“Oh.”
Honey peeled off one eye pad and glanced over. Dayna was gazing back. Her eye coverings had been removed, and her aesthetician was now cleansing her face with a damp cloth. “Is there something going on between you and your boss?”
“No!”
“Do you want something to go on between you and your boss?”
“The obvious answer to that is he’s my boss.”
Their conversation was halted as Honey’s own aesthetician began massaging her face, neck and throat with short, firm strokes.
“To remove toxins,” the woman said in her musical voice.
Maybe it could remove the memories of those kisses. Or better yet, the attraction that kept rearing its unwelcome head.
You work for him, Honey, she reminded herself. He’s off limits.
Finally she and Dayna were sitting up again, their skin clean and moisturized, their hair still wrapped in turbans. The strands were being deep-conditioned as they received manicures and pedicures.
Besides the Walsh situation, Honey had another concern. “Do you really think my cut’s going to be okay?”
The stylist and Dayna had convinced her to have her back to the mirror when he’d worked his scissors, so she hadn’t seen the results of his efforts. Then the conditioning product had been applied. The final spa treatment scheduled was the washing and arranging of Honey’s new ’do.
The possible outcome made her stomach churn almost as much as the memory of kissing Walsh in the pond.
His palms had been hard on her bottom, his mouth ravenous. She’d fisted her hands in his hair, gripping the wet strands as she held his head to hers.
And then a shout followed by a huge splash had snapped them back to reality.
Yanking her lips from his, she’d gulped in a breath then sank beneath the water and stroked straight for shore. By the time he’d arrived, she’d been standing beside Dayna and York, wringing out her hair. On the hike back to the resort, she’d stuck close to the pair and upon arrival had headed off to the spa without making a stop in the villa she shared with her boss, choosing to shower in the facilities at the salon.
When she faced him again…
Argh.
“I can feel your wheels spinning from here,” Dayna said. Her nails were being painted a tropical green.
Honey had selected a more conservative pale pink, with a bluish shimmer like the inside of an abalone shell. “What have I done?”
“Is this about your hair or about making out with the man who signs your paychecks?”
“The hair will grow.” She squeezed shut her eyes. “Those kisses can’t be taken back.” How would she forget them?
“There’s a couple of ways to handle this,” Dayna said. “You throw yourself into the weekend fling idea—”
“In all honesty, I don’t know if I’m cut out for one.” Honey hung her head. “I’ve only had a couple of relationships, and I didn’t go into them to scratch an itch. I hoped they might be…more.”
“You’re looking for the whole thing, then? A grand passion?”
“And deep abiding love.” Honey grimaced. “I know, call me romantic.”
“Or surprising. I thought you might be more cynical after what you’ve said about your parents’ bitter divorce.”
“I’m stubborn, too. I know some people find their soul mate.” She thought of Ren and Cilla, Reed and Cleo, and the other Rock Royalty pairs. “So why would I settle for something less?”
“All right.” Dayna nodded, her expression sage. “It’s Door Number Two, then.”
“What’s Door Number Two?”
“An affair with Walsh.”
Honey’s whole body twitched, jerking her hand free of the manicurist’s.
“Sorry,” she mumbled, extending it again as she stared at her friend. “That’s a terrible plan.”
“It’s totally necessary. It’s the way to get past this fixation you have—unless you think he might be your Forever?”
She twitched again. “That would make me a fool. The man for me will go whole-hearted into a relationship. So not Walsh.” Who had revolving bed partners, a second-date gift strategy, and a list.
The stylist returned, saving Honey from further discussion. At the shampoo sink, she closed her eyes and hoped Dayna’s suggestion would go down the drain with the suds. Back in the salon chair, she was once again turned away from the mirror as the man fussed with her hair. No round brush like she usually used was in evidence. The blow-dryer was set on low as he scrunched and fiddled and tweaked. Finally, he spun her around.
Honey stared.
