Wet

by Angel Payne

  No, it wasn’t even fate’s fault. When Mom died, Papi had fallen apart. Someone had to take care of Ava, and Zoe was the obvious choice. Maybe the angels had forgotten about her being only eleven years old. She’d been livid with them for a while, of course, but now saw it gave her a stubborn strength she was proud of.

  Most of the time.

  On other occasions, she opted for full retreat. Seemed the easiest route tonight with Mr. Sexy Scowl. She’d gone for duck and cover, sipping her water and checking her phone, praying El and Brynn would get a clue about the man’s polite rebuffs. Before that could happen, Ellie had become Sleeping Beauty on the bar. Then the man himself had gained a name. He was no longer anonymous-fantasy-Dom but Shane Burnett, a businessman with endless patience for her friends, a captivating smile, and a protective streak as huge as the arms in which he now held Ellie.

  And one more “little” thing. A presence that pulled on her like the moon did the tides.

  Which was why she could muster nothing but a prissy huff before following him out of the terminal and into a cab.

  What the hell was she doing? She had to take care of the others, not just El and Brynn, yet she let Burnett load the three of them into the cab. But she was aware, perhaps better than most, that dominant men could also be abusers. Though Burnett directed the driver to the Hilton, what plans did he have for the three of them after he got them to the room? Images blared to mind of tomorrow’s headlines, relaying the news that she, El, and Brynn had been beaten to death by an unknown attacker…

  She shook her head free of the melodrama. Resolve time. She simply wouldn’t let him get past the lobby elevators.

  For the time being, he offered a true favor. El was down for the count, and Brynn was blasted. Handling them by herself really would have been a bitch. The ride was only four blocks, but every inch of it was going to be hell. In all the most tantalizing, torturous ways.

  Zoe realized it the second Burnett slid into the car and closed the door. Even after he unloaded El, letting her head slide down into Zoe’s lap, he seemed to consume the taxi’s back seat. With Brynn opting to grab shotgun in front, Zoe found herself the sole object of the man’s concentration—and he drilled it into her without mercy. Or apology.

  The car’s confines seemed to shrink more. She breathed deep, battling to calm her racing nerves, but wound up drenching her senses with his scent instead. Earthy strength, woodsy spice. An escape to the forest in the middle of Century Boulevard. Wow.

  Time for Plan B. But returning the man’s stare was another failure. Why did he keep studying her like the rest of the world didn’t exist? The neon signs of the airport district whizzed by—Girls on Fire, Strip-A-Rama, Boobalicious Beauties—but the temptations could have been dust mites for how weakly they dragged his attention from her.

  Ohhh, God.

  Wait.

  Maybe he was gay.

  The possibility was such a relief, she smiled for a second. That was all the time he gave her to enjoy the feeling. As he extended his arm along the top of the seat and then dropped two fingers to her nape, the inquiry on his face intensified. His gaze was again a wordless query, seeming to question whether she’d welcome him or shirk him.

  Before she could help it, a long sigh spilled from her lips.

  Burnett’s alluring mouth parted a little. His jaw undulated in quiet assessment, flashing with a small tic of muscle.

  Her whole body zinged with awareness.

  Crap.

  Not gay.

  She scrambled for a logical argument. This was insane. Unreal. Serendipity that only happened in movies, to people who had perfect lives and all the right lines prewritten for them. Not someone like her, who’d made a desastre of her last “relationship” and now must have a tattoo on her forehead, visible to men only. Hit on me; I haven’t had sex in almost a year. People who could summon a drop of moisture to their mouths instead of letting their tongue turn to cotton from the simple press of a man’s fingertips.

  “You’re tense.”

  He murmured it between a couple of El’s snores. Wait. That wasn’t El. It was Brynn, who slumped against the window like she’d pricked her finger on the same enchanted spinning wheel as Ellie.

  Great.

  She pulled in another breath. And was hit by another arousing wave of his fresh forest smell. Vaya, it was nice. Why did a guy in a designer suit smell like he’d just stepped off an alpine hiking trail? Further, why did she sense he’d ditch the suit for the trail in a second? With that jaw, that hair, and those eyes, he was stunning enough to fill one of the Rolex watch ads on the billboards overhead, yet he claimed he was in the airport for business. Now he was stuck in a dingy city cab, in the middle of a freak LA fog bank, with two women who might rouse from their drunken stupors any second just to barf on him—and a third who’d gone dizzy from the effort of resisting his smoke-dark stare.

  She finally managed to answer, “And you, Mr. Burnett, are nearly a stranger.”

  One corner of his mouth lifted. “A nice one”—he trailed his fingers up the back of her neck—“unless you ask me not to be.”

