Tropical Bartender Bear (Shifting Sands Resort Book 3)

by Zoe Chant

  When she didn’t make any motion to withdraw her hand, he turned it over and kissed the inside of her wrist, a place that Laura would never have guessed was so sensitive. Every nerve in her body was on fire, desperate for more of this man’s gentle touches.

  He wasn’t half-hard any longer. The apron was a tent across his lap, and Laura was mesmerized by the promise of it.

  She swallowed hard. “I’m not in a good place right now,” she said, her voice husky. “There’s a reason I was pretending to be my own sister.”

  Tex looked up at her trustingly, not relinquishing her hand. “I’m sure it’s a great reason,” he said, and there was a catch to his breath that told Laura he was as affected by her presence as she was by his.

  “Don’t you care what it is?” Laura wondered if she should feel insulted by his lack of concern. But she’d had plenty of experience with jerks who only wanted sex, and this didn’t feel anything like that.

  Tex kissed the inside of her forearm, the stubble of his jaw tickling her skin. Then he looked up at her and said sincerely, “I will protect you from anything. Whoever you fear, I will fight. Whenever you flee, I will find you. Whatever you choose to tell me, that will be enough.”

  Laura had no defense equal to those words, and fell forward to press her mouth to his.

  Chapter 12

  The apron had been flimsy protection, but when Laura flowed into his lap, the cloth was suddenly an imposition.

  She was more intoxicating than the finest whiskey, her mouth was sweeter than chocolate. Tex, slid his hands up her shoulders to cup her jaw so he could kiss her more deeply.

  His words had barely scraped the surface of his feelings. He craved her, wanted to be buried inside of her, but more than that, he wanted to protect her, to worship her. She felt like forever.

  Then her hand reached beneath the apron, giving him just the barest touch, and he had to gasp for breath.

  “You can’t go back out there like this,” Laura teased him, her voice quiet near his ear.

  “The resort is clothing optional,” Tex wheezed, trying to match her light-hearted tone and failing.

  “Clothing is one thing,” Laura said chidingly. “This would be just obscene.”

  “Not… sure… what… to-” Tex couldn’t even come up with a coherent sentence, not with her nails sliding tantalizingly over him.

  She leaned in and kissed him again, and this time, Tex had no doubt how she intended to make him presentable again. He stroked the silky skin of her neck, keeping his fingers from clawing her with effort, and tugged the straps of her tank top and bra down to expose a soft shoulder to kiss.

  “Besides,” she said, in a rich, husky voice as she pulled back, “I don’t want to share this view with anyone.”

  Tex had to bite back a whimper — one of her hands was teasing his hard cock, and the other was pulling the apron off over his head.

  “You have an advantage over me,” he said as he kissed her. “Let me… oh…”

  Her fingers circled his member distractingly, and when she pulled her hand away, he groaned at the loss, only to be delighted when she used it to help shuck off her tank top and unclasp her bra in one smooth motion.

  Tex froze, mesmerized by the swell of her breasts, and the beauty of her exposed belly. Her nipples hardened in the chill of the office, and Tex reached to rub his thumbs over each of them.

  Laura gave a noise of pleasure, and Tex pulled her closer with a hand cupping each breast, to kiss her jaw, her earlobe, her neck, and then feast on a collarbone before letting himself kiss his way down to the luscious breasts.

  He couldn’t pause there long, too wound with need and it didn’t take much to wrestle her shorts and lacy underwear from her curvy hips. He lay her down on the clear desk and kissed his way down her stomach to pause for a moment at the lightly furred mound above her treasure. A careful breath made Laura cry out wordlessly, and a soft kiss made her arch up to him in need.

  “Fuck me,” she said, when he might have paused or tried to take a softer path. “Just fuck me, Cowboy.”

  Tex was eager to oblige.

  He slid her to the edge of the desk and lifted her willing leg. If he’d been any harder, he felt he could have burst on the spot, and when he pressed himself at her waiting entrance, she was already slick with her own juices.

