by Hailey North
To his surprise, Daffy greeted Aloysius quite sweetly. His partner, eyes hidden behind dark glasses, ignored Daffy. Instead, he rose and said, “Hunter, I need to talk to you.”
“Sure. First, though, tell me how you found us.”
“Easy enough. I paged your limo driver.”
Hunter glanced at Daffy. Suddenly she didn’t look quite as calm and collected. He had a fair idea she was picturing the driver filling Aloysius in on his own imaginary version of the prolonged drive from the Convention Center to the water park, a drive that should have taken far less time than it had.
Aloysius wagged his brows above his impenetrably dark glasses, pretty much confirming Hunter’s guess. “Well, what is it? The NuTech deal?”
Aloysius shook his head. “Need to discuss this in private.”
“I’ll take a stroll,” Daffy said. She smiled and this time Hunter saw straight through the saccharine to the starch beneath. “A very short stroll.”
As soon as she was out of earshot, Aloysius grabbed his arm and pulled the two of them down to facing chairs. “What’s she doing with you?”
“Swimming. Why are you here?”
“Hunter, you’re my business partner. I’ve got a lot invested in you. The moment Melanie described the woman you were with this morning, my heart stopped beating. She was going on and on about how enchanted you were and how you’d never introduced any woman as your friend. Hunter, she was practically planning the press release for your wedding!”
Surprisingly, Hunter found himself grinning like a goofy kid. “Really? She said all that?”
Aloysius reached over and shook his arm. “Snap out of it!”
Hunter closed his hand around Aloysius’s much skinnier arm and lifted it off his. “Is this what you came here to tell me?”
“I knew you’d get upset.” He shook his head. “That’s why I went to the trouble to track you down, so you’d understand the urgency.”
Hunter stared at his partner, at a man he called friend. “There’s something else going on here, something deeper I don’t understand. Want to tell me what it is?”
“Daffy’s a flirt,” Aloysius said bitterly. “She’ll entrance you, then tease you, then the next thing you know, you’ll promise her anything. That body—” He broke off. “She can drive a man wild, but that’s all she does.”
“What do you mean?” Hunter hated listening to Aloysius talk about Daffy. His brain was forced to acknowledge the two of them had been engaged, but when he thought of Aloysius touching her, making love to her—no, that was more than he’d let into his mind. Daffy was his.
“Have you had sex with her yet?”
Hunter hesitated.
Aloysius slapped his hands together. “I knew it! Same old MO. All tease and no please.”
“Are you telling me you and Daffy were engaged and never did it?” Hunter couldn’t believe it, but he was damn glad to hear it.
Aloysius shook his head. “You’re beginning to get the picture. And I’ll wager you a thousand bucks you don’t get any, either.”
“Can’t take that bet.” Hunter knew he’d win it, but he wasn’t making her the subject of a bet like that. Another woman maybe, but he respected Daffy too much to do that to her.
Besides, if she found out, he’d never hear the end of it.
“You know, Aloysius, I just don’t get it. You race out here to tell me she won’t put out. Doesn’t compute.”
“For someone as smart as you are, you sure are dense. Don’t forget what she did to me the night before our wedding.”
“Ah.” That was the heart of the matter. Daffy had refused to have sex with her fiancé, then screwed his best man.
“You just won’t listen.” Aloysius rose. “I know what you’re thinking. ‘She did it to him, but I’m different.’ You’re a man. And that’s all it takes to make her go weird. One day that woman will break your heart, and I hope I’m friend enough not to say I told you so.”
He was certainly sincere, and right about what Hunter was thinking. She’d never do that to him. He couldn’t say why, but he knew it in his gut. He saw her approaching and waved her over.
Aloysius stared at her, his jaw working.
Daffy glanced from one to the other. “So, everything settled?”
No one answered.
“Maybe it’s time we cleared the air, Aloysius,” Daffy said.
He laughed.
“Why don’t I apologize?”