  There was a rebuff in her brain for that. Somewhere. But as he emphasized his point by sifting his fingers into her hair and pulling by the tiniest degrees, all she could do was gasp. The sound trumpeted what he’d just done to the sensitive nerves between her thighs.

  “Damn,” the man whispered.

  Zoe straightened with a jerk. “What is it?” she demanded. “What’d I do wrong?”

  “Wrong? Not a damn thing, beautiful.” He chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck. “As a matter of fact, if you do things any more right, I’ll be bugging out of the Hilton on three legs.”

  She surrendered to a nervous laugh. At the renewed curiosity in his golden-silk eyes, she explained, “You sure you’re just a mild-mannered businessman, Mr. Burnett?”

  “Define ‘mild-mannered.’” He kneaded his neck harder. “Why’d you ask?”

  She settled her back against the cab’s door and regarded him for a long moment. “Because you talk just like the army sergeant who’s going to be my brother-in-law come New Year’s Eve.”

  His expression didn’t change. But if it was true what the New-Agers said about a person’s energy having a color, his just amped from focused purple to alarmed crimson. Before she could discern why, he flashed an extra-smooth smile and countered, “You know, I’m tempted to boomerang that at you.”

  What was this? A hint at playful? The switch-up gave her hope of gaining back some composure. “Is that so?”

  The man leaned forward, matching the angle of his head to hers. “Are you sure you’re just a mild-mannered dancer, Miss Chestain?”

  She arched a brow. “You’re asking that of a Las Vegas backup dancer, mister. They make us check our ‘mild-mannered’ cards at the door.”

  “Ahhh, yes. That’s right. A dancer for a ‘hot’ Sin City show.”

  “Did Brynn and El tell you that?”

  “They supplied the ‘hot’ part. The rest is original material.”

  She tossed her head the other way, giving the move some spunk. The man was comfortable to talk to when she stopped fantasizing about him with a paddle in his grip or his hand on her ass. “You know ‘Sin City’ isn’t exactly new, right?”

  She raised a hand to put the cliché into air quotes but lowered it when he straightened his head, zapping her with the full, delicious effect of his darkening stare. “Sin itself isn’t original, little dancer. But what one does with it can redefine a man.” He jolted her anew when scooping up her hand, rotating it over, and then dipping his lips to the center of her palm. “Or a woman.”

  So much for comfortable.

  Or any semblance of rational.

  Do it again. Oh God, please do it again.

  Fortunately, her brain was more cooperative than her libido. One second of clarity later, she successfully yanked her hand back. “You’re a naughty man, Mr. Burnett.”

  She didn’
t have any strength—or motivation—to add humor. That didn’t stop the guy from smirking again, looking like a Survivor player who’d found the immunity idol. “Nah,” he drawled. “Just a grunt doing my job, ma’am.”

  She narrowed her gaze. “Who really likes doing it with a shitload of those cute military words.”

  For a second, long enough for her to notice, his smile wavered. “Some of my best friends are ground pounders,” he supplied. “That probably explains it.”

  “Hmmm.”

  She didn’t alter her gaze. He maintained his too.

  “You don’t believe me,” he finally asserted.

  Zoe bit the inside of her bottom lip. “Actually, I do. But that’s the trouble.”

  He propped his head on a tripod of the fingers that had just been on her skin. “Why?”

  She had an answer. But the best way to phrase it? Caramba. Thankfully, her confusion lasted for all of two seconds. “What the hell. It’s not like we’re going to see each other again.” She squared her shoulders. “Because there’s something else you’re not telling me, Mr. Burnett. Maybe a lot of something elses. And—”

  “And?” His soft smile matched his prodding tone.

  “And I can’t figure out why that bothers me.” She frowned and glanced back up. Not unexpectedly, his stare awaited her again, though now his neck was taut, and his strong lips pressed together. He seemed poised and ready.

  For what?

  “I understand that,” he murmured.

  “You do?”

  “I want to know more about you too.” Even as the driver guided the car around a tight turn, requiring him to grab Ellie’s calves to stop her from slipping off the seat, his focus didn’t waver. “A lot more than we can handle in a five-minute cab ride.”

  Zoe had done her part to prevent El’s fall. But releasing her grip from her friend’s elbow played her hand back into Burnett’s grip. Her breath snagged as his fingers, massive and warm, closed around hers. Dios, he had big hands. So certain and strong. Was there a shred of truth in the adage about the size of a man’s hands in correlation to his other…parts?

  Get your mind out of the gutter. Now.

  Fat chance. She wet her lips before stammering, “Five minutes can be an eternity.”

  He molded his hand tightly around hers. “Is that so?”

  “Mmm-hmm. Just ask a dancer trying to look sexy during a major show finale at a dance rave pace.”

