Feel the Heat: A Contemporary Romance Anthology (37 page)

“
P
lease tell
me you’re not serious?”

Jaw slack, and hands planted on the small round table, Rebecca Andrews stared at her three best friends, hardly able to believe what they were suggesting.

Lilliana James closed her palm over Rebecca’s hand and gave a reassuring squeeze. Even though the lights had been dimmed in their favorite New York piano bar, a place where they all convened after a challenging day in the courtroom, Rebecca didn’t miss the sympathy in her friend’s big brown eyes when she said, “Come on, Becs, you know as well as I do that you need a vacation.”

“It’s not a vacation she needs,” Melanie Collins piped in, running her fingers up and down the crystal stemware in a highly suggestive manner that had Rebecca’s thoughts careening in an erotic direction. She smirked and added, “What she needs is to get laid. Plain and simple.”

“Good, God,” Rebecca murmured under her breath, hoping like hell no one in the near vicinity could hear her tell-it-like-it-is friend.

“Don’t even try to deny it,” Melanie challenged playfully, her eyes gleaming with mischief.

As their conversation headed south—literally—Rebecca fished her olive out of the martini glass and gestured the bartender for another, having decided then and there that this was the perfect occasion to overturn her two two-drink rule. Hell, who could blame her for wanting to consume copious amounts of alcohol after discovering her well-meaning friends wanted to send her to some sort of sex club on a private island off the coast of Nova Scotia?

She chewed on her olive as her glance went to the tickets on the table—one for a resort called Freedom, the other for the private charter that was scheduled to fly her there first thing tomorrow. Groaning, she took in the other patrons seated around them, many of whom were colleagues, their identities masked by the lounge’s dark lighting and intimate seating. She leaned forward, desperate to keep this embarrassing conversation private, and arched an accusing brow. “How long have you three been scheming this up, anyway?”

“Just a few weeks now,” Melanie answered.

Rebecca did the mental math, her thoughts rewinding to three weeks ago, then shook her head, suddenly understanding what this was really all about. “Look, Jon didn’t break up with me. I broke up with him.” When her rebuttal was met with silence, she desperately searched for an alliance in the group. Her glance met Sophie’s and she cast her a pleading look.

But Sophie simply shrugged and said, “Just like you broke up with Justin, Matthew, Phillip…”

“And we know, we know,” Melanie said, rolling her eyes. “You just weren’t compatible.”

Rebecca held her hands up, palms out. “Okay, fine. I get it. You’re saying I’m too picky.” She frowned, and added, “It’s just that…well, we weren’t…they weren’t,” she paused, unable to put in to words what she truly felt. How could she explain what was missing from those relationships, when she couldn’t identify it herself?

She took a moment to consider the men from her past. Not only were they successful, kind and generous, they were also deeply considerate lovers. A woman in her right mind would jump at the chance to date any one of those men. She sighed inwardly. Okay, perhaps the problem really did lie with her, and
she
was the one who wasn’t in her right mind. But she just couldn’t seem to find a man that suited her.

If only she could figure out what it was that was lacking…

Oddly enough her thoughts drifted back to last year’s trial against Montgomery Charters, specifically to Quinn Montgomery, owner of the airline, and one of the world’s youngest, self-made millionaires. Rebecca always prided herself on being calm, cool and collected, inside the courtroom and out, but there was just something about that man’s steely command that threw her off her game. Whenever she met those intense black eyes from across the table, eyes that looked like they could see into the depth of her soul, something always compelled her to shy away. She wasn’t sure what it was about the powerful tycoon that had her reacting in such a peculiar way, she only knew that he had the ability to rattle her hard-earned control, and because of it, she needed to keep her distance.

The bartender stepped up to the table with fresh drinks, and as his presence pulled her thoughts back to the conversation at hand, Rebecca shook her head, wondering why she was thinking of the powerful and enigmatic Quinn Montgomery after all this time.

Perhaps it was the fact that her friends had booked her flight through his airline…or perhaps it was something else entirely. Either way, he was a man she never wanted to come up against again, because the next time she wasn’t so sure she could keep her composure.

“It’s just a weekend away to relax, let you hair down.” Melanie waved a dismissive hand like what they were suggesting was nothing more than an innocent day at the spa. Except what they wanted her to do had sex, sin and seduction written all over it. “Maybe at Freedom you’ll learn to relax and stop trying to be in control of everything all the time.”

Rebecca squared her shoulders and tucked a long, loose strand of hair back into the bun piled at the top of her head. “Hey, I don’t always have to be in control of everything.”

Her rebuttal was met with laughter. Okay, so maybe it was true, but it wasn’t her fault. She’d come from nothing and had to work hard to get where she was, and it wasn’t easy to loosen up and let go. Controlling every aspect of her life was how she got to where she was today.

And where is that
, some inner voice asked, only to answer with,
alone every night, with nothing but a battery-operated friend to keep you warm
.

Sophie squeezed her hand and Rebecca looked up to meet a pair of big blue eyes full of genuine concern. “You’ve been so uptight that we just thought you could use a bit of time to yourself.”

Melanie bobbed her head. “And you never know, while you’re away maybe you’ll figure out what it is you’re looking for in a man.”

“At a sex resort?”

