Wishful Sinful (Rock Royalty Book 5) (14 page)

He fucking wanted her.

“What do you think?” he said, almost growling.

Her breath caught. She knew exactly what he was asking about, he decided. He watched her throat move as she swallowed.

“Walsh,” she said, her voice hoarse at the edges. “I think this might be a mistake.”

“Have you ever seen
Scent of a Woman
?”

She shook her head. “Not me. I know you and your brothers were crazy for movies when you were kids.”

“Oh, yeah. Anything to get away from the noise of the Lemons’ parties.” Until later, when they became enthusiastic participants themselves. “There’s a line about the tango… To paraphrase, Al Pacino says it’s okay to make mistakes. If you get tangled—”

“You tango on,” a new voice interjected.

The interruption had Honey breaking from his hold.

“Dayna!” she shifted to greet the other woman. “I…uh…I…”

“You’re quite the dancer.” Her friend grinned. “Are you ready to hit the buffet line with me?”

Walsh supposed he should be grateful for the reprieve as Honey mumbled something to him then sped away with her friend, sending one fleeting, uncertain glance over her beautiful shoulder. He’d told himself he wasn’t going to give in to this impulse tonight. For years he’d resisted, aware that bedding his admin could only bring trouble.

Except a little voice whispered in his hear,
She isn’t your admin when she dresses like that, dances like that, laughs and smiles and presses against you like that.

Shaking his head, he tried putting the temptation out of his mind. As the evening wore on, he visited the buffet and found a seat with some others from the consortium. He watched the last glimmers of daylight slip away and the stars punch through the dark fabric of the night sky.

It was a festive atmosphere on the terrace, the band playing more ballroom dance tunes interspersed with party songs that caused the crowd to gyrate and bounce together without designated partners. Sprawled in a chair, Walsh watched the action. Honey flitted in and out of his vision, the low lights delineating the dance floor catching the satiny flesh of her bare legs, the swirling hem of her blue dress, the dash of glitter on her cheekbones.

The velvety night felt like its own kind of bubble. Laughter and music and tropical breezes―and the hypnotic sound of the surf―lulled him into a different existence. None of this seemed real…or at least not like real life back in L.A. Maybe he’d slipped into an alternate universe, he mused, in which his assistant wasn’t his assistant, but instead this beautiful woman who pulled at him with a tidal force.

It was beginning to feel inevitable—the two of them driven to become entwined by a power stronger than their individual wills.

The idea should scare the shit out of him, since for years he’d been determined that his intellect would be the decision-maker in his life…not untamed emotion, and definitely not his cock.

Blame it on the bubble.

A loud cheer let him know that a new activity was beginning on the beach just outside the terrace. Flood lights illuminated the area, and the resort guests began gathering in a loose circle. He stood to get a better look and watched two of the dance instructors carry out a pair of shoulder-high stands spiked with pegs every few inches. They were settled into the sand five feet apart. Then the third instructor balanced a light wooden pole across the very top, and yelled, “Line up!”

The band swung into a jaunty tune, the leader took up the mic and began singing “Limbo Rock.” With a cheer, the party-mood crowd began queuing up. In the middle of the pack he spied Honey, wearing a huge grin.

It made him smile just to look at it.

Everything about her was infectious. Her eager expression, the way her body swayed to the music, the laugh he swore he could pick out from among the general revelry. Walsh found himself pushing through the onlookers so he had a front-row view of the action. About thirty people began the competition, bending backward and boogeying beneath the pole. But on the third round, they began dropping…literally. Instead of clearing the height, they either knocked off the pole with their head or shoulder, or they stumbled, landing on their butts in the sand.

Honey had another successful run, though, and she jogged to the back of the line, a triumphant fist in the air.

Her exuberance had caught the eye of others surrounding Walsh. He saw a couple of young men elbow each other and point. His glower seemed to unsettle them.

One muttered “More beer,” to the other, and then they sidled off.

Honey was drinking freely as well. After each successful pass, the dancers were rewarded with a shot glass full of something…tequila, he figured. It made him draw closer. If she became dizzy and fell, he could scoop her up.

