by Zante, Lily
“Ready,” he said, resting his chin on her shoulder, making her heart fill up. God, he was delicious.
She took the picture, then another one for good measure.
He moved away, straightening up as he looked across the bar. “Excuse me,” he said, “It’s getting busy again.” A group of people had suddenly gathered at the bar.
Speechless, still recovering from his touch, she examined the photo on her cell phone, her pulse racing, her insides in chaos. They looked so good together. Like a perfect couple.
Damn freaking good.
A smile settled on her lips. He had done nothing, yet he’d done everything, and he hadn’t even touched her yet.
On an island full of men who were either too old, too confident, or too eager, someone perfect had suddenly appeared out of thin air, just like one of Xavier’s magic tricks.
Chapter 5
It had been a lazy morning. With the wedding over, a more relaxed vibe filled the air. The beach, as well as the pool area was practically empty, and breakfast was still being served even though it was past noon.
Kay had come down to the beach a short time ago, in a bright sunshine yellow bikini that she hoped was hard to miss. It wasn’t long before Savannah found her.
“Eye-catching ensemble,” Savannah commented.
“Thank you,” she replied, moving her beach bag and hat out of the way to make way for Savannah on the enormous beach towel. “It’s neon yellow. Like it?”
Savannah sat down. “Izzy’s is bright green. You must both shop at the same place.”
Kay made a face. “Hardly. This is designer swimwear.”
Savannah rolled her eyes. “I’m sure it is, but it’s hardly swimwear. It’s no bigger than a few postage stamps. It’s barely covering you up.”
Kay shrugged. “My nun’s habit is in for a wash.”
Savannah shook her head, grinning. “You said you were going to be good. This,” she waved her hand at Kay, “looks like a mating call for every man within a one mile radius.”
“Not true,” Kay denied, putting on her best serious face. “Everyone’s paired up, and there is nobody around. I’m reading, while trying to get a tan.”
Savannah sat back, propping her arms behind her for support, and with her legs sprawled out in front. She looked cute, in her bikini and sarong. “Sleep well?” Kay asked mischievously.
“I slept very well.” Savannah looked out towards the sea, completely ignoring the subtle dig.
“Very well?” Kay echoed, doubting Savannah’s words. With it being Savannah’s fist night married, she was sure the newlyweds had spent the night doing anything but sleeping.
“Most people are still sleeping,” remarked Savannah.
“It’s pretty empty,” Kay agreed, eyeing the bar area. A couple of bartenders were serving, but the hot one from last night was nowhere in sight.
“Tobias has arranged activities for everyone and there’s a boat taking them over to the other side of the island.”
“He has?” Kay frowned. It sounded like too much hard work. “What sort of activities?”
“Parachute-gliding, snorkeling. Come along. I’ve never done any of those things before. It’ll be fun.”
“Fun?” It sounded like anything but fun, and she was on vacation. “Are you going?”
“Of course. Jacob and Izzy have gone to the waterfall. Most of the guests are coming and it’s going to be pretty quiet around here. Come with us.”
It sounded like hell. “No thanks.”
Savannah looked at her. “What else are you going to do?”
Enjoy the peace and quiet. Think about last night and the dreamy bartender. “I’m going to lie on the beach, sip a cocktail, and get a better tan.”
Savannah stared at her suspiciously. “That’s all?”
“Yes,” she replied, noisily huffing out a breath and not wanting Savannah to get all wise and preachy with her just because she had a ring on her finger.
“Xavier isn’t coming with us either,” Savannah announced.
“And?” Not that same old warning again. She had learned her lesson with Tobias’s brother, and she had so far managed to avoid running into him. “Why are you telling me?”
“Because most people are taking part in the activities, except for you and Xavier. I’d hate to leave you both to your own devices.”
“Oh my god!” she snapped back, pushing her sunglasses up onto her head so that she could look at Savannah properly. “Do you think I’m a complete hussy?” She wouldn’t touch that man if she was paid to.
“No, but it wouldn’t do you any harm to go on a man-free diet for a while.”
“A man-free diet?” She laughed. “Now there’s a new fad I hadn’t heard of.”
“You don’t have to be joined at the hip with a guy. You can have a good time being single, Kay.” Savannah stood up.
“Okay,” she said, sliding her sunglasses back down again and lying on her stomach. “A man-free diet. Sure. Why not? Now what?” she wailed, when Savannah walked in front of her.
“No texting, or sexting, or whatever you call it.”
“Okay.”
“No Dean, no Xavier.”
She gave Savannah a military salute. “Understood.”
Savannah bent down. “We’re going to be on our honeymoon for a few weeks, and I don’t want to come back and hear more sob stories about another meaningless encounter that you’ve had, or someone else breaking your heart. I’m looking out for you.” She tapped Kay on the nose. “I’m not trying to be an ogre. I care about you.”
“I know.” Savannah had always looked out for her, and maybe taking some of Savannah’s advice might do her some good. Maybe going on this man-free diet might be the thing she needed. “You’re right. I know you’re right. Go and have some fun, and we’ll catch up later.”
“Be good.”
“Working on it.”
