Eight… “You didn’t care about anything except my tongue tracing the path of your thong”—he let his fingers do the honor now—“all the way down until I could taste your sweet, throbbing little—”
“I thought you were Paul!” Her wide eyes darted to his, pupils huge.
Five… “Remember how you used your body to beg for more? There’s no fucking way you’ve ever begged like that for Paul Barrington. No fucking way. I could have you begging again.”
Her breaths came in quick, shallow pants. The hands she’d rested lightly on his shoulders tightened, bunching his jacket in a white-knuckled grip. She shook her head. “Not going to happen.”
Three… He was risking getting his face slapped in the middle of a dance floor on New Year’s Eve, but he didn’t care. For some inexcusable reason, he needed to know she wanted him, not Barrington.
Two… He spread his palm over the perfect curve of her ass and hauled her against him, so she’d feel just how well he remembered every damn detail of their last meeting.
One…
“It’s not?” he challenged, and then crushed her lips under his.
Cheers of “Happy New Year” echoed around them over the strains of “Auld Lang Syne.” A flotilla of black and silver balloons sailed down from the ceiling. Guests laughed, and sang, and jostled them while he kissed her. Sparkly, star-shaped confetti rained over everyone and everything, and he kept right on kissing her. Her arms twined around his neck. Her lips parted. She flattened one hand against the back of his head and held on. When he bent her over his arm and swept his tongue into her soft, yielding mouth, she wrapped her leg around his hip. The heat of her body practically seared his thigh through his tuxedo pants.
He trapped her lower lip between his teeth and nibbled. There went his no biting promise, but her shuddery moan told him she didn’t mind.
The song ended. The house lights came up a few notches. He slowly drew her upright, and even more slowly relinquished her mouth. She stared up at him, dazed, her lips plumped from their kiss.
“You’re a terrible liar, Miss Wayne.”
Giving her a grin he hoped didn’t reveal how much the move cost him, he walked away.
Chapter Seven
Jan. 1
4:37 p.m.
Chelsea,
The McIntyre bachelorette party wants the waiters to wear grass skirts—and nothing else. Do we need a special permit for that kind of party?
Thx.
Lynette
Chelsea turned away from her computer and forced her attention back to her conference call. The Templetons’ banter flowed from her speakerphone, but she couldn’t concentrate on the words.
Where the heck was the happy in her Happy New Year? She slumped at her tidy, blond-wood desk in her tidy office and stifled a yawn. Bad enough to have spent the first seconds of the new year in a lip-lock with Rafe St. Sebastian, and then the next several hours tossing and turning in bed, too stirred up to sleep. When she’d finally dropped off, her dreams had hardly qualified as restful. They’d featured Cindy, hugely pregnant, cornering her at the Las Ventanas holiday party and informing her Paul wanted to speak with her right away. Then came Paul, in his office, with a crib where his desk should have been, calmly telling her he was in love with Cindy. She’d run, only to stumble across Rafe in the hallway, wearing a tuxedo and a knowing grin. He’d called her a liar, pulled her into the supply closet, and proved his point. She’d woken sweaty and aching, with his name on her lips.
Her cell phone vibrated. She scooped it up with an unsteady hand, silenced the thing, and told herself to focus on her call.
No use. The Templetons were teasing each other about their resolutions. Meanwhile, here she sat, tired and cranky and nowhere near a New Year’s frame of mind. Every second of the afternoon dragged by like an eternity and she placed the blame for her exhaustion squarely on Rafe’s annoyingly attractive head. How dare he show up out of the blue, bringing all sorts of bad memories—and even worse impulses—with him? True, she’d had plenty of restless nights before he arrived, and, okay, yes, a disturbingly steamy Santa dream or two, but today should have been the start of her clean slate, dammit.
There was one thing to be thankful for. The dance floor last night had been so packed with party-goers reveling in their own New Year’s Eve kisses, nobody appeared to have noticed the new manager surrendering her good sense, her clean slate, and every single hormone in her body to a walking orgasm in a tux.
She propped her elbows on her desk and rubbed her eyes. That’s when the silence struck her. She jerked her head up and stared at her speakerphone. “I’m sorry. Can you repeat the last part?”
John Templeton’s unhurried voice came over the speaker. “St. Sebastian made an offer to purchase Tradewinds Maui. A strong offer. Evelyn and I have decided to accept.”
The air couldn’t have rushed out of her lungs faster if he’d come through the phone and kicked her in the gut. “I didn’t…” She winced at the high pitch of her voice, took a deep breath and tried again. “I didn’t know you were contemplating selling.”
“We weren’t,” Evelyn broke in. “Believe me, Chelsea, we would have disclosed our intention to sell the resort before we offered you the job had we seen a sale on the horizon, but this offer came unexpectedly.”
“Are you sure you want to take it?”