Читать книгу Hot Sheets - Jeanie London - Страница 9

“THE ANAL ATRIUM?” Dale sounded a lot calmer than he felt.

“It did the trick, didn’t it?” Annabelle said.

“You chased her off on purpose.”

“I did.” No repentance whatsoever. “I saved you from a miserable three weeks. Monique wasn’t your type, Dale. I’m surprised you even brought her.”

“All I ever did was work around here, Annabelle, so what would you know about my type?”

She handed him a white envelope and a letter opener.

Scowling, Dale sliced through the heavy paper and withdrew what turned out to be an invitation. He flipped it open and found himself riveted by the familiar handwriting inside.

Dale,

I’d like you to be my guest for the Naughty Nuptials and to share the Castaway Honeymoon Isle suite. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since you left. Your visit will give us the perfect chance to enjoy ourselves.

Laura

“So what’ll it be, Casanova?” Annabelle looked smug. “Do I check you into the Castaway Honeymoon Isle or have Adam hold the limo?”

Under normal circumstances Dale wasn’t prone to mood swings. In fact, to hear his family and friends tell it, he was a downright good-natured guy. But, again, these weren’t normal circumstances. He’d swung from mad as hell to happy camper so fast he felt dizzy.

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.

Aside from the fact Annabelle was waiting for an answer about whether or not he wanted to make love to her co-worker, something coiled low in his gut…some wrenching feeling that was wholly unfamiliar.

He should feel guilty that Monique had flown clear across the country to turn around and make the trip back but he couldn’t work up an ounce of regret. Not when Laura had decided to enjoy herself with him.

“Will I need the Groom’s Survival Guide if I accept her invitation?”

“Check in and find out.”

Dale searched Annabelle’s expression. He thought she was joking, but given the events of the past twenty minutes, he wouldn’t bet money. As much as he wanted to heat the sheets with Laura, a stubborn shred of reason insisted on knowing what had made Ms. In-Love-with-Love drag her head from the clouds long enough for a solid tumble on terra firma.

“You’re not considering turning her down, are you?” Annabelle asked.

He’d spent too much time lusting after Laura to pass up this golden opportunity, but somehow when talking to Annabelle, he hated sounding easy.

“Around this place it’s always a good idea to be clear on the details.” An understatement, given the memory of Monique’s departure. “The Anal Atrium, Annabelle?”

“I pulled that out on a dime, can you believe it?” Her laughter rang out loudly enough to draw another glance from the desk clerks, who were working hard to give their sales director some privacy in the limited space. “So what’ll it be, Casanova?”

Tucking the letter carefully back into the envelope, he slipped it inside his jacket pocket. “The Castaway Honeymoon Isle, of course.”

“An excellent choice.” With a smile still on her face, she tapped out a mad burst on a computer keyboard, then handed him a card key. “Enjoy your stay at Falling Inn Bed.”

“I will.” He reached for her hand and brought it to his lips. “Thanks, gorgeous. I know the way.”

“ALL RIGHT, ANNABELLE, who is she?” Pausing in the doorway of the sales office, Laura braced herself to hear about the curvy brunette who’d accompanied the man she’d waited too long to decide she’d wanted for herself.

“She’s gone.”

Laura must have braced herself too tightly because it took a second for that statement to register. “She’s gone?”

Annabelle nodded. “Dale’s date freaked when she found out we’re a romance resort. She made quite a scene at the front desk and demanded a limo to take her back to the airport. Adam calmed her down and sent her on her way.”

Laura had seen the brunette clinging to Dale and knew that two plus two did not equal four here. “All right, what did you do?”

“What makes you think I did anything?”

“Oh, please. I work here, remember? I know how we operate. Romance at all costs. If not you personally, then someone around here did something to chase her off. So fess up. What was it?”

Annabelle eyed her without remorse. “Do you really care when your date is in the Castaway Honeymoon Isle as we speak?”

Laura closed her eyes and exhaled slowly, letting the words filter through her and take hold in slow degrees.

No, she didn’t care. She’d fantasized about Dale Emerson for so long that those fantasies had interfered with her life. While he’d been in town building the Wedding Wing, she’d spent way too much time hanging around after work, making excuses to run into him when she should have been dating.

