Private Pleasures

by Jami Alden

  "Don't worry, it's no big deal," Wendy said, glad her sunglasses hid the direction of her stare as she watched Drew strip off his t-shirt and join the game.

  Jesus, she was going to start drooling if she wasn't careful. She tore her gaze away from the visual orgy of tan skin and rippling muscle as Drew leaped in the air to spike a ball.

  She realized Julie's lips were moving and words were coming out. She forced her attention back to her friend and caught the tail end of whatever she was saying. "...can't help but wonder if that's why you left the party last night."

  It took Wendy a couple beats to catch up. "Because of Drew? No way!" Lie! But not for the reasons you think!

  "You'd tell me if you did, right? I know you've been going through a rough time, and I really wanted you to enjoy yourself this weekend."

  Wendy heard the catch in Julie's voice and couldn't stifle her smile. Julie had always had a huge, soft heart, but since becoming a mother she'd started tearing up at the drop of a hat. When Julie had visited her in San Francisco when Mathilda was four months old, Julie had started sobbing over how beautifully the dew sparkled on Crissy Field one sunny morning as they went for a walk.

  And, okay, Wendy's throat was a little tight, but it had been awhile since she'd had anyone really looking after her feelings. She reached over and gave Julie's hand a little squeeze. "Jules, in case you've forgotten, this weekend is supposed to be about you and Chris and five years of wedded bliss. Even if I was uncomfortable—which I'm not"—as long as I don't count the screaming muscles of my inner thighs or the general tenderness of my lady parts—"my job as your friend is to suck it up and have a good time and never let you be the wiser. I love you, Jules. This is your weekend. Don't worry about me."

  "Thanks," Julie said with a watery sniffle. "I think after being in this business so long I've forgotten sometimes I'm allowed to have a good time and be the star of my party."

  "That's right, princess," Wendy snickered.

  "Speaking of wedded bliss," Julie said, settling deeper into the padded lounger, "you never answered my question. Are you seeing anyone?”

  "Not really," Wendy replied, her gaze drifting back down the beach where the volleyball net was set up. Eight of the male guests had divided up into two teams and were flinging themselves around the sand with varying levels of skill.

  Drew and Chris were the most skilled by far. And also the fittest. At the age where most men let their workout regime slide in favor of more time behind the desk, those two were in their prime, muscles rippling under smooth, sun-bronzed skin.

  With Chris it made sense, living where he did, spending so much time outdoors. Plus, it was part of the brand for both Holley Cay and Watermelon Cay. Somehow Wendy didn't think the ad campaigns featuring Chris would be as successful if he was a fat slob.

  But Drew... just looking at him made her hot in a way that had nothing to do with the bright sunshine beating down on her skin. She knew he worked hard—from the way Alan had bitched about Drew trying to make them look bad, it sounded like he worked nearly the same hours she did. A good week for her was squeezing in two workouts.

  He, on the other hand, looked like he put in hours a day, every day. Lean and cut and bulky in all the right places. Her fingers tingled at the memory of exactly how hard he'd been.

  Everywhere.

  "...Chris still has tons of friends in San Francisco we could set you up with. I know Drew isn't your type—"

  "What?" Wendy jerked her attention back to Julie. Once again, she'd been so busy ogling Drew that she’d completely tuned the other woman out.

  Julie let out an exasperated sigh and gave a wave to one of the servers taking orders on the beach. "Why are you such a space case today?" She paused her scolding to smile up at the beautiful dark-skinned woman and ordered two margaritas, rocks with salt.

  Wendy interrupted, changing her order to a diet coke, which earned her a scowl. "I can't start this early in the day. I'll never get anything done."

  Julie flung her arms out, exasperated. "You're on a tropical island at one of the world's most luxurious resorts. What is there to get done?"

  Wendy shrugged, keeping quiet for now about the fact that she'd broken the promise she'd made to Julie not to do any work while she was here. The waitress returned shortly with their drinks, and Wendy looked on jealously as Julie swiped some salt with her tongue and took a long sip of her margarita.

