She's All Tied Up: Club 3, Book 2 (39 page)

Disappointment trickled through her. She’d hoped he would put his hands on her, maybe kiss her.

He looked up into her eyes. “Now, since you won’t take your top off,” he said, “let’s have your skirt instead.”
 

Dangers in paradise…

Blooming in the Wild

© 2012 Cathryn Cade

Hawaiian Heroes, Book 3

On Hawaii’s Big Island to supervise a photo shoot for her sporting goods company, Bella Moran is looking forward to relaxing with her newfound family. As the island works its magic on her Ho’omalu blood, though, something strange begins to happen.
 

In her dreams, she is at one with the untamed rainforest, able to command the trees and flowers with a terrifying power. Unfortunately, she finds no rest in her waking hours, dealing with the sexy, boy-in-a-man-suit star of the shoot.

Joel Girand, star of his own TV adventure show, signed on for a relaxing weekend showcasing tropical camping gear. He never expected to fall for an uptight executive type like Bella, but there’s something about her lush native beauty that excites the wild places in his soul.

In Joel’s arms, Bella feels her civilized veneer peeling away. But when it becomes clear someone with a grudge against her family is using deadly force to sabotage the shoot, Bella’s frightening dream power manifests in the very clear light of day. And Joel must decide if his heart will let him stand back and let her sacrifice everything—even her life—for her native home.

Warning: A wahine who’ll stop at nothing to claim her man. Steamy interlude in the tropical forest, including illicit use of flowers.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Blooming in the Wild:

Joel rolled his head against the dock post behind him, looking without hope toward the parking lot. The small area was framed by a high bank overgrown with the huge philodendron vines the locals called monstera, glossy leaves hanging quiet in the warm, damp air.

Not that Joel minded hanging around a quiet Hawaiian waterfront, but he’d just as soon do it with a cold beer and some music. He was about to haul out his own phone and look for a game. He’d taken to playing strategy games on his last trip into Asia, with long waits at every airport. His current favorite involved freeing an explorer from a mythical forest full of strange traps in the fewest moves possible—without getting killed, of course.

That was when he saw her—finally. A dark-haired beauty strode down the dock toward them, hips swaying, high heels tapping on the dock. He recognized the red duffel she pulled behind her. It was one of the new lines they’d be testing. He’d never seen the woman before. He would have remembered. She was Hawaiian, but the Honolulu version, from her red stilettos to her little white froth of a suit.

She stopped before him. He rose in one lithe motion.

“’Bout time, Princess,” he drawled.

She cocked her hip, planted one hand on it and looked at him from behind her sunglasses. “Did I keep you waiting? Well then, I’ll have to make up for lost time, yeah?” Her voice was low and clear, and laced with sweet sarcasm.

Letting go the handle of her duffel, she opened the single button of her little jacket and shrugged out of it in one lithe motion. It dropped onto her bag. He just had time to note the red spaghetti-strap tank she wore beneath it when she unfastened her skirt too.

The short garment slithered down, revealing a tiny pair of bikini bottoms, cut high on sloping rounded hips that lengthened into a pair of toned, pretty legs, every inch the color of Hawaiian honey. She stepped out of the skirt and tossed it onto the duffel as well, leaving her standing there in the undies and red fuck-me heels like a contestant in a dockside beauty pageant. She lifted her arms and unfastened her dark hair from the coil high on her head. As she shook her head, her hair slithered down her back in a fall of near-black silk.

Stepping out of her shoes, she wriggled her bare toes on the dock. She had a little red flower thing painted on one of her dainty toenails. His gaze slid back up the line of her legs, over those hips, her small waist and breasts, and up to her face.

The designer shades hid her eyes, but her soft, red lips curved up in a smirk that said she knew he’d been riveted to every move of her little strip show. “Fast enough for you, moke?”

She cocked her head to look past him, and her smile widened into the real thing, flashing white teeth and dimples at the corners of her mouth.

“Hi, Frank. Sorry I’m so late—the meeting ran long.”

Released from his sensual spell, Joel blinked. He sucked in a long breath and shook his head slightly. Damn! He’d stopped breathing about the time her skirt slid down. Of course, her tiny tease of a garment was really a swimsuit, and not the barest one he’d seen in Hawaii. However, the shock of her little strip show had had his mind going further, fast.

He watched in bemused lust and irritation as she bent over, her back to him, to gather up her suit and shoes and bundle them into the duffel. The move presented her heart-shaped ass and rounded legs as if she were offering to let him finish undressing her. Yeah, he’d like to run his hands right under those little bottoms and pull them down, letting them drift to her ankles as he slid his fingertips between her thighs and cupped her where she’d be soft and wet and hot.

