Girl's Guide to Hunting & Kissing. Joanne Rock

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СКАЧАТЬ she possessed a finely tuned sixth sense. She knew when her parents were in trouble with whatever cult of the month they happened to have joined. She could tell when she was being lied to. And she could usually feel eyes on her from fifty paces, but apparently that particular skill was on the fritz tonight.

      Although her skin prickled along the back of her neck and her heart skipped along at a nervous rate, no sexy stranger lurked in the doorway waiting to pounce.

      Too bad.

      Tearing her eyes from the hallway, she wondered if the last year’s worth of stifled sexual impulses could account for her hallucinating a stranger on her tail. Or maybe she could attribute the fanciful thoughts to being in the Bad Girl Bordello.

      “This room is definitely naughty.” Brianne’s voice called her back to the present. She trailed appreciative fingers over the lush shirred velvet lining two of the walls. “Total fantasy.”

      The deep burgundy color of the fabric was repeated in the bed and on an old-fashioned settee. Red satin trimmed with black lace skirted the bed and decorated pillows. Beaded antique lampshades rested over delicate brass light fixtures, while small crystal chandeliers twinkled in the soft light overhead.

      “Told you it was a pleasure palace.” Summer reached to tweak one of the dangling prisms in the chandelier near the entry.

      As in several other rooms throughout the hotel, the bordello featured erotic statues and framed lithographs of a couple in various positions described in the Kama Sutra. Even so, the room had taken on a mood and ambiance uniquely its own.

      “Yes, but will you christen this room as thoroughly as Aidan and I christened the harem?” Brianne winked as she started rifling through the bags of thematic costumes Summer had bought as amenities for the luxury suite.

      A rogue twinge of envy squeezed Summer as she thought about the kinds of pleasures Brianne and her new fiancé Aidan Maddock had enjoyed at the club. They’d been the first couple to make use of the sensual atmosphere Summer strove to maintain in all the refurbished rooms.

      “Actually, I’m hoping to snag this room any time it’s free, but we’ll probably have lots of reservations for it once a few people have stayed here.” Summer had lived at the hotel for the last year, bouncing from room to room according to whatever was available. “I seem to be short a man for any real christening, but I have to say if I had an opportunity, this room would be my first choice.”

      Some optimistic part of her had hoped to initiate a real relationship at this stage of her life. At twenty-eight years old, she was the only female she knew in her age bracket who had never formed a remotely long-term liaison.

      Of course, that desire for a mild commitment had prevented her from making moves on the guys she’d always been most attracted to—the surfers with the rebel attitudes and the rock ’n’ roll studs who were living on the edge. Somehow she couldn’t work up the same lusty enthusiasm for the more staid investment brokers, entrepreneurs and lawyerly types that invaded South Beach nightlife.

      “Want me to start keeping an eye out for you, Summer? I think I know your type. Unconventional, lives-by-his-own rules kind of guy, right?” Brianne pulled a crushed silk corset out of Summer’s costume bag and grazed the fabric against her cheek.

      Summer frowned, surprised. “Since when did you become the intuitive one, Ms. High Tech?”

      “You’re parading around the club wearing a vintage bustier and pink braids in your hair. Believe me, pure logic brought me to the conclusion you’d like an unconventional guy.”

      “A bustier this gorgeous needed to be seen.” Shaking off the crocheted scarf she’d draped over her shoulders, Summer unveiled the silk moiré undergarment she’d snagged for herself during the costume-shopping spree.

      She could have sworn she heard a swift intake of breath in the corridor outside the door.

      What was it with her and the damn hallway tonight? The sense of someone watching her lingered. But she knew perfectly well Brianne had taken the extra remote security cameras out of the private rooms. No doubt the hot gaze she felt merely resulted from a shivery manifestation of overactive hormones.

      Brianne tugged one of Summer’s decorative pink braids. “I think you’ve crossed over into the fantasy world you created. Did you realize your bustier coordinates perfectly with the bordello?”

      “You think this is fantasy?” Summer adjusted the satin ribbon tying her outfit together. “This doesn’t come close to the ideas I have in mind if I ever found the right guy to christen the bordello with.”

      Brianne pulled the requisite velvet shackles out of Summer’s costume bag and dangled them in front of her nose. “Would you make him your love slave?”

      “Hardly.”

      “You don’t have kinky toe fetishes or anything, do you?”

      “Eeeww.” Summer whipped Brianne’s shoulder with one end of her satin bustier tie. “I’m thinking more along the lines of being totally overwhelmed.” She gestured vaguely around the room. “That’s sort of the whole bordello theme in a nutshell, isn’t it—being at a man’s whim? I mean don’t get me wrong, obviously we’re all grateful the women’s movement has given us so much power over our lives, but sometimes I feel ready to shake off the überwoman syndrome and just be…”

      “Overpowered?” Brianne fanned herself. “Honey, that’s a smoking fantasy. Where do I sign up for that?”

      “It’s definitely not on Club Paradise’s activity list. If it was, I’d be the first to sign on.” She could certainly use the stress-relieving benefits of sex. She’d been giving one hundred and ten percent to the hotel in an effort to prepare the rooms for a possible print pictorial in Wanderlust magazine this fall. The spread would be a professional coup, but it would mean publicly staking her success—and the resort’s—on her design talent.

      Summer peered toward the door again, her skin tingling along with that overactive sixth sense.

      Or maybe her skin simply tingled from thinking about her favorite seduction scenario.

      “I’m right there with you.” Brianne stood, her eyes now glued on the miniature surveillance monitor she’d installed in a sort of wristwatch contraption. “But for now I’d better go check the security and make sure things are running smoothly around the club tonight.”

      With a few more exclamations over the bordello, Brianne was out the door, leaving Summer by herself to unload the exotic lingerie costumes into a decorative armoire.

      She turned back to the task, hanging corsets and merry widows from quilted pink hangers in the cherry cabinet.

      Yet the maddening sensation of being watched returned. Spinning around, she followed her instincts this time, unconcerned if she was being paranoid. She skirted the settee and hustled to the open door. Leaning over the housekeeping supply cart, she poked her head out into the corridor and saw nothing. No one.

      Brianne had disappeared in the hallway and no one else lurked there.

      Okay, so she was definitely paranoid. Easing back into the bordello, Summer edged around the housekeeping cart. The satin ties on her bustier trailed over a stack of fresh towels and a shiny silver box.

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