Anne Marsh - Pleasing Her Seal

—MADDIE, Kiss and Tulle

THERE NEEDED TO be a fourth, hidden option for people who wanted to increase their odds of hooking up because Maddie wasn’t an A, B or C girl. Her generous coating of SPF-100 sunscreen—thanks, Mom, for the redheaded gene—and a blue-and-white-checked retro two-piece definitely didn’t fall into the string-bikini category, although the buttons marching down her hips were a sassy touch she loved. She also appreciated her curves, even if they didn’t always fit into a standard-issue bikini. There was a whole lot of her recently thanks to a post-layoff diet of wedding cake and favors. She needed to plan on buying new clothes or minimizing the sweets.

A mental image of Mason popped into her head. He’d be anything but sweet. Bad girl. Maybe she’d been single long enough to recover from her last disastrous relationship or maybe it was something about Fantasy Island itself, because the resort certainly encouraged her erotic daydreams with their hunky help. She’d posted about her hot man on a hillside early this morning. If she couldn’t get an orgasm from him, she’d at least get a blog post. So far, the yeas outnumbered the nays two to one in her “Would you have hot vacation sex?” poll.

Since it was the low season, Fantasy Island didn’t have many guests at the moment. There had only been two other women on the seaplane that had brought her here. Laney Parker had been using up her honeymoon reservation after her fiancé had ditched her, and Ashley Dixon had won a free getaway in some sort of Facebook contest. The low occupancy was undoubtedly the reason why Fantasy Island’s owners had been willing to fly her here free so she could blog about their awesome resort offerings.

This was her big break. If Fantasy Island bought banner advertising on her blog, she’d be able to keep the lights on in her condo for at least six more months...and having one high-profile client would attract others. Business was like dating. The more popular a girl was, the more guys lined up to buy her drinks and share their contact info. So far, her blog had been a wallflower, but she was determined that those lonely days were over.

And writing about the pool scene was certainly no hardship. The pool itself was all sleek curves. Private cabanas offered guests superb views of the sea, and staff moved discreetly among the loungers, offering fruit kebobs and Evian water spritzes. Ashley waved from a cabana. She wore an electric-pink string bikini and held a paperback that almost outweighed her.

Ashley shoved her sunglasses up on top of her head. “Are you here for the cooking lesson?”

Not intentionally, but it sounded like fun, particularly if it came with a side of Mason. She dropped onto the cushion beside Ashley, taking care not to slosh the mango margarita she’d acquired at the bar.

“I could be,” she agreed. “I like free food.”

Ashley nodded. “We’re making mango-raspberry crepes with honeyed goat cheese.”

Yeah, that sounded pretty good. “I’m in,” she decided.

And then, wouldn’t you know it, Mason strode toward the pool, and he was the cherry on the sundae. He wore black linen plants that clung to his muscular thighs as he moved. Instead of looking silly in the white chef’s jacket and hat, he looked in control. Confident. He’d rolled his sleeves up, revealing powerful forearms. She was almost certain she was holding her breath, damn it. He was just one guy. One really hot, supersexy guy. His dark gaze slid over her, stopped, and he nodded. She had no idea what that meant. Hi? Glad to see you? Wait, there’s the woman I almost knocked over a cliff? The man should come with a secret decoder ring.

Ashley sat up cross-legged and closed her paperback. “Do you think we have to cook in order to eat?”

Maddie would bet the answer to that was yes. Mason wasn’t the kind of guy you took advantage of, and while she hadn’t asked his policy on free lunches when they’d run into each other at the lookout yesterday, she could certainly venture a guess. While she stared, Mason started dicing mango with easy confidence. She was all thumbs when it came to knives. Mason...was not.

“He’s going to make us work for it,” she said with a petulant frown.

Ashley sighed. “You think he’s a hard-ass about everything?”

“Probably.” If she took her friend’s words at face value, she had to admit that the man certainly had an amazing butt.

“Remember the drinks menu,” Ashley said impishly. “You could take him for a test drive.”

The rumored drinks menu, she reminded herself. The menu existed. She’d spent far too much time flipping through the twelve laminated pages of drinks with sexy names like Leather and Lace and Kinky Sex. The question, however, was whether those drink names were really not-so-covert code names for naughty sex acts that could be requested from the staff or other guests. Laney Parker had certainly made a good case for the menu being fact rather than fiction. She’d hooked up with the resort’s super-sexy masseuse and, from her blushes, done some menu exploring with him. It was too bad the other woman had been unexpectedly called home when a new job had opened up for her at a local emergency room, because Maddie had questions. Like, could you really just point and pick? For some reason, the notion felt kind of slimy. “Do you really think Mason’s available for that?”

Ashley shrugged. “Ask him.”

“A guy who looks like that isn’t available.” Not in her universe and not with her dating bad luck.

Ashley ogled Mason. “Are you offering him to me?”

No. She really wasn’t. “He’s off-limits,” she blurted, surprising herself. She hadn’t decided yet if she was going for him, but she knew she didn’t want to watch Ashley making a move on her chef.

“He’s all yours,” Ashley said, looking at her over the top of her sunglasses. “But you have to tell me what you’re planning for him.”

“He may not be interested,” she warned.

“Oh, he’s interested.” Ashley grinned and, although they both knew she had no way of being certain about Mason’s interest, Maddie appreciated the support.

Maddie didn’t want to explain how many times she’d met a guy and gone after him, only to learn that he thought of her as the fun friend. At the last wedding she’d attended, the usher she’d been paired with had spent the evening reception hitting her up for the maid of honor’s phone number. His patent disinterest in her own charms had rankled, too, because she’d thought they had good chemistry. Clearly, her dating radar was broken.

“Remember,” she said lightly. “I’m always the bridesmaid and never the bride.”

“How many times?”

It took a minute to do the math. “Thirteen. And gig number fourteen is coming up in a month. I have enough bridesmaid dresses in my closet to open my own bridal shop.”

Ashley made a sympathetic face. “You think they’d notice if you recycled and wore one more than once?”

“They’d notice,” she said with feeling. She’d dealt with more than one bridezilla.

Ashley nodded. “So. What’s the plan?”

She didn’t have one.

“Pick a drink,” her friend advised. “Imagine the possibilities. I’ll get you started. Dirty Girl Scout. Sex on the Farm. Sexy Alligator.”

“You made that one up.”

“Right here on the menu.” Ashley stabbed the plastic with her finger.

“Alligators aren’t sexy,” she protested. And sex on a farm didn’t sound particularly exciting, either. She was more of a sex-on-a-yacht-with-a-billionaire type of gal.

Ashley shrugged unrepentantly. “Imagine Mason’s face if you asked for that. You could get him to do anything.”

They both turned to stare at him. Nope. Imagining that was even harder than finding the sexy in an alligator. Ashley wasn’t deterred.