save herself. It’s hot.”
“Don’t be nice right now.” Her chest tightened and her eyes felt heavy, which just made her angrier. She was not going to be all girlie about this and cry. There was no crying in business. “Either get me some vodka or leave me alone.”
He walked in and sat on the made bed like he owned the place. Which he did. Damn it. She couldn’t toss him out on his perfectly shaped ass.
“What went wrong at the photo shoot?”
Oh no, this was not about her. She could handle herself. “I got all my shots, thank you very much. Everything. For the Sassy V for Mendelssohn’s line.”
“So…” He lay back against the pillows, crossing his arms behind his head.
“I can’t get my website shots. Apparently the asshats think using the same models will dilute the brand. Which is ridiculous because tomorrow’s images are lifestyle shots, not catalogue shots. And I’ve already paid for the extra day. They know that, and they know I don’t have the capital to do it again.
“They don’t want us to outgrow them, but they are in for a surprise. A department store line is just a part of what we’ll do. Those knob jockeys might have me by the balls now, but I’ll cut theirs off and make them pay me to get them back.”
“You can’t just say fuck ’em and take the shots anyway?”
“I could, and then Captain Fuckstick will lower the orders on the designs and all this promotion that we’ve built will be for nothing since there won’t be enough suits for people to buy. I’m going to flush that piece of shit. If he thinks he can pull this and we’ll resign a contract at the end of the term, he’s munching on a bag of dicks.”
“Should I warn him? Because I believe you now. If I were in the fashion industry, you’d roll right over me.”
“Damn straight.” Holly plopped down on the bed. “I should have seen this coming. I thought I was in the clear because they can’t legally tell me not to do it. But I never expected them to leverage their own sales. I never thought they’d play on so many different levels of stupid. I thought they were in this with us.
“When we made the agreement, we were to deliver twenty designs and they’d choose ten to put into production. But the six-string bikini was being used for Kimberly’s calendar, and I told them all the product placement I was angling for and they took all twenty. We thought it was a good thing. But half the availability of twice the designs is a recipe for frustration.”
“Sweetheart, I understood none of that.”
“Vodka would understand.” She gave a pout, hoping he’d go raid the liquor cabinet next door.
He didn’t budge. “I think vodka invented half of your curse words.”
“Please, my ten-year-old sister swears more than I do. My father speaks fuck Latin, where every other word is fuck. When they say sailors swear, it’s actually fishermen they’re talking about.”
“I never would have guessed you were fluent in fuck.”
“Now you know. I could give lessons.” Her laugh dislodged a teaspoon of her angst.
Too bad she had a fuck ton of it.
“If it is anything like your fuck lesson last night, I’ll pass.”
She swatted his leg. “I bet there are droves of women who would salute me for leaving you hanging.”
“I saluted you.”
She slammed her eyes shut, trying to block the image from her mind. But it lived there, tattooed forever. The bed rustled and dipped and the heat of Harm seeped into her seconds before his lips found her neck.
The warm suction of his mouth would have been soothing if she weren’t still so keyed up. At least her frustration was helping her keep their relationship in the friend zone.
“Harm, it’s not going to happen.” She shrugged him off, but he didn’t go far.
“You can work out your angst on me, provided you don’t walk away after you get yours.”
She turned to face him, able to recognize so much in his deep brown eyes. The lust shone bright, but she sensed a genuine interest. He was either a hell of a player, or he liked her as much as she did him.
“I’m not someone you picked up at a club. I’m never going to want to party the way you do.”
“You’re over-thinking it.”
“And you’re not thinking it through. We’re going to wind up at anniversary parties and children’s birthdays together. And every time I’ll be uncomfortable because you’ll look at me like you’ve seen me naked. I’m not a hot-night-of-dancing kind of girl. I’m a weekend-in-pajamas chick.”
“We could compromise. Naked Sundays.” He framed her face in his hands, brushing his thumbs over her cheekbones.
“I think you already have that with whichever tourist turns your head.”
“Stop being so judgmental. Sex is a physical release, like exercise.”
“So they’re like tennis partners?”
He thought for a minute, then nodded.
“I don’t play tennis. But if I did, I’d want to play with a partner I knew well enough to anticipate. And every time we played together, we’d be better than the last.”
Caribbean Casanova: Under the Caribbean Sun, Book 2 Page 5
