The Sex Diet

by Rhonda Nelson

  He wanted to do it.

  He wanted to be the one to give it to her.

  For one insane instant, he’d almost told her that, too. Had nearly lost himself completely in the stress and the attraction and had almost begged her for the chance.

  But the caution he’d exercised over the last several years was a hard habit to break, and he’d held his tongue.

  He wished now that he hadn’t, because he’d never—never—wanted a woman as much as he wanted Samantha. Had never felt his palms itch, or this quivery heat presently curling through his abdomen. Had never had a perpetual, ceaseless hard-on. Hank glanced at the tent at the front of his shorts and a futile bark of laughter erupted from his throat. His poor rod had been at full attention since he saw her back. Her back, for heaven’s sake.

  The physical symptoms were enough to deal with, but there were also other wholly alarming side effects. Like the fact that he couldn’t look at her without wanting to kiss her. Couldn’t look at her without imagining framing her woefully familiar face with his hands and touching his lips to hers. While Hank enjoyed kissing, to be quite honest, it wasn’t his most favorite form of foreplay. Generally he considered it a means to an end, a prelude to the ultimate payoff.

  But the idea of kissing Samantha and the jittery sentiment that accompanied the thought scared the living hell out of him.

  He could claim that he’d never wanted to jeopardize their friendship all he wanted, but Hank knew there was another reason as well, one that lurked in emotional waters best left uncharted.

  Hank blew out a breath, glanced at the clock once more and felt his scalp cramp and his eyes narrow. His gut roiled with dread and his left eye began to twitch. He didn’t know how on earth he had let this happen, how on earth he’d let himself become such a damned basket case, but it had to stop.

  Right now.

  And the only way he knew to do that would put he and Samantha at cross-purposes…because it meant he’d have to stop her from finding another guy. The only way she’d get that damned orgasm on this trip would be if he finally snapped, lost his freaking mind and gave her one.

  Which, he thought resignedly, was exactly what he intended to do.

  Did he have misgivings? Without a doubt. Telling her how he felt would permanently alter their relationship, but the alternative was simply out of the question. He couldn’t knowingly let her sleep with another man. If anyone was going to find heaven between her delectable thighs, then by God that man was going to be him. No one else. After all, he’d wanted her the longest.

  Whether she knew it or not, Sam was his. She always had been. And he looked forward to convincing her…one orgasm at a time.

  But first he’d need to level the playing field, which meant another conversation with Jamie would be in order.

  7

  JESUS, WHAT A MESS, Sam thought tiredly. She’d been working on Hank’s reservation system for the better part of the day, but so far had made very little progress. Hank hadn’t been kidding when he said that Tina had screwed things up. She smothered a groan. It would undoubtedly take her the rest of the week to get it sorted out and running properly again.

  Which was undoubtedly what he’d counted on, the sneaky bastard. Yes, she could tell that he was tired and admittedly Tina was inept, but this was nothing more than busy work to keep her occupied. She knew it as well as she knew her own name. Hank had been by a couple of times today, had tsked regretfully about the mess, but she’d seen that secret little grin and known precisely what it meant—he wanted to keep her occupied, so that she wouldn’t have time to snag a lover.

  When she’d finally made it back to his room last night, Hank had still been fully dressed and, by the look of supreme irritation and curious resignation on his face, he’d not been pleased that she’d spent several hours with Jamie. He’d obviously ignored an important errand in lieu of monitoring her comings and goings, because the moment she walked back into the room, he’d taken one look at her, his nostrils had flared and he’d calmly stormed from the room.

  She’d heard him come back in around an hour later and had feigned sleep. She’d had all the confrontation she could stand for one day and arguing had been a moot point—she was going to do what she wanted to do and Hank would simply have to get over it.

  She and Jamie had had a fantastic time. He had a great sense of humor, was a wonderful conversationalist. Though he hadn’t made a move on her, she’d sensed his interest and it pleased her right down to her little toes. She imagined he’d been waiting for some kind of sign from her and, though she’d been eager to give it to him, Samantha had found herself hesitating.

