Tropical Tryst: 25 All New and Exclusive Sexy Reads

by Nicole Morgan

  She’s got it. He wants it. It’s Perfectly Reasonable.

  Perfectly Planned

  Chloe Keay is on the hunt for the perfect sperm donor, but who knew it would be this hard? So many things to consider in a father – sure height and hair color are important, but what about the real issues. How does he feel about bagpipe music? Does he buy the extended warranty? Skittles or M&Ms? She doesn’t want an average Joe. She’s narrowed it down to two candidates and has the perfect plan to pick the heir and the spare.

  Staff Sergeant Rip Logan, head of the elite Tactics and Rescue Unit, has a gut feeling that Chloe Keay is trouble. She’s a sexy little spark plug who radiates innocence, but it doesn’t jibe with her suspicious behavior and probing questions. The fact that he’s attracted irritates him. What exactly is she after? And should he go with his gut or follow his heart? Planning for love – what could possibly go wrong?

  Perfectly Christmas

  On the first day of Christmas, his true love said to him, “Sorry, I have to work.”

  That’s the life of a surgeon, and Dr. Madison Hayes wouldn’t have it any other way.

  Dr. Quinn Malone has another priority. In the countdown to Christmas, he needs to convince his old flame that there’s more to life – and love – than the job itself.

  This time, his heart is in it for the long haul. Really.

  Romantic and . . . complicated – it’s Perfectly Christmas!

  Perfectly Together

  Newly graduated naturopathic doctor Jayden Locke has a dream – start a practice in small-town Emerson and never move again. She’s found the perfect office building to buy. It passes an inspection, design plans are drawn up, and the bank okays the loan. Only one problem.

  Dr. Cole Cameron scoops it before she has a chance to submit an offer. What?

  It’s a good investment. Cole isn’t interested in settling down. He works three jobs in three different towns and would just as soon keep moving. But something about Jayden’s defiant eyes and sexy smile makes him pause and reconsider.

  What are the chances that a heart filled with wanderlust and a soul longing for a home fit Perfectly Together?

  Find the Perfectly Series at www.lindaoconnor.net

  ALPHA HEAT

  MANDY ROSKO

  Andrea desperately needed a story. Her ex boyfriend, former movie star Xander Grey was the right guy to give it to her. She just has to go and meet him. Which shouldn’t be too awkward, since the last time she saw him was a hospital bed.

  * * *

  Xander’s family, a clan of dragon shifters, never appreciated his work. Dragons liked living in secrecy, and acting on a stage, or in front of a camera, was the most dishonourable and humiliating thing he could have done to them. Which was why they scarred his face.

  * * *

  Better him than his woman.

  * * *

  He let her go after that. He didn’t want her to see the man he’d become, but to see her again on the tropical resort he’d fled to is more than a shock, and stirring up old feelings.

  * * *

  Andrea, however, isn’t just after a story, and the secret she’s keeping could put them both in danger again.

  CHAPTER 1

  Was it at all possible for any city woman anywhere to have her sandaled feet on hot white sand, the ocean surf crashing just to her left, and listening to the sounds of surfers laughing with each other as they rode the waves with their Go-Pros attached to their helmets, and feel sick to her stomach?

  Andrea had just learned that, yes, that was very possible.

  It was January, and instead of making the shivering commute through the subways and sidewalks of New York, she was standing under the blazing sun, the scent and sounds of the ocean all around her, wearing a loose sun dress that was barely a dress, with a bikini top, and her camera bag around her shoulder.

  She wanted to go home. She hated it here. This place was the fifth ring of hell.

  Andrea sucked back a heavy breath, let it out, and then went on her walk.

  She'd heard that Xander Grey may or may not be down here, soaking up the sun, or possibly surfing, and she needed to speak to him.

  The interview needed to be done, and now that he was out of rehab, she could be one of the first to get a quote from him. Possibly a picture.

  It wasn't every day a reporter got a story like that, about his fight with addiction and fall from grace, especially when that reporter happened to be an old flame.

  God, she sounded so stupid even inside her own head.

  Andrea walked along the beach. Of course she got sand between her toes, she hated that, so she wound up walking just close enough to the surf that the water rushing forward and back would wash off her feet every time.

  She kept her eyes on the gorgeous, gleaming bodies on the beach, and off. She kept her eyes peeled on the men, not so much the women. This was a resort, but there were no children here, no families. Everyone was rich, but not everyone was famous, and the vast majority all looked as if they spent the better half of their days in a gym.

  Or working on their tans out here.

  The chests and shoulders were all bronzed and oiled as far as the eye could see. The women were lying on their stomachs, heads resting on their arms, with the backs of their bikini tops wide open for proper tanning. They hardly looked as if they needed it. The ones who kept their mermaid tails out were especially confusing to her.

  What was the point of tanning when they were going to leave their legs out of the equation? Wouldn't that make the worst tan lines? Not that Andrea cared, but it seemed like something a hot, busty mermaid might care about. At the very least, it might dry out her scales.

