Sam Clarke and his best friend had once been the baddest boys to hit the local party scene—sex, booze, and more sex—until his friend is killed. Sam turned his back on the blatant sexuality of the island years ago, but can’t resist Michelle’s desire to bask in the sun and explore the need that grows between them.
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Chapter One
The hundred-degree heat hit Michelle Hutton’s bare shoulders and face like an open furnace. A furnace she couldn’t wait to get naked in front of. Stepping off the last metal step of the plane’s rolling stairs, she stood on the asphalt. Greece. Zante.
Excitement skittered along the surface of her skin. She was finally here. She’d actually done it. Two years of thinking, doubting, and wondering had gotten her nowhere fast but the final push—or shove—from her adulterous mother made Michelle follow her dream of living in Zante.
“My God, I’m really here.” She drew in a shaky breath and purposefully strode toward the terminal. “Thanks for making me walk away from my old life, Mother dear. The new one is working out pretty good so far.”
Her stomach knotted with a pang of nerves when she was shoved aside by an impatient fellow passenger from the UK. He murmured something that didn’t warrant repeating and hurried on his way. Ignoring the heat in her cheeks, Michelle tilted her chin with determination and plastered on a smile, undeterred from the excitement of a new beginning.
There would be no more being pushed around or told what to do. No more waiting for well-deserved promotions or unwanted marriage proposals. Today was the start of a new life. Michelle patted the huge tote bag slung across her chest, its strap nestled comfortably between her double D breasts. The bag and the single suitcase she needed to pick up in the luggage claim area were all she had to her name, and it felt liberating.
Gripping the strap a little tighter, Michelle continued forward, her kitten-heeled flip flops tip-tapping over the tarmac in time with her heartbeat. Her mother wouldn’t approve of the plunging neckline on her T-shirt or the frayed white denim shorts, but Michelle cared less and less about her mother with each step.
Her mother’s English upper-class twang rang in her ears.
“Subtlety and patience is the way to succeed in this world, Michelle. Anything less and you are not a lady in mine or anyone else’s imagination.”
Michelle narrowed her eyes as resentment ran hot through her blood. Her smile dissolved. How dare she criticize her only daughter when she had been banging her father’s best friend behind his back for the last year? How fucking dare she!
Now Dad was gone—off travelling the world—but promised Michelle he’d be back. Every time she closed her eyes, she still saw the pain in her father’s eyes. Drawing in a shaky breath, her stomach clenched as she acknowledged that yet another day had passed with no phone call from him or answers to her questions. Why had he tolerated the affairs? Why, when everything became so suddenly public, did he leave his daughter to deal with the aftermath alone?
Well, if booking a flight was good enough for her father, then it was good enough for Michelle. He chose to be with that woman for thirty years regardless of her self-serving choices. Michelle would finally do what the hell
she
wanted.
Blinking back tears, Michelle tilted her chin as the double doors of the terminal slid apart with a hushed whisper. She looked left and right and then saw the sign for luggage claim pointing one direction, and the flashing neon sign for the bar pointing in the other. Her smile was slow in coming but, when it did, it stretched to a wide grin.
Her suitcase could wait. An ice-cold glass of
chenin blanc
would start her new life off just right. Pushing aside the notion that it wasn’t right for a girl to walk into a bar on her own—a sad rule from her mother’s old-fashioned ideals—Michelle embraced her new “kick-ass” persona. This girl did whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted.
Swallowing hard, she hesitated for an imperceptible moment at the periphery of the bar entrance before stepping from the tiled corridor to the bar’s wooden flooring. Without making eye contact with a single patron, whose gazes she felt boring into her temple, breasts and denim-clad ass, she headed straight to the bar.
With the bravado of a woman used to frequenting such places alone, a welcome and heated cloak of sexy confidence settled like a new friend around her shoulders. She slid onto one of the stools and leaned back…then realized there was no back.
“Oh, God.” She tilted backward and reached out toward the bar. Too late. She was going to land right on her ass.
A clammy hand caught her elbow before she could fall. “Hey, pretty lady, don’t worry I’ve got you.”
Michelle gripped the bicep of the tattooed arm that grabbed her. She inhaled the guy’s scotch and cigar-tainted breath as it blasted her face, making her want to gag. Her stomach dropped to her shoes as she looked up into his bloodshot, leering eyes.
