Wicked Heat
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product
of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events,
locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 by Nicola Marsh. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce,
distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary
rights, please contact the Publisher.
Entangled Publishing, LLC
2614 South Timberline Road
Suite 109
Fort Collins, CO 80525
Visit our website at
www.entangledpublishing.com
.
Brazen is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC. For more information on our titles,
visit
www.brazenbooks.com
.
Edited by Libby Murphy
Cover design by Heather Howland
ISBN 978-1-62266-292-0
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Edition September 2013
The author acknowledges the copyrighted or trademarked status and trademark owners
of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction: Victoria’s Secret, Google,
Skype, Ben & Jerry’s, Post-it, iPad, YouTube, Magic Mike, Superman, Vegemite, Oscars,
Girl Scouts of America, Fortune, GQ.
For Martin, who always keeps me smiling through the rollercoaster ride that is publishing.
One word sums it up: buoyancy. You know what it means, babe.
Chapter One
Jett Halcott knew lingerie.
Which meant the tall blonde striding through LAX like she had a bug up her ass, leaving
a trail of skimpy, provocative satin and lace spilling from her suitcase, was either
a hooker or a Victoria’s Secret model.
Either would be fine with him.
He could call out to her and put an end to the sniggers from passengers streaming
through the chaotic airport.
But where was the fun in that?
Instead, he scooped up every frivolous scrap that tumbled out of her wheeled luggage,
like crumbs for a deviant Hansel ready to gobble the gingerbread all in one go.
He wished.
From what he could see, the blonde looked tempting from behind. Long legs. Sexy ass.
Shiny, straight hair halfway down her back that swung with every step she took. Fast
strides that lengthened the gap between them.
The lingerie shedder was a go-getter or she was about to miss her plane.
He snagged crotchless ivory lace panties, a black bustier, a red corset, and a tempting
assortment of satin thongs and sheer bras from the trail she left behind her, mentally
dressing her in each and every one.
Hot damn.
He picked up the pace, dodging weary travelers pushing trolleys laden with luggage,
eventually catching up with her after they cleared security.
“Excuse me…” He’d planned on making some smart-ass remark when she turned. Instead,
he found himself surprisingly speechless as her eyes connected with his.
Pale, light blue, the color of a glacier he’d seen in New Zealand on a school trip
once. Pity her haughty expression matched the unusually striking color.
“Is there a problem?” She glanced at his arms, laden with sexy underthings, and her
eyes widened. “Whatever you’re selling, I’m not interested.”
“Pity. I think you’d look great in this.” He snagged a sheer crimson lace thong and
held it out on the tip of his forefinger. “Red’s definitely your color.”
To his surprise she blushed, before directing a death glare at him, the kind of stare
that could freeze a guy into hypothermia.
“Do I need to call security?”
“I don’t know. Do you?” He returned the thong to the pile in his arms. “Though I’d
prefer a one-on-one fashion parade rather than having an audience.”
Her lips thinned into an unimpressed line. “I’ve got a plane to catch.”
“Me, too. Which is why I’m done with my good deed for the day and am returning your
belongings.” Before she could reply he thrust the lingerie at her and she reacted
quickly, managing to catch the lot before they tumbled to the floor.
“These aren’t mine—”
“That’s what they all say.” He pointed at the small suitcase propped at her feet.
“Your zipper’s busted. You’ve been leaving lingerie all through LAX.”
She glanced down at her suitcase and groaned. “I’ll kill Zoe.”
Just his frigging luck, she had a girlfriend.
She studied the mass of purple, pink, ruby, and black underwear in her arms and wrinkled
her nose. “My friend’s idea of a joke, packing this stuff for my honeymoon.”
Worse luck, she was married.
Her gaze swung back to him. “Do you think you could give me a hand?”
He waited until a booming boarding call over the loudspeaker finished before responding.
“Helping you try them on? Absolutely.” He grinned, and for a moment the corners of
her mouth curved upward in response.
“I meant could you take a look at that zipper and see if it’s fixable.” She juggled
the lingerie in her arms. “Kinda got my hands full.”
“It’ll cost you,” he said, squatting to take a look at her case. Designer. With a
very handy name tag hanging off the handle.
Pity Allegra Wilks was married. She was just how he liked his women. Tall. Cool. Blond.
With a kick-ass Californian accent he found incredibly sexy.
“Cost me what?”
He fiddled with the zipper, unsnagged the silk lining caught in its steel teeth, and
stood. “A celebratory drink before we catch our respective planes.”
“What are we celebrating?”
He smirked. “Your wedding.”
