by Rissa Brahm
“Upfront pussy and backroom lap dances, dude!” Wret said from out of nowhere, slapping Zack on the shoulder. “Can’t fuckin’ wait!”
Zack mustered an appeasing smile and a nod at his brother’s best friend. “Yeah, man. It’ll be great, no doubt,” he lied. Because as the guys anticipated The Inferno, Zack found himself dreading it more and more. He couldn’t think of a worse place to go, knowing that the only woman he wanted to devour and fantasize about and hold in his arms the entire night after wouldn’t be there. In fact, she was absolutely fucking nowhere, goddammit. Nowhere at all!
Stir-crazy and tired of sulking, he needed to move, to get up, change views. He walked back toward the bar, passing Darren on the way. “I’m getting another tequila shot, brother. You want one, or five?” He slapped his extremely inebriated baby brother square on the back.
“Yeah, a few for you and me!” Darren slurred, then raised his voice for the whole bar to hear. “And a round for everyone! I’m getting MARRIED!”
The entire bar cheered.
Zack laughed, loving to see his brother so happy, then headed to the bartender to pay for his brother’s gracious bar-wide drink order.
He weaved through the hefty crowd to a barstool. While waiting his turn, he looked down the length of the bar at the array of drunken people for distraction’s sake alone.
The next instant, hypnotization. His pulse moved to his ears while his air caught in his chest. A woman. That woman. At the end of the bar. He swallowed hard, heat and hope flooding his body. Her smooth bare skin showed through an open-backed halter top, a long dark braid hanging down the middle. Down went his gaze to the fully magnificent bottom of an hourglass figure, the ass of his dreams, snug black skirt hugging that fully sensual shape.
She shifted her stance, leaning her right elbow on the bar. Her braid swished to the right, leaving for Zack’s eyes a small splash of a birthmark in the shape of a lost-soul puzzle piece.
Isabel? Oh God, Isabel.
His heart leapt up into his throat so fast he actually coughed. He turned away to clear his throat, but he couldn’t stop the coughing fit. He felt volcanic heat in his ears and cheeks. The bartender passed a glass of water to him quickly and shouted, “You’re welcome,” before he could even try to voice a thank you. He checked to see if Isabel had caught sight of him during his choking stint, which would have made his face burn up more, but she hadn’t.
No, she was busy talking nonstop to the other bartender. Far too busy. He felt a growl in his chest. He watched her luscious lips as inaudible words fell out, talking and talking to the admittedly attractive man behind the bar. And the whole scene burned him. Yeah, it fucking burned. The guy now handed her a double shot. She paused her words, parted her mouth just so, and poured the drink down her throat.
Fuck! Zack wanted to punch the guy in the face for watching her lips so closely. And for some reason, that burning possessiveness he felt wasn’t unreasonable to Zack. For as much as he had thought about her, hunted for her, wished for her, dreamed of her, he did feel like she was his.
After smiling her thanks and tipping the barman, she turned her sultry body around to leave. Zack strained to keep sight of her and of her smooth, defined back, until some fifty-something silver fox approached her, blocking her exit and Zack’s streamlined view.
Definitely unsolicited from the looks of it, the guy slid his hand down her exquisite back, then farther still until his palm circled her right ass cheek, no qualms, no hesitation.
And that was all it took. Zack’s instincts ramped into gear, and he darted in her direction. At the same time, he saw another man coming from the opposite direction in a rush of Save the Damsel, too. Piercing crystal-blue eyes, intent on Isabel.
Isabel turned her head first to Zack and then to Blue Eyes. “Roberto?” she said to Blue Eyes. “Um, Zack?” A look of pure perplexity mixed with frustration splashed her in the face. “Wait! Just hold it!”
She unloaded her hands of the two beer bottles. “I can handle this gentleman all by myself, thank you both very much.” Then she reached her hand behind her, grabbed the man’s hand, and twisted. Not to break his arm, because from the sharp look in her eye, she really could have, but maybe just to scare the guy into thinking so?
