Kitabı oku: «Girl Gone Wild», sayfa 3

Too bad the chemistry between her and Hugh—and her growing desire to learn much more about this man—wasn’t as easily dismissed.

NOW SHE WAS TALKING his language.

Hugh had made a name for himself in journalism by delving into stories full of problematic foreign ex-traditions and crooks in hiding.

He’d parlayed that talent into something even bigger and more important as far as he was concerned. He wouldn’t trade his specialty of shedding light on harmful foreign policy for anything. No woman would ever decide lightly to enter a foreign country hostile to females with her young son in tow again if Hugh could help it. Information about frightening foreign customs hadn’t been readily available when his mother had decided to pack him off to a little known Middle Eastern hellhole at a young age, but Hugh had made it his mission in life to ensure things were different now.

For as long as he was a journalist, he would always choose to write those kinds of stories over some fluff piece on the local tourist scene. But if he had to write something about Club Paradise, at least he finally had an intriguing angle.

He’d have his story written and his path cleared to Giselle’s bed within the week. And if the article broke the way he anticipated, there would surely be a few follow-up pieces that needed to be written. A fact which would keep him in South Beach long enough to revisit that bed.

Often.

“Looks like I’ve found the angle I need.” He downed the rest of his water and set the glass back on the wooden bar inside the small tiki hut. Now he was ready to start his research. Sleep could wait once adrenaline started fueling him this way.

Giselle, on the other hand, seemed to have grown quiet over the last hour since the sun had fully risen. She was probably feeling the effects of having been up so long since she didn’t have the benefit of a new journalistic undertaking to keep her going.

She looked ready to speak, but Hugh swooped closer to spare her the effort. He kissed her with all the longing that had been plaguing him since he’d laid eyes on her. She molded to him, her soft curves and pliant limbs conforming to the hard angles of his body.

A vision of the pastry she’d fed him flitted through his brain as her breasts flattened against his chest. He couldn’t wait to see the real thing, to taste her nipples instead of the bright red cherries she’d served him.

And just like that he wanted her naked. Needed her naked.

With a groan of regret he pulled away, knowing he wouldn’t be able to fulfill his end of their bargain if he continued to kiss her. Especially since a lush hotel full of exotically decorated bedrooms loomed fifty yards away from their tiki hut retreat.

“I’m going to write this story faster than I’ve ever penned anything in my life.” He stroked a hand through her mane of thick, glossy curls and calculated the days until he could feel that hair spilling over his bare chest. “If I come by later, do you think you could answer some questions for me?”

She blinked, hesitated.

“I can ask someone else if today isn’t a good time. It’s just that I usually end up with a handful of simple questions after my first round of research. You might be able to answer them faster than I could scout around for the information.”

Biting her lip as if weighing indecision, she finally nodded. “Okay. I’ll probably be awake around two this afternoon. I’m living at the hotel for a few months while we build our business, so you can just ask for directions to my room at the desk.”

Picturing the two of them together in a hotel room—especially a room at the hedonistic singles playground Club Paradise—painted wicked visions in his mind.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea considering our deal to wait until after the story runs?” He was having a hard time keeping his hands to himself in broad daylight on a public beach. How would he ever maintain distance in a decadent bedroom?

“We can head to the kitchens if we get too tempted. Where are you going now?” She smoothed her palms over the lapels of his lightweight jacket.

Even that simple touch set him on fire. Something about this woman lit a torch to his insides in a way no one else ever had.

He backed away before he gave in to the urge to scoop her off her feet and beg her to tell him the exact location of her hotel room. Right then. “I’m going to head into the Herald offices to check out the archives.”

She looked distraught but Hugh didn’t dare to hope that was because he had to leave. He might know a hell of a lot about luring criminals out of hiding by hitting the right story buttons, but he was man enough to admit he didn’t have a clue when it came to understanding female emotions.

Scrambling for a gesture that would make it all okay, he reached for her hand and kissed the back of her soft, bronze skin. Inhaled the perfumed scent at her wrist that lingered even in the growing heat of another South Beach scorcher. “Until later.”

As he straightened, he spied a hint of a smile at her lips. A trace of the woman he’d seen dancing around the kitchen while singing Sinatra at the top of her lungs.

