Sand, Sun...Seduction!

by Stephanie Bond

  Her heart sank.

  The driver pointed. “Isn’t that the boat over there, ma’am?”

  She whirled around to see gas tanks, and Finn filling up his boat. Of course he would need fuel for the return trip. She tipped the driver, hauled her suitcase out of the taxi and dragged it around the dock to the gas pumps.

  Finn was on the boat untying the lines from the dock when she skidded up. “Sir, I need a ride back to Dubai.”

  He turned and stared at her. “Why Dubai?”

  “Because that’s where everything’s happening.”

  He smiled and nodded. “So I’ve heard.”

  She dropped her suitcase and crossed her arms. “My bag please.”

  “I have this rule about luggage,” he said.

  Kimber raised her eyebrows. “Oh?”

  He jumped out onto the dock and pulled her into his arms. “You should never pack more than I can carry.”

  She smiled up at him. “I like that rule.”

  He thumbed the curve of her cheek. “Why’d you come back, Fancy Pants?”

  “Because I want to wake up and be surprised every day.”

  He nuzzled her neck. “Well, there are a few things you can expect on a regular basis.”

  “Now I’m enticed,” she murmured.

  * * * * *

  PROPOSITIONED

  Leslie Kelly

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  CHAPTER ONE

  “YOU KNOW WHAT I really want? What I’m most in the mood for? Sex on the beach.”

  Liz Talbot managed to hide a bored sigh, ignoring the salacious smile on the face of the husky blond guy sitting in front of her. After eighteen months working at Trinity’s Surfside Bar, which sat on the edge of a breathtaking, sugar-white-sand beach on the tropical island of St. Lucia, her only reaction to the unoriginal pickup line was resignation.

  If she had a nickel for every time she’d heard that very same come-on from some sleazy tourist, she’d own this place. Instead, she just served up the best margarita on the island for Dark Age wages and fairly good tips.

  “You know? Sex? On the beach?”

  Nudge nudge, wink wink. As if she hadn’t gotten it the first time. Why did she put up with this again?

  Then she glanced toward the side of the building and saw nothing but turquoise water, lit up with thousands of tiny, sparkling jewels of sunlight that danced on the gentle waves. Above it, expansive blue sky, a few cotton-candy clouds and a sun the soft yellow of buttercup petals.

  No walls separated the inside from the out. No barriers stood between a regular day and the most beautiful scenery on the face of the earth. The exquisite landscape was simply accepted as the status quo around here; sheer loveliness wrapped up in the normality of daily life.

  She’d gotten so accustomed to it she almost didn’t remember how a gray sky at dawn had depressed her. Had a warm day in March really once seemed a precious gift? And she could barely conjure up a picture of what melted snow—darkened with gravel and road salt—looked like piled up along the sides of a bumper-to-bumper highway.

  That was why she did it. Sleazy guys with sad come-ons notwithstanding, living here was worth it. This job most definitely beat sitting in an office doing the nine-to-five tango and all that went with it back in Boston.

  Been there. Done that. Never going back.

  “I hear it’s the best kind,” her customer added when she didn’t respond, his poor, sun-baked brain obviously not registering her complete lack of interest and her mild disdain. “You think you might be up for that? I bet you professional bartenders know how to make it sweet and smooth.”

  Gee, how sexy, witty and intriguing. Her poor feminine brain just wasn’t made for such alluring banter. She really needed to rip off her clothes and fall to the nearest flat surface in sheer, unadulterated lust.

  That, or thrust a pair of toothpicks in her ears to gouge out the echoes of the nine-hundred-million other times she’d heard the same line from guys who looked just like this one.

  Thinning hair and a bright red spot on his crown. Check.

  An equally red face. Not merely from his existence as a blowhard or the two drinks she’d served him, but proof of the reckless lack of regard for the tropical sun. Check.

