Bad Reputation

by JC Harroway

  Bestselling author JC Harroway hits record temperatures with this friends-to-lovers second installment of The Pleasure Pact series!

  Playboy billionaire Oliver Cotterill has never crossed the line with his best friend, Neve...until a destination wedding becomes a vacation fling that’s hotter than a tropical fever.

  My bad reputation is well deserved. That’s why I’ve always kept things platonic with Neve Grayson. She may be a curvaceous beauty, but she’s also my best friend. The person who’s always had my back, always believed in me. The safest woman to take to my cousin’s Maldives beach wedding. Or so I thought...

  Neve parading around in barely there bikinis strains the boundary I set for myself nine years ago. Discovering her bag of sex toys opens Pandora’s box...and there’s no going back. It turns out Neve made a “pleasure pact” with her friends—they’ve dared her to show me exactly how she feels about being platonic! Then we make our own deal: what happens on the island stays on the island.

  Once I get a taste of sweet, funny Neve, I realize my cravings will never be satisfied. My best friend has become my most powerful addiction. But I have to go cold turkey before she becomes the next salacious tidbit for the tabloids. Before my messed-up family damages her as they have me. Before she learns my darkest secret and walks out of my life forever...

  Lifelong romance addict JC Harroway lives in New Zealand. Writing feeds her very real obsession with happy endings and the endorphin rush they create. You can follow her at jcharroway.com, Facebook.com/jcharroway, Instagram.com/jcharroway and Twitter.com/jcharroway.

  If you liked Bad Reputation, why not try

  Tempt Me by Caitlin Crews

  Dating the Billionaire by Lisa Childs

  Pure Attraction by Rebecca Hunter

  Also by JC Harroway

  The Pleasure Pact

  Bad Business

  Billionaire Bachelors

  Forbidden to Want

  Forbidden to Taste

  Forbidden to Touch

  Discover more at Harlequin.com

  BAD REPUTATION

  JC HARROWAY

  To love in all its forms.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from Dating the Billionaire by Lisa Childs

  CHAPTER ONE

  Neve

  THE RED BIKINI seemed to cover more in the shop but, as statements go, it screams notice me. But will it work on my best friend? Simply craving such a risky thing makes me want to abandon him here in the Maldives and catch the first flight back to London.

  I slide my finger under the edge of the bikini bottoms and retrieve the shrinking triangle of fabric from between the cheeks of my backside. The elastic pings with a snap. I should never have taken my tall, athletic sister bikini-shopping. This would look way better on her svelte frame.

  Panic squeezes my abdomen. Oliver might notice me all right, but for all the wrong reasons—like a catastrophic wardrobe malfunction when I dive into the pool...

  ‘Careful what you wish for,’ I mutter as I strike a sideways pose in the mirror, observing from a different angle how the teeny tiny scraps of fabric barely seem to cover my nipples. What the hell happened between my last-minute shopping spree—when despite my winter-white flesh, I’d convinced myself this bikini made me invincible—and now, when even an entire bottle of fake tan and twenty-four hours under the Maldivian sun couldn’t stop me feeling almost as exposed as being naked?

  My best friend Olly happened, that’s what.

  Oliver Coterill and his bedroom eyes, damn him.

  Of course, those smouldering, come-hither looks aren’t intended for me. Not today, not ever. I’ve witnessed them being flashed at countless women over the nine years we’ve been friends. But a girl can dream, and my imagination sparks with what-ifs every time he flashes his gorgeous, slightly lopsided smile.

  I sigh and tug the two triangles of the bikini top closer together to cover my cleavage. How would it feel, just once, to be visible to him in a sexual way? To be the recipient of that dazzling, bone-melting attention I’ve watched hordes of lucky women receive over the years? To step out of the friend zone and have him see me as a flesh-and-blood woman...?

  ‘Pathetic,’ I say to my reflection with an accusatory point of my index finger. Unrequited lust sucks.