  He chuckled. The expression spread over his face, igniting it into a captivating sight. She’d have no trouble with taking up a new hobby—counting the flecks of topaz in his eyes. “You have a very good point.” Just as quickly, those specks heated. “So maybe we should take full advantage of our eternity.”

  Once more, everything from her head to her toes felt like electric lines in a hurricane.

  Stop. This is crazy. The temptation they flirted with…all the ways she longed to define advantage and eternity… They were ridiculous, dangerous fantasies. He was a stranger. A man possessing only a name and some vague occupation.

  And a stare that dissolved the hinges on some of the deepest doors in her soul.

  She turned to the most dependable go-to in her wardrobe of emotional defenses. Dark humor. “With one of my friends snoring in the front seat and the other drooling in my lap?”

  He considered that for half a moment before setting her hand free—in order to raise his touch to her face. Alluring officially gained a new ambassador as he grazed his knuckles along her arm during the trip. “I only require the use of these.” He caressed the corner of her right eye. “And this.” He drifted his touch over her mouth.

  Before she could think about containing it, a long sigh escaped. Dios. The man didn’t look beneath her neck, let alone drift his touch there. So why were her panties already drenched, taunting her with the liquid he’d just coaxed from her most secret tunnel? Why did her heart thunder and her pulse careen?

  “Miss Chestain?”

  His prompt was a command, ordering her to answer whether she was capable or not. “Huh?”

  “Look at me.” He curved his thumb beneath her chin and gently tugged up. Her gaze was again filled with his face—only now, his boyish charm was gone. The garish neon of the club lights, joined with the glow from the stoplight ahead, turned him into the granite-hard Dominant she’d previously only guessed at. “And now, I want you to answer me.”

  She swallowed again. Flames and icicles fought for control of her limbs. Caramba. The power of his fingers on her face…it was the beginning of her end. “Yes, Sir.”

  No, no, no! She clenched her teeth and closed her eyes, fighting to lock him out—even as her senses predicted what he’d say next. What he’d command next…

  And how every cell in her body wouldn’t give her rest until she answered him.

  “How long have you known about your submissiveness, Zoe?”

  * * *

  Continue reading Hot…

  Also by Angel Payne

  Honor Bound Series:

  Saved

  Cuffed

  Seduced

  Wild

  Wet

  Hot

  Masked

  Mastered (Coming March 2018)

  Conquered (Coming March 2018)

  Ruled (Coming June 2018)

  * * *

  Misadventures:

  Misadventures with a Super Hero

  * * *

  For a full list of Angel’s other titles,

  visit her at

  angelpayne.com

  Acknowledgments

  First, a note:

  The purpose of adding native words to Lani’s dialogue was due to several reasons. First, I truly wanted to honor Lani’s unique and beautiful Hawaiian heritage. Second, I felt strongly about instilling readers with that same sense of wonder and peace that I feel when I’m visiting the islands, as well as the sense of heritage and ohana (family) that everyone has there. Many people of the islands have informed me that many of these words are no longer commonly used, so I’d like to extend a heartfelt mahalo for the chance to resurrect them a bit, at least in fictional form, in order to honor the history and beauty of this unique language and land.

  Now, the gratitude:

  Some books make you want to jump off a ledge more than others. This was truly one of them for me! Besides the gut-wrenching emotions in the story, there was a great deal of upheaval in my personal life as I wrote this one—which made the book both a stress and stress reliever. I must, must thank the crew who were there to hold my hand through those crazy months! Victoria Blue, Shannon Hunt, Tracy Roelle, Jenna Jacob, and Shayla Black…I will forever cherish and treasure you ladies for sticking by me through the insanity.

  Second, a truly soul-felt thank you to all the new readers who have discovered this series, taken it into your hearts, and then taken the time to tell me how much you love it. Truly, you have no idea what that connection means to a writer! I am so grateful!

  Finally, the largest thank you of them all, to the brave men and women of our nation’s military, who serve and sacrifice for us all every day. Your selflessness is always and forever appreciated.

  About Angel Payne

  USA Today bestselling romance author Angel Payne loves to focus on high-heat romance starring memorable alpha men and the women who love them. She has numerous book series to her credit, including the Suited for Sin series, the Cimarron Saga, the Temptation Court series, the Secrets of Stone series, the Lords of Sin historicals, and the popular Honor Bound series, as well as several standalone titles.

  Angel is a native Southern Californian, leading to her love of being in the outdoors, where she often reads and writes. She still lives in Southern California with her soul-mate husband and beautiful daughter, to whom she is a proud cosplay/culture con mom. Her passions also include whisky tasting, shoe shopping, and travel.

  * * *

  For more information, please follow Angel Payne at:

  www.angelpayne.com />