  "Anyway, like I was saying, you should let us fix you up—"

  Wendy held up a silencing hand. "I keep telling you, I don't have time to date."

  "You don't make time."

  "There is no time!" Wendy said, attracting a couple of questioning looks at her voice's pitch and volume.

  "No time for what?" A masculine voice asked from behind her. Wendy didn't have to look up to see that it was Chris. The wide, goofy smile that engulfed the lower half of Julie's face said it all.

  As Chris pulled a lounger up beside Julie’s and plopped down, Wendy turned, mentally bracing herself because sure enough Drew was right behind.

  "Too busy to date," Julie said.

  "Is that so?" Drew asked.

  "Like I keep telling you," Wendy said through stiff lips as she carefully kept her eyes averted from Drew, "I'm up for partner this year, and if I want to make it, there's no time for anything else. Until that happens, I don't have the time to give to a relationship. I think what happened with Alan proved that."

  "All that proved is that Alan wasn't the right guy for you," Julie said,

  "Wait, I thought you liked Alan," Wendy said.

  Julie shrugged her bare tan shoulders against the back of the lounger. "Sure, he was a nice guy. But come on, Wendy, we both know you don't need a nice guy."

  "You can say that again," Drew muttered under his breath.

  Wendy could feel her hackles rise. "Are you saying I shouldn't have a guy who's nice to me?"

  "Of course not!" Julie said, straightening a little. "But you need someone tough, who's going to stand up to you, someone who's going to challenge you and hold your interest."

  "I thought the exact same thing the first time I saw her with Alan," said Drew.

  "I know, right!" Julie said. "Even if they had made it to the altar, she would have steamrolled right over him."

  "Yeah," said Drew, "and he would have done exactly the same thing—slink off to lick his wounds with some other woman who made him feel all important. Better to get it over with before it's legal."

  Wendy felt a little stab of betrayal that her best friend and new lover were blatantly dissecting her broken relationship. "I don't see how me saying I don't have time to date turned into a discussion about why Alan and I are all wrong for each other."

  "You're the one who brought it up and said he broke up with you because you work too much," Drew pointed out.

  He had her there. "He did," Wendy snapped.

  "But if he'd been more interesting," Julie said, "you would have made more of an effort to spend time with him and plan your own wedding."

  Wendy's teeth clenched. "You have no idea how hard I have to work—"

  "I get it," Julie interrupted. "I work hard too, but I still have to find time for Chris and Mathilda-—"

  "What I do is a little more demanding than helping a bride pick a china pattern or helping her choose between Cristal and Veuve Clicquot for the reception," Wendy snapped. And immediately regretted it when Julie's full mouth pulled tight like it did when her feelings were hurt. "Crap, I'm sorry," she said. "All I mean is that I've had to work really hard to get this far, and this year it's all coming down to the wire. I didn't—and I don't"—she said with a pointed look at Drew—"have time for anything else."

  "Okay, I see your point." Julie said quietly. "But if that's true, even with your schedule, if Alan had been the right guy for you, he would have supported you instead of screwing his admin."

  Wendy couldn't stifle a soft laugh, even if she could feel Drew's eyes boring into her as Julie essentially ech
oed everything he'd said the night before. How could he know so much about her even in the limited time they'd spent together?

  Drew had a way of guessing at her secrets. She didn't like it. "Well, thanks for that, but I still say I should have known better than to get involved with anyone when I have so much going on. Speaking of which," she said, reaching for her cover up as she stood up from the lounger, "I need to go check messages and get some work done."

  "Work?" Julie cried and grabbed at her arm. "You promised you wouldn't do any while you were here."

  "I tried," Wendy said, guilt settling like a wet wool blanket over her shoulders. "I really did, but some stuff came up—"

  "You're working on that merger right?" Drew offered.

  "Yes," Wendy said, flashing him a grateful smile.

  Drew shook his head. "I don't know all of the specifics, but that situation's a mess. You're lucky she made it at all," he said with a pointed look at Julie.

  "Can't you do it later?" Julie asked beseechingly. "You have to come on the snail and snorkel outing. You told me you were so excited to finally try it!"