  I slap a smile on my sun-blushed face, stick out my chest to its best advantage and snap a selfie, firing it off to Olly on the message app we use to keep in daily contact.

  I’ll be out in a second...

  He replies straight away.

  Chop, chop, Never. I’m stuck with an investment banker wanker friend of my cousin. It’s snorkel time.

  So impatient. So easily bored. So fucking hot...

  Ignoring his use of the nickname he’d christened me with the first day we met in a uni bar—he’d asked me to spell my name and I’d said, ‘It’s like never without the r’—I sidle up to the window and squint through the mosquito net for a clandestine glimpse of him semi-naked. I catch sight of his damp, dark-blond hair. He’s chatting to some guy while draped over a sun lounger wearing only a pair of board shorts, which are wet and cling to his thick, muscular thighs as if they want intimate knowledge of what he’s packing underneath.

  Lucky board shorts. Of course they want intimate knowledge. The whole world wants intimate knowledge and, if I had my way, I’d be first in the queue.

  Familiar longing fizzes in my pelvis.

  Why are you doing this? Don’t torture yourself. Whatever you do, do not look at his crotch.

  Too late.

  I press my thighs together and allow my mouth to hang open while my greedy, glutton-for-punishment stare traces the over-achieving bulge between his legs. It meanders with blissful agony up the ladder of his abs, touching on the scattered ink decorating his torso, then idles over his buff pecs, which are sprinkled with manly dark chest hair. His single nipple-piercing glints in the sun.

  I swallow my drool. How will I survive the rest of this holiday as his plus-one for his cousin’s wedding and ignore my constant state of lust? How will I get through the toughest friend mission to date without confessing the depth of my un-platonic feelings...?

  The shrill cackle of feminine laughter drags me from my perv-a-thon. Two women from the wedding party loiter near the edge of the pool, their leggy, lithe and toned bodies presented for his inspection and their eyes flicking in his direction with nauseating eagerness.

  I step back but can’t look away. The constant female attention he attracts is the only downside of our friendship. That and the fact I want to shag him, of course...

  Unlike me, these two are exactly his type—exquisite, body-confident women who probably achieve multiple orgasms during tantric sex... I force myself to watch the impending train-wreck, as if in slow motion, seconds before impact.

  Thanks to Oliver’s workplace stance on ‘healthy body, healthy mind’, he’s always at the gym he installed for his employees. But even with a flabby dad-bod he’d turn heads. It’s his arresting eyes—too blue to look natural. Plus the cheeky, wonk
y smile and the God-given confidence he wears almost as well as his bespoke suits.

  I massage my temple, breathing through the bout of testiness, which shunts my hormones into the danger zone. Why doesn’t he put on some bloody clothes? It’s only a matter of time before he gets bored of waiting for me to freak out over my shrinking bikini and approaches his admirers. Then I’ll have to spend the rest of the holiday being the third wheel. Again.

  At least his deluxe bungalow is at the opposite end of the resort from my single room. Despite his cajoling, I insisted on paying for it myself so I won’t have to hear the sex noises coming from his bedroom.

  Ignoring the women, Olly picks up his phone, reads the screen and frowns. He looks straight at my window from across the pool, as if he’s staring right at me. I catch my breath and, even though I’m hidden behind the gauzy curtain, jump back for cover. Don’t want to come across as pathetic and needy by being caught mooning at him and his female groupies.

  I fire off a second message.

  On my way.

  My heart thumps my ribs with excitement and dread. How will I survive day two of his barely clothed company with nowhere to hide in this miniscule excuse for a bikini? I retie the bottom ties to give my nerves time to settle. But I can’t go out there in this state—flustered, turned on, distracted. I dither in front of the mirror, my gaze flitting longingly to the contents of my partially unpacked suitcase.

  I tap my teeth with a fingernail. Do I have time? The vicious throb of my nipples against my bikini top demands that I make time.