The competition turned fiercer. Dayna overbalanced and collapsed in a heap. A tall man with a spine of elastic finally bumped the pole from the stands with his forehead.

Finally, only two contestants remained―Honey, and a short, slender man. He prepared for his next bid by turning to her and raising both hands for her double palm slap. The crowd went wild as he turned to dance forward. Arms out to the side, shoulders curving backward until they nearly touched the sand, he took short, stuttering steps, his knees bending farther with each one.

Applause and whistles followed as he cleared the new low without a body part touching. The horizontal pole didn’t even wobble.

It was Honey’s turn. She made a big show of examining the situation, walking around the set-up like a golfer lining up a putt. The onlookers ate it up, and Walsh smiled, unaware before now of this theatrical side of her.

She really was a different woman from the admin he met in the office every day.

Then she returned to the starting point for her attempt. The song had ceased, the only instrument now being played was a set of bongo drums that beat out a primitive tattoo. The surrounding darkness, the smell of booze, and the drugging sound of that rhythm transported him back to those endless Velvet Lemons parties.

Ultimately he’d realized how debauched they were, but for a time he’d enjoyed their hedonism—and willingly participated. It had been a long while since he felt that young and lustful and carefree—not a boss with the livelihood of dozens depending upon him. So he watched Honey as he might have then, with avid eyes and a hardening cock, allowing the twitch of her hips to stoke his hunger.

She approached the bar, her feet set apart to maintain her balance as she lowered her shoulders. Nearly to the pole, she froze, then began to back off with a little shake of her head.

“Need a new approach,” he heard her say, and she returned to her starting place.

Amused by her antics, Walsh positioned himself directly opposite her, on the far side of the bar. With a deep breath, she began again, shimmying and stepping, her back nearly parallel to the sand as she edged forward. Her feet, her knees, and her hips cleared. Success meant achieving a still-lower profile, and she widened her stance and let her shoulders sink.

Unsure if she’d make it, Walsh crouched to get a better view of the inches between her body and the bar.

Instead, he got a different and unexpected kind of eyeful.

He shot straight up and leaped for her. Swooping in, he bundled her into his arms, his aggressive action knocking the pole off the stands. The audience took it as part of the show, apparently, because as he strode off down the beach there was more laughter and applause.

“Hey!” She glared at him, though it was a little unfocused. Tequila, he supposed “What was that about?” she demanded.

“I was preventing the spectacle you were about to make of yourself.” Had she bent an inch lower, the hem of her skirt would have ridden two inches higher, and then everyone…

“Spectacle?” Her bottom lip pushed out in a pout…so out of character.

And absolutely fucking adorable to him. Christ, he was a goner.

“What spectacle?”

“Have you forgotten, maybe,” he asked, “what you aren’t wearing beneath that dress?”

Her eyes went round, and her hand flew to her mouth.

“That’s not what you should be covering up,” he said drily.

“Oh my God,” she said. “You saved me.”

Damn right. Nobody was going to see that sweet, naked pussy this weekend but him.

The stars and the moon were spinning overhead as Walsh carried her down the beach. Honey took her hand from her mouth and put it to her temple. “Dizzy.”

“I’ll bet.” In an adroit move, he dropped to the sand, placing her there between his bent legs. The grains were cool and tickled the back of her thighs. Luckily the hem of her dress hadn’t ridden up because then she’d feel the tickle somewhere else entirely. She stifled an embarrassed groan.

“Sober up a little, and then I’ll take you back.”

She glanced around, noticing they were forty yards down the beach from the limbo crowd. The limbo crowd she’d nearly flashed.
Eeek.

“I owe you.” Her tone was fervent. “I really owe you.”

“Yeah, you do,” he said, bending his head so his mouth was against the side of her hair. “And I have an idea for just how you can pay me back.”

Honey froze…well, her muscles did, while the inside of her flamed hot.

