The Pleasures of Summer

by Evie Hunter

  The way to a man’s heart is through his belly. She could almost hear her grandmother’s lecture on how to get your man. Oh yes, be a good little girl and don’t worry your silly head about anything serious. Being a surrendered wife had never been on her list of career choices, but a fat lot of good an MBA in Transportation and Logistics was here. She had always assumed that her dad would welcome her with open arms into the airline business, that they would work side by side. But all he wanted was for her to look pretty and be charming to his important customers. In some ways he was just like Flynn.

  She’d bet quite a lot of money that Flynn would love that. A docile woman who would look after his every need and warm his bed at night.

  Summer glanced at him from beneath her eyelashes. The bed warming bit wouldn’t be a problem. He really was a hottie, if you liked his ‘Me Tarzan, you Jane’ approach. Was that the key to Flynn? Operation Defeat the Bodyguard hadn’t been successful. Maybe a charm offensive would work and it was better than spending her days lying around being bored. Summer rose to her feet, conscious of his eyes on her every move.

  ‘Going somewhere?’ His tone was suspicious.

  ‘Look,’ she tried to sound reasonable, ‘I’m sorry. I get it that we’re stuck here, so how about a truce?’

  ‘A truce?’ Flynn eyed her outstretched hand as if it was a snake about to bite him and he didn’t raise his hand to take it.

  Embarrassed by his churlish refusal, Summer took a step back. How could she have thought that he was attractive? The man was a Neanderthal. She pitied whatever mindless Stepford wife he ended up with, but she wouldn’t give up yet. ‘Let me cook dinner tonight.’

  ‘You?’

  She might as well have announced that she was joining the space programme. ‘Yes.’ Summer thumped her chest. ‘Jane make dinner for Tarzan.’

  She walked away, trying to ignore the snort of laughter coming from behind her. She would show him.

  The mysterious delivery man had obviously arrived. The makeshift larder yielded two steaks as well as some fresh vegetables and more dried and tinned stuff. There was even another bottle of scrumpy. They would dine in style today. She foraged outside the backdoor. Someone had obviously tried to start a herb garden at one time and it had gone wild. She pounced on a woody patch of sage and there was wild watercress growing up near the spa. That would do very nicely. Pity there was no fresh garlic but she could still cook up a feast for a king, or a bloody-minded Scot.

  Flynn had remained outside, chopping yet more wood, until he had built up quite a sweat and headed for the shower. She guessed that he had been waiting for her to cave in and ask for the tin opener, but if she had to eat another meal that involved tuna or spaghetti she would die.

  ‘Something smells good.’

  She was tempted to ask him why he sounded so surprised, but then remembered that she was supposed to be charming him. ‘Take a seat and I’ll serve.’

  His eyes narrowed. Did Flynn think that she would try to poison him? Choke him to death with an overcooked steak? He eyed the rough table which now sported plates, glasses and a stubby candle she had found in the cupboard under the sink. The bottle of scrumpy was keeping cool in the jug she had taken from upstairs.

  Summer removed the pan and put the marinated steaks on the metal grid over the fire. The fire sizzled as drops of marinade fell, wafting the aroma of herbs around the room.

  ‘Gnocchi with salvia e burro,’ she announced as she laid the first course before him.

  The pale potato dumplings glistened in their coating of butter and crisp sage leaves. Flynn stared at the dish. He couldn’t have been more shocked if it had been delivered by fairies. He bit into one and gave a moan that was almost orgasmic. Score one for the spoilt heiress.

  ‘How did you … ?’

  She laughed at his mystified expression. ‘I love food, ever since boarding school. I was permanently starving there.’

  ‘You didn’t like school?’

  ‘No. College was great, but boarding school was a pain. I missed my dad and some of the other girls were horrible.’

  ‘Is that why you went to the club that night? Do you enjoy pain?’

  The club. She had almost forgotten that. That was the night that they had … Flynn waited expectantly for her answer. She toyed with her gnocchi, smearing it with the buttery sauce. ‘I honestly don’t know. Molly said that it was amazing, that I should try it. I guess that I was curious.’