  Oliver’s already bored of waiting. He’s probably flashing his bedroom eyes at the blondes as we speak. His reputation for stunning dates is renowned, although the chosen ones never last beyond a couple of weeks. In all the years I’ve known him he’s never invited a woman to a family or work-related function. He says that’s my role. We argued about it once, back in the beginning, when I accused him of wanting to have his cake and eat it. He’d stated reasonably that he preferred my company and didn’t want to give his casual hook-ups the wrong impression. When he was ready to commit to a relationship, he’d introduce a woman to his family.

  Prickles dance over my skin, the constant longing turning into a fire I have no hope of extinguishing if I’m spending the day with the man who presses all my sexual buttons. Unknowingly, of course.

  Why not take the edge off?

  Better to present myself for snorkelling somewhat satiated than in a sexually charged frenzy of frustration. That way I won’t be tempted to take up the challenge issued in a margarita-fuelled pact by my girlfriends, Brooke and Grace, and hurl myself at him lips first.

  No. I can’t think about the promise I made to them to use this trip to finally confront my feelings for Oliver. Not in my current state.

  Instead, I rummage in the bottom of my case for the bag buried under my clothes. I am going to need every single toy I possess to survive this beach holiday with my sex-on-a-stick friend. Why, oh, why couldn’t his cousin’s wedding have been held in Siberia or Alaska?

  I select my favourite vibrator from my single woman’s survival kit —the trusty Rabbit—then I toss the bag onto the bed and stamp off to the bathroom. If forced to watch Olly’s semi-naked, wet body all day, I need to take care of myself first.

  I slam the bathroom door closed, switching the vibrator on and off to test the batteries.

  How would it feel to have him notice me, just once? To look at me with those ready-to-fuck eyes he usually bestows on other women? To see me as more than his reliable friend—a woman who would literally drop everything to be at his beck and call?

  No. I know what happens to those women. They come, they go. Always temporary. Oliver isn’t relationship material, and having him the way I want him could make me temporary too.

  It’s not worth the risk. I made my decision years ago—better to be his friend than to pass through his life in a brilliant flash of burning metal for a few heady seconds and then fizz out to nothing.

  But, oh, how I’d love for once to feel that incandescent heat...

  Brooke and Grace were right. I need to stop this unhealthy and long-standing obsession with Oliver. He didn’t notice me at nineteen and he certainly never would now at twenty-nine. I’ve been single for eight months. Time to keep my vow, to open up that dating app and give some other guy a chance.

  Right after I come...

  Before the mood completely deserts me, I swish back the shower curtain and plonk my butt on the edge of the bath. I fire up the Rabbit once more, slide my bikini bottoms down my thighs and close my eyes, summoning my favourite fantasy.

  The first shocking touch forces a gasp from my throat. I drop my head back and imagine Oliver striding across the tiles around the stunning infinity pool outside, making a beeline for my room, his handsome face taut with single-minded determination. I ease the vibrator inside as fool-proof, Oliver-themed images flash behind my scrunched-up eyelids. Imaginary Oliver throws back the curtains at the French windows, calls my name in his husky, nipple-tingling voice and slams open the bathroom door...

  I want you, Neve. I’ve always wanted you...

  I bite my lip, adjust the angle of the toy and spread my thighs wider, the fantasy fuelling my exhausted libido. He’s here, his eyes on fire and glued to the action between my legs. But dream Oliver is no shrinking violet. He strides into the bathroom, takes my face in his hands and kisses me the way I fantasised the first night we met. Bold. Unapologetic. Frantic. As if he’d die without the connection of our lips...

  Chasing the pleasure, I focus on his dreamy eyes, the sinfully thick black lashes and the mischief glinting in his penetrating blue irises. Mischief I love, even if it does put me squarely in the category of friend.