She’d expected the problem to go away post-construction, but no such luck. If anything, she’d become more preoccupied with the man after he’d left, as if her subconscious worked overtime to make up for his absence. Only after she’d exhausted herself trying to banish Dale from her fantasies once and for all had she finally given in and decided to take action.

“Laura, are you all right?” Annabelle asked.

“You gave Dale my invitation?”

She nodded.

“What did he say?”

“He asked if he had to marry you.”

Tension burst out as nervous laughter. “What did you say?”

“I told him to check in and find out.” She winked. “I’d never tell him he couldn’t marry you. You’d be good together.”

“Oh, Annabelle, please. We’ve had this conversation before. I’m looking for a man with a compatible lifestyle and a career that doesn’t make him a nomad.”

Laura had learned the hard way to be very selective about who she got involved with. After growing up with her head-over-heels parents, she had a healthy respect for the power of love. If she was going to fall for any man, she was going to make sure he was the right man.

But Dale had proven himself a special case. Even though he had heartbreak written all over him, she couldn’t steer clear of him, not even after he’d left Niagara Falls for the West Coast. She’d been forced to resort to damage control—in this case a fling during Naughty Nuptials. Pure fantasy. Limited time frame. And work, work, work to distract her. She’d barely have time for sex, let alone a chance for her feelings to run away with her.

Unfortunately, Annabelle wasn’t buying it, and she wasn’t the only one who didn’t. Laura’s parents had been debating her views for years.

“You’re looking for Mr. Perfect,” Annabelle said. “And I hate to burst your bubble but he doesn’t exist.”

“I’m looking for Mr. Perfect-for-me and he does exist. I just haven’t found him yet. But I’ve clarified exactly what I want from Dale in my invitation. I was clear, don’t you think?”

“Very clear. You want to enjoy the celebration with him. You want to enjoy him.”

“He really agreed?”

Annabelle nodded.

“I’m really going to do this?” It was a question. It shouldn’t be. Laura could handle Dale Emerson. Of course she could. And there would never be a more perfect time.

“You issued the invitation, my girl. It would be poor form to change your mind now. Especially since I chased off his date.”

“I knew it!”

Annabelle only steepled her hands before her and smiled.

While Laura appreciated the effort, she did feel a pang of guilt. Yet if the curvy brunette who had been hanging all over him was scared off by the concept of a romance resort, she was out of her league.

Laura hoped she was the only one.

“Well, I won’t change my mind.” She took a deep, fortifying breath. “As the bedding consultant around here, it’s up to me to set a good example.”

“Agreed. Which means you need to get upstairs and greet your guest. He seemed…eager.”

“Did he?”

Annabelle smiled. “Very.”

Well, most men would be eager with an invitation for sex in a room designed for lovers, wouldn’t they? Especially a man with Dale’s appetite. Alleged appetite.

Laura glanced down at her watch. “I can’t go just yet. I’m waiting for Delia and Jackson. Oh, and don’t forget, we’re set for dinner with our featured couples and the press at seven.”

“I’ll be there with bells. But you need to make time to greet Dale. And don’t worry. Your invitation was crystal clear.”

“Okay.”

“You’re a beautiful young woman who has worked very hard to accomplish what you have, Laura. Celebrate. You like Dale and he likes you. Have a good time together and don’t stress out about anything else. When will you ever get another chance to join in the fun and games around here? You’re usually slaving away behind the scenes. This is a unique opportunity.”

Wise advice. “What would I do without you?”

“You’d waste a lot more time angsting, no doubt,” Annabelle said with a feigned scowl. She hated the mushy stuff. “You did the right thing by inviting the man to be your date. Now greet your guests and go have fun. You’re wasting valuable time—yours and mine.”

“I’m gone.” Blowing her friend a kiss, Laura slipped back out the door.

The arrival of her featured bridal couple delayed thoughts of the man awaiting her upstairs, and she met her guests in the main lobby, genuinely pleased to see them.

Like the Knights, Delia Wallace and Jackson Marsh were the perfect couple to act as the honorees of her grand opening. Not only were they a very attractive pair—Delia was as blond as her fiancé was dark—but as interns on Dale’s construction team, they had a history with the Wedding Wing.

“Delia, Jackson, welcome back. It’s good to see you again.”