  "I'll have to do it another time," Wendy said, hoping Julie wouldn't hear the note of relief in her voice. Yes, she'd been willing if not exactly eager to go snorkeling when she thought it entailed swimming right off the beach. Someplace where she could easily retreat to the shallows if she started to freak out like she had the last time she'd tried to swim in open water more than six feet deep.

  But when she'd found out she'd have to jump off a boat in the middle of the sea, Wendy had been happy enough to skip the outing to catch up on work.

  "You can work tonight!"

  "Right, after my brain is sun-fried and I've got a buzz on from the drinks I know you'll force on me. At least this way I'll be able to join you for the pig roast tonight."

  Julie's shoulders slumped, her mouth pulling into a pout. "Why don't you work tomorrow?"

  "Because that's my day with Mathilda. No way am I missing that." Wendy wasn't baby crazy by any means, but she adored Chris and Julie's little terror. When Julie had made it clear that this was a grown ups only weekend away from the family, Wendy made her disappointment in not seeing Molly clear. After much prodding, Julie had finally told Wendy if she wanted to take the ferry over to the other resort to visit her daughter, she could knock herself out, but Julie, who hadn't had a night away with Chris since her daughter's birth nearly two years ago, wasn't going home until the very last second.

  "Oh, so she gets to see you but I don't?"

  Wendy gave Julie a look over the rims of her sunglasses.

  "Fine," Julie huffed and straightened up in the lounger as she drained the last of her margarita. She gave Chris's leg a little tap. "We should probably go make sure everything's ready on the boat."

  Chris stood up too. "If you change your mind, you can meet us at the dock at one-thirty. You're coming, right?" he asked Drew.

  "Sorry," Drew said, not sounding all that apologetic. "But I have conference call I can't miss."

  Wendy's stomach did a little flip as she realized Drew would be staying behind while all the other guests went on the excursion. Other than the resort staff, they would be alone for several hours….

  She clenched her thighs as her sex clenched at the thought of how they could fill those empty hours. She hoped the filmy cover up disguised the fact that her nipples had risen into rock hard points against the fabric triangles that covered them.

  "You two are ridiculous," Chris said, sounding as exasperated as his wife as he rose to his feet. "I couldn't figure out why you two never hooked up. Now I get it."

  Wendy was glad Julie and Chris had turned and started away so they didn't see the blush that spread over her entire body.

  "At least they don't suspect anything," she said as much to herself as Drew, who had risen to stand beside her.

  "Would it matter if they did?"

  "Of course it would," she said, trying to ignore the way his low, raspy voice sent an electric current straight to her core. "I know Julie, and she'll get all ahead of herself and start, like, planning the wedding," she said, forcing a laugh. "Then she'd be disappointed to find out it was just a one night thing—"

  "Just one night? I thought I did well enough to earn a little more," he said, leaning close enough for her to feel his warm breath tease her bare shoulder.

  Wendy swallowed convulsively. "One night. That was my plan."

  She started to walk up the beach, stomach quivering, as Drew fell in stride with her. "Is that why you snuck out while I was asleep?"

  She felt her cheeks get even hotter and resisted the urge to look to see if anyone was eavesdropping. "I outgrew the walk of shame in college. I didn't want to run into anyone, for obvious reasons. I would think you'd be relieved to avoid the awkward morning after conversation."

  "More like disappointed," Drew said as they reached the door leading into the main building that housed Wendy's room. As she went to step inside he came around to plant himself in front of her, bracing one thickly muscled arm on the door frame to block her entry. "I wasn't finished with you yet."

  She felt a hot, wet rush between her legs. "Did you make up the conference call, hoping you could corner me alone?"

  "I'm not so desperate I have to start making up stories," he said, his teeth flashing white as his mouth pulled into a cocky grin. "I really do have a call in about"—he looked down at his watch—"fifteen minutes. Besides, I'm not much for snorkeling."

  "Afraid of all the little fish?" she asked, wondering idly if he shared her fear.

