Serena Bell - Still So Hot!

“If the circumstances were different, I’d love to get to know you better. Take our time. But this is just—” His gesture encompassed the three of them, the cab, the whole island. The paved road gave way to something bumpier, narrower and altogether less civilized. “This is bad juju. You’re better off letting Elisa show you the ropes. There’s a whole island waiting for you out there, and loads of men who are nicer than I am. Take my word for it.”

Had every woman he’d slept with and dumped gotten this speech? Elisa should be thankful she’d been spared. Maybe walking away from their friendship had been the smartest move she could make. It certainly seemed like genius now.

Celine shifted uncomfortably. Elisa had never realized exactly how small a Jeep could feel. Though—as another car sped by and nearly took off the side of their vehicle—not small enough.

He hadn’t left Celine any wiggle room. It was kind of brilliant, if you admired it coldly from the outside. What could Celine say, really?

Huh.

Then Elisa knew. Ha! Perfect answer. Not that she could convey it to Celine in the confines of the cab—no way to do that discreetly.

What Celine should say was Actually? Nice isn’t my thing.

Of course, if she did say that—and in a tone of voice pitched somewhere between matter-of-fact and mildly suggestive—Elisa would have to throw herself out of the moving cab, because at that point she wouldn’t be the ref in a boxing match, she’d be a dry log caught in the middle of a conflagration. Because that comeback would definitely catch Brett on fire. She couldn’t have said how she knew it, but she knew dirty talk was one of his buttons.

Sometimes, during their friendship, she’d heard come-ons and rejoinders in her head—naughty, flirty words, a hard pressure behind her tongue. Sometimes she’d wished she were a little drunker so she could let them slip out and pretend they were a mistake. She’d wanted to watch the heat rise, see the flare of lust in his eyes. Then she could have let her gaze drop to measure how much her words had affected him.

But always the next morning she’d been glad she hadn’t. And by evening she’d been gloriously thankful, as she watched him make yet another conquest, the starting gun for one more twenty-four-hour relationship.

For all those years, she’d been so careful, knowing that if she ever said the words that popped into her head, if she’d pushed the buttons, if she’d unleashed the heat she sensed in him, she’d only have become another twenty-four-hour girl.

And then that night, the night he’d kissed her, she’d let down her guard. She’d felt the precipice, and she’d hurled herself off it. And she’d gotten exactly what she’d known she would. He’d made her into yet another conquest. Only she hadn’t even lasted twenty-four hours. More like twenty-four minutes, if that.

Beside her, Celine sighed. She lowered her head, stared out the window and said, “Yeah. Okay.”

Elisa risked a glance at Brett. There was a small smile, something like triumph, on his face. And behind Elisa’s tongue, desire that she bit back and swallowed.

5

BRETT SHADED HIS eyes with his hand. Nice scenery. Lush foliage and big tropical flowers and a horizon pool, built to look as if the water went straight on forever. The pool was the same blue as the cloudless sky.

The air was warm but not oppressively hot, and a light breeze blew now and again. He was glad there were some wispy clouds in the sky—otherwise, he wouldn’t believe the scene was real. The resort was unbelievable—gorgeous rooms with white linens, flowers on the credenza and an orchid on the pillow. Thick plush towels in stacks in the bathroom and a white bathrobe behind the door. Flowers and palms and secluded little alcoves with marble benches. And an army of people employed to keep him happy. He’d just have to keep his mind off the tab and enjoy it as long as he could. Until Elisa ousted him from paradise.

Oh, yeah, and then there was the other scenery—a veritable army of bikini-clad women lying on chaises, sipping drinks, lounging on the steps in the shallow water. His mouth was dry, and he wasn’t sure if it was the visuals or the fact that a G&T would be perfect right about now. All he’d have to do to get a drink was to flag down one of the many poolside waiters with trays on their hands and towels over their arms.

Because Elisa had said they should continue this half-assed charade, Celine had come down to the pool with him and was asleep face down on the chaise beside him, her cheek probably imprinted by now with the texture of the chair. He cast a wary glance in her direction. He’d promised to wake her if she slept too long so she could put on more sunscreen. “Celine.”

She didn’t move.

“Celine?”

He sighed. He didn’t want to be responsible for burning America’s newest sweetheart to a crisp. But he didn’t want to wake a sleeping lionness, either. She’d been angry since his rejection in the cab.

Now she looked like a little kid, her mouth slightly open, her smooth, unlined face even more youthful in repose. She was definitely a wakeup call to him. Even though she was just five years younger than he and Elisa, she came across as far more naive.

He’d discovered there was a limit to how far even he would go, and picking up a twenty-two-year-old newbie TV star in a drugstore and following her to the Caribbean had showed him a set of lines he no longer wanted to cross. He’d had to ignore warning sirens in his brain to get himself here, and he wouldn’t do that again. So the scenery might be lovely at this swimming pool, but until further notice, his policy was look but don’t touch.

He was staring at one of the sunbathers when he discovered that she was Elisa. He hadn’t done it with any kind of conscious thought; he’d just let his eyes drift until his attention had been snagged by a woman’s golden limbs and reddish hair. It was always long legs and auburn hair that felled him. He would daydream, notice a woman and then realize he’d been half hoping it was Elisa. Only in this case it was, and instead of his heart sinking with disappointment, he felt a small hopeful glow in the center of his chest. She looked up just then, caught his eye and waved.

Damn it, he didn’t like to be found staring. Men should avoid that at all costs. There was a fine art to scoping. You never let a woman see the top of your head or wonder where your eyes had been. A close outside observer might be able to read your mind, but the recipient of the gaze should never discover that it was directed at her unless you wanted her to. And he didn’t want Elisa to know. Not by a long shot.

She’d gotten up from the lounger and was headed in his direction. Her long strides ate up the pebbled surface of the pool deck.

“Hey,” she said.

She wore what should have probably been the dullest, drabbest bathing suit on earth. It was chocolate brown, with wide straps and a high heart-shaped neckline that curved over the tops of her breasts, and it was almost straight across the bottom, like high-cut shorts instead of a bathing suit triangle. But it wasn’t drab on Elisa. The brown set off her eyes, and made the strands of red and gold in her hair stand out, and the cut of the suit—whatever the girly fashion name for it would be— reminded him of a ’40s movie star and was somehow sexier for not trying to be flashy.

It looked like it would be a bitch to get her out of, but the finest pleasure, too. Like peeling fruit, exposing bare, round, luscious bits of her.

Now his mouth was really dry. “Hey.”

She looked uncomfortable, her eyes not meeting his. “Is she—?”

“She’s asleep.”

Elisa knelt at the side of Celine’s chaise, then nodded to confirm Brett’s diagnosis. He made a superhuman effort not to stare at the neckline of Elisa’s suit and the mouthwatering body it outlined. He tried to forget he knew the exact curve and weight of her, the way her lips parted when he touched her just right. Those sounds she made.