“You, too.” Delia extended her hands and gave Laura’s a welcoming squeeze. “We’ve missed this place so much.”

“Are you two ready for your big day?”

“Beyond ready,” Jackson said. “This wedding has become a full-time job.”

“How’s that? You’re supposed to be letting Falling Inn Bed do all the work.”

He wrapped a protective arm around Delia. “That’s what I thought. But my fiancée spends all her time explaining to my ultraconservative future in-laws that being the guests of honor at your Naughty Nuptials isn’t the same thing as having our wedding featured in an X-rated movie.”

Delia sighed. “I shouldn’t have told them about the documentary.”

The Worldwide Travel Association had sent a photojournalist to document the Wedding Wing’s grand opening and as the featured bridal couple, Delia and Jackson would be front and center of the coverage. She could see where ultraconservative future in-laws might have trouble connecting the Naughty Nuptials with a legitimate hospitality industry documentary.

“What can I do to help?” she asked, needing more information to figure out how to address the problem. “I reserved your folks a regular room on the same guest floor where you’ll be staying until the ceremony. They shouldn’t run into anything too controversial there.”

Unfortunately, that was about the only place they wouldn’t run into anything too controversial.

“As long as we don’t invite them to see our honeymoon suite,” Jackson said.

“Oh, God, no,” Delia agreed. “The Shangri-la Paradise would be enough to make my mother faint. And to be honest, I haven’t figured out how to break the news about the sex-toy shower, either.”

Laura understood. Falling Inn Bed dealt exclusively in sex and as sex was an intensely personal subject…by necessity, the staff had become skilled in assessing guests’ reactions to put them at ease with the subject matter.

Fortunately, she had the advantage of knowing Delia. Beneath her fashion-model looks was actually a very shy woman who’d taken a while to warm up. And if Mom was anything like daughter…

Jackson wouldn’t have mentioned the situation unless he needed help. He knew Laura’s specialty happened to be converting her guests into romance enthusiasts.

“What time do your parents arrive tomorrow?” she asked.

“Their flight’s due early. A little after eight.”

“Great, plenty of time before the festivities start.” Looping her arm through Delia’s, she steered her toward the promenade. “Come on. Let’s get you checked in. We’ll talk while we walk. I’ve got an idea.”

Laura detailed her plan to have a limo pick up Delia’s parents at the airport for a grand tour of Niagara Falls. “Let’s give them a little VIP treatment and warm them up to the area before we bring them to the inn. You tell me what interests them, and I’ll assign a concierge to be their guide.”

She smiled, hoping to reassure an anxious Delia. “We’ve got a lot more than the falls around here and my staff is skilled at presenting our unique services. We’ll break the news about the events in bits and pieces, and I’m sure we’ll have them comfortable and ready to have fun before they even check in.”

Jackson smiled appreciatively. “Sounds like a great place to start.”

“And you’re sure this won’t be too much trouble?” Delia asked.

“Not at all, Delia,” she said. “I’ll have your folks back in plenty of time to get settled before the festivities. All you have to do is prepare them for the official Falling Inn Bed parents-of-the-bride VIP treatment. And now, are you ready for the unveiling?” Laura brought them to a stop beneath the entrance to survey the newly decorated lobby. “Ta-da! Here it is. What do you think?”

Delia and Jackson’s obvious pleasure made Laura smile. While they’d been involved with the construction of the new addition from the ground breaking, they’d left for their next project before the design crew had worked its magic. And the finished project—from the ornate ceilings and papered walls to the array of cranberry ware vases and the Mireille Marceaux displayed in prominence—was indeed magical.

“Laura, I can’t tell you what it means that you chose us as special guests for your grand opening,” Delia said.

“Special guests?” she repeated. “You’re the honorary bridal couple for the Naughty Nuptials. And who better to inaugurate the Wedding Wing? Not only did you help build it, but you got engaged here. You’ll be written into our history as the couple who started the matrimony ball rolling.”

And establishing what Laura believed with her whole heart and soul—that a perfect man existed for every woman. What better place than the Wedding Wing to begin a marriage?

There wasn’t one as far as she was concerned.

Motioning her bridal couple toward the wing’s check-in desk, she said, “I’ve got a few things I need to cover and then you can go settle in. The events won’t officially begin until the welcome reception tomorrow night, which is why I wanted you here early. You deserve to relax before your guests arrive.”

