Craved by a Stranger (Craved Series #1)

by Hazel Kelly

  “So don’t blow it.”

  “Okay.”

  “Or overthink it.”

  “Fine. Jeez. Do you seriously have no faith in my ability to let go and have a good time?” I asked. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “Yes, you are,” she said. “But don’t make Jack work as hard convincing you to open your legs to him as I did trying to get you to open your mind to this trip.”

  “It feels like you’re trying to pimp me out.”

  “Sorry, does it seem like that?”

  “Yeah, it does.”

  “Well, it would make me feel less guilty about what I intend to do tonight.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Matteo’s getting lucky then I take it?”

  She shook her head like she hurt all over. “Sooo lucky.”

  I sighed.

  “What?”

  “There is something I’ve been overthinking.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “It’s nothing really- just something I’ve been feeling kind of bad about.”

  Megan rested her chin in her hand. “Go on.”

  “It’s the Emmett thing.”

  “What about it?” she asked.

  “I’ve just been thinking about what a pathetic fool I was that I ever even liked him.”

  “Understandable.”

  “I mean, a complete stranger was nicer to me in five minutes today than he was in the last five months.”

  Megan made sad eyes at me. “Don’t beat yourself up.”

  “What was I thinking though?”

  “Honestly?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You just forgot what you deserve and lowered your standards.”

  “Tell me how you really feel.”

  “I mean it. I’ve been thinking about it a lot,” she said. “I think I did the same thing with Max.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah. I just got used to the way he treated me and forgot to question whether I wanted more.”

  “So you basically mistook comfort for happiness.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “And you simply did the opposite.”

  I furrowed my eyebrows.

  “You confused being terribly uncomfortable with romance.”

  “Maybe.”

  “It’s just a theory,” Megan said. “Anyway, that’s not the point.”

  “And what exactly is the point?”

  Megan bent her knees, lifting her heels towards the ceiling. “The point is, we are both going on dates tonight with attractive men whose skid marks we’ve never seen, and that is very exciting indeed.”

  I laughed. “Touché.”

  ***

  At seven thirty, Megan and I headed to the downstairs bar where we’d both agreed to meet our respective dates.

  The bar itself was garnished with large palm fronds and lobster claw heliconia and as usual, a large picture of the king looked down on us from pride of place.

  We each ordered a glass of white wine to settle our nerves and took our seats at adjacent barstools.

  Matteo arrived when we were halfway through our drinks, his thick Italian accent giving him away. “You look beautiful,” he said to Megan, kissing her on both cheeks.

  “Thanks,” she said, turning an open palm in my direction. “Matteo, this is my friend Audrey.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” he said.

  I was about to shake his hand when he went in and kissed my cheeks, too. “Likewise,” I said, understanding why he got Megan’s attention so fast.

  “Will you be joining us tonight?” Matteo asked.

  “No,” I said. “I have plans of my own.” Besides, three would probably be a crowd for what Megan has planned for you. “Maybe another time.”

  “I hope so,” Matteo said, his thick curls moving as he spoke. “In that case, I’ve been looking forward to Megan’s company all day so if you don’t mind-”

  “She’s all yours,” I said.

  Megan hooked her arm in Matteo’s and they walked towards the door of the hotel.

  I turned back towards the bar only to find Megan whispering in my ear a moment later. “Don’t wait up.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Okay. Be safe.”

  “I will. And have fun, too,” she said, nudging me.

  “I will.”

  “And don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

  I turned my head towards her. “Like what?”

  “Exactly,” she said, raising her eyebrows.

  “Okay,” I said. “I get it.”

  “See you tomorrow,” she said, squeezing my shoulder and then scurrying back to Matteo’s side.

  I watched them walk down the steps and into the night, wondering how much longer Dr. Jack would keep me waiting.

  Chapter 15: Jack

  I decided to wear a white linen shirt to show off my tan and a pair of colorful plaid shorts that I hoped would take the sexually aggressive edge out of how I was feeling every time I thought about the way Audrey filled out her bikini.

  And she was just as striking fully clothed.

  “Glad to see you’re self-medicating,” I said, taking a seat at the barstool beside her.

  She smiled and looked at me out of the corner of her eye. “I’m a little nervous.”

  “Nervous,” I asked. “What do you have to be nervous about?”