“That would be a good starting point,” Aloysius said, his mouth twisting in a bitter smile. “Wreck a man’s life, then say oh, by the way, sorry.”
“You know very well I didn’t wreck your life.”
“No, you saved me from a fate worse than death—marriage to you.”
Hunter watched the two of them spar. Better to have it out than let the anger stay bottled up inside. At last he understood the depth of Aloysius’s ego-wounds. It wasn’t so much that Daffy had screwed his best man that made him so furious, it was that she hadn’t let him do it.
“Marriage, and divorce.” Daffy jabbed a finger at him. “If I were married to you and found you with a hooker on either arm, that would be the end.”
“Hookers? What are you talking about? You’re the one who sleeps with anything that crawls.”
Clearly wrong on that point, Hunter thought, keeping score. She’d exempted Aloysius from that list. Remembering her comment about not being a Typhoid Mary, Hunter wondered just how she managed to maintain a reputation for sexual wildness when the evidence seemed to point to the opposite.
“You don’t remember last night, do you?”
Aloysius looked over at Hunter. “What’s she talking about?”
“You came to our suite last night with one hooker for you and, most generously, you brought one for me.”
“I did that?” Aloysius slumped onto the chaise. “I wouldn’t do that to Chrissie.”
“Apparently you weren’t thinking much about your fiancée last night,” Daffy said.
Aloysius held his chin in his hands. “Are you going to tell Chrissie?”
Daffy tapped her foot on the paved surface. “Let me think. Am I going to tell Chrissie?”
Hunter grinned. She had him now. He waited for her to strike home.
“Are you going to forgive me for what I did to you?”
Aloysius jutted his jaw, stubborn as ever.
“Please?”
He rose slowly. “I guess a person can make a mistake.” He extended a hand to Daffy and the two of them shook.
Then he grinned. “I never wanted to marry you anyway.”
“Then why did you propose?”
He dropped her hand. “I think you were the one who actually proposed.”
“I did not!”
Hunter held up his hands. “Hey, you two, you called a truce, so let’s stop there.” No doubt Aloysius had offered the peace branch only to prevent Chrissie from finding out about his errant behavior, but Hunter would rather have his partner on at least speaking terms with his girlfriend.
Girlfriend?
Daffy wasn’t his girlfriend. She was his date, a companion for a romp to Las Vegas. No more, no less.
“Hunter?” Aloysius snapped his fingers in front of Hunter’s face. “I’m going. But remember what I said.”
“Yeah, right.”
15
“I think we’ll take a cab next trip,” Hunter said after Aloysius had left them. “He’d have much less chance of tracking us down.”
To her surprise, Daffy laughed. Then she said, “It’s just as well he did—this time. I should have apologized to him years ago.” Apologizing to Aloysius had unburdened her, yet she was pretty sure it had helped her more than it had affected him. After facing down Aloysius, she was drained. Or maybe it was the lack of sleep, but suddenly she felt like collapsing on the chaise.
Hunter must have read her mind, because he caught her arm and lowered her to the same spot Aloysius had occupied. “I think I’ll call that c
ab now. A nap would be in order, too.”
She nodded, feeling a bit silly. She couldn’t help but smile as Hunter lifted her legs and stretched her comfily on the chaise. He tucked a towel behind her head for a pillow and said, “Don’t move. I’ll go get our stuff, call a cab, and be right back.”
Daffy sighed and let her arms relax by her side. It was sweet of Hunter to take care of her; it was also something she wasn’t much used to, not being the clinging type.
Today, however, she let Hunter bundle her into a cab, curled up against him while he responded to the driver’s chatty recommendations on where to find everything from the places with the best slot odds to roadside stands hawking bang-up and generally illegal fireworks.
Today, she drifted with Hunter through the casino surrounding their hotel, up the elevator, and to the door of their suite.
There she paused.
Hunter looked at her, somewhat quizzically.
