Private Pleasures Read online

  And it helped that the attorney on the other side was almost as skilled as she was. What was the point if it wasn't a challenge?

  Wendy adding a change to the contract, smiling a little as she discovered a place where the other side had left an opening for her to negotiate better royalty terms for her client.

  Something dropped with a thud unto the table in front of her. Wendy jumped and gave a little cry, then swore as she realized she'd accidentally deleted half of her comment. She looked up to see Drew standing over her, a grin playing at the edges of his full mouth. He was still dressed in his board shorts and nothing else, and his hair looked a little damp like he'd just been swimming.

  "You scared the hell out of me," she snapped, doing her best to ignore the way her stomach did a little back flip and her heart started to pound as she reentered the change into her document. She looked back up at him. "Was there something you wanted, because I really need to get through this."

  "Was there something I wanted?" Drew lifted a big hand to his chin and rubbed it as though deep in thought. "Now there's a loaded question."

  God, as lines went, it wasn't even that great, but Wendy felt her temperature go up about ten degrees as she thought about what might be going through his head at that very moment.

  "But that can wait until later. Right now we're going snorkeling."

  He gestured with his hand to the table. She peeked over the screen of her laptop and saw a mask with a snorkel attached along with a pair of flippers, which had made the loud thump.

  "I don't have time, I have to finish this. What the—" She squawked as Drew leaned over and reached for her computer. Before she could stop him he made a couple quick keystrokes and closed the laptop. "What do you thing you're doing? I was working on that—"

  "And I saved your work. Come on, you've been at it for two hours already. You can take a little break."

  "I don't have time. You said yourself you know how complicated this deal is—"

  "And you only have two more pages to get through."

  Wendy wondered how he could see that when he'd only looked at the screen for half a second. Then again, who was she kidding. Drew didn't miss a damn thing about anything.

  "And you have nine hours on a plane coming up and don't tell me you'll spend that time reading a book."

  "I need to send the changes by end of business today."

  Drew looked at his watch. "And with the time difference, that gives you four hours to go through two more pages including the signature page and send an email. Come on, I discovered a great reef right off the beach on the other side of the island. Surely a half hour snorkel isn't going to make or break it for you."

  Oh, please, she thought. As though there was any chance she'd go off with him and only be gone a half an hour. And do nothing but snorkel.

  "It's not as good as the yacht trip, but there’s some beautiful coral and lots of fish. You've never snorkeled before. You can't come all the way down here and not go. I work harder than anyone I know, and the idea of that personally offends me."

  Wendy felt the sweat bead on her lip as she thought of swimming all the way out to the reef, where there was no way she'd be able to touch the bottom. She took off her sunglasses and looked past him out to the water. "I don't know, doesn't it look a little rough for snorkeling?”

  Drew glanced behind him at the glass smooth surface, then back at her, a puzzled look on his face. Then he pinned her with a shrewd stare like he could see right through her. "You're scared," he said, no mockery, no shock, just matter of fact.

  "No I'm not," she said, too quickly.

  "You're lying."

  "No I'm not!" she said again. "I'm not scared of snorkeling, I just don't think it's worth going out if it's going to be rough, and we won't be able to see anything."

  "You are lying. I can tell because your eye is twitching."

  Shit. When had he picked up on that? Only two people outside her family had ever noticed the correlation. "Fine! I'm afraid!"

  "You don't know how to swim."

  "Of course I know how to swim," she snapped. "I was on the swim team in high school."

  Drew cocked an eyebrow and motioned for her to continue.

  "It's not the swimming or the water, it's being in the deep ocean—"

  "The water doesn't get really deep here for several hundred yards off shore."

  She put her hand up to silence him. "When I say deep water, I mean any place I can't touch. When I was fourteen I fell off a friend's boat when we were sailing off the coast of New York. I was only in the water for about ten minutes, but I freaked out at the feeling of being stuck there, so far from shore, unable to see anything around me." She gave a little shudder at the memory.

  She met his gaze, defiant, expecting to see scorn in his eyes that she could let such a comparatively minor incident contribute to a lifelong fear. Instead, all she saw was understanding.

  "How about we see if we can get you over your fear."

  "Really Drew, I don't think you're the one to help me overcome my phobias."

  "You think you can't do it?"

  The cocky challenge in his voice pushed a button she should have ignored, but instead she found herself saying, "Of course I can. Give me a few minutes to wrap this up, and then I'm going to snorkel my ass off."

  "Fine," he said with a laugh. Even Wendy had to laugh at her stupid comment. "And I promise you there will be special bonuses the longer you stay in the water."

  The look in his eyes told her exactly what kind of bonuses he had in mind, and the shimmer of heat dulled the edge of nervousness.

  She felt a little curl in her stomach, reminding her that this did not fit into the boundaries she'd put in place for herself with him. One night. That's all she'd permitted herself. But really, why be so strict, a sly little voice argued. She was a lawyer, after all. Wasn't that her job, to find the wiggleroom available in whatever agreement had been made? Even if that agreement was only with herself?

  What was the harm, she thought, as her eyes ran hungrily over the muscled expanse of his chest, in loosening the restrictions she'd put on herself.