“Wow,” she said, her voice faint. “I knew my hair was curly. I grew it long to keep it straighter.”
Dayna popped up behind her. “Now you’re going to work those ringlets instead of trying to mold them into something else.”
“I look like someone else.” Her usual bangs were swept to the right from a deep side part. Then what had once fallen past her shoulders now bounced just below her ears in soft, loose curls that framed her face.
“Maybe you look like a girl meant for a fling, huh?”
Honey continued studying her reflection. The new style drew attention to her eyes and her mouth. She looked…pouty. No, maybe sultry was a better word, given that she had a faint sunburn across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose.
“Sexy,” she finally decided, her gaze meeting her friend’s in the glass. “I kind of look...sexy.”
“Sweetly sexy,” Dayna said. “It’s the curls. They suit you.”
Sweetly sexy. At the idea, a little shiver of pleasure rolled down Honey’s back.
Examining her new style again, she decided it revealed something about herself that she’d been hiding from behind that mass of hair and to-the-eyebrows bangs. She was a woman. A sexual being. Perhaps…perhaps grand passion could wait. The female in the mirror deserved a few nights of scorching sin, didn’t she?
She inhaled a deep breath. “Yes. Maybe I am a girl meant for a fling.”
Dayna grinned. “That’s the attitude I’m talking about.”
Then Honey frowned. “But before the cocktail party I’m going to have to talk to Walsh about it.”
“Say what?” Her friend’s smile died.
“We’re in the same villa. Obviously I can’t bring some man back there with me.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Normally, of course, I wouldn’t discuss with him a subject so personal, but I’d better let him know I might be with someone for a few hours. Maybe even overnight.” She placed the palm of her hand against her nervous mid-section. Was she really going to do this?
“What do you expect his reaction will be?”
Honey fluffed her curls with the palm of her hand and watched them bounce back into place. “He won’t have one, as long as I assure him I’ll be on hand for business as usual in the morning.”
“If you say so.” Dayna sounded skeptical. “We better find you the perfect dress for this professional discussion you’re about to engage in.”
It was close to the appointed hour of the cocktail party when Honey let herself into the villa. Walsh’s bedroom door was shut, but she could hear the faint sound of water coming from his en suite bathroom. She crossed to her room where she stowed the bag that held her discarded day clothes and scooped up a pair of the strappy sandals that had come from the boutique.
Once they were on, she was too antsy to remain still. She paced into the living area, forcing herself not to fidget with the lines of Dayna’s borrowed dress. Instead of basic black, it was an icy blue lace, its V-neckline embellished with soft-edged roses made of more coiled fabric. It was short, to the middle of her thighs, but neither the bodice nor the hem made her as nervous as the back. It dipped so low that she worried about rear cleavage. A thin string tied at the middle of her back was supposed to keep it decent.
As an experiment, she strolled about the room. The good news was, if she found a fling-material man, it wouldn’t take him
long to get her out of the dress. A pull on that bow, and the entire garment would drop. Beneath it she didn’t wear much.
Correction, she didn’t wear anything.
Dayna had sworn it would change the way she walked, the way she held herself, the way she felt about herself. It was a technique to help her break out of her shell.
It didn’t switch off the admin in her, however. Because as she took another turn around the space, her eye caught on a piece of paper in the middle of the desk, marked with her boss’s distinctive scribble.
Had some work problem come up? Frowning, she moved closer to stare down at the words he’d written.
Mother material.
Good hostess.
Understanding about long work hours.
Her eyes bugged. The list!
“Who the hell are you?” a man’s voice demanded.
Honey whirled. She felt the hem rise on the dress, so she clamped her palms against her thighs to hold it down. “It’s me.”
He jerked back, then his gaze slowly ran from the top of her curly head to her pink-painted toes.
“Go back and get the rest,” he said, scowling.
“What?”
“Your hair and that dress. Go back and get what’s missing from them.”
