Bad Blood Collection

by Various Authors

  ‘Nothing was wrong with them.’

  ‘Then why aren’t you wearing one of them?’ Abandoning subtlety in favour of honesty, Katie glared at him. ‘Because there is no way I’m wearing a bikini in front of you!’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Is that a serious question?’ Judging from his blank expression, she decided it was. ‘Nathaniel, there are basically two types of women—the padded version and the unpadded version. You hang out with the unpadded version. I’m the padded version. You’ve probably never met one of me before.’

  ‘The padded version?’

  ‘I’m designed with extra cushioning,’ she muttered, ‘built for comfort, not speed. And now can we please talk about something else?’

  ‘That’s why you won’t wear the bikini?’ A slow smile spread across his face. ‘Because you’re worried about your body?’

  ‘Call me vain, but I don’t want to spend the whole day sucking in my stomach.’

  ‘So don’t.’ Smiling, he leaned back against the lounger and closed his eyes. ‘Women have such a distorted view of what a guy finds sexy. If the rest of you is anything to go by, I’m sure you have a very sexy stomach. Put the bikini on, and I’ll give you my verdict.’

  Her gaze drifted to his wide shoulders and hard chest. He had the body of a man who lived a physical life. ‘I’d rather boil alive than let you see my stomach.’

  ‘Sweetheart, if you’re going to spend two weeks on a tropical island, fully clothed, then you will boil alive.’ The fact that he was laughing at her doubled her tension.

  ‘Don’t make fun of me.’

  ‘For what it’s worth, I think you’re extremely pretty,’ he drawled, ‘so all this insecurity about yourself is misplaced.’

  ‘Nathaniel, I saw your leading lady in Alpha Man. She was a sex goddess.’

  ‘She was a spoiled princess with a vicious temper.’

  Katie remembered the high-octane sex scenes that had held the entire audience gripped. ‘You didn’t seem to mind her too much on screen. I seem to remember that the chemistry between you was described as “superexplosive.”‘

  ‘I’m an actor.’ His tone was flat. ‘It’s what I do.’

  ‘Kissing the most beautiful women in the world? Tough job.’

  ‘It can be.’

  And he was acting now. She didn’t think for a moment that the man lounging across from her was the real Nathaniel Wolfe. ‘So how does it work, preparing for a part like that? Did you have extra training for the part of Alpha Man?’

  ‘I spent two months with the Special Forces.’

  ‘You ran around the countryside with a big pack on your back?’

  ‘Amongst other things.’

  She could imagine him, hair cropped short, pushing himself to the limits. Nathaniel Wolfe, bad boy. ‘Which Special Forces? U.S. or the UK?’

  ‘If I told you that I’d have to kill you.’ He spoke with that light, mocking tone that made her stomach curl. ‘Let’s just say it was the only time I’ve never been bothered by the press. Those guys are the definitive alpha man. And they’re a team. Better than any family.’ Something in his voice made her glance towards him but his profile revealed nothing.

  Better than family.

  Apart from briefly mentioning his brother Sebastian, he’d already banned that topic, hadn’t he? ‘You’re not the only one with a complicated family. When Dad died and I discovered all his gambling debts—to start with I was so upset. And angry. I couldn’t believe he’d led this whole secret life. I kept thinking of all those years Mum had kept it to her self—we had no money as kids and twice we lost our home.’

  Nathaniel tilted his head. ‘So basically we agree that families suck.’

  Katie thought about her sister. About the way she’d divorced herself from her family.

  ‘I don’t think families suck.’ She dragged her eyes from his mouth, horrified to find herself thinking about sex. Again. ‘But sometimes they’re messy. I still think you should stick together. Is your brother older than you?’

  His gaze was watchful. ‘If you don’t want to end up in the pool, you should change the subject.’

  ‘Sorry. I’m not used to having banned topics of conversation. I’ll try and talk about the weather. Or the gardens. This place is truly beautiful.’ Katie looked around her and saw a mesh of palm trees and foliage, the green broken up by splashes of bright tropical colour. Spotting a large green gecko basking in the sun by the pool, she reached in her bag for a sketchbook.

  ‘You’re drawing him?’