  She shrugged and turned to me with her wine in hand. “I’m meeting a handsome doctor tonight, and I don’t know him very well.”

  “I’m sure that will change once you’ve spent some time together.”

  She pursed her lips. “I hope so.”

  Her eyes were distracting enough on their own, but whatever she’d done with her makeup was making it impossible for me to look away. “And I hope he’s really handsome,” I said. “Or he’ll look silly next to you.”

  “Why would he look silly?” she asked, taking a sip of her wine.

  I watched her neck as she swallowed. “Because you look absolutely stunning.”

  “What- this old thing?” she said looking down.

  I smiled.

  “Actually it’s new,” she said. “I’m glad you think it looks nice because I bought it in four colors.”

  I laughed. “It’s nice of you to support the Thai economy on your vacation.”

  “They certainly make it easy. Everything is so cheap. I’m having a hard time saying no to anything.”

  “Good to know.”

  Her cheeks turned pink.

  I felt a twinge in my groin as I wondered where else I might be able to make her blush. “Do you like seafood?” I asked, running my fingers through my hair.

  “Love it,” she said.

  “I have an idea then.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Why don’t you ditch this lame doctor guy and come to a little seafood place on the beach with me instead?”

  “Ohhhh. I don’t know,” she said, pretending to think about it. “I promised him I would take him to dinner tonight.”

  I fixed my eyes on her. “I insist.”

  She smiled and took the last sip of her wine before stepping down from her stool carefully. “Well, if you insist.”

  “Are you saying yes because you can’t say no to anything or because you want to go with me?”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Does it matter?”

  “Sort of,” I said, cocking my arm out to the side so she could take it.

  She slid her hand over my forearm. “Why?”

  “Cause it would give me some indication of how hard I have to try to impress you,” I said, glancing at her glossy lips.

  She offered me a crooked smile. “I see. Well, I like to think I’m not too easily impressed, but you set the bar pretty high on the beach earlier.”

  I shrugged. “What can I say? I see a damsel in distress and I come running.”

  “Or swimming,” she said.

  “Or swimming.”

  “I can’t help but feel pretty lucky that you were there to help,” she said, walk
ing carefully through the hotel lobby on her bandaged foot.

  I found it amusing that she thought she was the lucky one.

  “I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t shown up when you did.”

  “I’m sure you would’ve been fine,” I said, turning down the sidewalk towards the restaurant.

  “Probably, but I’m kind of embarrassed about how I freaked out considering I wasn’t actually attacked by a puffer fish or speared by a thousand sea urchins.”

  “Don’t be,” I said. “It was just inexperience. Next time you won’t let your snorkel get the better of you.”

  She rolled her eyes. “That makes me sound like such a rookie!”

  “Everyone starts out that way.”

  “Maybe, but who knows when the next time will be if I can’t go in the water again on this trip?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “You definitely can’t go back in the water.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “It would really interfere with your foot’s ability to heal.”

  She nodded.

  “But I’m sure there’ll still be plenty for you to see whenever you make it back.”

  She shook her head. “It was amazing out there. So peaceful. So colorful. I had no idea. I mean, I knew scuba diving was supposed to be cool, but I didn’t realize snorkeling could be so interesting.”

  My chest felt warm watching her face light up as she talked about it. “I’m sure today wasn’t your last time.”

  “I’d still be nervous though,” she said. “Especially after what happened today.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it too much,” I said. “It’s better to have a healthy respect for the ocean than to be overconfident. That’s when people get hurt.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Spoken like someone who knows.”

  “You could say that.”

  “Are you in the coral kicking club, too?”

  “Of course,” I said. “Along with you, John Smith, and thousands of other people who visit every year.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “I feel a little better.”

  “Plus, I’ve been stung by more jelly fish than I can count, and much to my regret, I did step on a sea urchin once.”

  “Oh god,” she said. “That must have been awful.”

  “Yeah,” I said, waiting for a loud string of mopeds to pass us by. “It was, and you can’t pull the spikes out so I just had to leave them in my foot.”

  “Are they still there?”

  “No, they’re mostly calcium so they dissolve eventually. But it was pretty painful to have to walk around on them.”

  “Even for a tough guy like you?” she asked, pulling herself playfully against my arm.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Even for a tough guy like me.”

