Paradise Nights: Taken by the Bad Boy

She needed to do some very serious thinking about what she wanted from this man right about now.

She’d looked at him a few days back and seen a pleasant diversion. A charming playmate with no strings attached. She looked at him now and saw something far more dangerous. A man with a generous heart, and a guarded one. A man with the potential to captivate her as well as charm her, and she didn’t want that. No, she couldn’t have that.

Not when for the first time in her life she could see a time up ahead with no commitments and no family ties. Her time. Time for chasing long-held dreams for a career she could be proud of.

‘I’ve enjoyed your company,’ Serena said at last.

Nothing but the truth in that statement. ‘I’d like to enjoy it some more. But we’re going to need some rules.’

‘I love rules,’ he said. ‘What kind of rules?’

‘We keep this light-hearted,’ she said firmly. ‘No falling in love.’

‘Check.’

‘And brief. We’ll both be leaving here soon enough. We should make that the end of it. Clean break. Happy memories.’

‘Mature of us,’ he said. ‘Anything else?’

‘I know we’re talking a brief and in no way serious relationship here, but I’m thinking exclusivity is a must.’

‘You’d better be,’ he said curtly.

‘There is one more thing.’

‘You’re pushing your luck, Serena.’

He looked tough, forbidding, and Serena wondered afresh whether she was insane to think she could handle this man. He walked his own path, made his own rules. But this last rule was important. ‘We need to be discreet.’ Otherwise it would reflect badly on her family, and she didn’t want that. ‘It’s this place … ‘she said with more than a little frustration.

Pete laughed at that, and the rich dark sound of it slid along her skin like water.

‘You’re right,’ he murmured. ‘We’ll be discreet.’And then his lips were on hers, hard and seeking, and all her carefully thought out rules shattered beneath the weight of her desire.

Pete’s body betrayed him the moment he reached for her. He’d known it would. The searing heat. The outrageous, all-consuming need to possess that which he held and, in doing so, offer up a part of himself. She was all luscious curves, made for a man’s hands, his hands, as he curled his fingers around her buttocks and brought their lower bodies into languid and intimate contact. He could be discreet. If that was what she wanted. He’d do it. He would.

Soon.

Just as soon as he’d finished feasting on her mouth.

She dug her hands in his hair and her lips turned ravenous, but he was ready for the staggering hunger of her kisses this time and he ate them up, spun them round, and served them straight back at her.

Serena had thought she was prepared for the passion this man brought to lovemaking, but she wasn’t prepared for this. It was like a meeting of souls, locked in a kiss, and she feared it … heaven help her she feared it … even as she gloried in it. Whatever she wanted, however she wanted it, he had it in him to give. And she wanted it all.

Shuddering at the sensations threatening to overwhelm her, she dragged her lips free of his kiss and set trembling fingers to his mouth instead. A barrier, a slowdown, only her fingers had a mind of their own, exploring his upper lip, the strong shapely curve of it, before dragging the sensitive pad of her forefinger across the sculpted fullness of the rest.

Serena watched as those perfect lips curved into a smile; a smile for her attempts to regain control maybe; and then she was urging his mouth open and replacing fingertips with lips and with tongue for a kiss so staggeringly potent she clear forgot to breathe.

Whatever she wanted, she thought helplessly as his tongue duelled delicately with hers. Just the way she wanted it, as his fingers tightened on her butt and he surged against her, and with a ragged groan spun them into the maelstrom again.

His eyes were black, as black as sin and deep enough to drown in, when finally, finally, they stood apart.

‘Discreet.’ He ran a hand around the back of his neck. ‘We might have to work on that one,’ he said raggedly. And then he was gone.

CHAPTER FOUR

NICO scowled at her when she staggered into the kitchen. Serena ignored him and headed for the sink, filling a tall glass to the brim with tap water and downing it in one long swallow. ‘So … ‘she said, finally turning to face her cousin. ‘How was your night?’

Nico’s eyes narrowed. ‘I said five minutes.’

‘It was five minutes.’

‘It was ten minutes, your mouth’s all swollen, and your hands are shaking.’

Oh.

‘You can’t take a man like that seriously, Serena.’

‘I don’t intend to.’

‘I mean, what do we know about him? Apart from the fact that he was able to pack up his life in an instant and come out here when Tomas called. Seriously, what does that say about a man?’

‘That he’s a good friend to Tomas?’

‘He’s a drifter. A man with no responsibilities.’

‘You should ask him what he used to do for a living,’ she said wryly. ‘It’s quite illuminating.’

‘He’s trouble. I thought you could handle him or I’d never have introduced you.’

‘I can handle him,’ she snapped. She’d had enough of Nico’s and everyone else’s well-meaning interference. ‘I know damn well he’s trouble. I don’t need you to tell me that. I know it wouldn’t work out. I don’t want it to work out. All right?’ Her voice broke but the rest of her stood tall as she glared across the table at Nico and dared him to take her to task for a passion she couldn’t control. ‘I know.’

Pete was fresh out of a cold shower in the little bedsit, a towel slung around his waist and his hair still dripping water, when he took it in his head to call his older brother. In Singapore.

‘‘Lo.’ Jake’s voice sounded raspy, sleepy.

‘Jake? What time is it there?’ He did the maths, winced a little at the early morning hour. ‘I, ah, didn’t interrupt anything, did I?’

‘Not unless you count sleep as something. Which you should.’

‘Never mind. I’ll call back later.’

‘You in trouble?’ asked Jake.

‘Not really.’

Jake said nothing. Jake was really good at waiting in silence while the other person squirmed and tried to put feelings into words. Something to do with inner stillness and meditation. He’d never quite managed to get the hang of it, himself. ‘All right, so I could have a slight problem.’

‘Define “slight”.’