  Hank, damn him, had made her doubt whether or not she was doing the right thing. He’d made her have second thoughts and had undermined her progress. Granted, Jamie didn’t make her tummy tremble, didn’t make her panties wet, and she didn’t stare at his mouth and wonder what it would be like to kiss him. She didn’t fantasize about having his hands roaming over her body or his mouth suckling at her breasts.

  Annoyingly, those feelings seemed to be reserved only for Hank.

  But there had been a little wriggle of desire when he’d walked her back to the bedroom and kissed her cheek. He had a nice mouth, very carnal. Maybe if she increased her sex-diet portions she could work up a little more interest.

  Besides, Samantha had the sneaking suspicion that no matter how much time she invested in finding another guy for the week, it wouldn’t make any difference. She wanted Hank and in the absence of not having him, she would simply have to settle for someone else. Her lips quirked. If Gorgeous Jamie didn’t crank her tractor, she seriously doubted she’d be able to find someone else who would.

  She’d lain there last night and listened to Hank shed his clothes down to his boxers, then heard him sigh and settle himself onto the couch. For reasons which escaped her, she’d gotten the oddest impression that he’d purposely taken his time, had purposely wanted to make her squirm. There’d been something different about the way he’d looked at her. Something almost predatory, but she’d chalked the notion up to wishful thinking. Still, just listening to him undress had been more arousing than anything in her admittedly limited experience.

  Her thighs had quivered with longing and a deep, achy throb had built between her legs. Her nipples had tightened into hard, sensitive peaks and her breathing had become so shallow it was hard to force air into her lungs. Every particle in her being begged for release, begged to know what that sensation felt like.

  Samantha had seen every inch of Hank’s body at one point or another over the years and her sadistic memory had called his perfectly proportioned image immediately to the forefront of her mind. Broad, broad shoulders. Tanned, smooth skin over hard muscle. That pale sprinkling of crisp male hair that formed an inverted triangle on his splendidly sculpted chest, arrowed down and neatly bisected those six-pack abs, then disappeared beneath the waist band of his shorts. Long, muscular legs. She’d pulled the total package into focus, had imagined those heavy-lidded sea-blue eyes and that oh-so-wicked slow smile, and it had been all she could do not to scream with frustration.

  She’d wiggled around, tossed and turned, glared at the ceiling and hadn’t been able to get comfortable. The only bright spot of a night spent in his bed without Hank was the fact that his cool, beach scent still lingered in his sheets. Samantha had breathed that in, had pulled it deep into her lungs and let the very essence of his smell permeate her body. Then and only then had she felt marginally better.

  Despite the fact that her drink with Jamie hadn’t been an overwhelming bone-melting success, he’d asked her to go jet-skiing this afternoon and she’d accepted. Hank, she knew, would be unequivocally irritated, but he’d simply have to suck it up. She’d spent the entire day hunched over his damned computer, hadn’t even been able to get out on the sand this afternoon. She’d ordered a calamari plate from the kitchen and had snuck back to their room and taken her antihistamine. To her surprise, Hank had walked in right w
hen she’d popped it into her mouth and she’d nearly choked. When he’d quirked a questioning brow, she’d told him she had a headache. He seemed to accept that explanation, though he’d continued to stare at her suspiciously.

  Of course, he probably wouldn’t have thought a thing in the world about her taking that pill if she hadn’t looked so damned guilty. He already suspected something was up. The last thing she needed to do was give him any more hints as to what it could be.

  Samantha finished up, closed out the program and stood. As promised, Hank had taken care of getting her ingredients for the fried chicken cook off and they planned to brush up on her poultry skills this evening after the dinner rush.

  A glance at her watch told her she had fifteen minutes before she had to meet Jamie in the foyer. That would give her just enough time to eat a couple handfuls of honey-roasted pine nuts—more sex diet food—and freshen up. Her muscles ached from sitting behind a desk all day and she was anxious to work the kinks out. A race across the gulf should be just the ticket.