Laughing, she touched her hair. “Too late.”
“Not to change what you’re wearing.”
Was he serious? She frowned at him. That’s all he had to say about her new appearance?
“I thought we agreed on no more weirdness. You commenting on my clothes is weird.”
You actually writing a list is very weird.
He really had started that list!
He turned away and strode to the screened back door. His nubby linen slacks ruffled in the ocean breeze, and the hem of his silk shirt moved, too. It was black, subtly embroidered with bamboo stalks in the same color on the left front and back.
She’d bought it for him for his birthday.
For hers, he’d given her an annotated, beautifully illustrated Complete Works of Shakespeare that she treasured. Particularly because it showed he’d listened when she’d talked about her favorite series of college courses. She felt a traitorous warming in her chest.
So she glanced back at the piece of paper on the desk.
Mother material.
Good hostess.
Understanding about long work hours.
And sucking in a long breath, steeled her spine. “I need to mention something.”
He glanced over his shoulder.
At his dark, penetrating gaze, her intention evaporated, and memory rushed back. His hands, his mouth, her racing heart. The feel of his hips between her legs as she’d wrapped them around him in the pond. There had been a distinct, heavy hardness pressing at her center, and it made her flush hot recalling how she’d rocked against it in the brief moments of that kiss.
Now she shifted her weight on her heels as an ache pulsed between her thighs. She felt herself soften there, go slick. Her face burned. Without panties, it felt as if she was even more exposed.
Walsh’s nostrils flared. He turned and started forward. “Honey…”
Her belly quivered, and then all her instincts went on alert as he moved to her, that big body of his looking primed and potent. From behind him, the scent of ocean drifted into the room, changing the atmosphere, changing the way he appeared to her. Suddenly he wasn’t the civilized businessman she met in the office every day. Instead, he was a testosterone-fueled male, primal and determined.
Everything feminine in her went electric.
And wetter.
Dayna’s voice sounded in her head. An affair with Walsh. It’s totally necessary. It’s the way to get past this fixation. The words were a rubber stamp on what Honey saw pacing toward her in male form—sex.
The scorching sin that she’d promised herself. It was written on Walsh’s face and in every hard line of his body. She could have it, now, with him. After all, she thought, as the look in his eyes stole her breath, something really had to be done about this maddening, distracting, going-nowhere crush.
Desire, sweet and hot, rushed her system. It coursed through her like warm syrup. Her legs trembled, and she put out a hand to steady herself. The paper on the desk was disturbed by her touch. It flew across the wooden surface, caught on the breeze, and then descended, landing at Walsh’s feet.
He bent to retrieve it.
The list. With a certain snap, Honey’s common sense reasserted itself. She stepped back. Becoming intimate with her boss was a terrible idea! Certainly not an intelligent way to overcome her inconvenient feelings for him. So as he straightened, she inhaled a breath and forced herself to meet his gaze.
“Walsh,” she said, as matter-of-factly as she could. “I need to give you a head’s up.”
Walsh leaned against one of the columns that held up the roof of the round, wall-less structure where the consortium’s cocktail party was being held. Tables were scattered about, but there was plenty of open floor space for stand-up mingling. Servers walked around with trays of seafood and Mexican-styled appetizers, and a bar offered any kind of cocktail a person might desire. He held the obligatory margarita, the welcome drink that had been pushed into his hand the moment he’d strolled onto the marble floor.
He was in a shitty mood, despite the fact that the tequila-based beverage was served the way he enjoyed—over rocks and with a salted rim on the glass.
There was no complaining about the ambience, either. The gazebo-styled building had been erected over the water, allowing photo-worthy views of the setting sun. Warm Pacific breezes floated by, and the whispery sound of the surf spreading onto the sand added to the murmurings of the gathered guests. Wide steps led to another open terrace where other resort residents were gathered for drinks, dining, and to enjoy the band playing jazz and pop tunes.
