Tempting Isabel (Paradise South #1)

by Rissa Brahm

  She slid into her chair, conveniently situated next to Roberto’s newly added seat and place setting. “What are you doing here?” she whispered in his ear.

  “I’m out at a bar…the bar we all always go to. Nothing wrong with that, right?” Roberto blurted out, obviously unwilling to keep things mellow and undramatic. Everyone paused and stared. Roberto nodded to everyone, eyebrows raised while Isabel took in her second large gulp of oxygen.

  Her brothers and sister all knew that Isabel had asked Roberto to give her some space. It was no secret. But knowing Roberto’s more recent state, and her current and exploding desire to get the hell out of there—with Zack—she didn’t want a scene or an unending discussion to go down there at the table. It would just slow down her exit.

  From across the table, Antonio checked in with Isabel with a single look. She gave her older brother a nod and a convincing-enough smile, hopefully staving off his protective instincts for a short goodbye, then out. “Roberto”—said through gritted teeth and plastered grin—“I just meant…I didn’t expect you here, is all. It doesn’t matter. Thanks for helping out with that sleaze at the bar.”

  “No problem, sweetheart. But it looks like you have more help than you can handle tonight.” He lifted a brow at her—the vibrations of his bruised ego and his clear reference to Zack were no doubt received.

  Not willing to feed the fire, Isabel turned away from Roberto and focused on Antonio and the rest of the table. “Hey…so, I just bumped into an old friend, and we’re gonna go catch up before he leaves Vallarta.” She moved toward her sister, kissed her goodbye, and whispered, “Use this when you guys are done for the night.” She put a wad of bills in Celeste’s hand. “Drinks and dinner on me.”

  Celeste took the cash with a small reluctant eye roll, and then hugged her sister. “Have fun. And please, keep an open mind, Isa?” she whispered in Isabel’s ear.

  “Where are you going?” Roberto asked.

  Like it was any of his business! Isabel was trying to be patient and civil, but Jesus! If he’d remembered how to be a best friend and not a relentless, self-absorbed stalker, she’d have confided in Roberto from moment one. But Roberto wasn’t there for her. He wasn’t listening to her words, her explanation of how she felt toward him, her platonic, and solely platonic, love for him.

  If Roberto had been the usual support system he had been for all the years before their drunken-mistake-of-a-night, she’d have told him how Zack had invaded her mind and body these past weeks, and of the war playing out within her at that very moment. Of how weak she felt for even entertaining the idea of going anywhere with Zack—last name still thankfully unknown—the gorgeous American player!

  But no. Roberto wasn’t there to play that role for her, not anymore.

  “Not sure,” she said, making no eye contact with him whatsoever. She leaned across the table toward Eddie then to Ray to kiss them each goodbye. Next Antonio. At the edge of her seat, ready to reach her oldest brother, Roberto leaned into her.

  “I just saw you out back on the beach, Isa,” Roberto whispered. “With that gringo…more than a friend, I’d say. What happened to your one-night rule, anyway?”

  Her cheeks burned up red, not from embarrassment since no one at the table had heard his comment, but from anger. Pure, hot anger.

  *

  Using the reasoning she’d given Roberto against her, and automatically assuming, what? That every guy she kissed was someone she’d already slept with? Roberto was obviously hurt, emotional, irrational, and didn’t care who knew it.

  But it just so happened that contrary to Roberto’s jealousy-based assumptions, she hadn’t fully been with Zack at all yet and wasn’t technically breaking her rule. She was only in the gray with regard to her own self-worth and her greedy need stemming from deep within her core—an intense and raw desire for a man she had stomped out on only weeks ago. He had insulted her intelligence and made her potential sloppy-thirds. There had been a damn waiting list of women for him to screw for heaven’s sake, or so said the hanging panties and their accompanied lipsticked-note!

  She had to get the hell out of there before she talked herself out of Zack altogether, and her throbbing clit wouldn’t have been so forgiving. It’d be only one night, for heaven’s sake. And Zack had been desperately searching for her over the past weeks, so said his convincingly sweet eyes when he stopped her from leaving him out there on the beach.