  ‘Why not? He’s lovely.’ Her pencil flew over the page and she took out a box of pastels and played with colour combinations. ‘I love the mix of turquoise and tropical green. Those colours would be gorgeous in silk.’ She narrowed her eyes, imagining it, spinning designs in her head.

  ‘If you like colours so much, why do you always wear brown.’

  Her pencil stilled. ‘I like brown.’ And she was invisible in brown. Katie tightened her grip on the pencil. Just holding it soothed her. ‘I still love the feel of my pencil. It reminds me of when I was a child. I used to watch all the Hollywood movies and redesign the costumes.’

  He locked his arms behind his head. Muscles rippled. ‘Favourite movie of all time?’

  ‘Gone with the Wind.’ She kept her eyes on her sketch pad and not on those muscles. ‘Fabulous costumes and so romantic. What about you? I guess it’s Alpha Man.’

  ‘I never watch my own movies.’ Dropping his arms, he leaned across and looked at her drawing. ‘I love the old Hitchcock films. The 39 Steps and Notorious—Cary Grant. One of the greatest actors never to win a Sapphire.’

  ‘Does it mean that much? Winning a Sapphire?’

  His answer was to spring to his feet and dive into the pool.

  Katie put down the pencil, feeling guilty

  She shouldn’t ask him anything personal. It wasn’t as if they knew each other. They were just two strangers trapped together by unfortunate circumstances. And yet, after the emotion she’d witnessed at the theatre and in her flat, she felt as though she did know him. She knew little bits—Annabelle, Carrie—small pieces of a jigsaw that meant nothing because there was no picture.

  Frustrated, she watched as he cooled off in the pool. The sweat prickled her back. The sundress felt like a coat but there was no way she was removing it.

  The initial euphoria at finding herself in paradise, dimmed. It was only paradise if you could afford the time off. She couldn’t. If she couldn’t find herself another job fast, she wouldn’t be able to pay the mortgage. Her career would stall. Her dream would die.

  And she wasn’t prepared to give up on her dream.

  By the time Nathaniel pulled himself out of the pool her stress levels had reached breaking point. ‘Does this place have Internet access?’

  He reached for a towel and dried his face. ‘Why?’

  ‘I need to look for a job. You said you’d introduce me to costume designers, but I don’t see how you can do that when we’re here. I need to do some job hunting.’

  ‘Wait there.’ Without enlightening her as to his intentions, he strolled into the villa. Moments later he emerged carrying a thick sheaf of papers held together by an elastic band. He dropped it into her lap. ‘Read that. It’s the script for my next movie.

  I’m finalising the funding soon. We haven’t chosen a costume designer yet.’

  Katie stared at the sheets of paper, looking for the meaning behind the gesture. He felt guilty? No, Nathaniel Wolfe didn’t do guilt. Then why? Just to shut her up, she decided. To give her something to occupy her so that he didn’t have to spend time with her. ‘There’s no way you’d give it to someone like me.’

  ‘Do me some sketches and we’ll talk.’

  She kept the hope ruthlessly in check. ‘Because your conscience is pricking you and you feel guilty that you lost me my job?’

  ‘I’ve already told you, when it comes to my work, I don’t have a conscience.’ Without a flicker o
f regret or apology, he confirmed her own thoughts on that topic. ‘I pick the best person for the job. I liked the drawings I saw in your flat. The question is, can you do it again with a contemporary script? This isn’t Shakespeare.’

  He liked her drawings enough to give her a chance? ‘Are you acting or directing?’

  ‘Directing. Don’t think about actors when you read it—just think about the characters.’

  ‘So are you giving up film acting?’ Refusing to be intimidated by his silence, she tightened her fingers on the wedge of papers in her lap. ‘Was that why you agreed to a stint on the stage in London?’

  ‘Don’t you ever stop asking questions?’

  ‘Sorry. I’m not good with silences. I’m trying to be polite.’

  ‘We’re not at a palace garden party.’ His soft drawl brushed over her nerve endings and Katie looked at him.

  ‘You’re not the only one finding this situation difficult. You could be a little more friendly.’ And a little less intimidating. A little less masculine. A little less … everything.

