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Just What She Wants
Copyright © 2012 by Barbara Elsborg
ISBN: 978-1-61333-432-4
Cover art by Mina Carter
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work, in whole or in part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.
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Also by Barbara Elsborg
Chosen
On the Right Track
Just What She Wants
A 1Night Stand Story
By
Barbara Elsborg
Chapter One
Even with nothing to declare, Indie always felt guilty when she came through customs. As she stood in line, she bit back the urge to shout, yes, I’m bringing three bikinis, my best underwear, and a butt plug into the country, and instead kept her head down. She didn’t actually have a butt plug. Well, she did, but not in her luggage because with her luck, her bag would burst open and Medium-sized Pink Thing would roll to the feet of some gorgeous stranger who might well have asked her out had he not seen her naughty secret.
She smothered her sigh of relief when the sniffer dog moved on. The mutts were probably trained to listen for guilty exclamations. She’d never taken illegal drugs in her life, yet the dogs always found her luggage particularly fascinating. Probably because whenever she took care of her brother’s cat, it slept in her bag. The customs official took the form she’d filled in, gave it a quick glance, and waved her on her way. Despite misgivings about coming on her own, she felt a ripple of excitement at being in another country with the chance of being someone other than Poor Indie, if only for a couple of weeks.
A short monorail journey later, she emerged into the vast atrium of Orlando International Airport to be confronted by the most enormous Christmas tree she’d ever seen. It looked amazing, smothered in shimmering lights and huge silver, red, and purple balls. She swallowed, but the lump in her throat didn’t shift. She’d planned to escape Christmas with all its trimmings and memories, but she suspected she nurtured a forlorn hope.
As instructed by email, she made her way down the escalator to baggage claim though she had nothing to collect. She’d carried her bag with her from the first carousel situated just past the immigration desks. Her gaze settled on a tall, slim guy with jet-black hair wearing sunglasses who stood next to her destination. He stared straight ahead, and the tight set of his jaw, the tension in his shoulders, and the rigid way he held himself upright, told her he was in pain.
Indie smothered her gasp when she stepped in front of him. With a lean face, stubbled chin, and sharp cheekbones, he was handsome enough to make angels pant with lust, and he held a sign saying Heden. He was hers—sort of. She’d never swooned in her life but thought she might be about to.
Think of something clever to say.
“Hello. Me you looking for? Indiana.” Oh, blast.
“Excuse me?” he said.
Deep breath. “I think you might be waiting for me. My name’s Indie Jones. Lisa couldn’t come. She broke her leg this morning tripping over her mother’s dog. Winnie’s small and cute, cream colored, and blends into the carpet. Oh, the dog, not the mother.” Shut up.
Even without seeing his eyes, she recognized the look, the sort reserved for annoying children about to be sent to bed with no supper, and hopes of him feeling even a tiny bit of what she felt turned to sludge.
He held out his hand. “Kyle Landon.”
As he wrapped his large, tanned hand around hers, muscles between her legs tightened in a way they usually only did in bed, with a bit of help. For the last year, with only her help.
“Indiana Jones?” he asked.
She gave him points for not smirking. “My parents were huge fans of the movies. Obsessive nuts, actually, and yes, I know Indiana was really the dog’s name, but I’d rather be Indiana than Henry or Junior.” She grinned. He didn’t smile back. Oh well, good looks and a sense of humor were a lot to ask for.
“How many bags are we waiting for?”
“None.” She pressed her lips together to stop any more crap pouring out about how lovely not to have to wear a coat and a scarf and gloves.
“Great.” That did warrant a slight upward twist of the lips, and he took her bag from her hand. “Two more guests to pick up from carousel seven and we can go.”
As they set off along the polished floor of the concourse, she watched him limping. Maybe the reason for his crankiness. Should she take her bag back? Would he be insulted? It was his leg not his hand with the problem.
“Have you twisted your ankle?” she asked.
“No.”
“Pulled a muscle?”
“No.”
“Do you only have one leg?” How the hell did that come out of my mouth?
He glanced at her. “No.”
“No legs?”
He opened his mouth and then closed it again, but she saw his lips twitch. Hopefully in a smile not a grimace. She wanted to see what lay behind his dark glasses. More than wanted. A desperate desire. Why hide his eyes?
He walked up to two women standing next to a cart piled with mountains of matching luggage. Indie checked out their sparkling jewelry, pretty dresses, perfect hair and heels, then glanced down at her creased low-slung jeans, white T-shirt, and flip-flops. Well, her T-shirt had started off white, but red fibers from the plane blanket she’d shivered under most of the flight had messed it up. How could there be a draft on a plane? She’d been tempted to ask if someone hadn’t closed the door properly, but they might not have realized she was joking.