  Loud, flowered shirt, open halfway to reveal a hairy chest. Glazed eyes that said he’d eaten too much rich food and imbibed far too much island rum. A secretive smile at being free from the job and having escaped the wife who was at the spa and the teenage kids who were taking windsurfing lessons.

  Check. Check. Check.

  There was only one thing she hadn’t yet determined. Whether he, like most of the other male tourists who parked at the bar and spent an entire afternoon trying to get into her pants, had his wedding ring stuffed into his shorts pocket, or if he actually hadn’t thought that far ahead and was still dumb enough to still have it on his finger.

  “So whaddya say? Doesn’t that sound good?”

  He wrapped his hands around his nearly empty glass. No ring. Definite tan line where one usually lived. Check.

  She ignored the smirk. “Only if you like lots and lots of—” sand in body cavities where sand is never supposed to go “—vodka and peach schnapps.”

  His eyes glazed for a second, his smile slackening as he tried to figure out what she meant. Finally it dawned on him, but instead of allowing her to intentionally misunderstand, thereby saving himself a serious shooting down, he took his life in his hands. “Maybe I wasn’t talkin’ about the drink.”

  “That’s the only thing I’m interested in hearing about.”

  He smirked. Which meant he wasn’t giving up. What was it about tropical sunlight, steel drums and suntan lotion that made even the most normal, probably usually nice, average Joe think he was God’s gift to women?

  Hmm…the rum didn’t hurt. That was for sure.

  “So you’re not a sex-on-the-beach fan? How about screaming orgasms—do you recommend those?”

  Considering she hadn’t had one that didn’t involve batteries in a long time, she really couldn’t say.

  “’Cause I could sure go for one and I’d love for you to have one, too.” The guy’s eyebrows literally wagged up and down. “On me.”

  Her jaw clenched as she sucked in a few deep, controlling breaths. Ignoring the guy for a minute, to give herself time to figure out how to deal with him, she reached for a glass. Liz made a top-shelf margarita—on the rocks, none of that frozen stuff—and slid it across the bar to Frank. He was a regular, who watched this afternoon’s drama with big eyes and a broad smile.

  Frank was a fan of fireworks. And he knew that with a few more words, there was going to be quite a display.

  “I love screaming orgasms,” the guy said. “Especially when they’re shared.”

  Why? Why did this always happen to her?

  Okay, she was tall. She was curvy. She had nice reddish-brown hair. She was maybe pretty, though she’d never call herself beautiful. And she tended bar. Did that mean every man who walked into the place had to think she wanted only one of two things—to hear his life story or to fall into his bed? Yeesh.

  “Or what about a buttery nipple? A bald puss—”

  “That’s enough!” she snapped, cutting him off with a sharp slap of her hand on the broad oak bar, smoothed by years of heat and the salty air that streamed in off the water. “Mister, I know you think you’re being cute. But there’s absolutely nothing you might have that I want, other than a polite attitude and a fair tip. There’s nothing you can do to shock me, nothing you can say I haven’t heard a million times before. So knock it off before I cut you off.”

  His smile faltered a bit, then he laughed deeply, as if she was playing hard to get.

  Men’s brains and bricks. There was
a genetic correlation there somewhere, she was certain of it.

  “Maybe you just haven’t heard them from the right guy.”

  Rolling her eyes, she informed him, “If it was George Clooney sitting right where you are now who tried those same lines on me, he wouldn’t be scoring, either. Now would you please just stop?”

  He held up both hands, palms out. “Got it. No more drink jokes.” Then, her ultimate I’m-not-interested message apparently having gone over his head, he added, “So you think I look like George Clooney, huh?”

  Her hand flew and scooped up a nearby glass. But upon hearing Frank’s warning throat-clearing, she dashed its contents into the small bar sink. “Go away. Would you? Just go away.”

  “Geez, there’s no need to get testy.”

  Liz sighed deeply, realizing she had, indeed, been testy. He was just another sad guy trying to escape his cold and dull daily life. Only, unlike her, he had to return to it.