  The smile that tugged the corners of his mouth definitely wasn’t friendly. It was dangerous. ‘Change into a bikini and I’ll show you how friendly I can be.’

  He was just baiting her, she knew that. He couldn’t possibly be serious. A man who had his pick of women wasn’t ever going to pick her.

  Katie thought about her sister’s perfect bone structure and endless legs. Next to Paula, she’d never felt anything but depressingly ordinary and a man like Nathaniel Wolfe was never going to be interested in ordinary.

  Her fingers tightened around the bunch of papers. ‘How long until dinner?’

  If he wasn’t going to talk, she might as well read the script.

  Nathaniel waited impatiently, his fingers strumming a rhythm on the table. Two messages sat unopened on his phone, both from Jacob.

  His temper and his mood simmered along at one degree under boiling point. Even on the other side of the world, his past hunted him. ‘Did Katie say how long she would be?’

  ‘I knocked on her door but there was no answer. I thought she might have been asleep. You had a long flight.’ Ben poured chilled wine into a glass. ‘You want me to call her again?’

  ‘I’ll do it myself.’ Desperate for distraction, Nathaniel left the phone on the table and strode back inside the villa towards the guest suite. The door was shut. He tapped once and received no answer so he opened the door and walked in.

  And stopped dead.

  Katie lay on her stomach on the bed, dressed only in a skimpy lace plunge bra and an equally skimpy thong, both in the same shade of hot pink. The headphones from her bright pink iPod trailed from her ears and she lay with her chin on her hand, completely absorbed by the script. Her head bobbed in time to the music and occasionally she made a little sketch in the margin.

  Nathaniel’s mind blanked. He forgot about the texts waiting for him on his phone. Instead he stood still, transfixed by the creamy curve of her bottom revealed by the thong. He remembered the lacy camisole she’d worn to bed. Nothing about the way she dressed hinted at a secret love of sexy underwear. Underneath all that boring brown she’d been wearing hot pink lacy silk?

  Engulfed by a scorching flame of lust, he felt himself harden. Dinner, he decided, was going to be delayed.

  Kicking the door shut behind him, Nathaniel strolled into the room just as she glanced up and saw him there.

  With a squeak of horror, she yanked the earphones out of her ears and scrambled off the bed, scattering pages of the script over the floor.

  ‘Get out of here!’ Her scarlet face clashing with the hot pink underwear, she grabbed the dress she’d been wearing earlier and clutched it to her chest, but not before Nathaniel had been treated to a full frontal display of her generous curves.

  ‘Just for the record, you definitely don’t need to suck in your stomach,’ he drawled. ‘And I thoroughly approve of the underwear.’

  ‘Don’t you knock?’

  ‘I knocked. You weren’t listening.’

  ‘I was reading—’

  ‘In your underwear?’

  ‘I was hot.’

  ‘Now, that we can agree on.’ Nathaniel delivered a smile of undiluted masculine approval. ‘Why do you always wear brown on the outside when you’ve got all that lacy pink going on underneath?’

  Her green eyes flashed a warning. If he’d been keen on the safe route he would have left the room, but Nathaniel had always preferred to live dangerously so he strolled towards her, prised the dress from her rigid fingers and studied the smooth perfection of her soft curves. ‘You have an incredible body.’

  ‘Get out of here!’

  He discovered that playing with fire distracted him from all the things he didn’t want to be thinking about. ‘Of all the secrets you’ve spilled in the past twenty-four hours, this one is definitely the best.’ He tumbled her back onto the bed, pinning her arms as she tried to roll.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘You said you wanted to get to know me better. This is the quickest way I know.’ Without thinking he brought his mouth down on hers, capturing her soft lips with his, smothering her moan of shock. Her mouth opened and he tasted the sweetness and then desire slammed into him, the explosion of need consuming him like a fever. Nathaniel locked his hand in her hair and plundered that mouth, turning what had begun as an experiment into a kiss of such erotic intensity that the shock of it exploded right through his body. Sucked under by the sheer impact of raw physical chemistry, he slid his hand under the smooth curve of her bottom, bringing her into contact with the urgent thrust of his arousal. His need for her desperate, he teased her lower lip with his teeth and tongue and then lowered his mouth to her breast. Pink lacy fabric acted as a barrier between them and he dragged it aside with impatient fingers and fastened his mouth around one thrusting peak—and tasted heaven.

