He was so handsome he looked like a Greek god in the flesh, Sage thought dazedly as she stared openly at him. He was striding towards the hotel from the parking lot, his eyes glued to the smart-phone in his right hand while his left carried a backpack. He was dressed casually, in jeans and a shirt, but somehow, an invisible aura of power clung to him; he exuded confidence and authority. Barely restrained physical strength was also apparent in every line of movement his body made.
Eden and Beth had identical shocked expressions on their lovely faces as they stared at him, their mouths open. Sage licked her lips to keep her mouth from falling open. The man was truly delicious!
The man looked up just then as he came up to them, and his eyes met and held hers. Unable to stop herself, and without giving it a second thought, Sage reached up and slowly, very slowly, let the left sleeve of her dress fall, barring the creamy, silky skin of her full, thrusting, left breast all the way to the nipple and the fleshy, soft undersides of her breast.
The man’s eyes dropped to her large, naked breast, caressed the breast, feasted on it, before rising slowly to hers. Sage waited triumphantly to see the inevitable spark of desire in his eyes no man ever saw her breasts and didn’t go a little crazy. They were large, firm, fleshy and just begged to be caressed.
The naked revulsion and distaste that looked back at her from his black eyes were a surprise and it hit her like a splash of cold water. His lip curled in a sneer of distaste, making her feel lower than an insect.
Hastily, she scrambled to drag the sleeve of her dress into place and opened her mouth intending to apologize, but the man had already walked around her and her friends, giving them a wide berth, before disappearing into the hotel without a word or a backward glance.
“Who does he think he is?” Sage grumbled hours later as she sucked the lime from her drink.
She hadn’t been able to get the handsome stranger out of her mind, and not because of his looks, either. He had shaken her confidence in herself, which was something that had not happened since her teenage years; why, even Brent hadn’t managed that with all his unkind words. Yet, this man, with just one look, had managed to strip her of every last shred of confidence in a nanosecond. She had actually been on the verge of apologizing to the creep!
“He’s a boorish party popper, that’s who! He should have kissed the ground in gratitude that you picked him to show your jugs to,” Beth declared loyally.
“Forget him. It’s a vacation memory,” Eden said breezily. “You need to make out with a waiter,” she added in the next breath.
“What?” Sage gasped.
“Yeah, it’s the next item on the list,” Eden said earnestly, one long, manicured finger tapping the paper like it was the law of the universe itself.
“That damn list! I wanna see it!” Sage demanded, snatching it out of Eden’s hand over her friends’ protests.
Her eyes quickly scanned the rest of the list and she looked up and glared at her friends. “I may make out with the waiter in front of everyone, but that’s it. I am certainly not going to sleep with a stranger and snatch his wallet after that!”
“We’ll get there. Now make out with that waiter, he’s cute. You need to also go flirt with a group of guys when you’re done.”
“This is beginning to feel more like torture than fun,” Sage moaned, leaning her head against her hands. “I’m drunk!”
“Which makes it easier,” Beth cajoled.
“What the hell does that mean?” Sage wondered.
“Dutch courage,” Eden informed her. “Here he comes now,” she sang.
Sage looked up blearily at the waiter. He was cute, if her type ran to twelve-year-olds barely out of the schoolroom. She was just twenty-six, and yet, somehow, she felt as though she would be violating him if she planted one on him.
“Can I get you Senoras anything else?” he asked in thickly accented English.
“How old are you?” she croaked before she could think better of it.
“Twenty-two,” he said without as much as a flicker of surprise.
“Oh, you’re legal,” she breathed.
She rose to her feet in one fluid motion and before he could as much as draw another breath, she planted her lips firmly against his, drawing his lips in for a deep, deep, tongue-tangling kiss.
He gasped against her mouth and then his hands tightened around her waist.
“In your dreams, sailor,” she breathed as she pulled out of his arms.
The kid blushed, and then turned and fled towards the kitchen, his handkerchief flapping in his hands.
Beth and Eden dissolved into giggles.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing? Why did you have to use your tongue?” Beth whispered.
“How do you mean?” Sage whispered back.
“Come on, he’s a good-looking guy in an exotic tourist country with girls trooping in by the thousands daily; who knows where that mouth has been? He could have herpes!” Eden said.
Sage paled. “Why didn’t you tell me that earlier?” she asked, her heart hammering with fear.
Eden whooped with laughter and Beth actually slid off her seat in the booth onto the floor overcome with laughter. By now, everyone in the restaurant was looking their way and either grinning or shaking their heads.
Sage frowned suspiciously at her laughing friends, “What?”
“Did Did you see her face?” Eden laughed, one hand clenching Beth’s shoulder as they both convulsed in laughter, breathlessly struggling to regain control.
Sage glared at them. They had been kidding around, frightening her with thoughts of herpes. A sneaking suspicion entered her mind and she yanked the collar of Beth’s dress, hauling her off the floor and back onto the booth.
“Who did you kiss, Beth, during your own list thingy?” she demanded.