  Meanwhile, Andrea was the palest, and probably most normal, person here. She even kept an enormous straw hat over her head to keep the sun at bay. The sunglasses made her feel even more as if she was trying to hide something.

  Had the sun not been so bright, people might've have mistaken her for a vampire. She used to get that joke all the time as a kid, and sometimes still did as an adult. Not a true redhead, but cherry blonde hair and freckles meant she still kept a healthy distance from the sun.

  No sign of Xander.

  Would these people know it if they'd seen him? He'd kept a relatively low profile, and he wasn't exactly that famous. She hadn't thought so, not that she was insulting him, but he'd always seemed more normal than a celebrity.

  Except for that one time when it was proven how not normal he was.

  Asking around wouldn't be the best idea. That would just get people interested. It would get them looking for Xander themselves, and that was known for scaring off a celebrity when they wanted to be alone.

  Xander definitely wanted to be alone. She didn't need to be a psychic to know that much.

  No sign of him anywhere.

  She walked as far as she could go, inspecting every gorgeous body that might come even close to resembling Xander.

  Except she hadn't seen him in three years. He would look similar, but he might not be quite as massively built as she remembered him to be. He'd been doing drugs. He could have gotten smaller. He was supposed to start filming for his first movie as part of his comeback next month. He might still be building up his muscle mass.

  It didn't matter. Even if she thought someone at a distance looked somewhat like him, it always turned out to be someone else.

  Andrea sighed. She pulled out her camera, taking some photos of the beach and the resort anyway. Those sorts of throwaways could always have a use.

  Andrea didn't want to find him. Her guts were still constricting at the thought of seeing him, but she couldn't turn away from this either.

  "They said you were here. Where are you?"

  He might be back at the resort, sitting in his own private Jacuzzi, and socializing with no one else except for his personal trainer and the people in charge of his diet and nutrition.

  Andrea looked back to the resort. She could see it from here, even though the building
wasn’t that tall.

  Which room was his? If he was actually hiding away from other people, she was going to have to do a little investigative journalism, or stalking, to find out where exactly he was so she could knock on his door.

  Or she'd have to get lucky.

  Maybe she could get lucky tomorrow?

  Her plane had only just landed today. No one could expect her to find him so soon, right? It wasn't as if anyone actually thought she would make contact on day one with a former superstar who was purposely hiding away from the public eye.

  Right?

  Maybe she should keep looking. Andrea put her camera back into her bag. She started walking again, all the while white-knuckling the strap around her shoulder. Too much was riding on the pictures she needed to take and the things she needed to do.

  Andrea continued to walk along the beach. She would need to search every inch of it available to the public.

  A few of the guys coming in and out of the water took one look at her and asked if she wanted to join them later, one couple asked her to snap a photo of them using their phone—Andrea did that—but she otherwise kept to herself.

  She walked until the crowds thinned and there were fewer towels and lawn chairs and umbrellas, and then kept going until there were none of these things at all.

  The water looked almost rougher out here. There were some larger dark rocks and weeds poking out of the sand. This was clearly outside of the resort. There wasn't any trash that she could see, but the tall grass and rougher sand definitely let her know she was on unkempt land.

  She would have turned around had it not been for the one other person who caught her eye in the distance.

  At first she didn't know it was a person. She thought it was a boulder, or perhaps a child, but then, no, that was a man. He was just sitting there, in the sand with his knees up and spread out as he looked out across the water.

  Andrea's heart slammed against her ribs in a violent tempo.

  There was a pretty good chance that was not him. He could be another tourist, or possibly even a local. But she had to check it out. She would get just close enough that she would know for sure if that was Xander or not. The long khaki shorts and floral shirt weren't exactly his style, but he was wearing a hat and sunglasses.

  Just the way a celebrity might when he didn't want to be noticed.

  Andrea didn't know why they bothered. It wasn't as if that sort of thing ever worked.

  She pulled her camera out. The lense would let her zoom in enough as she got closer. Step by step, it was as if she was making progress in inches, but she closed in on her target, lifted her camera, and...

  She wasn't shocked, though her stupid heart wouldn't take the time to slow down in the least. It picked up speed, and now her feet were itching to turn around and walk as quickly and quietly as she could back to the resort before he could see her.

  As if he sensed her eyes on him, even through the lense of the camera, Xander Grey, recovering addict and A-list actor, turned his gaze in her direction, revealing the other half of his face, his face marred with enough scars that even the wide sunglasses couldn't hide them.

  When he spotted her and abruptly shot to his feet, Andrea quickly lowered her camera, turned around, and got out of there.

  CHAPTER 2

  X ander blinked. Then he got to his feet and started running after the woman who just turned her back on him and started to swiftly walk away.

  His heart raced like it hadn’t in years, his breath catching in his throat when he needed it the most.

  That was her. That was Andrea. She was here. What was she doing here?

  With a camera.

  Whatever. He didn’t care and it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was getting to her before she could vanish on him.