  “No offense,” she said. “But how did you manage to step on one of them? It’s not like they hide from you, and they look as obvious as they do menacing.”

  I shrugged. “Yeah, well, I was young and stupid.”

  “Go on.”

  “Basically, some friends and I arrived at one of the islands down south on a late boat, and we were all full of Thai rum so we thought it would be a great idea to go skinny dipping.”

  “Oh?”

  “Of course, we had no idea what the urchin situation was there, and we were frolicking around without a care in the world for about ten minutes.”

  “At which point you stepped on one.”

  “Yep. Just me. No one else.”

  “At least it only got your foot.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Believe me, that was something I spent a lot of time being grateful for over the next few weeks.”

  “I bet,” she said. “Does that mean you’re not a big fan of skinny dipping anymore?”

  “Not unless I’ve already done a preliminary search for danger in the area.”

  “How very spontaneous.”

  “Hey- it’s not a mistake I’m willing to make again.”

  “And the jelly fish?” she asked, jaywalking across the empty street with me.

  I shrugged. “They’re pretty unavoidable if you spend as much time in the ocean as I do.”

  “And when they sting you,” she said, lowering her voice. “Is it true what they say?”

  I looked at her. “Are you asking me what I think you’re asking me?”

  “Is it an unfair question?”

  I laughed. “No, I suppose not, but no, no one has peed on me.”

  “Is that not true then or-”

  “No,” I said. “Vinegar does the trick for most jelly fish stings, and as a bonus, you get to keep your dignity.”

  “Wow,” she said. “I feel like I’ve learned so much, and we haven’t even gotten to the restaurant.”

  I smiled. There was so much more I wanted to teach her.

  Chapter 16: Audrey

  As much as I loved fancy restaurants with carefully chosen decorations, creamy off white interiors, soft lighting, and, well, walls, there was something about the restaurant that Jack took me to that was undeniably romantic.

  Maybe it was the sound of the ocean lapping just a few feet away. Or perhaps it was the fact that there was a starry sky above us instead of bold sconces. Whatever it was, I had a really good feeling about the place before I even sat down.

  A smiley Thai man greeted us as we entered the restaurant’s patch of sand and led us to one of the mismatched tables. When we reached it, Jack pulled my chair out and requested a bottle of white wine.

  “Thank you,” I said, sitting down.

  “You’re welcome,” he said, walking around the table.

  “I like this place,” I said, slipping the sandal off my uninjured foot and wiggling my toes in the sand. “It has a nice vibe.”

  “Second only to the food,” he said, taking his seat across from me.

  “I can’t wait to try it.”

  “I hope you’re hungry,” he said, stealing a glance at my cleavage. “The portions here are epic.”

  “Do you come here a lot?” I asked, looking down as I spread my napkin in my lap in case he wanted to look a bit longer.

  “All the time.”

  “Do you live out here then?” I asked.

  “Just part time.”

  “You could do worse,” I said, noticing the kitchen was no bigger than an elevator.

  “I’ve come to love it,” he said. “Though when I first arrived I was only looking to get away for a while.”

  I squinted at him. “Running from something, were you?”

  “Sort of.”

  A different friendly Thai arrived with a bottle of white in an ice bucket and two glasses. He poured our drinks for us quickly and then disappeared.

  I tilted my head and laid two fingers on the stem of my glass. “You said you used to be a doctor?”

  “Yeah.” He looked down at the table for a second and then back up at me. “I absolutely loved it. I hope to practice again someday.”

  “So what happened?”

  “I just got a little sidetracked.”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  He crinkled his nose. “That’s a bit vague, isn’t it?”

  “Terribly,” I said, opening the worn menu in front of me.

  Jack sighed. “I guess I should just come clean.”

  My whole body froze except for a lump that jumped into my throat.

  “Basically, I wrote a diet book.”

  I tilted my head at him. “A diet book?”

  “Yeah, and it became a New York Times Best Seller.”

  I exhaled, my shoulders dropping several inches.

  “What?”

  I shook my head. “I’m so relieved.”

  “So was my publisher.”

  “No,” I said. “That’s not what I mean. I mean, between how vague you were being and the whole come clean thing, I was afraid you were going to tell me you’d done something illegal or sold some organs or that you were-”