Was that…? Did he just…?
Swallowing hard, she tried to lubricate her voice. “Um…”

An arm circled her waist, and he snugged her back against his chest. She melted into him, her body knowing what it wanted. Tequila, she decided, must have shattered her inhibitions and dulled her intellect.

“Um…” she said again.

His laugh was soft…and very unlike a sound the boss she knew would make. There was an indulgent tenderness to the sound, and it did something to her midsection. And to her heart.

Oh yeah, and between her legs, too.

“What’s happening here?” she whispered.

“Only what you want.”

That wasn’t much help, because she wanted too much. For years, she’d wanted
him
. To glance up at his face, she needed to rest her head in the cup of his broad shoulder.

“I think I need some guidelines. Boundaries. Rules.”

“I’ve got those.”

Always so certain. “You do?”

“Oh yeah.” His lips traveled from her temple to her ear.

She shivered.

“Bubble,” he whispered and with the word his lips kissed her twice. “While we’re here, nothing from our other life intrudes. We’re just a man and a woman. Not who and what we are beyond that in L.A.”

She half-turned. His eyes were pools of darkness, the angles of his masculine face edged in moonlight. Beautiful. And she could have this, him, until they returned? Is that what he meant?

“We’re talking about what I think we’re talking about, right?”

“I’m suggesting we address the attraction between us instead of continuing to try to ignore it and continuing to fail. Instead, we’ll do something…physical to manage it.”

Honey felt faint at the possibilities. “Physical?” she repeated.

His smile gleamed. “You know, engage in intimate events,” he said, mimicking her euphemism from earlier in the evening.

When she’d thought she might have sex with some other man. Now, it seemed, she was being offered sex with
this
man. “But how?”

He laughed again. “Leave that part to me.”

“I mean, how will we make this work? We’re still…” She didn’t want to lay out their true roles, not in the moonlight, not on this beach with its warm breeze and the soft sound of the waves.

“Bubble, remember? What happens here, stays here.”

Like Vegas
, she thought.

And the idea that they could do this, have this, without any repercussions was a promise as dazzling as city lights in the middle of a desert. It was the concern about consequences that had stopped her before, and now he promised her there wouldn’t be any. They could act on the…the allure it seemed they had for each other, and that would diminish its force.

“So after, when we return to home…we go back to the way things were?”

“Absolutely,” he said, and before she could speak again, his mouth possessed hers.

Her head spun as she opened her lips for his tongue. He didn’t hold anything back, his mouth consuming hers. Once again, her body flared with heat, and she put her hand on his jaw, feeling the scratch of his whiskers over the hard bone.

Shivering, she turned to shift closer, and his hand tangled in the back of her hair as she sat with her legs folded under her, his body surrounding hers. His long fingers caged her skull, and he tilted her head, the new slant of their mouths allowing a deeper kiss.

Her hand fisted in the side of his shirt as he began a dominant thrust and retreat with his tongue. Her insides felt shaky, like the first day of school combined with the anticipation of a rollercoaster ride. When he tore his mouth away she sucked in a breath, then gasped as he nipped at her chin before running his lips down her neck.

Goose bumps rose all over her body although she felt like fire consumed it. She let her head fall back to give him access, and he rubbed his nose against her skin.

“After Mexico, you can never wear this perfume again.”

Her nipples beaded at the rough tone. “Is that so?”

“Hmm.” His teeth edged the rim of her ear, and she squirmed, excited by the tiny threat of pain. “This is the scent of you here, in this place.”

He cradled her face in his big palms. Looked down at her, unsmiling. The moonlight silvered his dark hair, making him appear even more serious. “Do you understand?”

Yes, yes. She flattened her other hand on his chest. Everything about here would remain here. His kisses, the feel of his heart thudding against her skin, the way her perfume smelled when it was heated by sexual excitement. She shivered again.

His hold on her gentled. “Are you afraid?”

Of him, never. Of what she might feel later…more than a little. Would having him for a few days truly eliminate her desire for this man? But she wasn’t about to allow her doubts to call a halt to this. This was their bubble, Vegas, a time to themselves. Her one chance.

Be sure to see the monkeys.