Her ass was surprisingly lush on her fit body. And that thin top—as she straightened, pulling the duffel toward the boat, the move outlined her breasts. They might be small, but on her they were…
ka nani,
so pretty, like halves of a ripe papaya.

The captain of the boat, a lean, wiry Hawaiian with silver in his dark hair, grinned back at her, his amusement clear. “Aloha, Bella. Welcome back to Kona.”

“
Mahalo
. Let me get my bag, and we can get going.”

Going—right. They needed to get going. He was going somewhere, not having hot monkey sex on a public dock. Blowing out a long breath, Joel leaned over and grabbed her duffel, swinging it forward and onto the boat, where it was scooped up by a skinny Hawaiian in a white Hawaiian Dive T-shirt and baggy shorts. Kobe—no, Frank had introduced him as Eddy. The stocky one was Kobe.

Ms. Hawaii’s dark brows scrunched together, a crease between them, but then her face smoothed as if a curtain had fallen. “Mahalo.”

Joel gestured with ironic courtesy that she should board the boat first. She stepped up onto the cat and walked across to the far side. She balanced lightly, tossing her hair back over her shoulder. It shone in a last ray of sun, glossy as a bird’s wing with reddish highlights among the espresso-hued strands.

“All right, everyone,” Frank called. “Welcome aboard. Let’s go to Na’alele.”

Damn straight Joel was ready to go—a mellow three-day cruise into a gentle wilderness with few bugs, no large predators or hostile natives, with full cell phone service and great food, surrounded by gorgeous women, even if one of them was by turns seductive as a hula dancer and prickly as a noni fruit. At least she didn’t smell like a noni. The small, prickly Hawaiian fruit was known for its medicinal qualities and its stench.

He didn’t know what he’d been worrying about. This gig was going to be a cinch. He’d get some great publicity, and take it back to the network execs as proof that he was a bankable commodity. Joel was smiling to himself as he stepped onto the boat.

Bella flung herself onto the bench seat, only to recoil when her backbone connected painfully with the boat rail. She gritted her teeth against the pain and then deliberately made herself relax, letting her back curve into the railing. She was not going to allow herself to be rattled by some equipment cowboy with a macho swagger.

Although she’d had a little fun with him. She couldn’t quite believe she’d done that—stripped off her business suit right in front of him and everyone else on the dock. All the irritation and frustration of the long day of meetings and last-minute checks to ensure everything was in place not only for the store opening but for this trip had channeled into a flush of anger, and she’d sort of…snapped.

Their celebrity star had watched every move, she could tell. Bella straightened her sunglasses and eyed him surreptitiously through the dark lenses. As he sauntered past her, she crossed her legs, swiveling her knees away.

He was big enough that she’d come only to his shoulder when they’d been standing on the dock, and she’d been dwarfed by his broad shoulders and brawny physique. He certainly filled out his clinging white T-shirt, which bore the palm tree logo of DelRay’s summer line, and, his ass was tight and round under the thin fabric of his khaki cargo shorts. Although the hair curling up in loose commas from under his baseball cap was reddish, he was tanned, not a freckle in sight.

Realizing she was staring, Bella jerked her gaze away, her cheeks hot. She glanced around, but no one seemed to have noticed her interest. She blew out an impatient breath. Enough of that silliness. It was just that she wasn’t used to such strongly conflicted feelings about a guy. On one hand, any guy who called her a princess didn’t deserve a second look, even if he was drool-worthy. On the other hand, he was extremely drool-worthy. Besides, since when was she impressed with guys just because they were big? Well, since forever.
 

She’s All Tied Up

Cathryn Cade

His control sets her free…and her trust throws him for a loop.

Club 3, Book 2

Carlie Milton is finally out from under her judgmental mother’s thumb. She has a great job, great friends, a loving father and brother… but her love life is a series of disasters.

When she’s rescued from her latest dating debacle by bodybuilder Jake Stone, she can’t resist his invitation to his BDSM club. The results are orgasmic, and Carlie comes back for more…until the night she goes all in. And Jake’s reaction, driven by a ghost from his past, drives her back into her shell.

An ex-Marine, Jake believes self-discipline and control are the only things holding his life together. Until Carlie. Her lush body, tender vulnerability and unquestioning trust shake him to the core, jarring loose the tight lid he keeps on his demons—at the worst possible time.

Now, to help her find the courage to try again, he’s going to have to do something he’s never done before. Make peace with his past…and convince himself that leading with his heart doesn’t have to end in pain.

Warning: Contains a hard-nosed ex-Marine with a soft heart and a way with knots, and a plucky heroine who isn’t afraid to let him learn to navigate her curves.

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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

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She’s All Tied Up

Copyright © 2014 by Cathryn Cade

ISBN: 978-1-61922-003-4

Edited by Linda Ingmanson

Cover by Angela Waters

All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

First
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
electronic publication: January 2014

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