  Just while she was here. Holley Cay wasn't like real life anyway, with its perfect beach and bathwater warm ocean providing ample opportunities for Drew to flaunt every inch of his nearly perfect body.

  Once she got back to San Francisco, she promised herself, making a mental amendment to her own personal contract, it would be much easier to ignore temptation. Real life in the form of work and schedules—not to mention more clothes—would keep her from doing something as stupid as continuing to sleep with Drew.

  But while in paradise.... Game on.

  "Fine." He settled himself into one of the chairs next to her.

  "You know, I'll really get it done quicker if you're not here."

  Drew pulled out his phone. "I have two hundred emails in my inbox. That should keep me plenty busy while you wrap things up."

  She stifled a frustrated sigh. She knew how this went - several boyfriends in the past had wanted to "just be in the same room" while she was working, claiming they had their own work to do, that she wouldn't even realize they were there.

  That lasted for about five minutes, and then came the questions, the little interruptions, the exaggerated laughter at an email. In her experience, most men were like little kids. As soon as her attention wasn't focused a hundred percent on them, they started to act out.

  But Drew had settled in and clearly wasn't moving. She might not have spent a lot of time with Drew in the past five years, but she didn't need to know him well to realize that trying to change his mind was like arguing with a rock.

  She opened her laptop back up and went back to the document, determined to get through as much as she could before Drew's patience wore out.

  To her surprise, five, ten, then fifteen minutes passed, and he didn't utter a word other than to ask the waitress for a beer when she came by. When Wendy glanced at him over the top of her screen, it wa
s to find him totally focused, his brow slightly furrowed as he used his thumb to scroll through his messages.

  It was nice, she realized, working next to someone who was as focused on his work as she was. For once, she didn't have that nagging feeling in the back of her mind, the voice screaming at her to hurry up, finish up because someone was waiting on her to go have fun.

  And being able to look up and see that face, with its full lips and hard, chiseled jaw… Her nights working at home at her kitchen table wouldn't feel nearly so pathetic if she had Drew sitting across from her, working away. Ready to pull her into the bedroom as soon as she gave him an opening….

  She shook the thought right out of her head. There was no scenario in which Drew would end up at her apartment, working or otherwise.

  "What?" Drew looked up then as though he'd felt her gaze. "You look disturbed."

  Yes, by how much I'm enjoying fantasies of sharing mundane, day–to-day tasks with you. "No, just got caught up in a particularly convoluted clause." She did one last read through of the contract to double check her notes, composed an email to the general counsel of the company her firm represented, and hit send.

  She powered off her laptop and closed the screen. "I guess I'm ready then," she said, unable to keep the dread out of her voice.

  Drew tucked his phone back into the front pocket of his shorts. "Good. So am I," he said, flashing her a smile. There was a quivering low in her belly at the innuendo. She slipped her laptop bag into her bag. "I should go drop this in my room—"

  "Leave it at my place," he interrupted as he gathered up the mask and fins from the table. "We're going to swim from there anyway."

  As if he was going to let her set foot out of the villa once she set foot inside. As game as she'd been to try to conquer her fear of the sea, she felt relief swell in her chest.

  But if he wanted to pretend this was going to be a perfectly innocent snorkeling outing, Wendy would play along.

  ###

  "Here," Drew said, tossing a bottle of sunscreen in Wendy's direction. "It's SPF 70."

  "Wait, we're really going to snorkel now?"

  Drew couldn't hide his smile at the bemused look on her face as she realized that despite having lured her back to his room, he really wasn't going to jump her bones.

  Not yet anyway.

  "What did you think we were going to do?" he teased, his tone full of mock confusion.

  She gave him an arch look but couldn't stop the rush of pink from staining her cheeks. Drew's cock stirred from half hard to full on as he remembered the way that blush spread all over her body when she came.

  He bent and gave her a slow, wet kiss, his resistance pushed to the breaking point as she eagerly parted her lips and came up on tiptoe to press herself fully against him. "I'm not letting you get out of it so easily," he murmured, gave her luscious bottom lip a little nip. "Trust me, it really is beautiful out there."

  Mentally he gave himself a little shake. She was here, dressed in nothing but a bikini covered by that nothing of a cover up, clearly as ready as he to have a repeat performance of last night. And for God only knew what reason he was determined to send her back outside so they could swim around and look at fishes.

  Maybe it was the tight look of vulnerability on her face when she'd admitted her fear.

  Maybe because he realized that for all her confidence and seeming unflappable demeanor, her broken engagement had her feeling bruised. Like she was somehow inadequate and deserved to be punished because she'd worked really hard to get where she was and wasn't content to stay where she was just because she was going to share her life with someone else. And in some convoluted way maybe conquering this long standing fear would help her recover some of the confidence she'd lost.

  Or maybe—probably—it was because he liked the idea of swimming next to her in the warm, clear water while she wore next to nothing. In any case, as bad as he wanted to fuck her again he was content to delay it a bit if it meant she got a few moments of enjoyment out of one of the most beautiful spots in the world.