  ‘About what?’ Flynn asked.

  She had almost forgotten that he had been a member there. Flynn had a few dark corners of his own and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to share that much with him yet. She stood up. ‘Excuse me; I have to take care of the steaks.’

  Flynn’s hand whipped out as she passed and he grasped her wrist. ‘Curious about what, Summer?’

  His voice had an edge that sent a shiver down her spine. Not anger, or impatience, just a simple, quiet command that halted her in her tracks. She stared down at the hand wrapped around her wrist. His fingers looked tanned against her pale skin and he had small cuts on his knuckles from wood splinters.

  She could lie to him, but what was the point? In a few weeks, they wouldn’t see each other again. ‘I wanted to know if I could still feel.’

  Summer shook his hand away and went to rescue the steaks, conscious of the sound of his chair scraping against the rough floor. Somehow she doubted that Flynn would let her make a statement like that and walk away. She felt his hand on her shoulder, the warmth of it seeping through the fine cotton of her T-shirt. She straightened and turned into his arms, afraid to look at his face. ‘The steaks –’

  ‘Will keep for two more minutes. Tell me what happened to you?’

  Why was Flynn pushing this? Surely he knew. The story had been plastered over the tabloids for weeks. She shrugged and tried for levity. ‘You must have seen the papers. Where did you spend last June? In a bubble?’

  His hand traced the contours of her cheek before curving under her chin and raising her face. ‘I spent last June in East Timor. Hello! magazine is hard to come by in the jungle.’ Flynn’s gaze was steady. There was no pity, no judgement. ‘I know what happened, Summer. I’ve read the reports, but they don’t tell the whole story. I want you to tell me what happened to you.’

  Out of the frying pan, into the fire. She was trapped between the flames and something hotter, something infinitely more dangerous. Her plan to charm him was unravelling. Flynn was determined to know everything and she wasn’t sure if she was ready to tell him.

  ‘Steaks. Please. I promise we can talk later.’

  Something in her expression must have appeased him. Flynn relented, releasing her chin, and she breathed a sigh of relief. She had escaped for now, but a reckoning was coming.

  The meal’s success was measured by Flynn’s empty plate, and they finished off the bottle of scrumpy while he talked a little about East Timor. He wouldn’t tell her any details about his work, but the things he had seen were shocking and gave her a glimpse into another life, one full of danger and unrecognized heroism. It went some way in explaining why he had been so dismissive when they first met. What a comedown. From life in the jungle to babysitting an heiress.

  A hot wave rose up her neck and scalded her cheeks. Flynn was a nice guy and she had been nothing but a brat to him from day one. A horrible, spoilt bitch who had been rude to him, lied to him and pushed him at every turn, when all he wanted to do was protect her. When had she turned into a monster?

  Embarrassed, she made a show of clearing the plates and collecting the glasses and put them next to the sink. Maybe she could slip off to bed and …

  ‘Come here.’

  God, he was turning into Tarzan again. ‘The dishes –’

  ‘Can wait until morning. Talk to me.’

  She gave him a wide berth and pulled up a chair opposite him.

  ‘What happened last June?’

  Summer played with the gold band on her right hand. She had planned
to wear it on her wedding day as her something old. ‘You probably saw it in the papers; last June I was supposed to get married. It didn’t happen.’

  ‘Why?’

  Trust Flynn to cut to the chase. No platitudes. No cosy, sympathetic words.

  ‘My dad insisted on a pre-nup. I have a shareholding in the airline.’

  Flynn whistled. ‘Let me guess. There was a problem.’

  How could she have been so naïve? All the times Adam was supposed to sign. All the excuses about meetings and business trips abroad. Summer closed her eyes. ‘A big problem. Dad put an investigator on my fiancé and …’

  She remembered the tense meeting with her father and his bespectacled accountant. Adam’s stories about his investments and his property portfolio in South Africa and Tokyo. None of it was true. Even with the evidence before her eyes, she still hadn’t believed it. Adam loved her. She was certain. But when she tried to confront him, he wasn’t in his office. He wouldn’t take her calls. He just wasn’t there.