Accepting a package from the desk clerk, a box gift-wrapped in white silk and wedding bells that contained the introductory packet, she passed it to Delia. “Inside is everything you need to prepare. Program. Itinerary. Maps. Checklist. I’ve also included copies of the Bride’s Guerrilla Handbook and Groom’s Survival Guide.”

Jackson rolled his eyes. “The Groom’s Survival Guide?”

“I wrote these handbooks myself,” she explained. “And you need to know everything in them. Trust me.”

“Of course we do,” Delia said, coaching her fiancé.

“Good.” Now if her staff could just win over the bride’s reluctant parents, they’d be off to a good start. “Swear to me you’ll look over everything and call if you have any questions. I’m 1-1 on the house phone.”

After helping them to check-in, she saw Delia and Jackson settled before making her way up to her own honeymoon suite on the fifth floor. Beyond the door lay the suite she and Dale had designed together. A place for lovers.

And a man who might become her lover.

If he wasn’t angry about his date.

Taking a deep breath, Laura slipped the card key from her pocket and unlocked the door.

The Castaway Honeymoon Isle was a penthouse suite with an open floor plan arranged around a central focal point—a tropical oasis complete with lush plants, a heated pool and rushing waterfall. It had been dubbed Lovers’ Lagoon during construction and the name had stuck. Now it graced the promotional materials and the Web site.

The suite played to the fantasy of a couple being stranded on a deserted island alone, and every room in the place—including the bath—overlooked this oasis through a wall of glass.

There was a comfortable living area, a minikitchen and dining area, a master bath with a glass shower stall large enough for two and a bedroom with a bed large enough for plenty of sex play.

Laura had chosen the theme herself, a delightful Key West decor that was both airy and colorful and brought to mind translucent turquoise water and spun-sugar sand. Inhaling another calming breath, she closed the door and turned….

There he was, watching her from across the suite, where he’d sprawled in a chair with a vantage of the door. With his long legs outstretched and his elbows casually hooked on the chair arms, Dale looked equal parts expectant and predatory in a distinctly bad boy way.

She couldn’t help but marvel at how her body went on red alert at the mere sight of him, a result of his overpowering good looks—black hair, cleanly chiseled features and a lethal grin. He had this hint-of-a-dark-shadow thing going on along his jaw that only added to the effect.

Even sitting, there was no missing that Dale was a tall man, athletic, a man who could move with fast, strong motion and energetic grace. Add that to the way he idly fingered her invitation while watching her with those smoky gray eyes, and her heart sped up its beat until she could barely breathe.

“Hello, Laura.”

The minute he opened his mouth, Laura remembered exactly why she hadn’t been able to get this man out of her head. His voice was pure sex—whiskey deep and silky smooth, a sound that conjured up images of bare bodies gliding against each other in a distinctly rhythmic way.

“Welcome back, Dale.” She sounded breathless and that smile playing around the edges of his mouth suggested he’d noticed.

Not exactly the entrance she’d planned in her fantasies. She’d intended to breeze in and make herself comfortable and detail the game plan. But suddenly she needed him to react, to hear him say he’d accepted her invitation, that his arrival in this suite wasn’t just morbid curiosity about why Annabelle had chased off his date.

Or, worse yet, a joke.

“Are you angry about your date?” She couldn’t read a thing on his face.

“She’d still be here if she wanted to be.”

Okay. He clearly wasn’t too concerned about the runaway date. “Do you want to be my guest for the Naughty Nuptials?”

“I want to be your lover. I have since we met.”

She didn’t know whether it was his calmly issued declaration or the hungry look that sent a rush of awareness through her, but the pulse suddenly throbbing in her throat precluded any reply.

He held up the invitation. “This says you want to share this suite and have a good time. What’s going on here, Laura?”

She took another deep breath. She’d known this would come out of left field for him. It had come out of left field for her. There was only one thing to do here—be honest.

“I changed my mind,” she said simply.

“Now, after I’ve left town? How the hell did you reconcile our differences?”

“Do you mean declining to date you when you asked?”

He nodded.

“The limited time frame of the grand opening solves the problem, don’t you think?”

He looked skeptical. “One of them, maybe. I’m leaving in three weeks, so there’ll be no question about commitment.”