And the fact that he’d managed not to kill Reeve, his business partner and former
best friend, for costing him the one thing that mattered most.
Maybe he’d reserve that pleasure for the prick if he ever surfaced from his hidey-hole
in the Caribbean. For now, he had the distinct urge to see how far he could push the
delightfully aloof Allegra.
“Wedding?” she parroted, staring at him like he’d lost his mind. “I’m not married.”
She looked away as she said it, and he wasn’t sure if he’d glimpsed regret, sadness,
or embarrassment before she did.
Maybe this was his lucky day after all.
“You said your friend packed for your honeymoon?” He gestured to her overflowing arms,
his mood taking a turn for the better.
“Not that it’s any of your business, but I didn’t have time to repack.” She squared
her shoulders and looked down her snooty nose. “I’m heading to Palm Bay without the
groom. No wedding. No honeymoon. No frigging happy ever after.” She gave him a thumbs-up.
“South Pacific, here I come, woo-hoo.”
He bit back a smile at her sarcasm.
Palm Bay? No way.
He should feel sorry for her. Or the poor schmuck she’d probably ditched before being
shackled to a proverbial ball and chain. Instead, his blood fizzed as he tried to
contain his elation.
He’d have a good eight hours on the flight to charm her into modeling some of that
lingerie when they arrived.
A guy could live in hope.
“You left him at the altar?”
“He left me,” she said, sounding surprisingly calm for a woman who’d been ditched.
“Dumb bastard,” he said, earning another lip quirk for his bluntness.
“Thanks. I think.” She tossed the lingerie into the open suitcase at her feet, zipped
it, and straightened to her impressive five nine. “And for fixing that.”
“Aren’t you going to thank me for saving your lingerie?”
She shrugged. “Considering I won’t be wearing any of it, I don’t care one way or the
other.”
He tsk-tsked. “Shame.”
She didn’t want to ask. He could see the silent battle she waged, curiosity with the
urge to tell him to piss off.
Thankfully, her curiosity won out. “Shame about what?”
“A gorgeous woman like you should wear sexy stuff all the time.” His gaze started
at her feet and swept slowly upward, noting her pearly pink nail polish, white capris,
turquoise peasant top, and matching pendant hanging from a white-gold choker.
He didn’t linger on the parts he wanted to, like the curve of her hip, her trim waist,
her C-cup cleavage. Plenty of time for that. When she was wearing nothing but the
sexy stuff.
Yeah, he was that confident. He had to be; otherwise he’d go frigging insane, thinking
about what he’d lost and what he faced when he returned home.
“And a bullshit artist like you should quit while he’s ahead,” she said, her expression
telling him she’d liked his compliment regardless.
A feisty one. Would be just the distraction he needed. “How about that drink?”
Her eyes narrowed to slits of ice. “I didn’t agree to it.”
“Hmm.” He tapped his temple, pretending to think. “Yet I fixed your zipper regardless.”
“Thanks,” she said, grabbing the suitcase handle so hard he wouldn’t be surprised
if the thing busted again. But he spied a fleeting glimmer in her eyes, a glimpse
of regret, almost sadness. And he could identify with that. The mess he’d left in
Sydney haunted him, probably as much as her being dumped before her wedding. Which
meant they shared an unexpected connection. Wouldn’t hurt to commiserate together.
He could do with a little up-close-and-personal consoling from someone like her.
He touched her arm. “Where I come from, it’s not polite to blow someone off after
they’ve done you a favor.”
It had been a flyaway comment but something unimaginable sparked in her eyes, something
akin to excitement when he’d said the word blow.
So the bust-up babe wasn’t as cool as she liked to pretend. He could work with that.
His cock twitched in agreement.
She rolled her eyes. “Let me guess. You use that Aussie accent to woo women along
with spin bull.”
“You don’t like my accent?”
A faint pink stained her cheeks as she glanced away. “I never said that.”
“Is it working?” He took a step closer, invading her personal space. “Are you wooed
yet?”
She snorted, but her mouth softened into a semi-smile. “It’d take a lot more than
a great accent and blatant charm to woo me into doing anything with you.”
“Anything?” He lowered his voice,
sotto voce
. “And here I was just hoping for a drink.”
He deliberately brushed his arm against hers, enjoying her slight flinch. Which meant
she felt the spark underlying their exchange as much as he did. “But I’m definitely
up for
anything
.”
He expected her to bristle. To shut off. To shoot him down with a cutting quip and
an aloof glare.
What he didn’t expect was the flare of heat in her steady gaze as she eyeballed him,
and the tip of her tongue to dart out and moisten her bottom lip, an innocuous action
that shot straight to his hard-on.