  Oh God, on that beach behind the bar only minutes ago. The blissful, floating feeling of being wrapped in Zack’s arms flooded her senses, and she couldn’t hide her smile. Roberto rolled his eyes at her as if he’d read her thoughts and then slowly shook his head in disappointment.

  Screw you, Roberto, and screw this. A resurgence of anger put to immediate death her internal voice of self-judgment, self-doubt, and second-guessing. She’d show Roberto what it looked like when her foot came down. She was going with Zack, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do or say to stop her. She was a grown woman, and she would indulge in Green Eyes that night and damn well enjoy it.

  And the minutes she’d spent away from Zack were already too long—her quickened heartbeat was starting to thump in her ears now. Without more theatrics to delay her from being back in that smoldering man’s gaze, she said to Roberto in a quiet growl, “I’m sure you’re well-meaning…but it’s none of your concern.” Then, to the rest of the table, “Okay, talk to you all over the week.”

  “You can’t go. You’re being goddamn…reckless,” Roberto snapped at her in her ear, still just decibels below hearing range so that her family missed the comment.

  With that, her frustration level peaked. She filled her lungs then hissed back, “Last I knew, my father checked out of my life, and I definitely didn’t apply for a new one. Thanks, though.” She spun away from Roberto, gave a strained smile to her siblings, and pushed her chair out from the table. Roberto began to follow suit, but Antonio stood up from his seat before Roberto’s chair screeched back any further. Tall, well-built, and always calm, cool, and controlled, Antonio, a martial arts master and second oldest Ruiz brother, walked over to Isabel while keeping Roberto in his chair with a single glance.

  Antonio kissed Isabel on the cheek. “Have fun. Take care of yourself.” He pushed her gently toward the bar’s exit. “Text me when you’re home.”

  “I always do, big brother,” she said with a thankful smile then lifted to her toes to give him a quick hug. Admittedly strong and stubborn by nature, she knew Antonio’s protectiveness—always given with room to breathe—was the only brand her pride and strong-willed nature could take.

  She gave them all a final wave goodbye and headed out. With the exit targeted, she heard Roberto push his chair out in a huff, then from her side view she watched him vanish into the sea of people at the bar. She shook it off, replacing anger with sheer, core-pounding desire, and made a beeline toward the exit to reunite with Zack outside.

  Zack came up on Isabel’s blindside as she reached the door. Her pulse triple-timed. He took her hand in his.

  “That took way longer than I wanted,” she said and squeezed his hand with renewed excitement.

  “Maybe you should’ve called?”

  She sighed with her eyes then smiled. “I told you.”

  “Well, we’re out now. Come on.”

  With his hand still clutching hers, he opened the door for her and pulled her across the threshold. She hadn’t met the bar’s outside steps before she noticed Roberto out of the corner of her eye—at the side door, leaving too, and in a more than obvious rage.

  Who cares? Roberto wasn’t going to ruin her night.

  Nothing would.

  She beamed at Zack, tantalizing as all hell. A feeling engulfed her like the ecstasy she’d known on that first morning in her new home—working her ass off, free of clothing and judging eyes, with the windows open to the sweet sea air.

  Same sensation now, with Zack—liberation mixed with an overwhelming sense of yearning. Hand
-in-hand, they left Las Tequilas.

  CHAPTER 14

  Zack kept firm hold of Isabel as they walked one block away to La Sexta Noche in the thick Vallarta heat. His need for her was impossible to hide. He had a hot, firm grasp on her hand, their fingers interlocked, his moist palm suctioned to hers. He found himself pumping her hand to the beat of the deep, pounding bass drifting through the air from the club.

  But while relishing the electricity spiking up his arm from her hand’s tight hold, he could hardly stand the distance between their other body parts. He’d skip the club in a heartbeat and move right to his place in order to gain full access to her delectable body, that is if he didn’t think she’d bolt. Even though it seemed she was as anxious as he was to get back to exploring each other in penthouse-privacy, as her hungry and focused gaze suggested. But he wasn’t about to risk the modicum of trust he’d somehow won back.