  Entering her was like perfect music; a slow crescendo of pleasure from a plateau of anticipation and need that already felt like a new high. He had to bite his lip not to simply thrust at her like an animal in rut. She deserved a crafted love-making, a worship of luxurious intimacy. Bad enough that he was sneaking with her in Chef’s office instead of laying her down on silk sheets in a shower of flower petals, he wasn’t going to make a schoolboy’s hash of their first coupling.

  Bear had other thoughts.

  She is ours, he growled inside Tex’s head. Ours to take and love and protect. Our mate. Our all.

  Tex had to find the melody of a slow song in his head to keep his rhythm from becoming frantic. At every sweet thrust, Laura rose to him with a moan of delight and desire. Her hands at his arms left scratches of need, and when she writhed in the grip of an orgasm that drove a blissful cry from her perfect lips, Tex lost any sense of slowness and simply fell into his own frantic release.

  Chapter 13

  Laura was used to sex as an escape from her crappy life. She enjoyed the way problems dissolved for a short time in the hot wake of passion.

  But it had never been like this. She didn’t feel like she was using Tex for a few moments of ignoring reality, and she didn’t for an instance feel like he was using her.

  He loved her, however he stumbled over the semantics of it.

  His touch wasn’t just about his pleasure, or even about her pleasure, or their pleasure. It was a bone-deep need, a connection at a level beyond skin. She felt like she’d been placed on an altar and worshiped, not taken in a tiny, barren office on a chilly metal desk as a matter of convenience.

  Even after they were done, breath ragged and heartbeats loud in the little room, he didn’t let go of her, pulling him up so they were both standing. His strong arms held her up, and he continued stroking her back and shoulders as the moment passed.

  “I will never call myself unlucky in love again,” he declared, to Laura’s amusement.

  “You might reconsider that when you realize what you’ve gotten into,” she told him, finally drawing away.

  She recovered her tank top and dressed. Tex gave the apron a wry smile and put it back on, then settled back to watch her getting dressed.

  “Enjoying the show?” she needled him, shimmying back into her shorts. She gave him an extra, unnecessary jiggle.

  “It’s almost as much fun as watching you take them off,” Tex promised.

  Once they were basically presentable, Laura crossed her arms and regarded him thoughtfully.

  Tex gazed back, unafraid, and Laura felt like it was a challenge.

  “Let me tell you what you’re getting into,” she said, settling into the office chair and putting her feet up on the desk.

  Tex rather belatedly locked the door and then took a seat opposite, mirroring her posture. He wiggled his bare toes at her.

  Laura didn’t let herself smile at them.

  “I worked for the cartel in south Los Angeles.”

  Tex took his feet off the desk, but continued to gaze at her as she had hung the moon.

  “I didn’t mean to,” she promised, suddenly not wanting to betray that naive trust. “I have — I’ve had — terrible taste in men. One of my old boyfriends got me a job, an easy job. They found out I was a shifter, and they had me pretend to be a pet, and I could make… deliveries. I swear, I didn’t know who I was really working for, I didn’t ask questions about what I was taking places. They paid well, and… I was tired of asking Jenny for money. I thought I was being responsible, finally taking care of myself.”

  Laura made herself shut her mouth around the continued excuses she w
anted to give.

  “And your sister?”

  Tears unexpectedly welled up in Laura’s eyes. Every time that she remembered Jenny, it was like the shock of her loss was all new again.

  Tex was around the desk before she could stop him, gathering her into his strong arms. “It’s okay, kitten. I’m here. You can tell me.”

  “She was the best sister,” Laura sobbed into his bare shoulder. “She was so smart and kind and good. As soon as I found out what I was doing, I tried to get out. I told them I quit, and I went to Jenny and told her everything. But they told me not to tell anyone, and they must have found out, because when she took my car out, it crashed, and she never came back, and they must have done something, because she’s a good driver, and she wouldn’t make a mistake like that.”

