Take Me (Take Me 1)

She groaned and turned around, surprised to see that the sitting room was empty.

Leaving the balcony, she saw that Travis had opened his suitcase on one of the couches in the sitting room then disappeared, probably taking his medicine bag into the bathroom to clean up. Still craving a long, hot bath, she decided she would treat herself after she kicked Travis out for a while to give her some privacy.

His bag cried out for her to snoop through it, and Lily couldn’t resist. To her surprise, it looked like he had women’s clothes in it. Feeling a little bad about snooping, but not that bad after the way he had tricked her into sharing a room and a bed, she realized his bag was full of one neatly folded, gorgeous dress after another. There were no tags on the dresses, nothing to indicate size, or designer, or where they had come from. The fabric on the dresses was so soft, so colorful, she was tempted to try one of them on, even though she was certain they would be too small for her. Besides, he’d know that she’d been snooping through his bag if she pulled the clothes out of their neat pile. And the last thing Lily wanted was for Travis to think that she actually cared if he had plans to meet another woman while they were in Tuscany.

Oh God. It was so obvious. Why wouldn’t he have a lover in every town he visited, Lily asked herself.

He was gorgeous and rich, and when he touched a woman she melted with need.

She couldn’t fight back the jealousy when it reared its ugly head, laughing at her and taunting her for thinking Travis would ever choose to spend time with her when he could get a pretty, thin, perfect woman in his bed inside of thirty seconds.

She dropped the garments like hot coals, not wanting to know anything else about Travis’s Italian lover.

Lily had seen the kind of skinny twits that Travis liked hanging off his arm, and she doubted their IQs were much higher than their dress sizes. Feeling nasty and spiteful, she picked up her suitcase and stomped into the bedroom, angry at Travis for being such a womanizer but even angrier at herself for caring.

He could have a hundred Italian lovers for all she cared.

Besides, she thought with a devious smile, she had brought The Dress with her. Travis wouldn’t be the only one with beautiful foreigners falling at his feet. Lily knew the power of The Dress could transcend anything.

On Saturday night hadn’t The Dress single-handedly gotten the lust-of-her-life into bed with her? No reason it couldn’t work its potent magic again. On anyone but Travis, she reminded herself.

She reached into her suitcase and unfolded the precious dress, smoothing out a few small wrinkles with her hands. She wasn’t going to be quiet, pathetic Lily for another minute longer. She was going to wear The Dress to find her own Italian lover. And any chance she got, she was going to torture Travis. She was going to make him so hot for her he was going to need an extinguisher by the time their stay was over.

And no matter what, she wasn’t going to let him make love to her. Even if she had to lock herself in the bathroom with a dildo all night long to deal with the way he made her feel, she was going to hold out on him.

“Go away,” Lily said to the loud and insistent voice of doubt that told her she was crazy, that said she had no hope of torturing Travis, not when she rated a negative number on the “how sexy are you?” scale compared to Travis’s off-the-charts score. Grasping at strings she searched her travel-muddled brain for the positive affirmations she had had read in the book at the back of her bookshelf. Looking around the suite to make sure that Travis wasn’t going to witness her talking to herself like a lunatic, she said, “I am a strong, beautiful woman. I love myself, and others love me, too.”

The sound of running water made her jump halfway out of her skin. Travis hadn’t heard her, had he? She could only imagine the kind of ridicule he would heap upon her for repeating her stupid, never-gonna-happen mantras.

Hoping she looked calm and composed, she turned to look through the door of the bedroom into the living room. Travis was leaning against the bathroom door on the far side of the gracious suite, wearing nothing but a towel. His chest was tanned with a light dusting of dark hair in the vee between his pecs, and Lily couldn’t help but think that he should have an infomercial on TV selling some sort of abdominal exercise products with a six-pack like his. It took Lily every ounce of willpower not to give away her intense and immediate arousal from just looking at him.

“Like the room?” he drawled.

Even as she breathed a sigh of relief that he hadn’t overheard her doing those stupid affirmations, Lily wanted to smack him for being so supremely confident. So deliciously male. So perfect. Why did he have to be so flawless? It wasn’t fair that she had been given a laundry list of shortcomings, while Travis had been showered with brains, beauty, and unflagging confidence.

Travis was still staring at her from across the room. The challenge was clear in the heat of his gaze, the indolence of his stance. Lily knew it was time to make some decisions, and quick.

I’ll never get what I want out of life if I don’t go for it.

Reaching for her new feminine wiles, she said, “This room is amazing,” letting her voice drop to a husky burr. She kicked off her heels and moved past him into the exquisite bathroom. A huge sunken whirlpool tub in the middle of the room was filling with steaming water. Glancing at Travis over her shoulder, Lily purred, “Thanks so much for running a bath for me. I really needed one after such an exhausting flight.”

Trying not to worry about cellulite, reminding herself that she had been completely naked and in control with Travis at his client’s pool just days ago, Lily dropped one strap of her red dress from her shoulder, then the other, pushing the stretchy red fabric of the dress down. The bodice had an inner support built in and wasn’t meant to be worn with a bra, so her ni**les popped up above the fabric. Lily stilled, unable to continue.

What am I doing? She looked up into the mirror and saw herself half-naked, with Travis standing mere feet behind her in nothing but a towel.

Almost afraid of what she might see, she forced herself to look into Travis’s eyes. The unbridled lust in them infused Lily with a new shot of confidence. She stripped the rest of her dress off along with her panties and stepped into the tub, sliding down the slick porcelain into the safety of the hot water.

Feeling much more confident with her lumps and bumps at least partially hidden beneath the bubbles of the jets, she whispered, “Ahh, it feels so good,” and had to bite down on the inside of her lip to fight back her smile of victory at Travis’s instantaneous reaction to her erotic teasing.