  And the stupid thing was that she hadn’t cared. So what if he didn’t have money? She loved him and wanted to marry him.

  Flynn moved more quickly than she anticipated. One moment she was sitting on the chair, the next she was lifted up and pulled onto his lap. His muscular arm was tucked around her waist while his other hand stroked her hair. ‘Go on.’

  His warmth was comforting. She tucked her head under his chin and let it wash over her. She didn’t cry about it anymore. She almost never cried. The next bit was harder. ‘The wedding was days away. We’d spent over a year planning it. Dad told Adam to sign the pre-nup or the wedding was off.’

  Her breath hitched in her throat. ‘He didn’t. Dad didn’t cancel it. But Adam did.’

  Flynn gave a sympathetic murmur and she took it as encouragement to press on to the grand finale.

  ‘Then Molly rang me. She was working in PR at the time and … There were photographs of Adam and me together. The naked kind. The kind that sell for a lot of money. And that was it. The end of my perfect wedding.’

  Flynn watched as she twisted the cheap gold band around her finger. Not the type of jewellery he had expected to see an heiress wearing, but Summer never took it off. The sight of her biting on her lower lip, trying not to cry, made him want to punch something.

  He had leafed through Niall’s report about the cancellation of the wedding and dismissed it without a second thought. Celebrity relationships broke all the time. Usually within a month they were announcing that they were in love with someone else. But this wasn’t a celebrity. This was Summer. And as much as she was the client from hell, she hadn’t deserved any of this.

  Oh, there was no doubt that she was naïve and that her father should have screened her boyfriends more thoroughly, but it was too late for that now. The damage was already done. What he hadn’t expected to feel was shame, or the fierce sense of anger that raged through him at the thought of someone hurting her like that.

  ‘I’ll get Niall to check him out.’ It would be nice if the ex-fiancé turned out to be the stalker. It would give Flynn a valid reason for tearing the bastard apart and beating him to a pulp.

  She snorted. ‘You think Dad hasn’t already done that? Believe me; Adam was top of his shit list for months afterwards. For a while, even the rain was his fault.’

  ‘Still. I want to check myself.’ Flynn was willing to bet he could dig a lot more dirt than Tim O’Sullivan could. Curiosity overcame him. ‘What was in the photos?’

  She flushed and ducked her head. ‘The usual,’ she mumbled. ‘Adam set it up. I couldn’t understand why he was so keen on me giving him a blow job that evening. He knew I don’t like doing them. But he begged, so I did. With perfect camera angles and everything. You could see my face really clearly and hardly a detail of him. He could have been any stray man I had picked up.’

  Flynn’s fist clenched involuntarily. He forced it to relax before he spoke again. ‘You don’t like BJs?’

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t like the taste.’

  ‘Really? That’s it?’

  ‘I bet most women don’t like doing it. They just say they do to make men happy.’ She met his incredulous look with a mutinous stare. The way her lower lip stuck out slightly was adorable and tempted him to bite it, but he had to stay focused.

  ‘I’ll just have to see about that, won’t I?’ he said. ‘I’m sure if we went about it the right way, we could change your mind.’

  ‘I’ve heard that line before.’ She turned away, backing down from his subtle challenge. ‘I bet you’ve never had a bad break-up.’

  Flynn shifted in his chair. He could try to deflect the question, but she had been honest with him and it didn’t feel right to lie to her. ‘I have. And it wasn’t pretty either.’

  ‘Oh?’

  He caught a flash of sympathy in her eyes and ploughed on. ‘I was involved with someone. It was a D/s thing. We were together when I was home but she wanted more than that. Unfortunately, I was never in the country long enough. When I came back from my next tour of duty, she was dating my brother.’

  Flynn remembered David’s embarrassment when he tried to break the news about him and Lorna. How the occasional friendly drink and a shoulder to cry on had turned into a relationship. Neither of them had meant for it to happen, but by the time he got home, she and David were already an item.

  ‘So what did you do?’ Summer asked.