Something inside him shifted. Lightened. For a chef who baked erotic pastries for fun and liked dancing barefoot, Giselle Cesare had a surprisingly deep, potent effect on him. An effect he couldn’t wait to explore in detail as soon as he finished this story.

Robert Flynn would be headline news before the guy knew what hit him, and Hugh could get back to what he’d wanted to do ever since he’d glimpsed Giselle’s bright red panties.

Indulge in pure and simple uncomplicated sex that would leave them both hungry for more.

4

GROGGY WITH SLEEP AND HUNGRY for more of the delicious dreams she’d been having about Hugh, Giselle blinked her way awake in the Pleasure Parthenon later that day. Disoriented, it took her a moment to realize the phone was ringing beside her bed.

Squinting at the clock in Club Paradise’s Grecian-inspired theme room, she could see it was already almost 2:00 p.m. Hadn’t she told Hugh she’d be awake by then? She really should get up. Shower.

Too bad the damn phone kept ringing.

“Hello?” She balanced the receiver against her ear, determined to remain horizontal for as long as possible. Sun filtered past the heavy white drapes and a set of sheer white curtains dotted with scattered gold beads, but not enough to keep her eyes open.

“Were you still sleeping?” The sexy male baritone was no longer just in her dreams. Hugh’s voice floated over her sleepy senses, stoking steamy fantasies that still danced around the edges of her brain.

“Yes.” She shifted beneath the covers, her bare skin sliding against the silky soft cotton sheets. “In fact, you interrupted a very nice dream.”

“You have my apologies.” His voice soothed her, the unhurried rhythm of his speech encouraging her to sink deeper into the pillows and simply listen. “From the tone of your voice, I’m guessing this dream was of a sensual nature.”

“My, my, but you have very acute hearing if you could figure that out just from the way I sound.”

“But am I right?”

She twined the white phone cord around one finger and twirled the length in small circles, heat swirling through her veins. “You are one hundred percent correct, Mr. Duncan. Care to keep guessing what exactly I’ve been envisioning in my dreams?”

He whistled low on the other end of the phone. “Definitely. I’m usually damn good at guessing since it goes with the job. But you’re the kind of woman who serves erotic pastries to total strangers. Who knows what sort of sensual terrain your unconscious mind might cover while you’re sleeping? I have the feeling there wouldn’t be many fantasies off-limits to you.”

“You’d be right again.” Her voice hit a husky note that had nothing to do with sleep and everything to do with Hugh turning her on.

It had been far too long since she’d played provocative games with an enticing male. And frankly, she couldn’t remember ever playing with a man quite so intriguing.

“Can I ask one question before I start guessing?” His voice sounded so close, she could almost imagine him lying right there beside her, his hands on her bare skin.

“Ask me anything.” The phone made her feel even more bold, daring.

“What are you wearing right now?”

Her whole body shivered in answer. Her breasts tightened, ached beneath the sheets. Licking her lips, she told him the naked truth. “Nothing.”

The strangled sound on the other end wasn’t quite discernible.

“Hugh?”

“Sorry.” He sighed out a long breath. “That particular mental image blew me away. But it also helped clue me in to what you’re dreaming about.”

“Really?” She shifted to her back, the light touch of silky sheets antagonizing a body that craved the sure possession of a man’s hands.

“If you’re lying there, warm and naked and all alone between the sheets in a hedonistic haven like Club Paradise, what could you possibly be thinking about besides having someone lying there next to you?”

Her hips twitched at his words, heat flowing deep within her belly to warm her thighs and awaken her sex. She pressed her legs more tightly together, but instead of helping ease the ache, the movement only intensified it.

“You’re right so far,” she admitted, needing so much more from Hugh than words. “But that’s not the half of it. Are you going to be here soon? I’m all alone in the Pleasure Parthenon, and I’d be happy to show you.”

Another strangled sound. “I’m going to be a little delayed because of work, although the Pleasure Parthenon sounds like a great place to be right now. You think you could be my hands until I can get there?”

Her heart thrummed in her chest at the thought of him being with her later. She didn’t want to think about the fact that they’d made smart plans to postpone getting involved with one another until after he’d finished his story. With her body set to slow burn and Hugh’s voice sizzling through her consciousness, she wasn’t overly concerned with making smart decisions at the moment.