  Samantha double-timed it to their room and took a moment to pull her hair up, otherwise it would whip all over her face and blind her while they were on the water. She swiftly changed, applied sunblock and a little lipstick. Though she wasn’t the least bit hungry, she grabbed a pack of nuts and ate them as she made the return trip to the lobby. She couldn’t risk skipping so much as a snack while she was on this diet—couldn’t risk her current elevated pheromone level, otherwise her sex appeal would sink back down to its normal woefully nonexistent level.

  Jamie had beaten her to the foyer and he greeted her with a ready smile. “You ready?” he asked.

  “Ready for what?”

  The answering grin which had leapt to her lips froze as Hank’s frosty tone registered. Samantha turned to see him behind the front desk. She smiled, lifted her chin. “Jamie and I are going jet-skiing.”

  Hank glanced at Jamie and came around the desk. “Oh? You’re finished straightening out the reservation system, then?” he asked innocently. Too innocently.

  A prickle of annoyance surfaced. She’d agreed to help him, however since she wasn’t a paid employee she didn’t appreciate the implied recrimination. “No, not quite.”

  Hank hummed under his breath and affected a slightly bemused look she itched to wipe from his face. “I see.”

  “I don’t believe you do,” Samantha replied tightly. But you will. “It’s going to take me the rest of this week to get that mess sorted out, Hank. I’m certain I explained that to you. I’m also certain that I’ve explained something else to you,” she said meaningfully. “So I’ll see you later.” The last she forced through slightly gritted teeth.

  Hank expelled a breath, rubbed the back of his neck. “When will you be back?”

  Samantha’s eyes narrowed fractionally and she cocked her head. “Whenever I get ready, Daddy.”

  Jamie chuckled. “She’ll be back in plenty of time to fry chicken, if that’s what you’re worried about.” His voice rang with lazy amusement, and something else, something that only Hank seemed privy to because his expression immediately blackened with displeasure.

  Samantha’s brow furrowed. How had Jamie known about she and Hank’s plans for this evening? She knew she hadn’t told him. She considered the men before her once more and decided her first assessment had been dead-on—apparently, they were friends. She made a mental note to get the skinny from Jamie this afternoon.

  “I’m not the one who should be worrying,” Hank replied. His voice was amiable enough, but held an unmistakable edge.

  “Lighten up, Hank.” He shot him a look over his shoulder that was loaded with equal parts humor and innuendo. “I promise I’ll take good care of her.”

  Samantha grinned. Well, that certainly sounded promising. She cast one last look at Hank as she let Jamie lead her out the door, then immediately wished she hadn’t. Hank looked more than furious, more than thwarted…he looked curiously vulnerable.

  9:15

  Hank glanced at the clock and felt a vein throb in his forehead. She should have been back fifteen minutes ago. He’d had the entire afternoon to stalk around and seethe, the entire afternoon to wonder just what the hell it was they were doing. Jamie, damn him, would so pay for this, Hank decided as a tortured laugh pushed into his throat.

  Last night when Samantha had finally come in, Hank had gone to Jamie and explained the situation.

  Again.

  Forcibly.

  She leaves here in the same condition she arrived in. She is not a plaything, a toy, or a potential lover. She’s mine. If you touch her, I’ll kill you. He couldn’t have made it plainer, right? And yet, here Hank sat in his deserted kitchen with only his bad mood and a couple of whole fryers for company.

  He’d known about the jet-skiing trip—Jamie had told him—yet for some reason, he’d thought that Jamie would cancel, or that Sam would be so caught up in fixing his reservation system that she would. But he should have known better. Her quest for an orgasm would take precedence over his computer woes, no matter how much Sam enjoyed a good challenge. She could be annoyingly single-minded, a trait he normally admired, but in this particular case, didn’t.

  Granted, he’d kept her busy with the reservation system—though he knew it was a sneaky, horrible thing for him to do, he’d gone behind her this afternoon and completely undone the progress she’d made—but he didn’t think he’d be able to keep her tied to the thing indefinitely.