  I press the Rabbit’s head to my clit with a gasp, recalling how fantastic he smelled last night on the dance floor—clean, spicy top notes, exotic mid notes and uniquely Oliver base notes.

  I’d tried to pay attention to his hilarious, implausible tales about his extended family, whom he’d flown here in his company jet—did I mention kind and generous?—but I’d momentarily lapsed into what it would be like to bury my face in the open neck of his shirt and suck on his skin until he growled my name with arousal... The sexy scruff on his chin scraped against my face as he’d pulled me in close for a slow dance. The smell of his shampoo from his slightly long, unruly, dirty-blond hair. His broad, hard chest grazing my nipples awake as we’d swayed together on the dance floor...

  My head falls back, one foot braced on the edge of the bath, as the Rabbit and I find the sublime rhythm I need.

  I gasp. Make-believe Oliver grips my wrist, withdraws the vibrator and unbuckles his jeans. His mouth opens to speak. Perhaps a throaty, ‘Let me help you with that,’ or a husky, ‘Why not have the real thing?’ I can always rely on my Oliver fantasies to get me there.

  So close... Just a few more seconds...

  A harsh rap sounds on the bathroom door.

  ‘Come the fuck on, Neve,’ Oliver calls. ‘You’re taking for ever in there.’

  I yank the Rabbit from between my thighs and slam my legs closed, as if he can see what I’m up to through the closed door. My face burns, my clumsy hands fumbling with the vibrator’s off switch as it hums with the force of a million mosquitos. At last I silence the device and shove it into the back of the cupboard under the sink, behind the spare toilet rolls. Breath gusts out of me in a panic. Did he hear me? Does he know what I was up to? Did I say his name aloud?

  I jerk my bikini bottoms up and run water to hide the thunderous sound of my erratic heartbeat.

  ‘I’m coming.’ I wince at the irony, splashing cold water onto my face to extinguish the scalding heat. Perhaps I should blast the showerhead between my legs to douse my lady-boner.

  Bloody Oliver...

  I dry my face with a fluffy hotel towel and force my breathing to slow while
I stare down my flushed reflection.

  Keep it together. Act like nothing happened. Pretend, same as always.

  When I emerge gingerly from the en suite, Oliver is collapsed on my bed, his arms spread-eagle and his stare trained on the fan spinning lazily overhead. His board shorts are dry and he swings his feet over the edge of the bed, because he’s not very good at keeping still.

  My clit throbs in retribution. I want to climb onto him and...

  ‘How can it take you half an hour to clean your teeth?’ he says without looking up. ‘You’ll have no enamel left at this rate.’

  I shuffle over to a chair near the window, pretending to hunt for my prescription sunglasses while I boil inside—one, because I’m always simmering when Olly is around, and two, because my primed clit didn’t get the memo that fun time is over.

  ‘I should never have given you a key to my room,’ I snap, venting frustration. ‘Why can’t you just be by yourself for five minutes?’

  He looks up, props his elbows under him and stares, as if seeing me for the first time—his piercing eyes narrowed a fraction and his big, manly body still for once.

  I freeze, unease dancing over my exposed skin. Why did I wish for that focus to be turned on me? Its intensity makes me want to run back to the bathroom and hide in the shower.

  ‘I can be alone,’ he says. ‘The investment banker started asking me about work and, aside from the Japanese telecommunications deal, I don’t want to think about business. I’m on holiday, and I thought we were going snorkelling.’ His voice, as deep and magnetic as always, and tinged with a transatlantic twang from his dual nationality, carries that ‘lost little boy’ edge that keeps me enslaved. I can’t help it. I have a terrible case of saviour complex where Oliver is concerned. I always have. I see something in him from which he needs rescuing. Although, clearly I’m the one in desperate need...

  ‘Sorry,’ I say, sighing. ‘I didn’t mean it.’ I perch my sunglasses on top of my head and turn my back on him to push my feet into my flip-flops. ‘I didn’t sleep well last night. I’m testy.’