“I don’t think I could ever mistake my hands for your hands.” Not that the knowledge could stop her pulse from fluttering wildly at his wicked suggestion.

“But if I guided your every move, then it would be me doing the touching.” He paused, his breathing deep and rhythmic in her ear. “Come on, Giselle, let me slide beneath those covers with you.”

She arched her back, mentally welcoming the idea of Hugh’s taut, lean body stretched out beside her. “Mmm.”

“You know where I want to touch you first?”

She shook her head, unconcerned he couldn’t see her. In her mind, he was right there with her anyhow.

“You’ve got this unbelievable waist—a sweet little curve that I was dying to put my hands on this morning.”

Her hand slipped beneath the covers, skimming down her hot skin to curl around her waist, inciting unexpected pleasure and wrenching a moan from her lips. “That feels good.”

“What about if you travel a little farther south? I would definitely want to touch your hip next.”

“Really?” Extending her arm, she slid her hand down to one hip, her fingertips grazing the swell of her bottom. “And then what would you do? Would you be so lust-ridden that you’d have to kiss me?”

“Oh, I’m definitely kissing you by now.” He lowered his voice another notch, his words funneling straight in her ear, intended for her alone. “And I’m reaching up to those amazing breasts of yours to cop my first real feel.”

Giselle twisted to her side, her breasts tight and aching for that touch. Her hand cupped one mound, rolling the taut nipple between two fingers. A sigh hissed between her teeth, her thighs twitching with restless need.

“That feels so good.” She snuggled deeper into her pillow, burying the phone in the fluffy down as she made herself more comfortable. “But can you…touch more of me?”

There was a pause on the other end. “I don’t know how much of you I can touch without…losing it. You don’t know what the idea of you naked right now is doing to me.”

Her hands danced down over her belly, traced her hip. “Then can’t you leave whatever it is you’re doing and come over here?”

She would gladly throw away caution to have Hugh with her. Above her. Inside her.

“It’s not as easy as it sounds.”

“It’s very easy. Walk away from what you’re doing, get in the car and take the first causeway to Miami Beach.” What better setting for a tryst could there be than the Pleasure Parthenon? They could feed each other grapes and turn on the wine fountain. She could dance naked for him before they engaged in every conceivable sex act.

“But I can’t get to my car when I’m cruising over the Atlantic at forty thousand feet.”

Hazy pImages** of her entwined with Hugh faded.

“You’re what?”

“Remember how we decided we could be together as soon as I turned in my story? Well, I followed up on the lead you gave me about Robert Flynn and, you’re right, he’s in the Cayman Islands. I’m headed down there now to try to find him.”

The sensual tide that had been flowing through her moments ago dried up to nothing, leaving her suddenly cold and empty. “You’re on a plane to some remote island in the hope of finding Robert Flynn?”

She barely managed to push the name from her lips.

“Who knows? Maybe I’ll get lucky and find the right piece of information that will drive him back to the States. But I need to talk to him. Sometimes crooks like this are so arrogant they think it can’t hurt to talk to the media.”

How could a woman’s life go from so damn promising one minute to absolute shambles the next? And if Robert Flynn came back to Miami the consequences would be devastating for everyone involved in Club Paradise. No doubt about it, the man was the key to many hidden wounds.

But the new man in her life seemed hell-bent determined to resurrect her former lover.

HUGH WAITED. AND WAITED.

“Giselle?” He hadn’t wanted to change the topic of their phone exchange earlier, but he couldn’t exactly engage in full-fledged phone sex when he flew on the Herald’s private jet. He might be the only passenger, but there was a pilot in the cockpit a few yards away.

“I’m here.” Her voice sounded a million miles away when moments ago she’d seemed right there with him. She’d turned him on so thoroughly with her sexy phone play he would probably still be willing away the hard-on an hour from now. “I’m just…surprised.”

Hugh straightened in his seat, determined not to alienate this woman he had set his sights on. He’d never been the kind of guy who would make do with any willing woman, and could count the women he’d been with on one hand. Giselle Cesare was special. Different. And this stupid story he had hanging around his neck like an albatross would definitely not come between them before they even got started.