  "I went scuba diving off the great barrier reef in February. After that, snorkeling is kind of anticlimactic."

  Wendy's eyes rolled behind her sunglasses. Of course mr. bigger-and-better-in-every-way-that-counted would know how to scuba dive. "Well, I've never been so I wouldn't know."

  "You should try it sometime. It's amazing, like another planet.”

  "Well some of us don't have the time or the means to go dive the Great Barrier Reef whenever we want," she sniped. Not that she ever would, of course, but he didn't need to know that.

  She didn't know why it irked her so much that he'd managed to find time for such a trip while still kicking ass in his career. Meanwhile she'd slaved away, barely managing to find a free Saturday and losing her fiancé in the process.

  Which, she thought as the sight of Drew all bare-chested and sun-warmed heated her from the inside out, maybe wasn't the worst thing that happened.

  She needed to get away from him, and fast before she lost her battle with the lust screaming through her body. Once was an indulgence.

  Twice would be dangerous.

  "Now, if you'll move I need to get up to my room so I can finish my work in time for dinner."

  He gamely dropped his hand from the door frame and gestured her inside.

  She started down the hallway, the tapping of her sandals echoing off the teak floors. She'd taken no more than a dozen steps when she heard heavier footsteps following behind. Her mouth curved into a secret smile and a tingle of awareness shot through her as she reached out to push the call button on the elevator.

  "You want to go for a ride?" she cheekily asked and turned to look over her shoulder, anticipation swinging rapidly to embarrassment when she met the startled eyes of Jeff Tracer, one of the other guests. One who just happened to be friendly with Alan, enough so that he'd been invited to their engagement party.

  And now he thought she was hitting on him.

  Meanwhile Drew, she noted, trying to ignore the stab of disappointment, hadn't bothered to linger. Content, despite what he'd said, to let her go.

  Chapter 6

  Wendy trudged back up to her room, doing her best to stifle her resentment as she passed several couples loaded up with beach bags, chatting happily as they headed down to the resort's marina to climb aboard the massive yacht that would take them out for an afternoon of sailing and snorkeling.

  While everyone else was sunning themselves
and sipping colorful rum drinks, Wendy would spend the afternoon poring over the latest draft of the merger agreement until her eyes crossed.

  Partner.

  She seized on the word like an amulet. Just three more months until she had her annual review. This merger, with all of its twists and turns of complicated licensing and patent issues, would make or break her. Caribbean getaway or no, this was no time to slack off.

  Still, after only a half an hour and less than five pages into the contract, Wendy decided that just because she was working didn't mean she had to be cooped up in her hotel room. Though the room was as luxurious as any she'd ever stayed in and boasted a partial ocean view, it was hard not to feel confined. She gathered up her laptop and headed down to the pool and seated herself at one of the tables shaded by a massive canvas umbrella. The place was deserted, as expected.

  Drew must have gone back to his villa to make his phone call. The thought of the villa, and what had taken place within its walls a little more than twelve hours ago was enough to make her squirm in her seat.

  Maybe she could work her way halfway through the contract and see if Drew was ready for a break....

  She gave herself a mental slap. Last night was her hall pass. She'd had her moment of indulgence, and now it was time to hunker back down and focus.

  Maybe it was the fresh, salt-scented air, or maybe it was never-ending diet coke that was immediately and discreetly refilled every time she took more than two sips, but once she got into the meat of the contract it was easy for Wendy to forget everyone else partying on a yacht. She'd even mostly blocked out the fact that the only other guest left behind was the man who last night had rocked her world harder than it had been rocked in a long time.

  People gave lawyers a bad rap—Wendy had heard her share of bad jokes and unflattering comparisons. She knew a lot of people—even people in her own family—thought she'd gotten into it because she wanted to make a lot of money.

  But the truth was, she really loved what she did. Putting together deals, looking carefully for every hitch and every catch. When she was a kid she'd loved brain teasers and illusion puzzles, finding the hidden messages and pictures.. For her, that was what a deal like this was - a kind of a puzzle or game where she had to seek and find every little potential "gotcha" the other side might try to put in.