“I really do have a plane to catch—”
“You wouldn’t want to leave a guy alone when he’s down on his luck, would you?” He
sniffed and faked knuckling his eyes. “I could do with a shoulder to cry on and maybe
you could, too?”
He threw it out there, taking a chance by appealing to her bruised side. She had to
be a tad fragile after being dumped by a dickhead. And considering his flirting was
getting him nowhere, it wouldn’t hurt to change tack.
Besides, he could do with a little lighthearted repartee and sexy distraction before
landing in Palm Bay. The place where his future would be decided.
“What do you say?” He flashed his best smile as a sweetener, encouraged when he glimpsed
the corners of her mouth turning up slightly in response.
“Let’s start with that drink and see what else you can charm me into,” she said, giving
the suitcase handle an impatient jiggle as if she couldn’t wait.
“Lady, you’ve got yourself a deal.”
They were in for a long flight to Palm Bay and he had more than
charming
her on his mind.
…
While her lingerie savior followed up on a problem with his boarding pass, Allegra
entered the bar. She’d kill Zoe for packing that lingerie. She knew it was her best
friend’s idea of a joke, wanting to spice up Allegra’s honeymoon on Palm Bay. Ironic,
in twenty-four hours her wedding had been canceled, the honeymoon ditched, but a more
compelling reason for heading to Palm Bay had presented itself.
A reason that could make or break her business.
She’d had no intention of heading to Palm Bay, despite Flint’s insistence that she
should enjoy the trip. Her ex-fiancé had good intentions, but the last thing she felt
like doing after her aborted wedding was take a week in the sun. Until an hour after
they’d broken up, when a giant mother-effing cloud dumped on her and AW Advertising
had lost its biggest account.
She’d done everything for one of the largest farms in California, from a national
OJ campaign to a statewide billboard spread for its avocados along every highway.
Her entire company operated on the profits from the farm mob.
And now it was gone. In less than thirty seconds she’d gone from having a successful
yet modest advertising agency to being on the skids.
Which meant she needed to secure a new mega-client. A client like Kaluna Resorts,
currently seeking a new ad campaign, and her sole reason for heading to Palm Bay.
Kai Kaluna was legendary in the hotelier business. He bought small, secluded islands
and turned them into six-star luxury resorts for those lucky enough to afford it.
Lush hotels and villas frequented by rock stars, movie stars, and supermodels who
wanted to be pampered in complete privacy. She’d seen full-page ads for his resorts
in glossy travel magazines, had admired his concepts, and envied the ad agency responsible
for boosting his profile.
AW Advertising had to be that agency. He’d won awards across the globe for his stunning,
eco-friendly resorts, and running an advertising campaign for him would be worth millions.
Millions she now needed for her business to survive.
If she landed Kaluna, along with several new clients she’d pitched for two weeks ago,
her agency would be okay. The smaller clients would provide a much-needed cash injection
but it was Kaluna she had to land.
Allegra perched on a barstool, ordered a gin and tonic for her, a beer for the hottie,
and wondered what the hell she was doing.
Bad enough her reluctant groom had ditched her and business had taken a massive turn
for the worse. But now she’d agreed to have a drink with a stranger, something she
never did.
Allegra didn’t trust many people. She especially didn’t trust a slick charmer with
bad boy
tattooed all over his broad chest. He even wore the requisite bad-boy outfit: thigh-hugging
black denim, chest-skimming ebony T-shirt, and cowboy boots.
Though in all fairness it wasn’t his fault she had a thing for Alex O’Loughlin and
the hottie happened to bear a striking resemblance to the über-sexy Australian actor.
That mussed brown hair, unusual green eyes, and day-old stubble did it for her in
a big way. Along with the lean, hard bod, the ripped abs, the firm ass…she squirmed.
Throw in the easy-on-the-ears Aussie drawl, and how could she say no?
Besides, this was only one drink before she boarded a plane for a week of stress-filled
strategizing to nail the pitch of her life.
Plan A, where she married Hollywood producer Flint Dunbar, gained notoriety for her
advertising agency, and marketed some of the biggest films in Tinseltown? Gone.
While she lamented the loss of a professional boost, she was secretly relieved that
Flint had called off their wedding. Theirs had been a business merger rather than
a great love affair. Hell, she’d known Flint for most of her life, given that her
socialite parents moved in influential LA circles and Flint was her dad’s best friend.
When Flint hinted at needing a wife to boost his profile and cement his position in
Hollywood, Allegra had done what she did best. Help.