  He heard the sudden snatch of her breath and felt her fingers dig hard into his shoulders. When he skimmed her breasts with tongue and fingers, she moaned under him, the sensuous movement of her hips unleashing a ravenous hunger inside him.

  Nathaniel lost all sense of time and place.

  His brain shut down and he responded with pure animal instinct.

  Sliding his hand between her legs, he breached the barrier of her underwear and explored her slick softness with bold, gentle fingers. He felt her stiffen beneath him and then she shoved hard at his chest.

  ‘No.’

  He heard her through a dark mist of ferocious, primal need.

  ‘Nathaniel, no—’

  It was the tone that registered, rather than the words. That and the sharp bite of her nails in his shoulders.

  Lifting his head, he stared into green eyes glazed with the same need that tore through him. He tried to speak but there was only one part of him that seemed to be working. Nathaniel licked his lips, realising that he hadn’t just found distraction, he’d found oblivion.

  Shaken by his own lack of control, he rolled away from her. ‘Sorry,’ he drawled. ‘Blame it on the padding. For the record, it’s in all the right places.’

  What had happened to him?

  Seriously unsettled, he stared up at the canopy that draped the four-poster bed in soft creamy folds. Romance, he thought. The whole damn room was designed for romance and happy endings. And there wasn’t a happy ending within a million miles of him.

  Nathaniel sprang to his feet and strolled towards the door. ‘I came to tell you dinner is served.’

  ‘Nathaniel—’

  Behind him, he could hear the rustle of fabric as she pulled on her dress. He didn’t turn. Because he didn’t know what had happened, he couldn’t be sure it wouldn’t happen again.

  His hand on the door handle, he gave a smile of self-mockery. ‘I’ll see you on the terrace, wardrobe.’

  ‘Nathaniel, for goodness’ sake, wait!’ There was a soft thud as her feet hit the floor. ‘You can’t just—We nearly—Damn it, do you ever talk abou
t anything?’

  Not if he could help it. He turned to look at her and then wished he hadn’t because her hair was mussed and sexy and her mouth was softly bruised from his kisses.

  ‘Do you have to talk about everything?’

  ‘Not everything—’ she looked confused, exasperated ‘—but you just … we just—’

  ‘But we didn’t.’ Nathaniel opened the door. ‘You said no. I stopped. End of conversation.’

  ‘No, it isn’t the end of the conversation!’ She stalked over to him. ‘Why did you kiss me?’

  ‘You were lying semi-naked in provocative underwear on an enormous bed.’

  ‘So your criteria for having sex with someone is that you like their underwear. Don’t you ever want to get to know someone?’

  No, never.

  Nathaniel took advantage of the open door. ‘Dinner,’ he murmured, ‘is definitely served.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  KATIE felt dizzy and light-headed, as if her body might float off at any moment.

  It didn’t help to tell herself that his job had taught him how to make a kiss hot and seductive and how to make a woman feel irresistible. Nor did it help to remind herself that she’d been half naked, which was sufficient provocation for a red-blooded male like Nathaniel Wolfe.

  In fact, nothing helped.

  She still felt … desirable.

  Sneaking a look at him through the flickering candles that lit the dinner table, she saw that he was staring at a point in the distance, his dark brows locked in a brooding frown.

  Unobserved, Katie looked at his mouth. How many times had she watched him on the big screen and wondered how it would feel to be kissed by him?

  Now she had her answer. It felt incredible.

  She had to remind herself it wasn’t real. If she fooled herself that he’d been carried away by passion, then she’d be forgetting her own theories. He was an actor. He could play any part he chose.

  Awkward with the extended silence, she spoke. ‘I read the play ….’

  ‘Play?’ His blank look made her realise how distracted he was.

  ‘Your play.’

  ‘Right.’ His face cleared. ‘If you were gripped enough to read it in your knickers, presumably you liked it. Any ideas?’