  Fortunately he’d had the sense to call her testy and not bitchy. Testy she could handle. Bitchy would have earned him a face full of tequila, and her a trip to Trinity’s office for a lecture on wasting good booze.

  Liz waved a hand in the air, brushing off the whole thing. “It’s okay. Let’s just forget it. It’s been a long day.”

  He nodded and she allowed herself to relax.

  “Not a problem.” She should have known by the sneaky tone of his voice that he was going to seriously piss her off. “I think what I really want is a comfortable screw, anyway.”

  Liz swung around and strode to the back corner of the bar to grab some olives and bring her blood pressure under control. She slowly counted to twenty, feeling the annoyance slide out of her. Finally, when she felt capable, she returned to the front and faced him.

  Enough was enough. Time to play dirty.

  She leaned across the bar, batting her eyes. Her long reddish-brown ponytail swung forward over her shoulder so that the end of it curled enticingly against her breasts.

  He must have been from another planet because he’d obviously never seen a woman’s breasts before. At least, that was what she read from the bug-eyed stare focused on her cleavage.

  “Mmm,” she said, forcing herself not to yank her scoop-neck tank top up a couple of inches, “a really comfortable one? I prefer a golden screw myself. Or, ooh, a kinky orgasm.”

  Down went the jaw. The mouth hung open.

  “But let me tell you, you haven’t had anything until you’ve tried a nymphomaniac.”

  “A nympho—”

  “Maniac,” she said, almost purring. “It will tear you up. You will hardly be able to walk afterward.” Forcing herself not to laugh as she watched the man shifting on his seat, she leaned even closer. “You’ll go back to your hotel barely able to move. Everybody will know exactly what you’ve been indulging in.”

  He gulped visibly, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

  “It’s that potent,” Liz whispered.

  And finally the jerk realized he was in over his head. Remembering little wifey, apparently, he slid off the bar stool, his face redder than his burned pate. Dropping an American ten-dollar bill that didn’t even cover the cost of his two drinks on the bar, he mumbled something, then spun around and headed toward the exit, not looking back even once.

  Thank God. She didn’t even mind making up the difference on his drinks if it spared her more of his dubious flirtation.

  She watched him head out to the beach, hoping she’d scared the jerk into behaving himself. “Poor wifey,” she muttered.

  If she hadn’t already had a firsthand lesson by way of her own cheating ex-husband, working here would have given her a dark opinion of marriage. As it was, the job simply reinforced what she already knew.

  Men wanted what they couldn’t have. And as soon as they had it, or thought it was within grasp, the game was over. Just like with Mr. Sex-on-the-Beach, who wouldn’t even know what to do with a nymphomaniac. Liquid or organic.

  “Guess he no’ a fan of coconut rum, eh, Lizzie?” Frank said with a throaty chuckle, his lyrical, island voice soft and soothing in her ears. Every syllable spoken by the locals was a song, a story. The cadence of the language, the lilt of the voice, the island expressions and that Caribbean attitude—all made listening to a native islander’s words every bit as enjoyable as getting his eventual point.

  “Or peach schnapps,” she said with a grin as she grabbed a rag and wiped off the counter.

  “Or nymphomaniacs.”

  That hadn’t been Frank’s voice. Liz’s hand stilled, her fingers tightening in the soft cotton rag. Frank sat at her right, and this deep, male comment had come from her left.

  But the mere presence of another man at the bar overhearing the exchange hadn’t caused her immediate tension. There was more. Her blood roared through her veins, her pulse doubled. Her breaths were deep and audible, her heartbeats so strong she felt the thud in her chest.

  Something inside her recognized the voice, even before her brain processed who it belonged to. Sense memory took over. She was flooded with tension and anxiety, and even excitement, because of it.

  Then she allowed her mind to catch up with what her body had known from the first syllable he’d uttered.

  “Son of a bitch,” she whispered, not daring to look to her left to see if she was correct.

  She already knew she was. His next words confirmed it. “Hello to you, too, Liz.”