“There’s no need to worry. With any luck I’ll be back in twenty-four hours.” Or twelve if fate really smiled on him. And damn it, he’d carved a reputation as one of the most respected journalists in the Western World because he was both talented and lucky. A small-time embezzler like Flynn wouldn’t elude him for long. “I’ll write my story on the plane ride home so that when I return, my first stop will be the Pleasure Parthenon.”

Where he would discover every pleasurable secret Giselle and her goddess body had to offer before he returned to his real assignments overseas.

Odd that he already wondered if merely exploring her body would be enough. Somehow with Giselle he found himself intrigued by her mind, her playful sense of adventure.

“Don’t you ever sleep?” She sounded distracted, as if she was already slipping away from him when he hadn’t even begun to know her yet.

“Not when I’m on a quest.”

“Then I guess I’d better let you get back to it, Hugh. Maybe we’d better not—”

“Wait a minute.” He refused to hear whatever else she might have to say until he’d clarified one important point. “Just so we’re clear on this, the quest is not my story, Giselle. The quest is you. I only want to get this taken care of so I can get back there and follow this attraction wherever it might take us.”

“But there’s a lot you don’t know—”

Whatever Giselle was saying was cut off by the pilot on a tinny speaker about two feet from Hugh’s ear. The volume had been turned up to full blast.

“Just to give you a heads-up, Hugh, I’m getting ready to take her down. I need you to cease and desist the cell phone or laptop or whatever you’ve got working back there.”

The pilot’s voice halted just in time for him to hear Giselle’s again.

“—and if you had talked to me first—”

Shit.

“Giselle, I apologize, but we’re getting ready to land now and the pilot asked me to cut the phone connection. I missed some of what you said just now, but I promise I’ll call you at the club tonight and we’ll figure out a way around this.”

She huffed out a frustrated sigh and, after a clipped goodbye, hung up the phone. Stowing his gear in an overnight bag, Hugh wondered what information Giselle might have about Flynn. Could she know something that might have bearing on his story?

Peering out the narrow window that overlooked the misty Atlantic, Hugh wished he’d had more time to ask. But right now, his main mission was to unearth one of Florida’s most wanted men so he could write a story that would at least maintain journalistic integrity. How could his editor complain as long as he tied Flynn back to Club Paradise?

The sooner he turned in his piece, the faster he’d be able to enter the Pleasure Parthenon without worrying about conflict of interest. Which meant he’d be sliding between the sheets and into Giselle’s open arms in no time.

STAKING OUT THE FAR CORNER of the club’s new Dominatrix Domain suite, Giselle hugged her arms around her shoulders more tightly and wished she didn’t have to hold this emergency meeting of the Club Paradise ownership. She’d worried over her phone call from Hugh for an hour before hauling herself through the shower and getting dressed. Now, as the clock neared 6:00 p.m., she realized she had no choice but to spill what she knew—limited though it might be. Her co-owners had a right to arm themselves for the fallout if Flynn came back into their lives.

Why couldn’t she have been attracted to someone with a more simple job, like another chef or a gardener or even a politician like the cutie-pie Jackson Taggart her co-owner Summer Farnsworth had snagged last fall?

As if they shared a psychic connection—a phenomenon that Summer happened to be studying at the moment—her friend strolled in through the propped open door to the unfinished suite.

“So what do you think?” Summer started without prelude, unfurling her arms to encompass the interior of the Dominatrix Domain. As the ambience coordinator for the club, she supervised the design and decor of all the theme rooms. “Do you love it?”

Giselle pried her thoughts out of her own worries long enough to take in the black leather furniture highlighted with bright purple pillows and clear crystal accents. Soft gray carpet and light blue walls gave the room a mystical-magical air that softened the still-life arrangement of studded leather collars gracing the coffee table.

“It’s nice. Loaded with attitude yet not scary-type dominatrix-y. I love all the purple.” She hoped she put enough enthusiasm in her voice, but she could see by Summer’s concerned expression that she wasn’t faking very well.

“Is everything okay? You sound distracted.” She squinted, studying Giselle carefully. “And your aura isn’t as bright as usual.”

She was saved from responding by Brianne Wolcott’s appearance. Endlessly leggy and more confident than Giselle would ever dream of being, Brianne had left a lucrative career in the film industry to buy into Club Paradise.