  What could he do? His mother was already mad about her. The prospect of one of her sons marrying and giving her some grandchildren had made her happier than she had been for a long time. He couldn’t ruin that. How could he admit that he had met Lorna in a BDSM club and that the pair of them had played together for months? Flynn shrugged. ‘There was nothing I could do. They’re getting married soon.’

  ‘Ouch. That must hurt. I’m sorry.’ Summer placed her hand on his arm in a gesture of comfort. ‘Come on, let’s get some fresh air. You can walk me to the spa again.’

  ‘Good girl, you’re learning.’

  She snorted while she grabbed her towel and wash bag.

  After she was finished doing whatever it was women did in the shower, and god knows she only had the basics as Flynn had refused to pack any of those oils and potions women seemed to need, he gave himself a speed scrub in the shower and was back at the croft before she had undressed.

  The sight of her in those skimpy bits of nothing made sharing a bed with her a bad idea. She was still vulnerable from her early confession and too tempting for his peace of mind. He pulled out the sleeping bag. He would stay downstairs, well away from her. She’s the client, he repeated to himself.

  And he would wear pyjamas. Well, he amended; he would if he had any. Instead, he pulled on a clean pair of workout pants and tied the cotton drawstring tightly.

  Summer had settled in bed, and silence descended on the croft. There was still twilight outside, but it was dim indoors. Flynn stacked his hands beneath his head and stared at the ceiling, trying not to think of her upstairs, all warm and sensual in his bed. The bed he had made with his own hands. The bed he hadn’t realized he was making for her to sleep in. The bed he wanted to be in.

  He dragged his mind away from her and thought about Adam Whatshisname. It was bad enough marrying a girl for her money, but then to humiliate her like that. These days, once pictures were released, they were out there forever. To the end of her days, Summer was likely to see pictures of herself sucking cock wherever she went. When she applied for jobs, when she was being inaugurated as President, when she was getting married. For some reason, that image annoyed him. He didn’t want to think about Summer getting married.

  Instead he considered her confession that she didn’t like the taste. He really should do something about that. His balls tightened as he considered a course of lessons designed to teach her to love it. And graduation day would be something very special … Oh yeah, it was his duty to change her mind. Think of all the sensual pleasures she was missing.


  There was a rustle upstairs, and the object of his fantasies poked her head over the edge of the ceiling. ‘Are you coming to bed?’ She sounded young, uncertain.

  ‘I’ll stay down here tonight.’

  ‘Oh! I’m a little bit cold. I thought you might be too.’ There was a slight quiver in her voice. Summer wasn’t the usual self-possessed princess tonight.

  He couldn’t resist. ‘Yeah, well, maybe I’m a bit cold too,’ he lied, climbing out of the sleeping bag and up the ladder. Her bed was warm and smelled like Summer. His cock hardened instantly and he had to position himself carefully so that when she curled against him, she didn’t feel it.

  She’s the principal. He had to keep his distance.

  ‘Of course, that’s not the only reason you wanted to go to Noir, is it?’ he said, almost at random.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re a kinky little girl, aren’t you?’

  She stiffened. ‘What do you mean?’

  Good, she was prickly and sounded more like the Summer he was used to.

  ‘I packed for you, remember? I know what you’re really like.’

  ‘I have no idea what you are talking about.’ She tried to sound indignant.

  ‘Hah! Did you think I wouldn’t find your stash? All those books full of kinky sex and spanking? I bet your Kindle is stuffed with erotica, stories full of dark and dangerous desires.’

  She had gone rigid. ‘You had no right to do that.’

  ‘I’m your bodyguard. I have to know everything about you. And very interesting it was, too.’

  She pulled away from him. ‘So I’m curious. That’s not a crime.’

  ‘No,’ he agreed. ‘But it was enlightening how you found your way to all the really good stuff. And how well-thumbed your novels were.’

  She stayed silent.

  He waited for a minute, and then added, ‘I assume you used the Rabbit, but tell me, did Adam use that little flail on you? Or those leather cuffs? Or the bondage tape?’