  And then later, after attending to each other’s primal needs, he’d tell her everything, all of the realizations that’d struck him like lightning since she’d left him two weeks ago, alone and reeling in his void, the void that only Isabel seemed to be able to fill.

  They crossed the street at the traffic light, hand-in-hand, with heightening anticipation. An oncoming pickup truck looked as though it wanted to run the red, and Zack tightened his grasp of her hand and picked up their pace, despite Isabel’s spiked heels. At the safe side of the road, he made sure she was all right.

  She smiled at him sweetly. “Both heels intact.”

  And twenty syncopated steps later, they were at La Sexta Noche.

  *

  The club was unexpectedly packed with partiers lining up around the building. Despite being a weekday night in the sweltering late May heat, some murmurs of a famous musician having just arrived explained things.

  Zack pulled Isabel up to the front of the line, whispered something to the bouncer, and the velvet rope lifted for his immediate entry—but then quickly clipped back into place before Isabel could pass, now taut across her midriff.

  “She’s with me, man,” Zack said with raised eyebrows to his bouncer acquaintance.

  “Sorry, man. Not her.” And the larger man turned his attention to the next desperate soul in line.

  “Seriously, bro, she’s my date.”

  But the bouncer didn’t give Zack a second glance.

  And Zack James wasn’t one to be ignored. Ever.

  Who the fuck was this oversized chump anyway? Stopping his woman in her tracks? Ignoring and insulting him? And breaking their vibe?

  He looked at Isabel. A slightly mortified expression on her gorgeous face.

  Fuck. He slipped his hand in and out of his pocket and subtly extended it to the massive man on door duty. “Take this and lift the rope. You need more hot women tonight, anyway.”

  The bouncer slowly returned his attention to Zack. “You deaf, gringo? Not her.” The large man referenced Isabel with a nod while obviously avoiding direct eye contact. The bouncer wouldn’t even take the wad of bills Zack tried to slip into the man’s giant hand.

  Zack didn’t want to make a scene, and Isabel’s shifting stance and downturned eyes told him that she agreed. From across the velvet rope he whispered in her ear, “Go around back. I’ll meet you and let you in. Go carefully,” he said, looking down at her spiked heels.

  Three minutes later, he had made his way through the overflowing dance floor to the rear emergency door. For pride’s sake alone he’d sneak her in. Fuck the bouncer.

  When he opened the door for Isabel, an ear-shattering alarm went off. It continued until the door slammed shut again, but he and Isabel were already lost in the thick crowd by the time security made it to the fire door.

  The entire episode was comical; it made him feel twenty again. He watched her catch her breath after a fit of tearful laughter, a glow coming off her that enticed him all the more.

  “Come on,” he yelled as he pulled her deeper and deeper into the vibrating crowd. With the pulsating beat and the flashing strobes, the dance floor was alive, rising and falling to the electronica and throbbing bass. Zack found a pocket for them to be, pulled her close, and molded his body with hers. Moving in synch with the music, with each other, they became part of the club’s rolling wave.

  *

  Three songs pulsed through them until he needed more accessibility. He couldn’t contain his hunger for her. He led her off the dance floor the next instant into a small booth he’d spotted, just barely beating another couple to it.

  He ordered them vodka on the rocks, and, since it was so slammed, a next round of shots while they had the waitress’s attention.

  “What the hell was the bouncer’s deal? He acted like he had a personal grudge against you.”

  “I think…I dated his best friend in high school. Broke a heart or two, I guess.” She threw him a coy smile.

  “I can only imagine!” Zack smirked as he slid his hand behind her, rubbing small circles with his index finger where he remembered her sexy puzzle-shaped birthmark to be. Then his fingers streamed up and down the bevel of her spine. Fuck, her skin was perfect satin, divine. He wouldn’t make it more than a short while this way. He knew that for certain.

  The waitress returned with five drinks. He counted from his peripheral since his eyes remained glued to Isabel’s almost involuntarily.

  “I think there’s one too many drinks here…Mandy,” he said, glancing for a nanosecond at the waitress’s name tag—then back to Isabel.