  He’d forgotten her. He’d thought he’d forgotten her, but that was impossible now that she was here. He had to at least have a proper look at her.

  As he chased, leaving the barren part of the beach for the area that had more tourists, cleaner sand, and the laughter of children, it occurred to him that he might be chasing down the wrong woman.

  Andrea Cantrell wasn’t the only woman in the world with that cherry blonde hair, or those heart-shaped hips.

  As he closed in on her, he knew he wasn’t wrong. That was definitely her. She even glanced back at him, as if to make sure he wasn’t following, but then turned around again quickly when she noted he was.

  Xander stopped suddenly, his heart beating a hard drum against the inside of his ribs. He was actually out of breath. That was how much the sight of her had made him come undone.

  “Andy?”

  She stopped. Ten feet away, her shoulders tensed, and God, his hands ached to reach out and touch her smooth skin.

  Just like he used to.

  Andrea didn’t turn right away. She must have been weighing the pros and cons of doing so before she abruptly spun around, a smile on her face that was faker than anything his agent could have given him.

  She never used to smile at him like that, but she likely wasn’t too thrilled by the idea of having him follow her around like a lost puppy in a public space either.

  “Xander, hi,” she said in a light, airy voice, as if they hadn’t seen each other in three days and were simply passing by one another. Total coincidence, nothing to do with anything.

  As if they hadn’t once meant something to each other.

  Xander’s throat was inexplicably dry. He didn’t understand it, and he didn’t like it. “What…what are you doing here?”

  A stupid question to ask. He shouldn’t have bothered. He could see the camera bag on her shoulder. He’d watched her fumble to get the camera in it as she power walked away from him.

  Of course there was only one reason for her to be here. She was getting photos. Of him.

  “I…” Andrea clearly realized where his gaze had fallen to, and why. She stumbled over her words for a minute, her hands clenching around the strap of her camera. “I’m sorry,” she said finally. “I was sent to get some pictures. That’s it, I promise.”

  She was still a bad liar, but he didn’t think it would be fair to throw that in her face right now. He didn’t want to embarrass her. He never wanted to do something like that.

  “You sure you don’t need an interview, too?”

  She was smart enough to recognize the olive branch for what it was. He always liked that about her, her intelligence.

  Except the rising color spreading across her cheeks, and the way she bit those plump lips together, spoke of her embarrassment. He didn’t understand. Before, she would have laughed off a situation like this with him.

  Well, he supposed things had changed. The way she bit her lower lip, however, didn’t.

  He had to look away before he started thinking too deeply about how he wanted to bite that lip for her.

  “Hey, it’s okay, don’t worry about it. I don’t mind.”

  He knew she was sent here for more than a picture, so he might as well be as gentle as possible about this. If he wasn’t, then there was the very real chance she could end up running from him. It would be out of character for her, but so much could have changed in the time they’d spent apart.

  He didn’t want that. He wanted her right here. Where he could see her.

  He didn’t want her to leave him again.

  “I…” The flushed look to her cheeks and ears had nothing to do with the sun, not with that wide straw had on her head. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean…” She broke off again, one hand on her hip while she brought the other hand up to bite down on her knuckle.

  “It’s fine, really. I wasn’t lying when I said I don’t mind.” Was he coming off as desperate? He didn’t want that. “If you want, I’m perfectly happy to sit down with you and have a talk.”

  “No, don’t do that.”

  “It’s honestly okay. I know this is your job. If it’ll help you get ahead, then I want to do it.”

  Her eyes wid
ened just a touch, allowing Xander to drink in that blue-gray color he used to admire so much. And from a much closer distance than this. They would be in bed together, because they’d either just woken up, or had ripped each other out of their clothes and finished rocking each other’s worlds.

  Her eyes always danced when they’d finished making love.

  That was over. Those days were long gone. He had only now to think about, and the possibility of having a coffee with the woman in front of him, and maybe a chance to explain himself.

  “You would do that for me?”

  He didn’t hesitate. “Absolutely. Whenever you’re ready for it.”

  Andrea still looked so uncomfortable. She glanced away from him, and Xander wasn’t much of a dragon, he never had the instinct for that warrior life style, but he could see a frightened animal about to bolt when it was in front o him.

  He didn’t ask if he was afraid of him. The answer was obvious.

  She was clearly here because her boss, or editor or whatever, had forced her to come to get some sort of story. She didn’t want to be around him. He could feel it. She was having a hard time looking at his face, and he knew the scars had a lot to do with that.

  He reached into his pocket. Despite having a phone on him, and knowing she likely had hers, it had become a habit for him to carry around his business cards. His agent had harassed him about that until it became habit, and he figured this would be safer for her. “Do you have a pen?”

  She blinked, as though caught off guard by the question, but then quickly reached into her camera bag and produced one. Andy never went anywhere without a pen. She was almost obsessive compulsive like that.

  On the back of the card, he wrote down the personal number to his cell phone.

  “This is my private number. Only my agent has it.” He looked up at her, smiling softly. “Please don’t put it up on the Internet.”