Tempting Isabel (Paradise South #1)

by Rissa Brahm

  Between his unbelievable man scent, his searing gaze, and the convenience of him being there and obviously interested—as opposed to the idea of suffering through a dinner with her harping sister, then to have to find a new one-night friend?—no, she could do this. Combat the potential consequences for her breach in criteria. She was strong enough.

  And God, so was he. With his well-defined arms with an admittedly sexy tribal tattoo around the right bicep. And then there were his robust facial features which she dared to look at only for a few seconds at a time. Because that look in his eyes, which she swore could melt the polar ice caps, had a definite hunger in them, a carnal focus that made her numbness fade if only for the time being.

  Yeah, she could do this for a night. Yes she could. And she would, so help her.

  *

  So it was settled. She let her shoulders ease and her lips curl into a smooth and somewhat suggestive smile, then she looked up at him. Into his eyes.

  Then froze.

  They were a translucent jade in color with flecks of contrasting emerald. Her heartbeat echoed in her ears. Haunting eyes, those eyes. She pushed aside her sudden images of Sebastian, shaking his ghost out of her head.

  Don’t act insane, Isabel…

  Her cheeks got hot again as she tried to redirect her focus and to end the awkward silence she’d created, thick as the Vallarta heat. “God, I’m sorry, you know, for laughing…before. That pick-up line was solid. Classic, really.” Intended yet gentle sarcasm laced her tone. “But, I should say, the bar is set pretty low these days. Pick-up lines are hardly even needed. If you’re walking, breathing, preferably male and in Vallarta on vacation, then I’m pretty much game,” she teased, motioning with a nod toward a man with a very healthy beer gut, a fanny pack, and a camera around his sweaty neck being seated at the next table. Her companion, the finely built American now only half a foot from her face, cracked up without taking his insanely mesmerizing eyes off her. But on impulse, she looked down at her hands.

  Explain, Isabel, or end it here. “Really, I’m, uh, just out to have a fun time for a night, nothing serious, and so I don’t need to be picky, you know?” She flashed a quick smile and ventured a peek at him again. At that face, that gorgeous, dangerous face that made her tense and hot below her belly and tightened her chest. But in a blink, her eyes were on her hands again.

  “On the rebound, are we?”

  She snorted. Or in other words, “What’s the deal?—a moderately attractive woman like you…sans boyfriend?” And, God, that could never be explained, not to an unbelieving gringo at any rate.

  She looked from the red-stained tablecloth to his face. “Something like that.” She half-smiled, but then got caught by those green crystal eyes again, those eyes that dug into her way too deep. But this time, strangely, they didn’t bring up that haunted image with the longing, the guilt, the strife.

  She swallowed and took a deep, clearing breath in. Instead, somehow, a wave of…comfort? Yes, comfort had overtaken her. The living man in front of her made her feet feel firmly planted on the ground, despite her uneven heels, the glass-covered brick floor, and the general on-edge feeling she always carried with her.

  Don’t get comfortable here, Isabel.

  Right. She had to keep it light, keep it fun, and keep it short.

  So…smile, flirt, something!

  She flashed a smile, reached for what was left of Lucinda’s wine glass, and finished it in one pull. “Hot out here.” Oh Lord, Isabel, keep it together.

  *

  “Can I”—he waved at the waiter—“get you another drink?” The waiter held up an index finger and headed back to the bar, probably for a broom and dustpan. “I was wondering when he was going to sweep this up.”

  “Welcome to my Mexico,” she said with a laugh strung through her words. “We could be here all night and I bet this pile of glass, along with this red and white splotched tablecloth, would remain untouched.”

  “We? All night? That sounds good to me,” he said with lifted brows framing a hopeful look.

  She smiled at him with a deliberately seductive glimmer. How forward and smooth, yet still…totally cheesy, cute.

  And as she’d planned that morning, and now after a long day of back-to-back meetings, she definitely agreed that ‘all night’ sounded nice. Hold it! Much of the night. Or just some. No, only a few hours. Damn this sinfully attractive man sitting next to her with the charm and the fumbling and the eyes.