“I’m in for the meeting, ladies, but as soon as we’re through, Aidan is taking me to the Keys for a long weekend.” Brianne dug into a shopping bag slung over one arm and produced a length of chocolate-colored leather. “I even bought leather shorts so I can be a real Harley girl.” The club’s resident security expert winked with lightheartedness wrought from genuine happiness.

Giselle sure felt like crap that she was about to wreak Hurricane Flynn on both her and Summer.

And their fourth partner…

“I’m here.” Lainie Reynolds, CEO and the big guns behind Club Paradise, breezed into the room with her designer sunglasses propped in her perfectly combed hair. “Sorry I’m late, but I was coercing accounting into making the rest of Summer’s funds available so she can finish the Dominatrix Domain. It looks magnificent.”

Was it Giselle’s fanciful imagination, or did cynical Lainie seem to be in a particularly good mood today? Why did Giselle have to deliver this bomb just when things were practically civil between them? She couldn’t even remember the last time Lainie had tilted her haughty nose in the air when she walked by.

While her partners raved about Summer’s design job in the revamped resort that had progressed from a shaky start to a thriving enterprise in the last six months, Giselle settled a hand over her belly to ease a case of manic butterflies.

“I have bad news,” she blurted, deciding any more waiting would kill her.

All heads turned toward her.

“That’s why I called the meeting.” She sank deeper into one of the sleek leather chairs that populated the sitting area, clutching the satiny purple throw pillow to her chest. As if purple satin would ward off Lainie’s upcoming fury.

Thankfully, her co-owners sat, Brianne settling herself in the chair opposite Giselle while Summer simply dropped onto the arm of the seat. Lainie plunked her briefcase on the glass-topped coffee table and took over the couch as if setting up her personal command central from which to lambaste her enemies.

Swallowing hard, Giselle reminded herself this wasn’t her fault. Okay, sleeping with Lainie’s ex-husband had been somewhat her fault, but resurrecting the two-timing bastard from the West Indies was not.

That blame she could lay squarely at a certain journalist’s feet.

“So?” Lainie nudged her, leaning forward slightly as impatience creased her forehead.

“I met a reporter from the Herald in the kitchen last night—this morning actually, at about five. I thought he was a food critic at first.” She decided to skip the part about serving him erotic pastries. No need to emphasize the fact that she’d practically thrown herself at the man. “But apparently he’s been assigned to do a story on the resort.”

Lainie smiled as she withdrew some papers from her briefcase. “Sounds like fantastic news to me. And I just happen to have a list of potential story ideas for the media here.”

“Too late. He’s already got an idea.” She gripped one of the little crystal pendants decorating the four corners of the satin pillow until it bit into her hand. “Hugh wants to do an article on Robert.”

Summer gasped, but Giselle kept her eyes trained on Lainie, who merely blinked before offering up a solution.

“Then we’ll simply have to convince him otherwise.” She waved the sheaf of papers in her hand more emphatically, her sleek blond hair never moving out of place. “That’s why I’ve got a list of readymade story ideas, so we can steer the media away from the club’s unsavory past.”

Brianne scooched forward in her seat. “You said his name is Hugh? Is it Hugh Duncan by any chance?”

“You know him?” Hope perked to life inside her. Maybe Brianne could intervene. Stop this train wreck in the making.

“I’ve never met him, but my mother keeps in touch with him. One of her million husbands was this guy’s uncle, I think.” Brianne rolled her eyes, writing off the matter with a shrug. “I don’t know how close she is to Hugh, but apparently he’s some big, Pulitzer-winning journalist or something.”

All eyes turned to Giselle. Questioning. Hopeful. As if she could somehow encourage Hugh to write a Pulitzer-winning story on the resort. This was so not good.

“There’s more.” Giselle braced herself for the worst. “I also happen to know this journalist is already on his way to the Cayman Islands to interview Robert or possibly find enough information to goad him out of hiding.”

For all of a nanosecond, Lainie paled. A rare hint of the emotion that might lurk behind her thorny, don’t-mess-with-me exterior.

Brianne moved to the couch to sit beside Lainie, whether to insert herself into Giselle’s line of vision or to simply offer a bit of unspoken support to their CEO, she couldn’t be sure.