“Hi, I’m—” Indie broke off her introduction when the two women turned their backs to follow their luggage to the door. Not a hardship to walk behind Kyle. She pinned her gaze on his lovely backside. She could look at men’s backsides all day as l
ong as she didn’t get caught. A perfect butt flexed a few feet in front of her. But when she lifted her gaze to his arm and saw the long scar running down the back, she felt bad she’d pressed him about his leg. She knew what it was like to be pushed to answer questions when you wanted to forget something had ever happened. Zip mouth now.
As glass doors opened, Orlando greeted her with a blast of hot, humid air, and she smiled. Overhead lay a cloudless sky and she instantly cheered up. Exactly what she needed. A week in the sun at an exclusive resort. A week with no Christmas. A week doing just what she wanted and no one would know. She’d be like the little dog in the poem by Rupert Brooke except she didn’t want to die when the sun went down.
Inside the parking garage, Kyle and the skycap stopped next to a people carrier sporting the Heden logo. While they loaded the luggage in the rear, she climbed in and sat behind the two blondes.
“Hi, I’m Indie,” she said, assuming they hadn’t noticed her earlier.
“I’m Dina, this is Trudy. You from England?”
“Yes, London.”
“Love that accent,” Trudy said. “Been here before?”
“To the States but not Orlando.”
She almost hadn’t come today. But whereas Lisa had an excuse that would ensure she’d get her money back, Indie hadn’t. She thought it unlikely “policy holder wimped out” would appear anywhere in the small print of her insurance policy, though she’d wanted to check. But Lisa had sounded so upset on the phone at the idea of her not going, she’d given in.
Kyle climbed in the driver’s seat and turned to them. “Should take us about an hour. Water and soda in the cooler.”
She stared out the window, yawned, and closed her eyes as the pair in front chattered to one another. She hoped the adult-only resort was nice. It had been too expensive to book for more than a week. She and Lisa had planned to spend the second week of their vacation at a cheapo motel while they visited the theme parks. The idea of doing it on her own didn’t fill her with joy.
Indie awoke with a jolt when someone shook her arm. She looked into Kyle’s sunglasses inches away from her face and her stomach lurched.
“We’re here,” he said.
“Would…would you take off your glasses?” she whispered.
The moment seemed to stretch, and then he licked his upper lip and pulled back. She thought he’d walk away but he took them off.
The breath caught in her throat. His eyes were a liquid green, like English fields after the rain, a green that belonged to the first shoots of spring, to new leaves, to Irish leprechauns. But her lungs hadn’t frozen because of the amazing color. The glimpse of raw pain she’d seen there triggered her response. Pain she recognized. So much it hurt to look at him.
He shoved the glasses back in place and stood up. “I’ve taken your bag inside.”
“Thank you.” She fumbled in her purse for a tip but he waved it away.
“No need. Everything’s included.”
She climbed out of the vehicle and walked toward an impressive entrance constructed to resemble an opening in a tree trunk. Above the sign, Heden, pale brown branches covered with artificial leaves and white flowers reached skyward. It should have been tacky but she liked it.
Glass doors opened at her approach. The two women stood at the reception desk, hands plastered to each other’s butts, thumbs drawing circles as they talked to a guy with sun bleached, straw-blond hair and dark blue eyes. Like Kyle, he was tall and tanned. Unlike Kyle, he had a broad smile on his face. She slid into a daydream of the two men in bed with her sandwiched between them and her panties dampened. Wow. And all she’d been doing was thinking. She wriggled her hips in discomfort.
The guy behind the desk glanced up, and realizing she’d been caught staring, she concentrated on the room. As promised, she saw no Christmas decorations, just lots of tropical plants arranged around stylish rattan furniture. Interspersed among those were sculptures of naked bodies entwined. Is that one of two guys getting down and dirty?
“Welcome to Heden.”
She jolted and spun round to see the women had gone. The guy smiled at her with perfect white teeth, and her knees wobbled as she walked forward. Were all the men here gorgeous? Her bag lay in front of the desk.
“I’m Marc Cantrell, one of the general managers.”
“Indie Jones. I assume Lisa’s been in contact with you to tell you she’s broken her leg.”
“Lisa?”
She swallowed the urge to repeat the dog story and stuck to, “We were coming together.”
“We weren’t expecting anyone else. Though we did wonder if someone was pulling our leg with a name like that.”