  The waiter was suddenly tableside, glass crunching under his feet—but no broom, no dustpan. Holding back her laughter, Isabel looked at her new friend, the gorgeous man obviously trying to contain his outburst too. But they both successfully swallowed their shared joke and let the waiter speak. “What can I get you both?”

  “An horchata water, please.” In English, for her company. “Oh, and this time, do bring it in a regular glass, not the stemware, please.” She offered a thin-lipped grin, having asked the inattentive waiter for a regular glass originally, but now thought it best to run preventative maintenance for her and her new friend.

  Her beautifully scintillating companion asked for a Mexican microbrew that only her richest local event clients knew about.

  “Sorry, sir, we don’t carry that type of specialty beer,” said the waiter in a lackadaisical tone.

  “The darkest stout you have, then.” The waiter rolled his eyes not too subtly and left them while Isabel’s company refocused his gaze on her.

  “I’d much prefer your waiter, the one who knocked me on my ass.” She giggled. “He was at least nice.”

  “True. But this guy leaves us be, even if it is to a fault. I like the privacy,” he said, an intimate gleam in his eyes.

  Oh Jesus. No holds barred, he wanted her. The tingling sensation up her spine shocked her. Thrilled her. Scared her.

  Not good, Isabel. But so good at the same time.

  *

  She cleared her throat and squirmed a bit under his steady stare, her right hand nervously adjusting her cuff bracelet at her wrist. He seemed almost glad for any small display of her possible anxiety, because he only grinned wider. Maybe he liked that it evened the playing field of heightened nerves, sexual tension, and awkwardness.

  “So paradisiacal, that flower in your hair, the ocean backdrop with the setting sun highlighting your entrancing shape…” Oh God. Even he was blushing as his words fell out of his delicious mouth.

  “Entrancing, huh?” she teased, tilting her head just so, feeling ever more confident with every bumbling comment he made.

  He gave her an almost bashful smile, looked down at his hands flat on the tabletop, and shook his head to himself. “Jesus, I, uh, I usually, you know, don’t need…or use pick-up lines. Like ever. But for some reason, I’m just…I’m all nerves with you. I can’t keep it together.”

  She loved his vulnerability, defending his pathetic lines for the record. And his sweet nervousness around her?

  Por Dios, who is this man?

  And, shit! Who the hell is this man?

  Unsure of what to say back, her own cheeks suddenly flushed, she fingered the lily in her hair. “You know…the woman I just met brought these lilies to show us for an event she’s holding. So, crazy as it sounds, her future mother-in-law is allergic to lilies, right? And you know what she’s doing?”

  “What’s that?” he asked, obviously relieved she’d taken the baton.

  “She’s ordering two hundred of them!” She shook her head laughing. “Sick, right?”

  “A bit, yes, bordering on evil,” he said with a hazy smile, only half listening to her as told by his relentless stare hard-set on her with, God, those crystalline eyes of his!

  “Lilies are a love-hate proposition, you know? I happen to love them––white lilies are my absolute favorite,” she said then smiled through a new round of slightly awkward but somehow thrilling silence.

  He kept his attention on her, laser sharp and ravenous.

  “So you know, I didn�
��t get your name…”

  “Oh shit, I’m such a jackass. My name’s Zack. Zack J—”

  “Zack.” No last names, per her rulebook. “What brings you to town, Zack?”

  “Business mostly, pleasure always.” He shook his head again, probably at his continued bout of corniness. Isabel lifted her eyebrows, forgiving him as if he had the hiccups. “Seriously, though,” he recovered, “I have real estate matters that have me down here a couple of times a year. But I’ve been coming down to Vallarta with my family for as long as I can remember. This place hooks you, you know?”

  “Don’t I. Puerto Vallarta, born and bred, and I’ve never left.” Despite the alienation and the hardships she’d endured, she wouldn’t leave her seaside town or her country for anyone or anything in the world.