She forced a smile. “Thanks.”
“Hey, thanks buddy. But I got this.”
Michelle’s heart stopped as a very different hand slapped onto the bar, the arm tanned and strong and very male. His other hand brushed and stilled against her butt as he steadied the stool that wobbled precariously beneath her.
“Are you okay, sweetheart? I turn my back for a second and you get yourself in a load of unwanted trouble.” His voice was deep, husky, and dark. “You trying to dance with that stool?”
Michelle’s cheeks burst into flame even as icy-cold perspiration broke out on her upper lip. She felt like a side of beef at a meat market. Could she have looked any more stupid? Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to ignore the image of her mother’s disproving face that filled her mind.
She should be grateful. There was absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. She opened her eyes and faced the second man.
Her stomach tightened. Could anyone possibly look that good?
Michelle stared as words lodged painfully in her throat and her heart picked up speed. He winked, his dark, midnight blue eyes flashing a silent “trust me.” He turned to Scotch Breath. “Thanks for saving my wife from landing on the floor, buddy. You want a drink?”
Michelle looked from one man to the other, her eyes widening with each passing second. What was he saying? His wife? Scotch Breath shot her “husband” a killing look, grunted, and moved away. Michelle watched him go, all too aware that her hero had yet to move his hand from her ass. Her heart pumped and her mind whirled. It felt strange to be caught in such a masculine cage—strange and not entirely unwelcome. Guilt threatened to invade this new experience like liquid poison, seeping into her conscience and spoiling the first minutes of her new life.
No. She wouldn’t allow it. She wasn’t hurt and she hadn’t hurt anyone. In fact, judging by her racing heart and knotted stomach, this was kind of fun.
She met her hero’s eyes. “Thank you.”
He leaned forward and despite knowing what he was going to do and knowing it was entirely unnecessary, she closed her eyes and let him do it anyway. Soft musk, mixed with pine and fresh air obliterated the lingering smell of Scotch Breath and infused her with sexual yearning. His lips were possessive and masculine against hers, his tongue insistent and downright demanding.
Answering his silent demand, Michelle kissed him back and matched his tongue thrust for thrust, tangling and catching, releasing and claiming. Excitement and disbelief thundered through her veins.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she was aware of her knees opening and him stepping between them. Her heart hitched and her body trembled. What the hell was she doing? His hand left the bar as he shifted closer. Knowing this was the first new step of many, Michelle reached up and gripped biceps as hard as iron. Her pussy heated and her nipples tightened.
He moaned into her mouth, sending her arousal to fevered pitch. After far too short a time, he pulled away and she resisted the urge to grab the back of his neck and yank his mouth back to hers. She wanted more. Her eyes snapped open and she lifted her fingers to her swollen mouth. Her savior looked equally as shocked.
“Hi, honey,” she said, her voice as natural as a woman who’d taken a puff of helium. She inwardly groaned as inexperience coiled inside her. She’d had sex but never with this heat. This heat was insanely hot.
“Hi, yourself.” He smiled. “Do you want a drink?”
Michelle glanced over his shoulder. Gazes came at them from every direction. She saw one guy slip his hand over the thigh of his girlfriend; two women in the corner smiled appreciatively and raised their glasses to her in a toast.
Satisfaction and pride rose warm in Michelle’s stomach and she grinned at her “husband.” “Um…sure. Why not?”
She swiveled around to the bar and tried to focus. His eyes were the color of a crisp winter sky with bursts of sunrays at the outer corners and shrouded with ebony black lashes. She pushed her hair back from her face, hoping he attributed the tremble in her hand to the fact that she’d nearly landed on her ass rather than the toe-curling kiss they’d just shared.
“Well, that was all kinds of embarrassing. Thanks for saving me.”
“You’re welcome. Nothing to be embarrassed about.” His gaze wandered languidly over her face, glancing to the vee of her T-shirt and back again.
Michelle’s clit twitched as their eyes locked, her stomach executing a particularly fine flip on a wave of raw animal attraction. Clearing her throat, she looked at her hands where they gripped the bar.
He smiled. “But I do think I made the twenty guys watching you jealous.”
