More than a Fling?

She wanted to see him, explore him, taste him, touch him. But not like this. Because while she didn’t need to love a guy to have sex with him she did have to like him, and there should be at the very minimum mutual respect between them.

Ally wrenched her mouth away, ducked out from under his arm and hit the close doors button before he could even react. She stepped out of the lift as the doors started to close.

‘What the hell, Alyssa?’ he demanded, hot eyes blazing, his hands easily pushing the lift doors open again.

‘Yeah, so not sorry. Did you really think that I was that easy or that desperate? That I would just fall into bed with you so that I could get you to sign on the dotted line?’ She gave him a frosty smile and gestured to his tented pants. ‘Enjoy trying to hide that as you walk through the lobby... Oh, hello! Do you want me to hold the lift for you?’

Ally stepped aside to let two elderly ladies into the lift and grinned when Ross turned his back to them.

Except that now she had an eyeful of that super-fine taut ass she’d had her hands on a minute before.

Ally placed her hand on her forehead and stumbled towards her room.

This was the problem with playing with fire: you ended up getting a little scorched.

THREE

Ally touched the side of her Bellechier sports watch as she jogged up to the steps that led to the hotel’s seaside entrance and placed her hands on her knees, hauling in wet air. Humid, she thought, and hot already at seven in the morning. She glanced at her watch: six miles in fifty minutes. Not her best time, but acceptable—especially since she’d tossed and turned all night and when she’d finally slept had had incredibly restless dreams.

All featuring last night’s sexy jerk.

Behind her sunglasses Ally scowled at the waves smacking the beach across the road and promenade. She might have left him in an awkward position last night—good, he so deserved it!—but she hadn’t emerged from their dizzying encounter unscathed. She’d felt tense, fidgety...horny, dammit.

Apart from her inability or unwillingness to connect...and her crazy work schedule...and the fact that she hadn’t dated or felt attracted to any man in a long time...apart from all that she was still a reasonably normal woman in her late twenties and she did get normal urges.

Up to now she’d always been perfectly content with a bit of self-love and was easily able to sort herself out. She’d tried that last night and, like most of the few lovers she’d had, she hadn’t delivered. She had just ended up feeling more frustrated and hornier than before, which sucked. Maybe it was time to cave in and buy that dildo she’d seen online. Except that now she wasn’t sure that it would help. She wanted masculine fingers between her legs, a hard body above hers, the hot, thick thrust of an erection pushing into her.

She still wanted Ross and that pushed up her irritation levels. Even a long run hadn’t banished her frustration; maybe a cold shower would do the trick.

Ally stood up, placed her hands on her hips and walked to the low wall that separated the beach from the promenade. Placing one foot on the low wall, she did some warm-down stretches as she watched the ships on the horizon and thought about the day ahead.

She was booked on a flight back to Geneva that night so she had the day open to do as she pleased. She could buckle down in front of her computer—as long as she had her computer she could work anywhere—and get a solid eight hours in either in her room, one of the lounges or on one of the many verandas in the hotel. That was what she should do.

Bellechier had a second store opening in Hong Kong and another in Miami, and there were countless items on her to-do list to ensure that these new additions exuded the same class and charisma as their other stores. As Brand and Image Director, it was her job to make sure that the look and feel of the new stores was everything their customers expected them to be.

Then she had magazine adverts to approve, paperwork regarding their sponsorship of a yacht race to plough through and a new face to find for the new line.

Ally wiped the perspiration from her brow before resting her forehead on her knee. She wished she was the type of person who could just pull on a bikini, grab her e-reader and towel and hit the beach—who could spend the day in the sunshine doing nothing. But that just wasn’t Ally. No: she’d sit down and within a half-hour she’d be feeling guilty because she wasn’t being productive, feeling tense because she’d be making mental lists of what she could be doing.

The truth was that she was happiest working; at work she didn’t have to think about anything else except the next task she had to do. Work was her entertainment. She felt safe there. It was her demanding lover. Ally looked at the beach again and sighed.

Intellectually she knew that she should want to take time off, that she was entitled to relax, to have some fun, but she couldn’t translate the thought into acceptance. Working was her way of repaying her debt to Sabine and Justin; it was her way of saying thank you. She couldn’t be the soul-sharing, emotionally expressive daughter they wanted—dear God, she would be if she could—so hard work was all she could give them.

She’d do anything they asked unless it involved her heart—not that she was sure she had one any more. She knew what her life could have been like, and the thought of it still made her shiver. If Sabine and Justin hadn’t pulled her out of that sterile hotel room the Thai authorities and later the British Embassy had shoved her into after they’d removed her dad’s body from the beach in Phuket, God knew what would have happened to her. She had no other relatives—none that she knew of anyway—and no one else would have run to her rescue.

She owed them for giving her a home and an education, but she couldn’t risk loving them too much—just in case they got whipped away as well. She didn’t think she could survive that.