She got back to her book, but the sun shining down and warming the backs of her legs and her body, made her feel drowsy, and the soft, fluffy towel beneath her helped encourage her laziness. She lowered her head and lay there, letting the sun kiss her skin softly.
It was heaven.
Peaceful and perfect.
Until she heard his voice.
“I only want one of you at the bar, the rest of you can go and chill for a while. It’s going to be quiet around here this afternoon.”
She lifted her head, and glanced over her shoulder to see Luke talking to one of his guys. He was topless, wearing nothing but swim shorts, and she let out a soft moan watching him like a hawk, as he walked towards the ocean. She gazed longingly at the wide span of his back. Since he hadn’t seen her, she was able to savor her examination of him, her gaze fixating on his glorious torso which tapered down to a perfect V at the hips.
“Freaking hell,” she murmured, licking her lips at the sight.
She lay on her stomach, with a magazine in front of her, so that it looked as if she was reading, but the greater pleasure came from watching him in the water.
For a brief moment, she considered wading into the sea and joining him there, pretending to be surprised to see him there, out in the middle of the ocean. She might even have put this plan into practice if she had been a good swimmer, and didn’t have a fear of riptides, and if she didn’t mind getting her hair wet.
It wasn’t going to happen, so she settled for watching him instead.
The water slowly swallowed him up, and then he began to swim, moving away out into the distance.
He was such a perfect embodiment of a man. Muscles in perfect proportion to his body; not too big and ugly, and not spindly thin. She shivered, wondering what it might be like to lie against him naked. Something warm tingled along her belly, all the way from the tops of her breasts to the tips of her toes, and Savannah’s man-free diet died an instant death.
~ ~
Nothing beat a swim in the ocean. Nothing.
It cleared his mind, helped him think. Gave
his body a good workout. He could feel his heart beat racing and the dull ache in his arms as he waded out of the water after a long swim. He raked his hands through his hair, sweeping the long, wet locks away from his face.
At least this afternoon would be nice and quiet, the calm before the final partying and the last meal in the evening. Most people would be returning home tomorrow, and he and his employees soon after that. He couldn’t wait to get back home, and return to his business.
Right now, he needed to take a shower, then grab brunch, and then he would take his time getting things ready for the evening.
He still had a few hours left to unwind.
Looking around at the almost deserted beach and pool areas, it was obvious that most of the guests had taken Tobias up on his offer of going snorkeling and paragliding. The place was like a ghost town.
Except for… he peered closer at the woman in a bright yellow bikini. Savannah’s cousin lay on her back, wearing sunglasses, and little else. A buxom woman, she was hard to miss, especially in that tiny little bikini that barely covered her.
He looked straight ahead, not wanting to disturb her. With her shades on and her book resting on her stomach, face down, it looked as if she’d fallen asleep.
He walked past, eyeing her up, before looking away quickly. One look at her, lying like that, and he almost had an instant hard-on.
He swallowed, and let out a strangled breath.
After a cold shower, and dressed in denim shorts and a t-shirt, he returned to one of the tables around the pool area, this time with a bowl of fruit, a protein shake, his cell phone, and his notebook.
Swimming helped draw out the business ideas which had been marinating in his head. He also had a heap of things to deal with—mainly emails from work which he hoped to get to now. He started typing out a response to the most important email, before he was interrupted.
“That was quite some distance you swam.” He looked up and into the eyes of Savannah’s cousin.
“Yeah,” he replied, agreeing, then scanning quickly at the half-finished email on his cell phone. “You should try it.”
He noticed her hair was still dry, and she was shiny from all the sun tan lotion she had slathered all over her body.
She tipped her wide-brimmed sun hat up a tiny bit. “I don’t like swimming in the sea. I was lying down, trying to get a tan.”
“I noticed,” he replied, putting his cell phone down. “You looked like you were sleeping and I didn’t want to wake you.” He picked up his spoon and started on his bowl of fruit, though Kay looked as if she was going to start a conversation.
“I wasn’t sleeping.”
“You looked like you were,” he replied, trying hard to focus on his pineapple chunks so that he didn’t have to look up at her. Her skimpy bikini left little to his imagination, and though he was usually good at setting a distance between a guest and his physical needs, the Monroe-esque deity standing before him was trying his sanity. “But I didn’t want to disturb you.”
“Mind if I join you?” she asked, obviously not taking the hint.
He did, but it would be rude to decline. “Go ahead.” He moved his belongings to one side, and kissed goodbye to all that quiet time he’d been looking forward to. If she had been a complete stranger, if she hadn’t been at this event, and especially if she wasn’t the cousin of the bride, he would have thought nothing of taking her to his room and enjoying the rest of the afternoon. Judging by the bullets pointing out of her bikini top, and that look in her eyes, he had a read on her right now, and it told him that they both had the same idea in mind.
“You’re a good swimmer.”
“I love to swim. I don’t always get a chance to back home.”
“Your bartending hours don’t allow for any down time?”
“It’s a lot of late hours.” He didn’t even need to be at his bar for the amount of hours he was there for, but he liked being in the thick of things. It was the only way to see what worked and what didn’t. “I guess you secretaries don’t have that problem?”