“I actually kill men who get too close to me,” she said to the lecherous bastard, “but it looks like you’re on your last legs anyway, so just please, back the hell up and off. Now.” Punctuated with a thin-lined grin and narrowed eyes.
Zack fucking loved it. She was unbelievable! He absolutely wanted her right there, right then…more than he’d thought possible over the last excruciating weeks. But his attention was forced away from her as the embarrassed asshole she’d just handled fumed, the guy’s hot breath filling Zack’s left ear.
How would this asshole regain his pride after such a forward and public turndown? Maybe not wanting to stoop as low as to hit a woman, he turned his frustration on Zack. The guy pulled back to throw a punch, but Blue Eyes, who was still on the other side of the sleazebag, quickly grabbed the bar bowl of chips and poured them over the older guy’s head.
And Isabel yanked Zack back and away, narrowly rescuing him from the swinging blast to his face.
A blink later, he found himself outside, behind the bar with his lost-but-found angel on the sandy white beach with the sun in its final descent over the shimmering bay.
CHAPTER 13
Alone, together, she stared at him, unsure of what the hell had possessed her to help this…this player! And more, what had motivated her to escape with him outside? Again—alone, together!
As if on autopilot, adrenaline had juiced her body’s reactions, all without her mind’s permission. The result, a complete lapse of judgment. Damn it, Isabel!
But it got worse. Zack’s eyes were hard on her, quivering with energy, burning her like the blinding orange glare of the setting sun. She felt an unwarranted flood of heat start low and deep. It rose up through her and reached her face. Anger and denied-arousal clouded her vision.
Struggling with her body’s reaction to this mind-screwing, womanizing player, she took a deep breath, readying herself to get the hell away from him. Go already.
But first, words fell out of her mouth, words completely unapproved by her brain. “I, uh, didn’t want you taking a punch to that handsome face of yours for me,” she instigated, a flirty sarcasm betraying her pride. She stepped back toward the bar to counter the traitorous act of speaking to him, all the while trying to ignore her body’s screams of protest for the incremental distance. But words poured out again, this time her heart played the betraying culprit. “After all, those lace-panty owners wouldn’t be able to recognize you if your face was all bruised up, and we couldn’t have that, now, could we?” Really?
For God’s sakes, Isabel—leave. Now!
“So, okay then…take care.” And her foot pressed deeper into the sand to begin her retreat.
But in a flash his hand held her left wrist, just above her cuff bracelet. His grasp was gentle, but firm enough to keep her there and to transfer his damned electricity through her entire body. But when he caught her look of warning, he released his grip.
“Listen to me, Isabel—you need to know something.”
She was surprised by the command in Zack’s voice. Although brushed with a slight and genuine sweetness, he sounded firm, assertive. Far less wavering than last time. Now his voice matched the unbelievable control and power he’d exhibited when last they touched, kissed, and devoured each other whole. “I’ve been looking for you. Trying to find you. God, it’s been—”
“Wait a minute…hold on. Looking for me? Why look for me? Seemed to me like you had a line out your penthouse door!”
She felt his glowing green eyes detach from hers, angling up as if to devise a new strategy. And damn it, she wanted his gaze back. She so hated that she wanted his gaze back!
A moment later, she got her wish as he refocused his eyes on hers while biting his bottom pout
—a touch of humility, maybe? Whatever it was, he’d somehow toned down his intensity—so he wouldn’t scare her away?
Because, truth be told, she was absolutely terrified and wanted nothing more than to run. But her feet were frozen and sinking into what felt like quicksand beneath her feet. “I left those panties at the front desk for immediate pickup and have been entirely too busy looking for you to have time for a new collection of lace undergarments, or any other variety of underwear for that matter.” He grinned, a hopeful and apologetic look spun around his lighthearted words. “Please…can we just talk, like we did before we even went up to my penthouse that night?”
An airy laugh escaped her lips and she let her eyes smile at him. Just her eyes. “Talk, huh?” What was there to talk about? And again, why the hell was she still standing there? Even talking about talking to this asshole was self-degradation.