She had to work this morning, but it would be an absolute sin not to spend some time on the beach. So...what if she printed out those reports she needed to go through on her portable printer and took them to the beach with her? She would still be working...and getting a tan. And since she needed to concentrate while reading them she wouldn’t have time to think of Ross Bennett—the A-grade sexy dipstick.

But she’d only be productive if she didn’t think of his clever mouth, his big hand on her breast, that hard thigh pressing into her crotch. Ally sighed as her skin prickled and her crotch throbbed. Casting a last look at the ocean, she turned to walk back into the hotel. Here we go again.

A cold shower was her last resort; if that didn’t work then she was definitely ordering that sex toy.

* * *

Like most of his gender, Ross hated apologising. It made him feel stupid and weak and...stupid.

But stupid he had been, and although Ally had punished him for it—being in a lift with two nosy old ladies with a full erection had not been fun—he knew that he still owed her an apology. He’d tried most of last night and all of this morning to find a reason why he didn’t, shouldn’t, couldn’t—and still hadn’t found one.

He’d opened his big mouth and by doing so he’d screwed up, and he was enough of a man to admit it. For most of the morning he’d tried hard to ignore his conscience but at noon, when he realised that he’d achieved sweet FA, he’d given in and left his office to head over to Ally’s hotel.

He needed to apologise—not only because his conscience dictated it but also because his father had never been able to do so... Saying sorry is for wusses, pansies and pathetics. That was one of Jonas Bennett’s favourite sayings. But Ross had always vowed to be as little like his dad as possible.

Propositioning Ally in the way he had was the kind of thing his father would do: when Jonas wanted something he used any means he could to get it. Winning, getting his way, coming out on top was all that mattered to him, and last night Ross had proved that in certain ways he was still his father’s son.

He loved and hated that fact. Loved that he had his father’s drive, passion and work ethic. Hated the fact that he also had his deeply competitive streak. And his stubbornness.

His mother was either a fool or a saint for staying married to him for nearly thirty-five years. How did she do it? Love, she’d once told him, wasn’t an emotion but an action. When you’d been married as long as they had, she’d added, sometimes you had to choose to love and to fight for love.

That sounded too much like hard work, and Ross had yet to find a woman who interested him enough to consider the possibility of a lifetime with her. Ally Jones definitely wasn’t a candidate. Besides, even if he was looking for ‘the one’, he wouldn’t choose a tense, pushy, uptight corporate drone. He’d left that world behind years ago—and all the stress that went with it; why would he ever get involved with a woman deeply entrenched in it?

No, he liked to keep his personal relationships simple and above all honest. So if he hooked up with someone he always made it clear that he wasn’t looking for a long-term relationship. One thing was for sure: when he did find Wonder Woman—he was still too busy to commit the time needed to find her—he’d never let his partner feel she had to compete with his work for his attention, as he’d had to do as a child.

Right—enough introspection. Let’s get this damned apology done and dusted so I can get some work done today.

He believed Miss Jones was on the beach, the concierge told him, so Ross walked out through the doors leading to the promenade, flipping his sunglasses onto his face to hide his eyes from the blistering glare of the midday sun.

Standing at the wall, he scanned the beach, which was reasonably busy for a Thursday in September. Female faces were hidden under floppy hats, caps and sunglasses, so how was he going to find her?

By going up to every single woman on the beach and acting like a pervert, that was how. Perfect. Just what he needed.

Ross stepped onto the beach, ignoring the hot sand that crept into his flip-flops as he made his way to the most populated part of the beach. He looked out to the sea and watched as a woman walked out of the waves and pushed her wet hair back from her face.

He instantly recognised that body, its essential bits covered by fluorescent aqua triangles; he had felt it tremble under his touch last night. A waist he could span with both his hands, curvy hips, legs that went on for ever. Ross swallowed, realised that saliva had disappeared from his mouth and stood still as she strolled up to a beach blanket and dropped onto it, tipping her elfin face up to the sun.

A fist grabbed his heart and squeezed. She was utterly, maddeningly, crotch-jumpingly beautiful and he still wanted her. Probably would do anything to have her.

Just for a night...a couple of nights; just to get lost in that face, that body, the comprehensive femininity of her. And, because he’d been an utter ass, he probably never would.

That sucked.

Ross ran a hand through his hair, gestured to a beach vendor and bought two bottles of water from the elderly man. Cracking the seal on one, he took a long sip and headed to the beach blanket where Ally lay back on her elbows, smiling at two toddlers who were arguing over a spade.

He sat down next to her, handed her a bottle of water and jumped right in. ‘Sorry.’

Ally took the bottle, raised her eyebrows at him and curled her lip. ‘You think a cold bottle of water and a half-assed apology is going to work?’

‘No.’ Ross twisted his lips in frustration. ‘But I thought I would give it a go.’