  He smiled. “I’m actually also here for my—” An incoming call interrupted his train of thought as he checked his phone screen. “Shoot. Gotta take this. Please excuse me for a minute?” He left the table and answered in a deep but tender voice.

  She waited. Probably his wife or a girlfriend. I knew it was too good…

  Damn it, why was she even still sitting here? God, she almost did hope he had a girlfriend or a wife. Yes, then she’d be out a minute ago––another rule, never ever knowingly mess with someone’s family life.

  He returned after two minutes.

  Screw it… “Girlfriend, or wife?” She’d never been accused of being indirect or understated.

  “Neither. I come to Vallarta a free man.” He winked at her.

  She cocked her head at him, with slight surprise that her gut instinct was off.

  He held up his phone. “When my mother calls, I always answer,” he told her. “Always.” A small icon of an older woman with sweet and sullen eyes was set in the corner of the screen.

  Isabel didn’t know what to make of him, but she was definitely taken aback.

  “Anyway,” he continued, “speaking of being free…are you free tonight? Now, I mean? I can show you where all the gringos go to party.”

  She wasn’t free, but a quick text to her brothers and she’d be good to go. So, she flirted back. “Why not? Please, show me your hot spots.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Isabel’s intrigue grew.

  Beyond his looks and the sweet-and-stumbling thing he had going on, there was something else. In his demeanor and in the softness of his smile, the gentle upward curve of his full and fallen lips as he spoke. She felt comfortable and anchored, an anomaly for her. And it was almost as if he saw beyond her shield, the one she used to hide her never-ending loneliness. It was as if he understood it himself, a deep-seated and genuine empathy.

  And it scared her to death.

  Yet still, she stayed.

  She stayed and flirted over starter drinks and appetizers until dark by somehow managing to shut her contesting brain off. Because she was enjoying herself, his company. And, damn it, he was funny. The foreign or forgotten sound of her own laugh surprised her, thrilled her, soothed her.

  “You have not!” she challenged.

  “Oh yeah…on US Skies and FlyGlobal. Oh, and Jetta Air. Man, that was a close call, but a cooler than cool flight attendant looked the other way.”

  “That’s insane!”

  He gave her a coy smile. “Flying commercial is worth it just for the restrooms!”

  She watched him in awe and wondered how two people could even fit in the tiny airplane bathrooms. She hadn’t been on an airplane to know, but had an image from television, and it just didn’t seem very easy, or comfortable. Awkward was more like it.

  “You didn’t bang into the door by mistake, and fall out—the both of you? A show for all?” she asked, cracking up at the image.

  “Nah, not a chance. I told you, I’m usually super-smooth.” He laughed as he shook his head, turning a light shade of red for the millionth time. “I’m not ever this far off my game.”

  Contrarily, Isabel had never been so accident-free, smooth, and confident. In her. Entire. Life.

  “But,” he said with a revived confidence in his voice, waggling his brows for effect, “I wouldn’t mind if the door did fly open. Exhibitionism is a definite turn-on for me!” He stood up, threatening to strip his shirt off, which she honestly wouldn’t have minded at all. God he was so hot, and she was so buzzed. So buzzed that she’d even forgotten about the cut on her foot that had been throbbing since morning and the tiny degree of nagging guilt for skipping out on dinner with her family.

  She sighed and stared at Zack. Buzzed or not, she was shocked by her level of lust for this stranger, despite or because of his high school boy demeanor in a magazine model’s body. He made her damp and hot and anxious to get more closely connected. And contrasting his awkwardness with her newfound calm and cool, she felt like a queen, a confident seductress. She was ready, excited even, to seduce her new friend Zack. Last name, still perfectly unknown.

  *

  He couldn’t take his eyes off her, awkward or not. But as the night wore on and shots flowed down, the awkward factor dropped too. He relaxed into their groove, though still randomly tongue-tied. Isabel had her buzz on, as told by the glazed look in her eyes and the ease of her laugh. Mmmm, that laugh. He could listen to it all night and not do anything else.