And she highly doubted he was interested in just talk. She knew she wasn’t. Her betraying body vibrated and there was nothing she could do to steady herself. Self-hatred began to flood her core, or was that pure, unadulterated goddamn arousal?
And she still couldn’t move herself away from him.
But maybe she could get him to walk the hell away from her before she caved? “You should go back inside to your friends, Zack. There was a round of drinks for someone getting hitched in there, yeah? Go get your free drink on…have fun. I’m fine right here. Good bye, Zack. And take care.” She took a step back in the sinking white sand. Shocked at that small step, she spun around to face the bay. And that was it—all her body would allow. It was, at least, movement in the right direction.
But from the sound of his breath, way too close for her comfort, she knew he was completely ignoring her parting words. Then his breath magnified, now warming the nape of her neck, fanning her in synch with the lulling rhythm of the incoming tide. Tingling waves of electricity shot down her spine. Damn him. And damn his heat.
“Isabel.”
She shuddered. God, his deep, sultry baritone—thick, sensual—a sharp contrast to the silent anticipation of him finally, hopefully leaving her there, leaving her be.
But the hypnotic magnetism of his damn presence overshadowed all. Their bodies were so close. She felt his radiating heat. She could smell him, that particular brand of his, of man and delectable power. And from her memory she could almost taste him.
“Who was the blue-eyed knight in shining armor at the bar?” he whispered in her ear.
An unintentional smile spread across her mouth. Isabel couldn’t help but enjoy the possible motivation behind his question. Was he jealous at the thought of a competing stag rushing in to save her?
Then she wanted to kick herself for getting a jolt from that possibility.
“My oldest friend-turned-stalker. He’s like a brother. Why? What does it matter?” she asked, instigating without shame.
Zack said nothing. His breathing just got fuller and hotter on her neck.
A few beats passed. She got done waiting, done with him. “Zack, I’d really like to be alone out here, if you don’t mind.” With her back still to him, she attempted to focus on any of the many far off boats out on the bay—they looked like sparkling stars on a midnight-blue sky. She listened and held in a lungful of ocean air, waiting for proof of his departure, waiting for the removal of his sweet, searing breath on her skin.
But no proof came.
*
Instead, his rough hand grabbed her left arm again and spun her around. “You want me. You do,” he said with an arrogant smile on his lips. His eyes narrowed, glistening green.
“You cocky bastard! If I wanted you, you’d—”
His mouth interrupted her argument—muted by a deep, unwelcome kiss.
Unreserved and lustful, as if he’d been waiting years, decades, lifetimes—like he couldn’t wait another moment.
Held captive—her mouth, her tongue, her lips, all recollected the deluge of fire he’d ignited inside her just weeks ago. Down to her core, she remembered. And the next thing she knew, her mouth attacked back with equal force, equal passion.
She was taken. And taking back. Dangerously, vitally consumed within each other’s grasp.
Deep moments passed until he paused to look at her. She couldn’t catch her breath even if she tried, trapped by his gaze. That haunting gaze. Then his hand met her cheek, slid back behind her ear, down to the nape of her neck, then he moved his mouth to hers again, easing into sweet, slow-motion ecstasy. His lips—delicious, moist, and soft as velvet—caressed and tripped over hers.
In perfect synch, she slowed and held his top lip, sucking gently, her tongue savoring his taste, that familiar decadence. Zack’s hands moved to cradle her face, then her hands covered his.
And with as much control as she gave him, he moved his overwhelming vastness a step closer to her, their bodies meeting, unable to get any closer. He brought his muscular arms down, wrapping around her in a smooth, deliberate, possessive stance, squeezing her to him, just shy of depleting all oxygen. Or was her continued inability to catch her breath something beyond physics, far deeper than words could explain?
His wide, slightly rough hands slid in all directions across her back, rubbing, pressing, and then grazing her skin as if memorizing its every dip and definition. His fingers glided underneath the satiny fabric of her open-back top, curling around to the sensitive bloom of her breasts just brimming at her sides. His delicate touch sent her reeling, nipples sharpened, and Isabel pushed hard into Zack’s broad chest to alleviate the painful delight of not being naked, skin-to-skin, in his entire, heavenly grasp.