But his gaze didn’t wander off one woman. From across the room, he watched Honey laughing and chatting with her new friend, Dayna Featherstone.
Each time she tossed back those shiny curls, he wanted to punch something.
Stop, he ordered himself. Stop being ridiculous.
What she wanted to do with her life—as in fuck some stranger—did not need his approval.
Of course, Honey hadn’t put it like that. No, she was much more delicate. She’d gazed at him with her big blue eyes and suggested she might be engaging in an “intimate event” later that night.
He could have played stupid and made her spell it out. But when a woman was wearing a dress that made a man sweat, it was best he keep his mouth shut.
Still, it didn’t seem in character for Honey to actually make a plan to get laid. But then, in that blue dress and with that tousled hair, she didn’t look like Honey. Not the Honey he knew.
Maybe that’s why he’d reacted so strongly. Walking into the villa’s living room, he’d thought her a stranger. On second glance he’d recognized her, but that hadn’t prevented his libido—no matter how many times he’d tried to control it lately—from firing up, making his motor race like he was one of Payne Colson’s Formula cars.
When Walsh understood what she was hoping to do that night, he’d wanted to talk her out of it. Hell, he’d wanted to lock her in her bedroom. His bedroom. Any bedroom, with the both of them inside it. He figured he could turn that dress to ashes with one searing look, and then he’d toss her onto the mattress and drive them both wild.
The strength of his desire to do just that had been what backed him off. He knew better than to be driven by his primal urges. So he’d decided to let go and let her do her thing. Now, forcing his gaze away from her, he straightened and strolled in a new direction.
She was out of his mind. Completely.
“Your assistant looks quite lovely,” a voice said.
Walsh’s head jerked to find York Featherstone at his elbow. Pasting on an easy smile, he addressed the other man. “Sure. And it’s good to see you again.”
“Are you all right? You
seem a little…tense.”
Walsh shrugged. “It’s probably because I’m more comfortable behind my desk.” As confessions go, that wasn’t so bad, right?
“That’s one of the motivators behind the creation of this group, isn’t it? Many of us are so narrowly focused on business we don’t appreciate the beauty around us.”
Your workaholic ways are sucking the humanity out of you.
Ignoring that echo of Brody’s words, Walsh deliberately turned toward the panorama of the calm ocean, the rainbow-palette sky, and the orange disc of the lowering sun.
“It’s a spectacular view tonight,” he admitted.
“Our tropical bubble,” York mused. “We should do ourselves a favor and keep our at-home concerns outside it for the next few days.”
Maybe that’s what Honey is doing, Walsh thought.
Using this long weekend as a space out of time during which she could step away from her everyday worries. That part was good, he decided, knowing how much responsibility she bore on her slim shoulders—for her brother and sister and at MadSci, too. He knew better than anyone that she deserved to seek pleasure. Find fun.
What wasn’t so good was her seeking out some other man to provide that.
Scowling, he lifted his chin to find her once again in the crowd—then caught himself.
She was supposed to be out of his mind.
The ringing of a bell caught his attention. He and York and the others in the consortium turned toward the center of the structure where one of the organizers was standing. The woman was sixtyish and elegant in silky, wide-legged trousers. Walsh knew that when her husband had divorced her ten years earlier she’d taken her father’s sluggish family business—and turned it into a raging success.
“I know we all profess to hate icebreakers,” she said now, and laughed when most of the gathered people groaned. “But getting to know one another better is the entire point of this weekend.”
Several in the circle grudgingly nodded.
“Down your drinks and get a fresh one then,” the woman advised. “That will make our little game of Speed Meeting go that much easier.”
Walsh considered cutting and running. Speed Meeting?
Every three minutes they would talk one-on-one with another of the participants. But he firmed his resolve. The damn truth was, he was here to make contacts. York Featherstone first and foremost, and that man hadn’t headed for the nearest exit.
Wishful Sinful (Rock Royalty Book 5) Page 10