  * * *

  JACK BEAUMONT hadn’t been sure how Liz Talbot would react to seeing him again. It had been a year and a half since he’d laid eyes on her. Eighteen months since she’d ditched her job with a major public-relations firm—not to mention ditching her cheating husband—and disappeared off the face of the earth.

  Those eighteen months had treated her well. Very well. If she’d been pretty back in Boston, she was damn near stunning now. Stunning enough to cause him to watch quietly from the other side of the room, visually drinking her in for the first few minutes after his arrival.

  Part of him had hoped she’d be happy when they came face-to-face. Or at least unable to hide a flash of pleasure, even if she quickly hid it behind an impersonal smile.

  Wishful thinking, because he didn’t even get that. No smile. No happiness. No warmth at all. Instead, as she finally turned her head and met his gaze, she looked like someone about to step on a cockroach.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she muttered, speaking more to herself than to him.

  Yeah. Definite dislike there.

  The only question was why. An unwelcome reminder of her past life, okay. He’d been prepared for that. Personal dislike, however, hadn’t even entered his mind.

  After all, they’d liked each other a lot once upon a time. Neither of them had ever admitted it, considering she’d had a wedding ring on her finger and he’d been her husband’s boss, but there’d been a definite spark. At least on his part. And to his knowledge, he’d never done anything to make her dislike him.

  Unless she just hated all men after what her scumbag ex had done. Tim Talbot, the slimy little prick, was enough to make any woman swear off the opposite sex.

  “Of all the rum joints in all the Caribbean, you had to walk into mine,” she murmured.

  “Sorry,” he said with a smile. “But you can stop channeling Bogey. I’m not Ingrid Bergman and this is not Casablanca.”

  And they most certainly didn’t have Paris. Or anything resembling a romantic relationship.

  Not that he hadn’t wanted one—he had. Ever since he’d first laid eyes on her, Liz had attracted him on a deep, physical level. Not merely beautiful, Liz had a smooth, throaty voice made for whispering sensual secrets, and a genuine laugh that drew the eye of every person around her. Plus, she oozed feminine self-confidence without displaying a speck of vanity.

  “No, not a romantic movie like Casablanca.” Her eyes—beautiful sea-green eyes—closed briefly, the sooty lashes dark against her lightly tanned cheeks. Though she quickly opened them agai
n, they remained the tiniest bit narrowed. “This is more like Alien vs. Predator.” Though her words were sharp, her tone was more weary than anything else.

  “Ouch. Sure we can’t go for An Affair to Remember?”

  “Keep dreaming.”

  “Are we mortal enemies now?”

  “Well, no. But we’re not friends, either.”

  “Nice to see you, too,” he said, undeterred, even as he acknowledged that she wasn’t merely disinterested, she really had something against him. He just didn’t know what. “Though if you’re waiting for a sharp-clawed creature to erupt out of my chest, I have to say I hope you’re disappointed.”

  “I was picturing you more as the one with the dreadlocks.”

  “Making you the sharp-clawed creature?”

  She laughed a little before she could stop herself.

  And everything suddenly felt better.

  Her laugh was what he’d first noticed about Liz. It had been at a company Christmas party, four and a half years ago. Jack had taken over the company the summer before, after his father’s poor health had forced him into an early retirement—and Jack into the CEO’s office.

  He’d been stressed, exhausted, wondering how the hell he was going to fill the shoes of a man who’d been loved and admired by all who knew him. And then he’d heard her. That light, genuine laugh—no jaded trill of amusement, no droll chuckle. Hers had been the laughter of pure holiday joy from a woman who knew how to be truly happy.

  Following the sound, wanting almost to saturate himself in it, he’d spotted her standing by the tree, which was decorated with small paper ornaments. Each contained a thank-you poem from the needy kids at a local shelter—kids the company had “adopted” for the holidays. She was reading them, laughing as she lapped up the infectious excitement those kids had written about.