Girl's Guide to Hunting & Kissing. Joanne Rock

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ fingers grazed the cool metal it started to vibrate.

      A shivery sensation skated through her for a split second, confirming that she’d denied her sexual impulses for too long.

      Jiggling the stack of cotton towels beneath it, the phone hummed and then emitted a shrill ring. Never a woman to mind her own business, Summer unfolded the sleek case and willed away the stray tingles humming through her.

      “Hello?” She tucked back into the bordello, hugging the phone to her ear with one shoulder.

      “Thanks for picking up.” A smooth and sexy masculine voice rolled through the airwaves. “I’m trying to track down my cell phone so I thought I’d ring the number and see what happened.”

      He’d ignited a lonely woman’s libido with a vibrating phone. How perfectly clever.

      “You seem to have misplaced it on a housekeeping cart.” She glanced back at the maid’s apparatus and wondered what the man on the other end of this amazing voice might look like. “Right between the triple-milled French soaps and the lavender hand lotions.”

      “Of all the places to land in an exotic hotel, I get stuck in the rolling soap-supply station.”

      “Actually, the soap station was teetering on the threshold of the Bad Girl Bordello. I call that kind of exotic.” A smile warmed her insides. When was the last time she’d flirted with a man?

      “Now that sounds more like it. I don’t know how my phone ended up there, but I did wander through the resort earlier tonight before I went into the bar. I’m Jackson, by the way. Would you mind if I came by to pick up the phone?”

      Mentally she reviewed why that wouldn’t be a good idea. She should meet him in a public place like the lounge just in case he was a serial killer. Then again, she could always just ask Brianne to check on her in a little while.

      “Sure. I’m Summer Farnsworth and the phone will be with me in the bordello.” Could she help it if her inner bad girl still made occasional appearances? “It’s on the ocean side of the main floor.”

      “I’m on my way.” The line disconnected as she folded up the phone.

      Hesitating a moment, she opened it again and placed a quick call to Brianne to make sure her friend would keep an eye out for her tonight. Brianne’s experience with a creepy stalker had made everyone at Club Paradise a little more cautious.

      That done, Summer was feeling less paranoid by the moment. In fact, she felt downright eager. She suspected she was about to meet the man behind the eyes she’d sensed on her this evening. Her every intuitive Aquarian impulse told her so. Instead of frightening her, however, the thought only heightened her anticipation.

      This guy—Jackson—had gone out of his way to hunt her down and meet her. He’d used a very non-traditional means that could turn a girl’s head. Maybe he was the kind of sexy rebel that had always attracted her. And while she had tried to outgrow the flings of her youth, she couldn’t deny a hot, quickie interlude with a mysterious stranger might be just the cure for her recent restlessness.

      As she dug in her vintage beaded handbag for a tube of lipstick, Summer made up her mind to jump her visitor if he had a tattoo. She’d jump him twice if he had a tattoo and an earring.

      Which left her with only one thing to ponder.

      Would tonight’s Mistress of the Bordello leave her bustier ties opened or closed?

      2

      While stalking your prey, be sure to dress for the kill.

      JACKSON STRAIGHTENED his tie outside the doorway labeled Bordello on a creamy slab of light-colored marble. The maid’s cart still propped the door open, so he hung back a moment to gather his thoughts while a sultry blues tune drifted through the open archway into the hall. He began to button his suit jacket and then, on second thought, left the olive gabardine garment undone.

      If Summer proved to be half as flirtatious in person as she’d been over the phone, maybe he wouldn’t be leaving his jacket on for long anyway. A woman who designed sexy bordellos for a living couldn’t be all that reserved.

      Besides, he possessed privileged information to give him an edge in his seduction quest.

      He knew Summer’s secret fantasy.

      Not that he planned to use the information—yet. His knuckle hovered over the door as he debated tonight’s approach. When she’d given him her name over the phone, he’d identified her as one of the four primary owners of the revamped club. Translation—she was hip-deep in scandal and controversy herself these days. Many Miami Beach residents had been cheated out of their investments with the club’s former owners and they didn’t necessarily approve of the business’s reorganization and reopening.

      Just what a politician needed—to be linked to someone making all the wrong headlines.

      Still, he wanted Summer. Badly. And he couldn’t officially call himself a politician yet. Despite pressure on all sides, Jackson hadn’t thrown his hat in the ring for state legislator in his district.

      Reaching around the housekeeping cart to rap on the bordello door with a bit more force than he’d intended, Jackson made up his mind to live for himself tonight. He’d been a prisoner to the press and his family’s high-profile lifestyle too damn long.

      He waited, watching the propped door swing all the way open while Billie Holiday belted out a torch song within.

      Summer Farnsworth and her bedroom goddess mouth were there—utterly delectable and framed in a backdrop of crimson. Her ruby-red dress blended with the rest of the room while her creamy pale skin and platinum-blond hair stood out all the more. Shoulders bared in a tiny top that had to be some sort of undergarment, she had untied the ribbon that laced the outfit together.

      Could she be thinking along the same seductive lines as him tonight?

      His gaze searched her face for those answers, but she seemed to be studying him with every bit as much fascination. Her eyes lingered on his tie.

      He could have sworn she mumbled something about no tattoo under her breath, but obviously he’d misheard.

      She glanced up at him while she refastened the loosened ties just above her breasts.

      Damn.

      “You’re Jackson Taggart.” Her lips cocked in a wry grin not exactly brimming with enthusiasm. Tiny crescent moons dangled from her ears.

      “Didn’t I mention that on the phone?” Of course he knew damn well he hadn’t. His family name carried all the wrong connotations in the press lately.

      “You just said Jackson. I would have remembered the Taggart part.” Still, she stepped aside and gestured him in. “Let me get your phone.”

      Not wanting to push his luck, he stood just inside the doorway and waited while she crossed the room to a sitting area. He watched with appreciative eyes as she edged her way around the antique furniture, her gently swaying hips inviting attention.

      She bent to retrieve his phone from a table covered with silky black satin and lace. Good God, the woman had buried his phone in lingerie.

СКАЧАТЬ