She could hardly stand. Her legs were useless weights pulling her down, down into that deadly quicksand. She was melting and didn’t have the strength to stop it. But he did. His rock-hard arms came down to her hips, hoisting her up. He placed her arms tight around his neck, her feet dangling, just hovering above the white sand. He held her, floating, as if weightless, locked in their continued, incapacitating kiss.
Her body had definitely defeated her judgment. She couldn’t even hear her mind’s scolding voice over the loud thud of her heart and the throbbing in all of her most crucially sensitive points.
Zack, her puppet master, pulled her in any direction he wished. She’d become so under his control, so heavy in his hold.
And when she took a brief break for air, her peripheral caught sight of Roberto standing in the back doorway of the bar, she couldn’t have cared less. She watched her friend fume his way back inside as she melted deeper into Zack’s all-encompassing embrace.
*
Like a dream that Zack refused to wake up from, he held Isabel in his grasp, inhaled her, absorbed her, but did so with as much delicacy and subtlety as he could muster. He couldn’t afford to frighten her away. His intensity even overwhelmed him. And beyond fucking things up last time with the girls-in-waiting and all, he knew she was skittish about commitment, about connection beyond one night. Hell, he would have freaked the fuck out if he were in her shoes, and in fact, he’d been that commitment-phobe. All the way up until meeting her, he’d been running from the long-term, the any-term.
So, yeah, he had to move slowly, and that would be unthinkably fucking hard to do now that he’d found her, finally—a lifesaving shot-of-adrenaline-to-the-heart find. When Isabel had spun away from him there on that beach, he’d nearly keeled over from the pain in his middle, but she hadn’t walked away. No. She stayed just within arms’ reach.
He couldn’t let-on that she had consumed his mind and soul since their first meeting, but he had to grab her, take her. And it’d worked. She was kissing him back, surrendered in his arms.
Still connected, lips gliding over one another’s, teeth nipping, and tongues searching hungrily for more, he lifted her higher into the air and breathed her in before placing her down in the sand again, hating to separate from her mind-bending reciprocal hold. “Go. Get your purse,” he ordered in a hazy whisper. “I’ll tell my friends something much more i
mportant came up.” And he directed her to the bar’s back door, ready to follow behind her divine silhouette.
But her feet sank into the soft sand before taking a forward step, despite his gentle push at her lustrous lower back.
She pivoted to face him, hesitating—a look of resistance had wiped over her face. She took his hands in hers. “Zack…”
God, hearing his name from her mouth, he pulled her into him, unable to stay even inches apart and wrapped her in his arms again, pressing his lips to hers for one more taste.
But she stopped him, taking a step back. “Zack, wait…”
Her arms reached around her, moving his right hand from the cusp of her lower back to her right ass cheek. “Feel that? My ID, cash and credit card. Inside my secret skirt pocket.” She grinned.
God he wanted to rip the skirt with the goddamn secret pocket right off her fine ass. Now.
Then her left hand moved to the sweat-glistening dimple at the top of her chest and slid her index finger down to the rim of her halter. Once she’d arrived at her fleshy left bosom, she pulled the lace material out and down. Dear Jesus. “And my cell.”
“Yes, I see…your cell phone. I’m very jealous of your cell phone.”
She blushed. “I can text them. So we’re ready to go. Now.” She smiled.
“No, Isabel. You need to go in and tell the people you’re with that you’re leaving, or else they’ll think you were abducted.” He grabbed a handful of her sweet ass. “Then meet me out front.”
*
Reluctantly, she went back to her table, zigzagging her way through the packed bar. Her admittedly voluptuous curves bumped people’s chairs along the way, but she was in such a hazy state of hot arousal and robotic hypnosis she couldn’t have cared less.
Well, except for the people that she was being forced to say goodbye to. Namely, Roberto, who she knew would be waiting with her siblings, ready to give her an earful. Even though, damn it, what was he even doing here?
She got to the corner where her family and Roberto sat. Deep breath.