“Problem solved then. As long as we’re clear on what we want from each other.”

“I know what I want from you, Laura. I’ve always known.” His dark, silky tone promised enough bare skin and killer orgasms to send a shiver through her. “What exactly do you want from me?”

“I want to be your lover.” She gave his words back to him, needing to give as good as she got, that familiar feeling rising up like it always did with him, that…need to do something to catch his attention, to make him notice her.

“Really?” He arched an inky brow. “You wouldn’t go on a date with me because you don’t do flings and I’m not the man of your dreams.”

Now he shot her long-ago words back to her with that deep, sexy voice, his gaze holding hers so steadily that she could feel the effects low in her belly. “Can’t a girl change her mind?”

“What made you change it?”

“You’re the man of my fantasies.” She watched his reaction flash across his handsome face. His nostrils flared. His jaw tightened. His whole body tensed. “It’s this chemistry between us, Dale. It drove me crazy while you were here. I thought after you left I’d get over it.” She shrugged. “Read my invitation. It’s all there. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.”

His eyes bored into her as if demanding her truths, questioning, not quite daring to believe his sudden good fortune.

“Three weeks in this suite seemed like the perfect opportunity to get this chemistry out of the way…unless you don’t want me.”

“You know better.”

The heat was pooling really low now, potent enough to make her take drastic action. Okay, so she’d have to convince him. Fair enough. She’d gone from red-hot to ice-cold when he’d asked her on a date so long ago.

Turning away, she opened the hall closet and slipped off her jacket. “I have to be back downstairs for dinner at seven.”

Here was another perfect opportunity, this one designed to convince him that she was serious about wanting a fling. Swinging her braid over her shoulder, she unfastened the button at her nape.

“Did you tell Annabelle to chase off my date?” he asked.

Laura shook her head. While she might earn brownie points if he thought she’d masterminded the deal, she couldn’t lie. Especially not when she still had pangs about the woman leaving.

“I only sent Annabelle to pick your brain. If you came in alone she was supposed to find out if you were expecting a date. If not, she could give you my invitation. If you arrived with someone, she was supposed to tear up my invitation and swallow the pieces so there wouldn’t be any evidence.”

He laughed. That husky-edged sound rippled through her but Laura still didn’t look at him. It was easier to be calm, cool and courageous when she wasn’t on the end of that gaze. Much, much easier.

Time to level the playing field.

Unfastening her skirt, Laura let it slip to the floor, leaving her standing in a shell, panty hose and practical pumps.

“What the hell are you doing, Laura?”

“I’m convincing you I’m serious about wanting a fling.”

After their long business affiliation, undressing in front of this man was beyond outrageous. But as much as she wanted to see his reaction, she refused to let him see how important his reaction was to her. She hung her skirt on a hanger, instead.

“How can I be the man of your fantasies but not the man of your dreams?” He sounded unconvinced. “Please explain the difference to me.”

His voice had lowered another sexy octave and Laura fought to keep her calm, as if stripping in front of an attractive man was a commonplace occurrence. “The man of my fantasies is a man I can enjoy myself with. When it’s over, it’s over. We both go our separate ways and take away some pleasant memories.”

She tried not to wax too poetic when she said, “The man of my dreams is the man I want to share my life with. He’ll be someone with similar values who wants similar things from life. He’ll share some of my interests and be willing to explore new ones that we can share together. He’ll bring out the best in me and I’ll do the same for him.”

Dale’s snort sounded less than amused, so Laura placed the hanger in the closet and chanced a peek at him.

The frown darkening his expression warned her a storm was brewing so she wasn’t entirely unprepared when he arched a brow and asked, “How do you know what I want from my life? I don’t recall ever having that conversation with you. Or one about values, either.”

She forced a laugh, unsure why she’d offended him. “You’re a bad boy, Dale. The man of my dreams won’t be.”

“Define bad boy.”

“The guys who drive fast cars and chase faster women.”

“This is your opinion of me? Based on what? I behaved exemplarily while I was on this property.”

He sounded so indignant that she had to swallow back a real laugh. “That may be the case, Dale, but let me point out that you can’t help flirting no matter how young or old a woman might be. I don’t think you’ll deny that.”