Michelle felt herself blush under the compliment. “Thanks.”
He grinned. “What are you drinking?”
She met those phenomenal eyes again. “White wine. Dry.”
“Coming right up.” His gaze wandered over her face and hair again before lingering for a moment on her lips. He blinked and turned abruptly to the bartender.
Michelle followed his gaze and her over-wrought libido descended into oblivion at the sight of the overweight, gut-protruding, glaring man positioned behind the bar. Not the best greeting to a new land by anyone’s standards.
“A dry white wine and a beer, please,” her blue-eyed stranger said. The bartender grunted and turned his back to get their drinks. Her “husband” faced her once more. “So, are you coming or going?”
“Coming.”
“Thank God.”
Satisfaction seeped into her blood. Obviously, their kiss had rattled him as much as it had her. Pulling back her shoulders, she smiled. “Excuse me?”
He looked down at the floor at her carry-on bag and back again. “Um, nothing. Wow, you travel light.”
He was avoiding looking at her. Michelle’s smile stretched to a grin. She could flirt like the rest of them. Who said a lady had to be sitting in a posh restaurant or dressed to the nines to impress a man? Look at her now. Look at him. He was one damn fine looking man and a seemingly nice one. Even if it was unlikely that he’d share more than a few more minutes of her life, it felt good. Real good.
She shrugged. “I’ve got a case to pick up at baggage claim but thought I would grab a drink to celebrate the start of my new life first.”
He arched an eyebrow. “New life?”
She blew out a breath. “As you can probably tell from my accent, I’m from the UK.” She paused. “Wiltshire. Salisbury to be exact.”
“Yeah? I’m from Wiltshire, too.”
Her stomach tightened. Oh, lord, what were the chances? She wouldn’t tell him her surname. He didn’t need to know. “Wow. Whereabouts?”
“Lacock.”
She smiled, risking a saucy glance toward his crotch. “Figures.”
He tipped his head back and laughed, the sound richer than a glass of cabernet sauvignon on a cold winter’s night. Deep, rich, and entirely delicious. Their drinks were placed on the bar in front of them, and he paid the bartender as Michelle took a sip of her wine. The golden liquid slid icy-cold and welcome down her throat.
“So what about you?” She returned the glass to the bar. “Coming or going?”
“I live here, actually. I had to put a client on a flight back to the UK. It was a stressful case and, when I saw the bar…” He took a drink. “I needed a beer.”
Michelle stared. Oh, my God. Put someone on the plane? The way he said it sounded as though that person needed to be gone. As though they were dangerous. Had she just kissed a police officer?
“You did say client right? You’re not a policeman?” Could she make any more of an idiot of herself? Policeman or not, he’d kissed her first, right?
Right.
He grinned, shaking his head. “No, but there are days when I feel like one. I’m a lawyer. Mainly pro bono.”
Michelle’s shoulders relaxed a bit. “Phew.”
He laughed, took slug of his beer. “I’m not going to handcuff you…unless you think I should?”
She smiled. “Funny.”
He turned to stare languidly around the bar. Michelle watched his profile from beneath lowered lashes. Handsome, sexy, and clearly a guy with integrity. She could’ve counted on one hand how many pro bono lawyers she knew back home. All the lawyers in her circle sought the biggest and best paying clients and circumstances. Correction, all the lawyers in her
former circle
. Her mother wasn’t the only person she was pressing the delete button on. It was a time for change. Stuck up social gatherings and friends were equally as high on her “no longer wanted” list.
Why did she have to bump into someone like him now? He was exactly the kind of man her mother wanted for a son in law—well, minus the pro bono part. Handsome, charismatic, respected vocation. Which meant Michelle, in turn, would be forced to avoid him like the plague.
She took another sip of wine. “Can I ask what happened with your client? Has he or she gone back to the UK for good?”
“Yep.” He blew out a breath. “At least I hope so. With any luck, she’ll see sense and won’t be back.”
She smiled. “And here I was thinking you were a nice guy.”
“I am. I just put her boyfriend behind bars for business fraud. She needs to stay away and forget him.” His handsome brow creased. “Too often they come back, thinking their sexy Greek boyfriend or husband has changed. In my expert opinion, they don’t.”