  Tex rocked her in his arms, holding her tight and smoothing her hair back from her face. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  Laura pushed him away, viciously, tears still streaming down her face. “It was entirely my fault,” she cried. “They sabotaged my car, and she got caught in the cross-fire. If I hadn’t been tangled up in the wrong people, if I hadn’t gone to her for help, if I hadn’t let her go get things for me…”

  Tex looked conflicted, but resolute. “It wasn’t your fault,” he repeated. “You don’t know for sure it wasn’t an accident.”

  Feeling almost hysterical, Laura insisted, “What else would it be? And now they’ve followed me here, and I’m not safe anywhere…”

  Once again, Tex gathered her into his arms, slowly, gently, giving her every opportunity to push him away.

  Laura didn’t want to push him away. She wanted to snuggle up against those burly arms and beautiful shoulders and let Tex keep everything bad in the world away from her. She wanted to let him be her hero, and save her from everything.

  Even if she knew he couldn’t.

  Once she had cried herself out, Tex offered his apron to wipe her cheeks. “Could Fred have tipped them?”

  Laura scoffed. “Fred? No. He thinks I’m Jenny, which let me tell you, is getting hard to pull off. I swear, he keeps talking legalese and finance at me and I have to nod and stuff food in my mouth instead of answering. I’m going to gain a hundred pounds if I keep this up.”

  “You both knew him?”

  “He was a friend of our dad’s, and worked at the same law business. They were up for partners in the firm at the same time. My dad got the spot, but he and my mom died in a car accident just a few weeks later. Fred was really great to us during that time, helped us get through everything after they died, and set up the loan that got Jenny through school. He even helped Jenny get a job with the firm, after college.”

  Just as Laura realized she was babbling, there was a knock at the door, and the two scrambled to their feet, looking guilty.

  “Why is my door locked?” Chef demanded from the other side.

  Laura straightened her tank top one last time and nodded to Tex when he went to open the door.

  “Sorry, Chef,” he said contritely. “We were just leaving.”

  Chef, a large, distinguished older man, stood with his arms crossed, glaring them down. “What have you done in here?” he demanded. Then he pinched the bridge of his nose. “No, I don’t want to know. Just get out. And don’t ever bring that apron back.”

  Glancing at each other like erring schoolchildren, barely able to keep the giggles from their lips, Laura and Tex fled, hand-in-hand.

  “Don’t worry about Chef,” Tex told her, giving her a quick kiss at the back door to the restaurant. “He’s just grouchy because Magnolia isn’t here this week, and we rented her cottage to someone else for the event. He doesn’t even use this office most of the time.”

  He escorted her chivalrously to her hotel room, acting nonchalant about his apron-clad bare body, and Laura noticed with amusement that everyone they met took it perfectly in stride.

  It was, after all, a clothing-optional shifter’s resort, hosting a male beauty pageant.

  Nothing seemed too odd for this place.

  Chapter 14

  One advantage to being a bartender was that Tex got a front-seat to all the best and worst of the guest-watching at Shifting Sands.

  He got to watch the producer, Gregory Stubbins, have a shouting show-down with his cameraman, Bam Stagger (Tex guessed it was an assumed name, but never heard him referred to as anything else). Gregory didn’t go anywhere without his new black-suited bodyguard since the attempt on Jenny’s - Laura’s - life, and Tex felt sorry for the stoically sweating rock of a man who shadowed the obnoxious jerk.

  Jessica Linn, the tiny blonde celebrity host, got falling down drunk every afternoon at about 2, to sober up in time for whatever evening event she had to announce. She was at best unkind to the resort staff, and at worst, a raging harpy. She thought Tex was a dreamboat, though, so she was slobberingly pleasant to him.

  Tex would have rathered she wasn’t.

  The photographer, Juan Lopez, was constantly taking candid photographs that Tex strongly suspected would be sold to tabloids later, or used for blackmail, when he wasn’t hitting on woman after unsuspecting woman.