“Same guy. What gave me away?” Beth asked, grinning widely.
Sage shook her head in exasperation. Her friends had to be the most annoying people she had ever clapped eyes on!
She looked away angrily.
“Sage? Are you mad at us?” Beth asked, her laughter fading.
That was Beth; for all her occasional carefree attitude, she never wanted to hurt anyone. She was always the first of all three of them to apologize. Sage immediately felt like a heel when she saw the contrite expression on Beth’s pretty face.
She opened her mouth to assure Beth that she wasn’t angry but Eden forestalled her with a breezy, “Angry or not, you still have to do the next item on the list.”
Beth and Sage rolled their eyes in unison.
Sage looked at the list. Flirt with a group of guys and get them eating out of your palms.
Easy; or at least it should be. They were presently sitting in a restaurant cum bar and it was positively teeming with guys of all ages. Sage looked around, and for the first time, realized she was getting bored again; the men all looked alike for some reason. She really didn’t feel like flirting with a bunch of strangers; besides, flashing lobby guy hadn’t worked out so well. He had stared at her as though she were a bug that had crawled out from beneath his expensive loafers and strode away, perhaps to nurse his offended sensibilities.
Oh, what had she been thinking? A man like that definitely had a girlfriend. Now maybe he was laughing at her with his girlfriend.
“Earth to Sage,” Eden cried, clicking her fingers in front of Sage’s face.
“Sorry.”
“Get on with it then,” Beth said, nodding in the direction of a group of three men, sitting and laughing at a table for six. “And don’t forget the fourteenth item on the list; you can take any of them home tonight and snatch his wallet before morning,” she reminded her, eyes sparkling with mischief.
Sage leaned forward, “I am not going to bed with any of those guys!”
“Fine! All you have to do is take him into a room and drug him silly, then grab his wallet and run for it,” Eden said exasperatedly.
Sage stared at her friend�
�s red head as though she had grown an additional head. This was beginning to sound like something straight out of Most Wanted.
With a shake of her blond head, Sage slowly rose to her feet before striding to join the men at their table, her eyes trained on them with a deliberately predatory air that seemed to be fail-proof with guys these days.
“Hi fellas,” she purred, her voice huskier than usual.
Cougar mode; not that they were younger guys, though.
“What the hell? Who are you?” one of them asked rudely.
Sage tried not to let her confidence falter at that one. It was already battered, thanks to lobby guy. She grinned saucily at the guy who had spoken; he was hot in a boy-next-door kind of way.
She opened her mouth to respond but she was forestalled by a shrill, “Who the hell is she?” from behind her.
She didn’t even have to turn around to know she was the ‘she’ in question.
“Sorry. My bad,” she began, casting a wry look over her shoulder at the three ladies standing behind her.
“Look at that, Lou, we turn our backs for one second and someone is panting after our guys,” one of the three ladies whispered sotto voce.
“Yeah, someone’s got some explaining to do,” the third lady said, coming forward aggressively.
Sage barely refrained from rolling her eyes at such drama.
“Listen ladies, I was not panting after your guys, I was only ”
“Waiting for me,” a deep voice interrupted with quiet assurance from somewhere behind them.
Everyone froze. Slowly, Sage turned around with everyone else to see who had spoken and she paled; it was lobby guy!
CHAPTER THREE
The man from the hotel lobby had changed into a burgundy sports coat, deep-blue shirt, and well-tailored pants that frankly put his earlier jeans and shirt to shame and his hair was even more sexily mussed than ever before. She noticed, for the first time, that he had incredibly red lips and ridiculously long lashes, the combination of which should have given him a feminine air, but, somehow, managed to make him look even sexier and more masculine. Beneath the soft play of the dim lights in the room, his features seemed more sharply chiseled, even more ruggedly handsome and an unwelcome coil of desire began to tighten in Sage’s heart. She could have sworn she also felt a spurt of wetness between her thighs.
“Sorry I took so long to bring the car around,” he said innocently, unaware of his effect on Sage as he flicked a smiling glance at her.
Her throat dried up completely and she wished heartily that he wouldn’t smile at her. That kind of grin, given its sheer potency, should be outlawed! It did strange things to a woman’s temperature, and it wasn’t just her. The three ladies had gone from being protective hens to looking like fatuous Cheshire cats with identical come-hither grins while their men were rapidly beginning to look threatened.
“Um, what?” she asked, certain she had misheard.
“Come on honey, don’t keep Cedric waiting in the limo. Who knows what mischief he could get up to,” he said, placing a firm hand beneath her elbow and pulling her gently to her feet.
Every nerve in her body went on immediate alert, sensation skittering from the point where he touched her to spread all over her body until her nipples were hardening into little points beneath her gown.
“Ladies? Gentlemen? Sorry for the interruption. Do have a good evening,” he said politely and then he inexorably escorted Sage towards the door.
“Where do you think you’re taking me to?” Sage whispered through gritted teeth.
“Out to the streets where you belong,” he informed her implacably. “I don’t need your kind on my premises,” he said quietly.
