She reached for her phone, the perfect distraction, and groaned the moment her hand hit the barely working flip phone in her pocket. Oh, damn. Jillian had known Jessie couldn’t resist the lure of a smartphone, so she had traded it for an emergencies-only antique, with no numbers programmed into the contacts. The thing was so old it probably qualified as a collector’s item, but it was doing a fantastic job of keeping her away from work. And distractions, which she currently needed from the other distraction that had walked in. Unfortunately, her best option was to take a few more sips of her extra-fruity drink and wander back to her cabin for a date with her vibrator. Always reliable, always hard, never any comments about her attitude.
Or...she could go after him. Hell, the older woman in the flowery dress wasn’t holding back with the bartender half her age—why should she? Jessie took a sip, but she couldn’t help but glance in Surfer Dude’s direction. Now he was standing behind the bar. Did he work here? She sighed. Surfer/bartender really would be the perfect fling. He didn’t hold any power in her life, and he wasn’t a rich, entitled guy from a Silicon Valley bar, looking for an evening filled with flattery and blow jobs—she was a pro at scaring off that type. If he worked at a place like this, he’d be very, very good at satisfying the Kalani guests. Besides, this was just about sex. And she wasn’t going to pull a Jillian and fall for a guy after one night.
Jessie had no idea when her “quick glance” had turned into a flat-out stare, but when Surfer Dude looked up again, he grinned when he caught her. Then he winked at her and said something to the other bartender next to him.
Lord, girl, just go for it.
Jessie blew a few strands of hair out of her face and knocked back the rest of her drink in one long gulp. Then she stood up, her chair scraping against the wooden floor. One of the matching pastel couples paused, and Surfer Dude’s gaze settled on her again, his brow furrowing. He grabbed two fruity drinks and headed straight for her. He was fast, and she hadn’t gotten far before he was right in front of her.
“Hey, longboard woman.” He gave her that same, unabashed smile of pleasure. “Where are you going?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Back to my cabin. Why? You want to come?”
He chuckled. “Sure. But I brought you something first.” He held out one of the glasses. “Island special, light on the rum, right?”
Jessie took the glass, and he beamed at her. He raised his drink and clinked it with hers. “To dawn patrol.”
She smiled and swallowed a little of her island special. “Are you supposed to be drinking while you’re working?” He looked a little confused, so she added, “You were just behind the bar, weren’t you?”
“Ah,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m not working.”
“But you do work here, right?”
He hesitated. “Sometimes.”
The relaxed attitude and the “sometimes” working schedule were sketching a picture she could appreciate. She knew guys like this. They were all over the beaches in Santa Cruz. Useless long-term but up for just about anything in bed and came with a very low rate of performance anxiety. Which meant they weren’t averse to a few pointers in bed, so she was satisfied, too. Definitely much better than the CEO-type Jillian had given up her rent-controlled apartment for.
“Tonight you’re free?” she asked, smiling.
“Very.”
Very. His voice was a low hum that echoed through her in a wave of heat, and a smile tugged at her lips.
“I’m Jessie,” she said, extending her hand.
“Byron.”
She could have sworn she had heard that name recently, but before anything clicked, his big hand was closing around hers, and she forgot that thought. Damn, she wanted this guy, and it had nothing to do with giving Jillian her money’s worth on this vacation. But it had everything to do with the guy standing in front of her, looking down at her with undisguised pleasure.
“So, Byron, what does one do around here for fun on the nights when they’re very free?”
“Depends on what kind of fun you’re after,” he said with a casual shrug, and she laughed.
“The very best kind, of course.”
He grinned. “I would love to show you the very best kind.”
She would have rolled her eyes if he didn’t look so earnest, as if showing her a good time was right up there with winning the Nobel Prize. This guy was delicious, tanned and cut, with crinkles around his dark brown eyes. He was big, definitely the biggest guy she’d ever been with if that was where this was going, but it was almost as if he didn’t notice. He definitely wasn’t showing off. In fact, he seemed one hundred percent focused on her, not how he measured up. And she hadn’t even played down her natural bluntness. She could tell him exactly what he wanted, and if he wasn’t into it, well, she could just avoid the bar for the rest of the week. This could be a whole lot of fun.
Jessie set her drink down on the table next to her, and she took his out of his hand. “I think we’re ready to go.”
“How about the pool?” he asked. “The ocean views are great from there.”
Jessie frowned a little. It wasn’t the ocean views she was looking forward to. “Will it be empty?”
“Usually you can find some privacy at night.”
That was more like what she had in mind. “Perfect. Which way are we going?”
He pointed out to the stone walkway on one side of the bar, then gave her a once-over. “You want to go back to your cabin and get your suit?”
“Nope.”
And before her confidence wavered, she grabbed his hand and started for the pool.
CHAPTER THREE
IN A WORD, Jessie looked determined. She was tugging at his hand, leading him to the pool for some swimsuit-free fun, and Byron could feel himself being sucked further into this wet dream. He couldn’t stop looking at her, that long, flowing white hair falling over her shoulders in waves, and the way she sized him up, as if she’d like nothing better than getting him naked.