“It’s a regular nine to five for me.” Her gaze shifted to his biceps. “I see you work out.” He nodded and grinned, then looked down at his protein shake. She was subtly undressing him in her mind’s eye as well.
“What do you like to do in your spare time?” he asked, moving the conversation to a safer topic. He couldn’t go there; to the place where his mind was at right now. Somewhere in his bed, with her beneath him.
“Me?” she asked, flashing perfectly manicured nails at him as she ruffled her hair. “Work takes up most of it. Sometimes it gets really busy and I end up staying at work late.”
“Seriously?” Secretaries worked that hard? Damn. He had no idea.
“Well, uh, you know what these banks are like. It’s brutal.”
“Brutal?” That was a strange choice of words. He’d never considered that secretarial work could be brutal.
“It’s crazy. The corporate world never sleeps.”
“I can see why you preferred to lie on the beach, and why you didn’t take up the offer to go snorkeling.”
“I work too hard to want to do any action adventure things on my time off. I like to take things slow and easy. Most times.”
“I noticed.”
She gave him the kind of smile that said many things. He knew, because not a day went by in his bar when an interested female customer didn’t give him such a smile.
She was interested, but he didn’t dare go there.
“What about you?” she asked. “What do you like to do on your time off?”
“I’m just a bartender,” he said, guardedly. “I like to sleep a lot.”
“Which bar?”
He knew, the moment she asked that question that she would show up at The Oasis, soon enough. Unless he gave her the name of one of his other places that he rarely visited.
But she seemed lonely, and in need of company, and he didn’t want to behave like a total douche. Xavier had already done that to her.
“It’s The Oasis.”
“That rooftop terrace bar?” She sounded as if she’d heard of it. “Is that the place with a club in the basement?”
“It’s called The Vault. Have you been?”
“With Savannah once or twice.” She lifted her chin and looked up at him through her thick lashes. “Where do you mostly work?”
“At The Oasis.”
“I’ll have to check it out. Don’t be surprised if you see me there in the next week or two.”
“I won’t be.”
She was going to show up. He just knew it.
Chapter 6
The flight back had been a bitch and she had a 7am meeting this morning with her boss. Theodore Remington was a slave driver in an Armani suit. But he was also giving her the important Pembroke deal to handle.
She had to get her act together and fast.
Two strong expressos, a breath freshening mint, and she’d be wide awake and fully alert.
“’Morning, Miss.”
Damn that over-friendly concierge.
“Arnold,” she mumbled, not even looking up to acknowledge him. She was too busy checking messages and emails on her cell phone.
“How was the wedding, Miss?”
“Beautiful.” She quickly replied to a text message from one of the analysts in her team.
“Do you have any photos, Miss?”
“What?” She looked up. “No, I don’t.”
“Oh, really, Miss?” His face crumpled with disappointment.
“Really, Arnold.” She eyed her wristwatch. Freaking hell. She was already running late and needed to catch a cab in the next five minutes otherwise Remington would eat her alive.
Arnold stood in front of her. “But how she did Miss Savannah look? And Jacob?”
“They looked good. Great. Wonderful.” She hoped that a flurry of superlatives would get him off her back. She rushed out, her nerves jangled and her body still running on Fiji’s time clock.
Out on the street, she looked both ways on the street, in an attempt to catch a cab.
“I can call you a cab, Miss,” said Arnold. He stood on the curb waving his arm at the cab which was coming down the street.
No sooner had it stopped, than she jumped in.
Damn it.
Issuing the address to the cab river, she prayed for a traffic-free passage. With any luck, she’d make it there on time.
She was seven minutes late and by the time she raced towards his office, with her apology speech ready, Remington’s PA told her that he was over running on his international conference call and would be with her in half an hour.
Drawing a breath, she felt her body loosen, felt the tension of this morning slide away.
It had been too much of a shock, waking up in New York on a dull, gray morning, far from the sun-kissed beaches of Kawaya. At least the morning had started well what with Remington’s conference call running over.
Later, when the meeting did take place, she managed to get through it in a wide awake and fully alert mode.
“I can handle the meetings with the client for the next few days,” he offered as they walked back to their desks after the meeting. Her colleague, Geoffrey had been covering for her in her absence, but as the woman responsible for handling it all, she was eager to take the reins once more.
“Thanks, but I’ll take it from here, thanks.”
“If you insist. Let me know if it gets too much.”
“I can handle it, Geoffrey.”
“We know you can. I’m just suggesting, what with you just having come back.”
She smiled at him and returned to her desk. Remington had charged on ahead, rushing to his next meeting. Kay never saw the guy eat, or sleep. This was how he rolled. He practically lived his life at the bank.
As for Geoffrey, she hadn’t liked him much when he had joined a year ago, fresh out of Wharton with his MBA and his I’m-better-than-you attitude. She had been even more reluctant when Remington had put Geoffrey in charge of her work while she was away at the wedding. But, as she had discovered, her worries had been unfounded because he had done a great job. The client hadn’t noticed that she had even been away, so she owed Geoffrey a couple of drinks at the end of the week.