His premises?
“My kind?” she asked, voicing the more urgent question.
He had escorted her right past the table where her friends were sitting, stupidly gaping at the pair of them with their mouths hanging open like jellyfish, and then straight out onto the street in front of the restaurant.
She turned to face him, one eyebrow raised as she waited for a response.
He simply deposited her in front of the restaurant and turned to leave.
She detained him with a firm hand on his elbow. “Wait. What did you mean ‘my kind’?”
“You flashed me a boob in front of the Presidential hotel and then less than thirty minutes later, I found you making out with the waiter and then hitting up a couple of guys. You do the math. I know what you’re up to lady, but this is an exclusive restaurant and not for your type. I’m sorry, you’ll have to…ply your trade elsewhere.”
There it was again; she didn’t have to be a Brainiac to know what he meant by her type. This time, she let fly with her fist and slapped him as hard as she could, the force of the slap flinging his head back. Red welts immediately appeared on his smoothly shaven cheek and Sage determinedly squelched the surge of guilt that threatened to swamp her. She would not apologize, especially when he totally deserved it.
He stared down at her, his eyes as hard as ice chips in his angular face, and then he enunciated coolly, “I suppose some men find that a turn on, perhaps among your clientele; but I assure you, inflicting pain won’t get you anywhere with me.”
“You are just determined to be a jerk,” she cried, stamping her foot in frustration.
“I won’t ask you again, please make yourself scarce, Senorita,” he said, pinning her with a level look that told her he meant business.
Sage rolled her eyes. “I’m not a prostitute, okay? I had a dare with my friends, for crying out loud. Everyone does something crazy like that every now and then. You would know that if you were not some uptight country bumpkin without any exposure whatsoever.”
His lips twitched a little at that one and Sage glared murderously at him; she was on a roll and he thought something was funny? Was he laughing at her?
“If you so much as lay one more depraved finger on me, I’ll slam a lawsuit on you so fast, it will make your ancestors dizzy,” she promised furiously.
This time, he was definitely laughing at her. His eyes twinkled as he boldly stepped closer to her, his dark gaze searching hers. “Allow me to make amends. Please. I was obviously very wrong in my assessment of your person because I put one and one together and came up with eleven. Let me make amends, please.”
He was so earnest, sincere and eager; or at least he seemed that way, and Sage felt her anger give way, draining out slowly until she was weak with the loss of all that energy.
“What’s your name?” he asked, still fighting a grin as he watched her deflate like a balloon.
“Sage. Sage Ta Talbot,” she supplied, watching him, amazed at the transformation in his features now that he had stopped glaring at her. She didn’t think it would be terribly wise to tell this stranger her real name.
“Will you do me the honor of having dinner with me, Sage?” he invited, his dark eyes boring into hers.
“I I’m already having dinner with my friends,” she told him. “Besides, you’re a stranger”
“I would like to change that. Please. I could never sleep with this on my conscience,” he added dramatically, splaying one large palm over his heart.
Sage giggled. He was a rogue all right. “Okay, fine. But my friends may not really enjoy one more person at our table.”
As if! Her friends would probably slobber all over him at dinner, she thought with an inward chuckle.
“Have you ever been to Spain? Taken in the sights at night? Let me give you a tour without your friends,” he cajoled softly.
Was it her imagination or did his eyes light up with that gleam men got when they wanted to have hot and heavy sex? Well, lobby guy hadn’t seemed interested in her before, so why the sudden interest, she wondered, all alarm bells ringing in her ear.
She stared at him speechlessly.
As though he had read her mind, he said softly, “I know, given how we met, you’re wondering just how safe you are with me. Smart.”
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br /> “Smart?” she asked, frowning up at him.
“Yes smart, because I can’t promise not to bite,” he told her, his dark gaze flicking from her face to her lips, stroking down her firm, rounded breasts, her waist cinched with a belt that emphasized her hourglass figure, and her generous hips before scanning her long silky legs exposed by the knee-length gown.
His meaning was as clear as the nose on her face. She waited for her affronted sensibilities to arise but all she felt was a quickening of her pulse.
“I don’t even know your name,” she protested weakly, her pulse hammering at the base of her throat so wildly that she was half-afraid he could hear it.
He grinned, a triumphant smile that was pure male and told her, without words, that he knew her protest was a mere formality. “I’m Raven. Raven Hawthorne,” he told her, watching her carefully as though he expected her to recognize the name.
He relaxed imperceptibly when she obviously didn’t.
She looked over at Eden and Sage; they had given up all pretense of eating and were almost falling out of their seats as they craned to see Sage and the stranger. He followed the direction of her gaze and hid a grin.
“I have to tell them I am going with you,” Sage whispered.
What was she doing? This was crazy! He was a stranger and
Slowly, he reached up a hand and caressed her cheek with the back of his hand. “I was so aggressive when I saw you earlier because, from the moment I saw you in that lobby, I wanted you with every fiber of my being,” he enunciated carefully. “I wasn’t really fighting you, I was fighting myself.”
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