“What on earth would ever prompt him to think he could entice a wanted man to come back to the scene of his crime?” Brianne shook her head, her auburn hair swinging around her shoulders with the movement. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Maybe he’ll play upon Robert’s weakness,” Summer offered, kneeling down beside the coffee table. To act as a buffer between Lainie and Giselle when the fur started to fly? God, she hoped so. “Perhaps this writer thinks Robert could be tripped up by his own arrogance. Flynn certainly fits the profile.”

No argument there. The superslick South Beach business mogul had thought nothing of courting Giselle when she’d first started as a chef at Club Paradise back when it had been a couples’ haven. Robert had been married to a prominent Miami attorney who was as gorgeous as she was smart, yet he lavished Giselle with romantic trinkets, spending such long stretches of time with her it had never occurred to her he could possibly have a wife or a home outside the club.

Not until the gorgeous, intelligent wife showed up at the Club with a rock on her finger the size of an iceberg did Giselle realize she’d been appallingly naive. And she’d had more to worry about than a broken heart. She had a scorned woman ready to do her bodily harm. Or worse—to snuff out her fledgling career as a chef.

Giselle might have never worked at the resort again except that, before Lainie could fire her, they’d learned Robert had fled the country along with all of Lainie’s money. The only thing left of value for her was a part ownership in a hotel robbed of all its liquid assets.

Somehow in the devastation of realizing she was flat busted, Lainie had overlooked the injury done to her heart in an effort to retool the resort into a brand-new enterprise. Giselle had worked her tail off to stay off of Lainie’s radar after that, and when she’d come up with enough cash to buy into the controlling partnership of the revamped resort, Lainie had grudgingly given her a place in the four-way partnership.

“We all know he’s an arrogant bastard,” Lainie supplied, seeming to shake off her initial shock. “And if this reporter is successful in drawing him out, the scandal that closed down Club Paradise a year ago will be all over the papers again. That may or may not hurt business at this point.”

The exotic South Beach property had weathered its share of negative publicity when Summer’s past had been splashed all over the headlines last fall. But this story had the potential to be much bigger. Especially with a reporter like Hugh behind it.

“What I would like to ask,” Lainie continued, her gaze narrowing as she stared across the coffee table at Giselle, “is how you happen to know this journalist’s whereabouts today. And if you realized he was going to the Caymans at 5:00 a.m., why wait until 6:00 in the evening to tell us?”

She shouldn’t be surprised Lainie the lawyer didn’t miss a trick. She might not be actively practicing now that she ran Club Paradise, but that didn’t make her wits any less sharp.

But Giselle wasn’t the naive woman she had been a year ago, and she’d be damned if she would be intimidated. “I had no idea Hugh was so serious about the story until he called me from an airplane this afternoon.”

Lainie’s smile was thin. Brittle. “I see. So you’ve initiated a relationship with yet another man determined to pull the rug out from under me. Is that just coincidence, Giselle, or should I start taking it personally?”

“I’m not having a relationship with him.” At least she didn’t think so. She couldn’t very well get involved with the man who wanted to bring her worst nightmare back to town. She’d never told Lainie that Robert had asked her to run away with him to the West Indies, that he’d wanted her to be with him forever. Somehow she thought if Lainie knew Giselle’s affair with Robert hadn’t been just a fling, her CEO would be all the more hurt. Angry.

And although Lainie didn’t have complete control over their partnership, if Summer and Brianne discovered Giselle had been partially privy to Robert’s plan to leave Florida, but had been too blinded by love to realize the implications of his departure, maybe they’d all gladly vote her out of the group.

No matter what, she refused to lose her place in Club Paradise. The resort had become her key to independence, her lifeline away from a family that wanted to keep her safe from anything and everything.

Lainie shrugged, jamming her papers back into her briefcase with more force than necessary, her movements stiff and angry. “Why give up on the man now? You and this journalist obviously got to know one another very well this morning. Why not at least use your connection with him to see if you can convince him to back off? You must know there’s a lot at stake here for all of us. If the police were extraditing Robert to make him stand trial, I’d be the first to applaud the effort. But if this reporter friend of yours is going to turn that two-timing cheat into some sort of media star with the inside scoop on how he got away with his crimes, the scandal could put Club Paradise out of business for good.”