  Tex’s opinion of the Mr. Shifter competitors who frequented the bar ranged from sheer pity, through amusement, into active dislike. Mr. Canada completely failed to uphold his country’s reputation for politeness. Mr. India was a class act. Mr. South Africa made Tex very, very wary and raised his bear’s hackles. Mr. Brazil was a complete jerkface, flanked by a beauty coach who was at least as bad. Tex thought he might like Mr. United States, even if he was almost a caricature of laziness. Mr. Ireland never took off his glittery green pageant banner, and never stopped talking (though his charming wife often stepped in and pointed him in the direction of distractions with a wry smile).

  Tex sniffed, literally and figuratively, making even more conversation than he usually did. He got Mr. Ireland talking about his job, fire-fighting, and then despaired of ever getting him to stop. He got Mr. Austria talking nostalgically about growing up in the Alps, and Mr. India, after a few beers, talked about walking through the slums of Delhi. Mr. Japan’s beauty assistant was a shy woman that would only take lemon tea, but Tex got her to tell him about climbing Mt Fuji and laughing over a fear of bees.

  “They are very large bees,” she said, with an embarrassed smile.

  Tex commiserated with a story about being chased by angry bees on his farm, and convinced her to tell him about Mr. Japan and how she’d gotten involved in the contest.

  None of them seemed to have any motive for hurting Jenny. Or Laura, as far as Tex could tell. Most of them only knew who she was because of the incident with the latte.

  It was everything Tex could do not to blabber about Laura himself. He wanted to tell everyone about her, to describe her perfect strength and get them to agree that she had the most perfect brown eyes. He caught himself daydreaming about the slow smile she gave him, and the velvet softness of her skin.

  But customers, especially the women, didn’t want to hear about his perfect mate. They wanted to think his eyes were only for them, and as long as Tex was trying to get information out of them, he was willing to indulge them in that delusion.

  “Masterfully done,” Breck told him, after watching him get Mr. Canada’s assistant to tell him all about Mr. Canada’s failed hockey career. There was a lull in the traffic at the bar for a moment, while Mr. Ireland demonstrated a fireman’s carry at the other end of the deck, to his American wife’s laughing dismay. Breck was helping serve drinks while the restaurant was in between meals; as busy as things were, none of the staff were enjoying much downtime.

  “I’m no closer to finding a motive for poisoning Laura than when I started,” Tex said mournfully. “And these people drink like fishes; our stock is never going to last through the closing cere--”

  A scream from behind the bar interrupted him.

  “This is getting to be a habit,” Tex said, grabbing his baseball bat and rounding the bar at a run. Breck foll
owed, grabbing a bottle off the bar as a makeshift weapon.

  As girly as the scream had been, it came from Juan Lopez, the photographer.

  Graham, teeth bared, was holding Juan’s throat in one hand, hedge clippers in the other.

  “I didn’t mean to,” Juan was stuttering, clutching his camera. “It was just, the leaves were in the shot, you know, and they were casting shadows I didn’t want, and it was just a plant, and you have to frame the shot just so, and I’m famous in Europe, you know…”

  He trailed off to a squeak as Tex handed his bat to Breck and strode forward to lay a careful hand on Graham’s arm.

  “It’s okay Graham, he didn’t mean any harm. We can’t hurt the guests, come on, let him go.” He wasn’t foolish enough to say that they were only plants. You never said that to Graham.

  With a predatory snarl, Graham abruptly let go of the struggling man, leaving him gasping and staggering.

  He gave one angry snap of the hedge clippers that made Juan give a thin little shriek, then turned on his heel and left, white gravel crunching under his feet.

  Breck actually laughed, and offered Juan the bottle he was holding. “Don’t ever cut Graham’s plants,” he told the gasping Juan. “It’s right in the resort contract.”

  “Is it?” Tex asked, surprised. He wasn’t sure if he’d seen a copy of a guest contract.

  Juan took a deep slug of the liquor.

  Breck nodded. “Next thing after ‘No predation.’”

  “It’ll grow back,” Juan protested. “This is the jungle!”

  “Other things might not,” Breck warned him with another chuckle. “I heard Graham killed a shifter with his bare hands, so I wouldn’t so much as step off the paths the rest of this week if you want to get out of here alive.”

  Cowed, Juan checked his camera for damage and slunk down the path away from the bar.