“It’s not a sex resort,” Lilliana reassured her. “It’s just a place where single people go to meet others.”

Slipping into lawyer mode, Rebecca challenged, “But when you say
others
, you mean the opposite sex right? So in my book that’s a sex resort.” Rebecca picked up the ticket and turned it over in her hand, but as she thought about it, really, really thought about what her friend’s were offering her, her body began warming in the most intimate places. She wet her suddenly dry lips, her nipples tightening as she envisioned the salacious activities that undoubtedly took place on the exclusive island.

A strange garbled noise caught in her throat and she shook her head to clear it. God, she must be crazy—and the jury was still out on that—because for a moment there she actually found herself considering their ludicrous offer.

Rebecca squinted to read the fine print. “Is this place even legal?”

“Of course it is, and you leave first thing in the morning.” Melanie snatched the ticket and shoved it into Rebecca’s purse; her way of saying the topic was no longer up for debate.

Rebecca stiffened. “I don’t think—”

“Which is why we’re doing the thinking for you,” Lillian countered.

“If you’re not at the airport by nine sharp, I’ll personally drag you from your bed and take you there.” Melanie finished her drink, and grinned. “And don’t come back until you’ve had at least a dozen orgasms.”

“And we don’t want to hear a peep from you until Monday morning, when we’ll meet you at the office to hear all the juicy details,” Lilliana said. “If you call before then, we won’t answer.”

“That’s right,” Sophie added, pointing to Rebecca’s purse. “You’ve just been gifted with a ticked to Freedom. So go. Be free.”

* * *

Q
uinn Montgomery took
one look at the flight manifest and felt his cock swell with an excitement he hadn’t felt in a long time. As the Dom in him stirred to life, he carefully set the paper on his desk and took two measured steps to his office window. He adjusted his tie and blinked against the bright morning rays glistening on the wings of the Cessna idling quietly on the tarmac below. He turned his attention to his ground crew, who were performing maintenance checks before today’s scheduled flights, but his thoughts were too preoccupied with the names on his manifest, one name in particular, to follow their progress.

Rebecca Andrews
.

Now what were the odds that the lawyer who’d cost his company hundreds of thousands of dollars had booked a charter on one of his crafts? A charter to a hedonistic resort, nonetheless.

His mind raced back to last year’s trial, and to the lawsuit Ms. Andrews’ client never should have won. How it was his company’s fault that Ms. Andrews’ client had booked a package though a shady travel agent, only to find herself alone and stranded on Nantucket Island during one of the year’s worst storm was beyond him. Yet in the end, his company had to go good for the damages, as well as the mental stress and loss of wages that the woman had allegedly suffered.

Quinn’s mouth twitched and he scrubbed his hand over his chin as he rolled back and forth on the balls of his feet. While the money was only a drop in the bucket for his company, the tricks the lawyer had used to get what she wanted from him, left him wanting to use a few tricks of his own—to get what he wanted from her.

Oh yeah, watching her from the hot seat during his trial, watching that sharp tongue of hers in action, had him wanting to find other ways to put that smart mouth of hers to work. Heat prowled through his body as he thought about how Ms. Andrews kept her control close, kept her body poised and her head held high. But during the proceeding, every time her glance had landed on him and she lowered her gaze in a submissive move, he knew she was in denial. Damned if he didn’t want to be the one to open her eyes and her body, and put her in touch with her deeper needs.

Even though they’d never crossed paths since the trial, she’d consumed his thoughts for well over a year now. He’d spent many nights thinking about the ways he’d like to strip her bare and give her ass a good hard paddling for wrongfully stealing money from his company. But the truth was, what he wanted had little to do with revenge, and more to do with showing the woman who dressed in prim and proper business suits that real control came in the form of surrender.

With his cock throbbing, and heat coursing through him, he moved back to his desk to look over the day’s schedule a second time. He glanced at her name again, and his entire body came alive, because there was no denying that he’d just been gifted the perfect opportunity to help her free her submissive side. Of course, given that he’d only have one weekend, he’d have no choice but to push her limits and resort to some stronger methods to seduce the submission out of her. His fingers itched as he thought about that lush heart-shaped ass of hers and how much it needed his attention.

He inspected the itinerary closer and discovered that Jack Armstrong, a pilot that had been with the company since its early days was scheduled to depart for Freedom at nine sharp—Ms. Andrews the only passenger on board. Quinn considered her final destination. Not only had his company taken guests to the private island numerous time, he personally knew the resort well, having played there a time or two. Although this time he suspected the plane wasn’t going to make it to the well-known island nestled in the Atlantic Ocean, especially if he was the one in the pilot seat.

He picked up the paper, and traced his finger over her name as a devious plan began to formulate in his mind. As he sorted through all the naughty details, all the tricks he was going to use on her, he checked his watch then picked up his phone to call his personal assistant. After giving her a list of things he needed before takeoff, he dialed a friend and called in a favor. Once all the pieces were in place, and the discreet information he needed was on its way, he crossed Jack’s name off the manifesto, shrugged out of his dress jacket and grabbed his flight suit. Ms. Andrews might be looking for a little adventure at Freedom, but he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to be the guy to give her what she really wanted, yet had no idea how much she needed.