  “This is from the woman at the red booth up there,” the waitress said, pointing up to the mezzanine level. Zack shifted his gaze for another blip in time to a brunette supermodel-type who winked on cue.

  He raised the glass to the stranger in thanks, and without so much as a hesitation or thought, he put it to Isabel’s lips, tipped it back and whispered to her, “Hold it, and give it back to me.” He wanted to give his benefactor a show.

  Isabel did as she was told. She took the drink in her mouth, then putting her lush lips to his, slowly let the liquor flow into his mouth and down his throat. And with his hand now at the nape of her neck, he kept his lips pressed to hers long after the drink was downed. He tilted his head and teased her with his tongue, dipping into her gaping mouth, tickling and twirling until her tongue joined the dance. The sweet taste of her, combined with the lingering burning-cold vodka, made him harder than steel. He reached a new level of desperation to attack and take her, but quickly pulled away to maintain some element of control at their extremely public booth.

  “Mmmm…that was some drink,” she said with a trailing contentment in her voice, on her face, and in her slow, deep, panting breath.

  “Incredibly ballsy, huh? Women can be such wicked bitches. I mean, sending a man a drink while he is obviously with someone.” He wagged his head. “What insecurity…but it’s because you are just so much hotter than she is.” And he returned his lips to hers as he raked his hand through her hair, holding then pulling just to incite the slightest bit of pain. She moaned. Fuck! He needed this to end and them, together, alone, to start! But he couldn’t stop his mouth’s assault! The thought of prying himself away, pulling apart, separating for even a moment, it was just too much to bear. His thoughts blurred, his blood rushed. But it got too hot to breathe. Finally, he had to throw his head back to inhale fully and escape her resonating heat.

  He grinned just as he started to catch his breath.

  “What is it?” Isabel asked, her eyes softening with curiosity and maybe a slight hint of sweet insecurity.

  “Look.” He stroked her cheek with his hand and nodded to the mezzanine. The brunette who’d sent him the drink, grumbled to her friends and offered up the best damn evil eye he’d ever been “lucky” enough to receive.

  *

  She was delirious. And guilt spiked up her spine only every other second now. The other fractions of time were infiltrated by Zack’s essence in such gloriously close proximity.

  She downed her drink leaving only t
he ice, then slammed down the glass to regain Zack’s fullest attention. Screw that meddling brown-haired bitch.

  “I’m really thirsty too, for some reason.” Zack winked at her and then followed suit, slamming his vodka down his throat.

  She watched him process the heat of the drink as she filled her mouth with the remaining ice in her glass. He hit his glass to the table when empty and she moved closer to him on the smooth vinyl booth cushion. She put her fingers to her mouth, took out one cube of ice and moved her ice-cold hand with the slowly melting cube under the table, under her skirt, and placed it between her legs, her thighs squeezing it in place. God she needed that, an icy reprieve from the kinetic heat overtaking her at her very core.

  Then she took his hand and united it with her now-cooled clit, screaming for warmth once again. God, the contrast. At the same time, her empty yet freezing-cold hand undid the drawstring to his linen pants and slid down to grab his electrified cock.

  “Are you sure this is where you want to be right now?” she asked Zack. He beamed his confirmation and groaned to the ceiling. His response got her wetter still.

  He laughed, but his expression, icy and serious. “Want? As long as I’m with you, Isabel, I know I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.” He moved his fingers masterfully, despite the distraction he faced between his own legs. “I’ve not been able to get you out of my head, Isabel.”

  She searched his face then. His tone, so severe, in such sharp, sexually charged contrast to their play beneath the table. And as she fought for focus in order to absorb the meaning behind his words, a man came toward them waving. Isabel recognized the man from somewhere, but she couldn’t place his face.

  “Isabel, right? How are you? It’s me, Chris…the mirror install, a few weeks ago…”

  Isabel slowed her stroking hand to a gentle-yet-firm hold so Zack would match her pace with his own hand, which was driving her absolutely insane, wedged in her slick folds, manipulating her throbbing nub with expert-level care. She wouldn’t be able to find words for their surprise visitor, let alone gain enough composure to make eye contact, if Zack didn’t give her a short-yet-unwanted break.