No doubt Aloysius had told him terrible things about her. Terrible and untrue. His favorite rant had to do with her being a tease, but she’d never given herself to Aloysius and most of the other guys she dated because things had never been right for that level of intimacy.
She stood on tiptoes and kissed him on the mouth.
His lips answered hers and Daffy smiled. As she did, he smiled with her, their lips following the gesture in a lovely dance of their own.
“I want us to make love,” she said.
Hunter met her gaze head-on, his eyes searching her face. Daffy knew she’d been right to stop at the door and let him know, without question, she was ready. She’d been wild for him last night, but somehow today was different, better in a way she didn’t quite understand. Had they had sex the night before, it would have been good.
But today it would be special.
A maid pushing a cart rounded a corner and headed in their direction. Hunter didn’t blink. The maid passed right by them and Daffy willed herself to be still, letting Hunter search for the answer he sought—that no matter what he might have heard, pursuing her would not be a mistake.
“You,” he said softly, “are a remarkable woman.” Then he slid the card-key into the door. The green light blinked and he added, “Thank you for the all-clear.”
Then, before she knew what he was going to do, he tossed his bundled clothing past the opened door and turned and gathered her in his arms and carried her inside. He slipped the security lock closed behind them.
“This time, no interruptions.”
The kiss he gave her promised that no matter who knocked on their door, the summons would go unanswered.
Held in his arms, returning his kisses, Daffy tried to shrug out of the yellow linen jacket she’d donned over her bikini for the trek through the hotel. Hunter came to her aid, freeing her from one sleeve as he waltzed them into the sitting room and down on the same sofa where they’d lain last night. Or was it only that morning?
Slightly dazed, Daffy gazed up at Hunter and traced the line of his mouth with her pinkie finger.
He grinned and sucked her finger into his mouth, sliding it in and out with one hand as he slipped the straps of her bikini top off her shoulders.
Daffy arched against him, her need driving her on boldly. He let go of her finger and turned both hands to freeing her from her bathing-suit top.
Suddenly he stopped. “Don’t go anywhere,” he said, rising from the sofa.
As if she would.
Daffy rolled her head against the cushions of the sofa and sighed. Her bikini top lay half on, half off. Hunter had left the room, disappearing into his side of the suite, no doubt in search of his part of their contraceptive bargain.
But perhaps she should.
Making love with Hunter might be one of the biggest mistakes of her misbegotten romantic life. She already knew he would be the best lover she’d ever had; knew that by the way he kissed her, teased her, touched her; by the way he managed to implant himself inside her mind. She’d never thought much about any of the men she’d dated. They all met socially acceptable standards, were of the intelligence quota she demanded, and would all have satisfied her family’s admission requirements to the Landry family tree.
But Hunter . . . Daffy frowned and circled her belly button with the pinkie finger Hunter had sucked only minutes earlier. Hunter was smart, but he was new money and not at all what the Landrys were used to.
Realizing where her thoughts were leading, Daffy sat up on the couch and gave herself a mental shake. She was about to have sex with the guy; for Pete’s sake, that was all. There were no wedding bells chiming; she wasn’t the marrying kind. Unless she could meet a man who could tame the beast that rose so perversely inside her at the first sight of a possible long-term relationship, she knew she would never marry.
She sighed and wondered what was keeping Hunter. Then a terrible thought occurred to her. What if he had forgotten to pack his condoms? That would mean . . .
“Daffy?” Hunter called her name from the bedroom.
“Yes?”
“How about a bath after all that sun and chlorine?”
His head appeared around the corner.
“That’s a nice idea.” But so was him jumping her body right that minute, Daffy thought, just preventing a pout from showing on her kiss-swollen lips. She didn’t want to be away from Hunter long enough to rinse off in the shower, let alone to take a bath.
“Chlorine being so bad for the skin,” Hunter added.
Then Daffy realized he was grinning.
“Are you up to mischief?”