Indie frowned. “But we….” She thought about it. She’d given Lisa the money and let her deal with everything. Maybe she’d never intended to come. Disappointed and a little angry, she twisted the strap of her purse in her fingers. Bloody Lisa.
He put a key on the desk. “Everything you need to know is in a folder in your villa. Give me a call if you have any questions. We’re having a meet and greet at the pool bar tonight at eight.” He gestured to a point behind her. “Through the door and out the one at the end. Follow the yellow brick road until you reach Orchid Villa. Enjoy your stay.”
“Thank you.”
“Do you need a hand with your bag?”
“I’m fine, thanks.”
Kyle stood at the office door and watched Marc stare at the English woman with the crazy black and pink hair as she headed away from them down the corridor. He limped over and leaned on the desk to take the weight off his leg.
“You manage to speak to the bank manager?” Marc asked.
“Yep. All arranged.”
Marc smiled as the door closed behind the cute butt. “See, there was an advantage in doing the airport run today. Lovely ass, sweet face, weird hair, weirder name, and here on her own. But not for long.”
His heart clenched when he recognized the expression on Marc’s face. What would he think if he knew she’d asked him to take off his glasses and he had?
“She might be more into the two she arrived with,” Kyle said, certain she wasn’t.
“You know that won’t stop me. She’s here, isn’t she? Up for anything?”
The phrase fit Marc well and disappointment clogged his lungs. “Do you have to hit on every woman who takes your fancy?”
“I’m a man. It’s what I do.”
“So am I and it’s not what I do.”
“No one’s stopping you.” Marc brushed his fingers over his. “I wish you would.”
Kyle pressed his lips together.
“Just because we haven’t found anyone yet, doesn’t mean we won’t,” Marc whispered. “And since you won’t look, I have to. Take over here while I make sure Ms. Jones gets to her room safely and doesn’t go hunting for the Holy Grail.”
“It’s a straight path. She can’t get lost.”
“I forgot to warn her there’s a couple of big bad wolves around.” He howled and Kyle sighed.
One of the rules they’d set themselves when they’d agreed to run the franchise for six months was not to sleep with the guests, and Marc had broken that rule three times in the first week. Women couldn’t seem to get enough of him, but then he was over six feet of blond haired, blue-eyed, lean, toned pheromones, and very good in bed.
No point wishing he could be enough for Marc when deep down he knew Marc wasn’t enough for him. They needed a third for balance. But whereas Kyle had given up looking since the accident, his partner had never stopped.
He wondered if Indiana Jones knew what she’d let herself in for coming to a place like this. He also wondered why he’d taken off his sunglasses when she’d asked. The thought made him smile. He knew exactly why. He liked her.
Chapter Two
Indie made her way along the yellow brick path through the tropical garden, palm trees waving overhead, sky still a brilliant blue. Maybe Oz lay at the end of the road, a magical place where she’d
find just what she wanted. She caught a glimpse of a glittering pool and determined the first thing to do would be to slip on a bikini and go for a swim. No, first she’d call Lisa. As she gave the water a lingering gaze, she did a double take. Had that been a bare backside? No way.
She really needed a chance to lie in the sun and forget about the pressures of her job. Forget about what happened last Christmas. She could be anyone she liked without Lisa to contradict her. Rich but lonely heiress. Minor princess of some obscure principality. Shipping magnate. Nobel physicist. Maybe not. She hadn’t actually passed her physics exam.
“Know which way you’re going?”
The blond guy from the desk wrenched her bag from her hand. She wrenched it back.
“Yes thanks. I’m fine.”
She spotted a sign saying Orchid Villa and turned up the path. As she put the key in the lock, he came up behind her, and she turned.
“I hope you’ll enjoy your stay here. If you have any questions, any requests, any special needs don’t hesitate to give me a call. Here’s my card.”
She told herself to be polite and take it. It wasn’t a snake, though he probably was. Finally, she grabbed it, bolted inside, slammed the door, and froze. She heard him chuckle and then walk away. Was he hitting on her? A shaky laugh bubbled from her mouth. No, doing his job and she’d wimped out at her first test. So much for being different. She should have grabbed his hand, not the card, and pulled him inside, stripped him and…. She sighed. Her eyes were bigger than her stomach.
The villa was lovely. Five times as big as her London bedsit, and she went from room to room admiring everything; the coffee table, the crockery, the glassware, the pictures, the huge bed. She spotted the folder of information but ignored it. She wanted to swim.
But first….
“Hi, Indie.” Lisa sounded worried.
“You haven’t broken your leg, have you?”
Just What She Wants Page 1