His frown morphed into a scowl. But on the up side, his heated gaze kept dipping from her face, and she thought he might have noticed that she didn’t wear panties under her panty hose.

“Flirting doesn’t make me a degenerate.”

“I never said degenerate. I said bad boy. There’s nothing wrong with bad boys but they don’t stay forever. They like skirting the edges and pushing the limits. They like being challenged.”

“This is bad?”

“Not at all. It can be perfectly exciting in a lover. But the man of my dreams won’t work a job where he travels all over the world for extended periods of time—”

“Sounds like you have a problem with my job, not me.”

“I don’t have a problem with either,” she clarified patiently. “I just didn’t want to complicate our working relationship when you weren’t what I was looking for in a man. It’s not that I’m opposed to a fling per se, but a fling is meant to be short. We’ve been working on this project for two years and much of that time we were on this property together.”

She wouldn’t mention her own concerns about mixing sex and romance. They would undoubtedly send this man running.

“I find it interesting that the woman who single-handedly masterminded the Wedding Wing and the Naughty Nuptials, a woman who is the biggest romantic idealist I’ve ever met, and I’ve met my share of women, believe me—”

She certainly did!

“—can be so cold-bloodedly pragmatic about her own love life.”

“What’s cold-blooded? I know what I want and don’t want to waste my time heading down roads that’ll take me where I don’t want to go.”

“How do you know where a road will take you unless you go for a spin on it?”

He visibly struggled to keep his gaze on her face, so she propped a shoulder against the wall, folded her arms across her chest and hooking her ankles in a would-be casual pose that let him view her in all her full frontal glory.

His gaze dropped again.

“I’ve looked at the map, Dale. I know exactly where you’d take me—straight into bed. Then after the ride, you’d beep your horn, wave good-bye and not look in the rearview mirror. You would have shown up for work the next day as if nothing had happened between us. I just wasn’t comfortable with that.”

“You’ve looked at the map? What the hell does that mean?”

He didn’t refute her charges, and that only reinforced what Laura already knew—Dale Emerson might be a dyed-in-the-wool bad boy, but there was honor beneath his fast grins and charming words. He wouldn’t lie. Not even he could deny he was trouble on two very nice legs.

“It means I’ve looked at some of your past rides and they’ve confirmed my opinion.” She hadn’t meant to reveal that little tidbit but if he needed proof… “I did some homework before I wrote my invitation.”

“You checked out the women I dated while I was in town?”

“Yes.”

He tossed the invitation onto an end table as if it suddenly burned his fingers. “Enlighten me.”

“My pleasure.” But first…a distraction. Dragging the hem of her silk shell upward, Laura stretched, another provocative move that was rewarded by a quick intake of breath. She schooled her smile before the blouse cleared her face.

“I heard that you had such a hot love life you could only date women who didn’t live in Niagara Falls proper so you wouldn’t damage your reputation.”

“My former dates are talking about me?”

“No, Dale. They’re bragging.”

That stopped him. His expression went blank, and his mouth popped open enough to show a glint of teeth before he rallied, “Bragging? About what?”

“About what a studmuffin you are in bed,” she informed him pleasantly. “From what I hear you can come four times a night and bring a woman to pleasure twice that number.”

His scowl reappeared in force now, but he didn’t dispute the claims, or agree, for that matter. Laura got the distinct impression he didn’t know what to say, which came as another surprise. She’d meant to stroke his ego, had thought he’d be pleased to know his past lovers regarded him so highly.

Obviously not.

“How do you even know who I dated, Laura? I never visited the same town twice.”

“You’re in western New York, my friend. Mountains and valleys and miles do not equal anonymity.”

“Apparently not.”

He sounded so annoyed that she couldn’t help but take pity on him. “I’m serious about wanting a fling, Dale. If it didn’t work out during the grand opening, then I considered taking a much-deserved vacation to California to look you up. You sounded worth the trip.”

He gave a grunt of disgust.

She smiled. “According to my research, you dated six women during the time you worked on the Wedding Wing. All six had rave reviews. That’s something to be proud of.”

“Except that I thought I was on good behavior because I was the senior project architect on this job.”

“Oh.” Pushing away from the wall, Laura headed toward the bedroom to retrieve her dinner dress and give him a performance along the way. “Case closed, Dale. You’re a bad boy.”