He stepped into the sitting room, wearing only a towel wrapped around his waist. Daffy admired his broad chest, as she’d done every moment they’d been splashing at the water park. He had exactly the amount of chest hair Daffy liked, mainly in the middle of the chest, with some scattered across his pecs, and a dusky line that led the eye down, down, down—to where her view was blocked by the luxurious bath towel.
“I sure hope so,” he said, walking slowly toward her and then veering past the sofa and into the bedroom she’d occupied. This time he returned almost immediately, bearing the hotel robe.
“Let’s get you out of that suit and into something more comfortable,” he said, dropping the robe on the back of the sofa and kneeling before her, his hands on her hips above her bikini bottom.
Eager to cooperate with that suggestion, Daffy lifted her hips and let him slip the fabric off her. He never once took his eyes from her face, which actually surprised her. On that very same couch he’d brought her to passionate release just by touching her. And right now, she was so on edge that all he’d have to do was look at her intimately and she’d come.
Poised above Daffy, Hunter paused to appreciate the open way she was offering herself to him. He felt a lot like he had as a kid on Christmas morning. Even in their worst of times, his mother always had at least one present for him. His hands on Daffy’s slender hips, easing off her bikini bottom, he remembered those intense conflicting feelings of wanting to plunge in and unwrap his one and only present. Yet at the same time he wanted the process to take forever.
“I plan to savor you,” he murmured, feasting on her eyes, pupils so enlarged her eyes appeared wide enough and dark enough for him to get lost in. But rather than frightening him, the idea excited him. God help him, but Hunter wanted to lose himself in Daffodil Landry.
He dropped the bikini bottom to the floor and then slid his hands around her shoulders and down to unfasten the clasp of the bikini top. Still he kept his eyes mated with hers. He felt her breasts rise and fall, more rapidly as he freed the last scrap of fabric from her body. Her lips were parted slightly and she was reaching her arms up to him, tugging on him, pulling him down to her.
Resisting the urgent impulse to take her immediately, Hunter tucked her into the plush bathrobe and said, “At your service. Your bath is waiting, ma’am.”
He realized she would have headed into her side of the suite if he hadn’t checked her gently. Putting
his arm around her, he said, “Bathing together is so much nicer than bathing alone.”
She actually looked shocked.
Hunter kept propelling her forward. “I take it you usually bathe alone,” he said, ushering her through the doorway that led to the master bedroom of the suite.
“Don’t most people?”
“You and I, Daffy,” Hunter said softly, stopping beside the bedroom’s huge sunken and mirrored tub and turning them face-to-face, “are not most people.”
He slipped his hands beneath her robe, drawing her to him, cupping a breast with one hand, her derriere with the other. She surrendered to his kiss and arched against him. As she did, his towel worked loose and slid to the floor. He edged Daffy’s robe off her. Fabric joined fabric, and then at last, flesh met only flesh.
He breathed deeply and fused her body against his. Too much more savoring would be the end of him.
His heated arousal pushed against the soft skin beneath her belly button and just above where he wanted to sink himself into her core. She uttered a breathy gasp and Hunter let her feel the effect she had on him as he gave free rein to his greedy need of her.
Circling her thatch of hair, he teased her. He felt her own moisture mingle with the bead of lubrication escaping from him and he almost bent her over the bathtub he’d been letting fill with water.
Catching himself, he pulled back and turned off the taps. He’d put only the smallest amount of Caesar’s bath gel into the water, but bubbles covered the surface of the oversize tub. He flicked the jets on with his toe and almost immediately the bubbles frothed to gigantic proportions.
Daffy laughed and, reaching into the tub, scooped up a handful of lather and spread it on his chest. He followed her example and crowned her breasts with bubbles.
After testing the water temperature with his hand, he guided her in, then followed. He noticed she would stare at his body, then glance away, almost shyly. Again he was struck by her innocence, so much in contrast with what he’d been led to expect.
But there was nothing innocent about the way she was leaning forward now, her breasts just above the water line, beckoning him toward her.
She slid onto his lap and Hunter groaned.