  Still, his resolve was sorely tested when she slipped off her filmy cover up and began rubbing sunscreen into her skin. His mouth went dry as she revealed the tiny orange bikini, just four little triangles of fabric held together by narrow bits of string that kept her from being completely naked to his gaze.

  Then she handed him the bottle, presented her back and lifted her hair off her neck. "Can you get my back?" she asked. Her voice was a little breathy, and as he smoothed the lotion on her back all he could think was how easy it would be to untie the knots at her neck, back, and at each hip....

  Sweat filmed his body as he rubbed the lotion into her skin in long, slow strokes, the smell of coconut melding with the scent of her skin and threatening to drive him insane. Over her shoulders, down the groove of her spine to where it disappeared beneath the bikini bottom. Drew had never paid particular attention to a woman's back—he was usually to busy focused lips, breasts, legs, ass—the basics.

  But Wendy's fascinated him, the smooth pale skin, the slender line that flared out at her perfectly rounded hips. He would love to fuck her from behind, hold her hips as she arched and twisted underneath him.

  "You want me to do you now?"

  Hell, yes. She turned and grabbed the sunscreen from his nerveless fingers, snapping him out of his reverie. "What?"

  "Your back? You want me to put sunscreen on you?"

  "Not if you want to make it out the door any time soon." Before she could say anything he jogged back to the bedroom and grabbed a swim shirt to protect him from the sun. He didn't pause as he walked past her out the sliding glass doors that led to the beach, gathering up the snorkeling gear as he went. He hoped the temperature of the Caribbean had dropped a dozen or so degrees. Otherwise he was going to get an object lesson in swimming with a raging hard on. He hoped the fish didn't decide to investigate.

  He handed her a mask and fins and helped her adjust the strap around her head and slip the fins onto her feet. He couldn't help laughing as she stood up in the fins only to fall down almost immediately.

  Ignoring her glare, he showed her how to walk backward into the water until it was deep enough to swim. He stayed close as they started out toward the reef, and he felt a swell of pride as Wendy kept pace and answered his underwater thumbs up to indicate everything was okay. As they approached the reef, a parrot fish nearly a foot and a half long swam right up to them. Drew heard Wendy's muffled squeal followed by a violent splash.

  He surfaced to the sound of her violent coughing as she struggled to get the snorkel out of her mouth. "Easy," he said, reaching out to remove the mouthpiece from between her lips and push her mask up onto her forehead. She bobbed a couple of times, still coughing. Drew slid his arm around her back as he treaded water, helping to keep her from slipping as she struggled to expel the water she'd inhaled when her snorkel went under the surface.

  "Sorry," she said around another cough. "I didn't expect—it came right at me—"

  Her legs brushed against his under water and her hand curled around his waist, making it nearly impossible for him to concentrate as her skin slipped and slid against his. "My bad. I should have warned you—lots of people come out with bread or something to attract the fish, so some of them get to be pretty aggressive."

  "Aggressive?" Her brown eyes widened further. "Like, will they bite me?"

  "No," Drew chuckled. He hadn't thought Wendy could be much more appealing than she'd been last night, naked and tied to his bed, but this Wendy, uncertain and out of her element.... Nah, she was still more appealing naked and willing and under him.

  Under the surface his free hand brushed against the outside of her thigh.

  "What was that?" She cried, thrashing as she looked frantically around her.

  "That was me," he said. He could feel her heart pounding against him.

  "I must seem so lame to someone like you, scuba diving and swimming with great whites and stuff."

 
Drew reached up and brushed back a strand of hair that had stuck to her cheek. "I haven't swum with the great whites, but it is on my bucket list. And I don't think it's lame. I think it's pretty brave of you to follow me out here."

  She gave a little huff of laughter. "Brave. Right until I had my first close encounter with an actual fish." She bit her lip, and he couldn't help it, he had to go in for a taste of his own.

  The masks propped on their foreheads clunked softly as they collided but it wasn't any deterrent as he pressed his lips against hers, running his tongue along curves, tasting the salt of the sea mingling with her own sweet flavor.

  Wendy sighed and parted her lips. Drew went in for one last taste and pulled back before they both sank beneath the water. "Just stay close to me, okay? I won't let anything get you, and we'll go back the second you start to feel uncomfortable."

  "I'm already uncomfortable," she said with a shaky smile that made his chest squeeze a little. "But I don't want to go back yet."

  She slipped her hand in his after he helped her get her mask and snorkel back in place and laced her fingers in his like she trusted him to lead her wherever she needed to go. He got the sense that it was unusual for Wendy to trust anyone but herself to know the path she should take.

  As they ducked their heads under, Drew wondered why he was making a big deal about it. It was just snorkeling, for Christ's sake.

  Still, as they kicked along, side by side, he found himself smiling around his snorkel as she swam around, the mask making her look like some super hot alien as she gave a muffled squeal of delight at every fish that came into their view.

  Eventually she got brave enough to reach out to the parrotfish and damselfish that approached, curious to see if she'd brought any treats. He didn't know who was more startled when she jerked her hand away as one of the parrotfish came in for a nibble.