  Well, he could, but, no. He definitely wanted more. As the drinks loosened him and his nerves, they also increased his ravenous hunger for her, as if that were even possible. It got harder to control himself. Much, much harder.

  The sun had long since set over the bay, cooling the night off a bit, and seeing her goose bumps up and down her arms, he had an uncontrollable urge to take her in his arms and warm her. But instead, he took it upon himself to help her into her little suit jacket, his fingers brushing her neck as the collar landed square. So he got to play gentleman and cash in the excuse to touch her, to connect. A teaser. A teaser for more—hopefully sooner than later.

  *

  God, she liked this. Liked who she was now, here, with him. And how steady he made her feel. The more drunk she got, the more grounded she felt. How was that even possible?

  Who cares how? She deserved to feel this way, even for just a night. A uniquely solid and strangely riveting night out with a man like Zack. Why not, right?

  But then what?

  More torture.

  Not if she stuck to the plan. Only one night, period.

  She watched him down another shot, then slid him another.

  “Here’s to a damn great night,” she said as she raised then slammed her drink, signaled for the check, and collected her purse. “Ready to go.”

  “Okay, then.” He laughed then helped her out of her chair and over the pile of glass shards. “Hey, you called it,” he said with a wink.

  “Yup.” She definitely knew her Mexico. “So where to now?” Please say your hotel. Because, God she wanted him. And she really didn’t trust herself at this point, for so many reasons, on so many levels. More schmoozing and dragging this out, no bueno.

  “The dance club I wanna take you to is right across from here. We can walk, but your broken heel! How can you walk, or dance for that matter?”

  There was her excuse. Her perfect out. Skip the dancing and move to the intimate peak of the night. Then done. “Dancing sounds great and no worries,” she said, motioning to her feet. “I have a pair of sandals in my car as backup.”

  Wait, what just happened? What happened to skipping the club, on to the hotel?

  She damn well knew better, but…she wanted to go dancing, damn it! With him! And that was exactly what she was going to do, so help her. To a damn great night, remember?

  *

  She switched shoes and followed his lead across the street to La Sexta Noche, a newer club Zack said he’d been to several times on his last trip down.

  She’d been there too, but didn’t mention it. He seemed so excited to show her his find. And maybe she didn’t need him knowing that she, a local, had frequented a touristy night spot.


  Either way, it was an upscale club with a higher cover charge than most in the area, so it brought in a slightly more mature crowd. In high season there were usually lines around the building on the fifth or sixth night of the week, but because it was a weekday night, not even a bouncer stood at the door.

  Once inside, Isabel didn’t dance around her goal. She felt electrically charged being near Zack and wasn’t afraid to show it. His eyes, hands, and body responded in kind, touching her arms, her back, her backside every chance he got. And once another round of tequila shots were slammed, the two of them went straight to the dance floor and couldn’t have gotten their clothed bodies any closer.

  *

  “You’re driving me insane,” he breathed into her ear, grinding her from behind.

  Insane? God, the sensation was mutual. Although the idea of hitting a club with Zack, spending more time talking and laughing—and yes, up-close dancing with him—had thrilled her, now Isabel wasn’t sure how long she could control herself. He just hit all her buttons, and as she pushed her backside into him with rhythmic angst, feeling him, solid and hard, with every pounding beat the club’s DJ put out, it was almost too much. They continued their grind for only one more song until she rolled to face him, her hand clutching his ass, unable to wait anymore.

  “Where are you staying?”

  “The Airington. You know it?”

  “Yeah, I know it,” she said. “I remember the awesome view of the bay, but it’s been a while. You wanna show me your view?” she teased, her buzz allowing her to speak as loosely as she damn well pleased.

  “Sure, I’m up for it.” And he was, his erection now bulging through his khakis against her tensed midriff. She felt it and needed it. She clenched in response, already wet and well beyond primed to get more familiar with his body. Over the bass, he shouted, “I’m up in the penthouse. The view is spectacular.”

  “What are we waiting for?” She rolled her body keeping hard against his stiff, beckoning manhood, then grabbed his hand and led him out of the club. All done with the formalities. All done.