Except...he really needed to say something about the whole bartender misunderstanding. Byron wasn’t sure why this pang of conscience was coming now, considering this wasn’t the first time he’d enjoyed the results of being mistaken for staff. But he got the feeling that Jessie would care about that nuance. Which was new. And uncomfortable.
It wasn’t a straight-out lie—he did occasionally work a few hours behind the bar when he was in Hawaii, for the same reason he occasionally spent time doing every other job at the resort—to make sure he understood the job he was asking his employees to do. Still, even though the assumption that he worked as a bartender was the literal truth, it was misleading. So why hadn’t he corrected Jessie?
His gaze wandered up her bare arms, over her round breasts that moved as she walked, and up over her pouty mouth and her heavy lashes. Byron knew exactly why he wasn’t saying anything. Because the moment he let that piece of information slip, everything between them would shift. When a woman found out he was the CFO of a multi-national company, that plus his size, had a way of cutting through all the attitude she had given him—he had been told this explicitly more than once. Hell, most women fell all over themselves when they found out about his money and position. Even when he told them that the opposite turned him on, it was like a switch that couldn’t be flipped back. Maybe Jessie was an exception; maybe she’d want to order him around a bit, even if she knew. But it wasn’t likely. Was he going to risk giving up this blue moon evening? For one night of fun, who he was didn’t matter...did it?
It definitely was a blue moon tonight. His kink was particular. It wasn’t about being tied up or any of the other things the internet suggested when he typed in the word submissive. It was more subtle than that. It was the way that a woman looked at him and talked to him, with a touch of scorn, like he was there for only one purpose: to serve her.
But he had be
en lured by his own desire enough times to be wary. It wasn’t surprising, considering the things that turned him on in the bedroom were toxic in relationships. So relationships were rare. And after Anna, they were nonexistent.
If he had only cut things off with Anna instead of trying to save their already-sunk relationship, he would have sacrificed everything in New York to build something together with his father. Byron had assumed that he had decades to return to Hawaii and make good on his promise to his father, so he’d given in to Anna, like he always had. She’d insisted on staying in New York, insisted on getting her way, and while that really was his thing in the bedroom, it had proved to be a disaster outside of it. His suspicions had been confirmed yet again: the better the sex, the worse the rest of the relationship. At least it worked that way when one had a taste for haughty, bossy women. Which he definitely did.
If he hadn’t been so focused on pleasing her, he could have made the Kalani his own from the beginning, looked for smaller investors and left New York and Hayden Properties behind. Now, five years later, he was still kicking himself for thinking with his dick, but it had been long enough to give him a little perspective. He knew, from the moment Jessie told him off out on the water, that it would be hard to resist the pull of sex. But he was leaving in two days, so there was no danger of getting dragged into anything complicated.
Following Jessie on the stone trail to the pool, with her long, almost silvery mermaid hair, dark just at the roots, and her impatient frown, he knew deep down that this was the opposite of careful. And yet, he was following her because chances like this didn’t come around often. And if she wanted to take advantage of him, use him, well, that just happened to be what he wanted, too.
Still, the knot of guilt in his stomach about misleading her wasn’t going away. Byron sighed. He would probably regret this tomorrow, but he had to say it.
He cleared his throat. “Listen, Jessie, I just wanted to clarify something about my job. You know, the bartender th—”
“I don’t care,” she said, waving the comment off over her shoulder.
“But really, I think you should know—”
She turned around, impatience written all over her face, and his cock gave a jolt of interest. Not helpful, buddy.
“Honestly, I really don’t care. I just want a fun time that you promised.” Her eyes were glittering with a combination of exasperation and undisguised lust, and she put her hands on her hips. “Are we doing this or are you backing out?”
Her gaze wandered to his biceps, and he could see she liked what she saw. Byron had to stifle a groan as she half glared at him, half undressed him. “Fine. Got it. No more details.”
She smiled, her face lighting up so bright that his heart squeezed inside. Careful.
“Good,” she said with a little laugh. “Now, where’s the pool?”
He lifted his chin to indicate the direction, and she followed the path around a curve to where it opened onto a stone patio with views of the ocean and the coastline, fading in the setting sun.
“Oh.” She slowed to a stop. “You were right. It really is gorgeous from here.”
He stood next to her, looking out into the dark ocean. It was moments like this, gazing out into the endless water and the quiet coast, that made everything that led to the building of the Kalani worth it. And with this woman here, next to him...
Jessie turned to him. “Um, where’s the pool?”
He nodded to a staircase in front of them. “There are three of them, and the first one is just down those steps. Each is designed for both privacy and great ocean views.”
She blinked about him. “You know a lot about this place, don’t you?”
Byron nodded. “I do.”
She tilted her head to the side. “You’re the kind of guy who likes to do everything just right, aren’t you?”
“I am.”
“Perfect.” She grabbed his hand again and headed for the stairs.