  Luckily he wouldn’t have to, because starting tonight, he planned to be her lover, to give her that orgasm she so desperately wanted. It was hard to believe that a mini-lifetime of restraint would come to this, but it was, and he was utterly powerless to stop it. Didn’t want to. He was willing to risk their friendship, his heart and her rejection—though he refused to consider the idea on principal, she could simply tell him to go to hell. He didn’t think that she would, because he firmly intended to give her the seduction she wanted, but it was still not out of the realm of possibility.

  But he couldn’t stand the alternative—the someone else. Hank swallowed. He simply couldn’t let it happen.

  She’d been asleep last night when he’d gotten back and simply knowing that she was in his bed, beneath his sheets had all but driven him mad with lust. He pulled in a shallow breath as the vision swam into focus once more. Naked limbs, bare breasts and all those strawberry-blond curls fanned out across a stark white pillow.

  Hank had taken a moment to look at her, just look at her, and a curious emotion had swelled into his throat and forced him to swallow. One toned leg had been slung over the covers and he’d caught a flash of pink on her toes. He’d never considered a woman’s feet before, but at the moment, he’d been consumed with the need to start at her vulnerable instep and lick his way up her body. Up her slim calf, over that soft skin behind her knee, then farther still until he reached the tender inside of her creamy thigh.

  At this point, Hank had become less concerned about that curious swelling in this throat and more concerned with the swelling in his boxers, because once he imagined licking her thigh, a man didn’t get much closer to the grand prize without imagining fastening his mouth upon what lay at the juncture of those thighs, then planting himself firmly between them.

  One vision had led to another and it had been all he could do not to recreate that vision—in the flesh. With her. All he could do to simply turn away and lie down on that damned uncomfortable couch. He’d barely gotten a wink of sleep, had been in a foul mood all day as a result and now— Hank pulled in a deep breath, then blew it out with a whoosh. Now, she was late.

  Because she was with Jamie, his friend she intended to seduce.

  Hank muttered a long steady stream of hot oaths and, for lack of something better to hit, knocked the hell out of the chicken.

  “I’ve heard of men choking the chicken, but that’s the first time I’ve ever seen a guy spank one,” came a droll feminine voice from the doorway.

  Hank blus
hed, annoyed. “You’re late.”

  Samantha strolled over, sat her purse down on the kitchen table, then lowered herself into the chair opposite him. Her hair was delightfully mussed and she brought the scent of cool, salty air and her particularly fruity fragrance with her. Her eyes twinkled with humor. “I wasn’t aware that I was punching a time clock.”

  Hank grunted. There were a lot of things she wasn’t aware of. Like the fact he wanted to pump her until her eyes rolled back in her head and the thought of taking any other lover was a distant memory. “Did you have a good time?”

  Samantha slipped a sandal off and gingerly massaged the instep he’d been fantasizing about. “Yes, I did.”

  Hank got the feeling that she purposely didn’t elaborate. He waited a beat, then said, “Well, what did you do?”

  An exaggerated frown creased her brow. “You mean before or after we had sex?”

  Hank vaulted to his feet. “What?”

  To his supreme irritation, Samantha cracked up. “Sit down,” she chuckled. “Sheesh. I was only joking. Lighten up, would ya? We had a good time. That was all. End of story.”

  Lighten up? Lighten up? His entire frontal lobe threatened to explode from his forehead and she had the nerve to tell him to lighten up?

  Sam’s laughter tittered into a sigh and she frowned thoughtfully. “Hell, so far he hasn’t even kissed me, a point I plan to rectify myself the next time we go out. I wouldn’t have pegged him for the hesitant type, but—” her pointed gaze slammed into his and a wry grin curled those sweetly lush lips “—I’m getting the distinct impression that he’s been given a you-can-look-but-don’t-touch-order from a certain mutual friend whom I’ve asked to butt out.” Samantha laid her hand upon his arm. “Look I know that this is difficult for you, but—”

  Hank snorted grimly. “You have no idea.”

  “But you’re going to have to let me grow up, Hank.” Her sympathetic yet determined gaze searched his. “I’m not really your little sister, and while the big-protective-brother act is appreciated, it’s really not necessary.”