* * *
Jessie was really starting to like this man. Byron was funny, and aside from his obnoxious move out on the waves this morning, he actually seemed like a good guy. He definitely wasn’t one of those overgrown-teenager type of techies back in Silicon Valley with a Tesla and a houseful of gaming electronics, who could barely do their laundry for themselves despite the million-dollar stock-option cash-outs they managed to fall into. No, this ripped bartender dude was definitely his own man, and he was sexy as hell. Whatever he had been trying to confess before, she really didn’t want to hear it. She could probably rule out anything like ex-con, considering the upscale location, so how bad could it be? This was supposed to be a let-loose fun time, and she wasn’t going to overthink a good thing. So, the less she knew the better.
As she walked down the patio steps, a pool came into sight through a cluster of trees and fronds. It was rectangular and closer to the size of a hot tub than a pool made for actual swimming. It was lit from the inside, and the still water sparkled a deep blue. The pool ended in an infinity drop, as if it was spilling into the ocean.
Jessie sighed. “Nice. No wonder my sister forced me to come here.”
Byron stopped next to her. “You didn’t want to come to a resort that grants visitors their wishes?”
He sounded almost offended.
“This isn’t really my style.”
“What’s your style?”
She shrugged. “A vacation that is interrupted at least fifty times with vendor emergencies.” Then she frowned. He was slowing them down again, asking those get-to-know-you questions. Time to get this evening back on track. “How about you take off your clothes?”
Jessie didn’t wait for his reply. She walked over to a lounge chair and pulled her dress over her head, showing off the matching black lace bra and panties she had specifically chosen, just in case. Byron stood a few steps away, watching her, his hands in his pants pockets, his gaze traveling down and his mouth parted a little.
She suppressed a smile and gestured up and down his body. “You’re still dressed.”
That snapped him out of his momentary daze, and he grinned. “I am. You want me to fix that?”
Jessie rolled her eyes. “Unless you thought we were doing something else here.”
Lord, she had to watch her mouth. She had a habit of saying whatever came to her mind first, but left unchecked, it seemed to have an inverse correlation with a guy’s ability to get it up. Though that definitely wasn’t the read she was getting on this situation. In fact, with every line of biting sarcasm that came out of her mouth, he seemed more turned on. Or was that just her own wishful thinking?
Byron came over to the lounge chair and took off his clothes, hanging them over the back of a chair. Then he turned back to her, and it was as if she’d conjured up this godlike man straight out of her own fantasies. Big with ripped muscles everywhere, a golden tan, a few tattoos, and a large, thick cock straining out at her. He made no move to touch it. He made no move to touch her. His hair curled down over his forehead, and his eyes were focused on her, almost as if he were waiting to do her bidding. Or at least she could imagine that for the next thirty minutes to an hour because this was her fun time, too.
“How likely is it that someone will find us?”
The corners of his mouth quirked up. “Maybe a fifty percent chance. You want to go in the pool?”
Jessie laughed, taking a step closer to him, closing the distance between them. “Not even a little bit.”
It was a warm night with a gentle ocean breeze and the most beautiful view she had ever seen. At the moment, she didn’t care. The view would be here all week. All Jessie cared about was having her way with this man before someone disturbed them.
So she took the final steps, coming up against him. She reached behind her, undoing the clasp of her bra and letting it fall between them. He looked down at her, his eyes so hungry, but he didn�
��t move. She slid her fingers under the top of her panties and pushed them down over her thighs, her mouth coming closer and closer to his cock as she bent down. Byron groaned, but he still didn’t move.
This was going to be fun.
Jessie straightened up and lifted her hands to his jaw, stroking it, coaxing him down to her. His lips brushed against hers, soft and warm, and she opened her mouth and pulled him closer, letting him know she was ready. He chuckled a little, the puffs of his breath warm and sweet, and then he kissed her, slowly, thoroughly. Wow. He explored her mouth, tasting one lip, then the other, nipping, and when she groaned, he did it again. Slow, sensual, their tongues found each other, caressing, exploring. She tilted her head and opened her mouth and the kiss turned electric. The warm tropical air swirled around them, soft and magical in the twilight, and it was as if there was nothing else except Byron and this kiss, right now. The soft strokes of his tongue were filled with longing, as if he had waited for this kiss for a long time, far longer than a day.
Oh, hell, this guy knew how to kiss. She slid her hands around his neck, pulling her body flush against his. His cock was hard between them, and she pressed her stomach against it and took the kiss deeper. She met each long stroke of his tongue with her own, dizzy from the pleasure, searching for more. She was lost in him, lost in the warmth of his skin, the sounds of his rough breaths and the scent of turned-on male. She could kiss this man forever.
Whoa.
Jessie broke off the kiss, trying to get her head on straight.
“You’re really good at that,” she whispered. “You know that, right?”
“I’m glad you think so,” he said without a trace of arrogance.
“You have a condom?”
He nodded. Then he lifted her and gently, effortlessly laid her down on the lounge chair, and for the first time she got a sense of just how strong he was. He lowered himself over her and kissed her again, his body hovering over hers and his erection pressing against her stomach. But he made no move to reach for his clothes to get the condom she’d just asked about. And she felt so good, so relaxed and so ready for him that she almost didn’t care.
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