Girl Gone Wild

Normally, when a man tried to protect her from anything, Giselle’s first instinct was to bristle. She’d been practically smothered to death by masculine attempts at protection in her family, so she didn’t usually appreciate it from anyone else. But the warm concern in Hugh’s eyes, the sincerity of his fear, softened any resentment she might have felt.

“How soon can you have your story written?” Patience wasn’t her strong suit on a good day. And this week she was operating on an even tighter schedule than normal given that one of her brothers would be back in a week.

Nico had sent plenty of her dates running. No matter that women thought he was gorgeous, something about his multibroken nose spoke volumes to other men and made them give him a wide berth. And, as a result, forced them to stay away from Giselle, too.

She didn’t want to wait around only to have Hugh flee.

His fingers slid along the silky fabric of her dress, whispered over her hips and up to her waist. “I can hurry up the process in this case. But it often takes me a few weeks to gather my research.”

“Weeks?” She’d been wondering how she could wait a few hours.

Hugh’s touch skated up her ribs, paused just beneath her breasts.

“I like to be very thorough in my work.” His thumbs drew idle circles on her ribs just below the hem of her bra.

“Oh, really?” Awareness flared through her, made her breath catch in her throat while her breasts tingled and tightened in anticipation.

Just looking at the man made her want to jump him. That sinfully dark hair falling over his brow, combined with the thoughtful way he looked at her—and really saw her—made her want to tangle tongues, limbs and sheets with Hugh.

“Definitely.” His hands flexed against her, pressing lightly into the folds of her dress. He leaned closer to whisper against her ear. “I never do anything in half measures.”

Ooh. She liked the sound of that. And she most certainly liked the feel of what he was doing to her.

She might have moved in for more kissing if she hadn’t caught a glimpse of movement on the beach a few feet away. An older couple Giselle recognized as guests at Club Paradise strolled past them, smiling and winking as they set out for a morning walk.

Given the hour of the day, she really shouldn’t be openly trysting here, on the property of the business she ran. “You’re right. Patience could be a very good thing in this case.”

She tugged him closer to one of the resort’s beach-front tiki huts that housed a minibar and a few stools for patrons seeking shelter from the sun.

He followed her underneath the cool cover of dried palm leaves threaded through the framed roof. “Then you don’t mind waiting?”

“Well I can’t wait for weeks.” Her protective force would be back in seven days. Surely he could write a story before then. Especially if given a little incentive.

She slid her hand beneath his jacket to rest on the solid muscle of his chest. “How about if I help you with your research so you can finish up all the faster?”

The wall of muscles rippled under her fingers.

“Works for me.” His voice grew more strangled as she skimmed her fingers lower. He caught them in a steady grip, halted her progress just as she hit his abs. “My editor will coordinate the auxiliary stories off mine. In other words, if he wants to send a food critic, that’s her call, not mine. I tend to write more hard-hitting news.”

“Hard-hitting?” She frowned, not sure she liked the sound of that. Whatever happened to good old-fashioned fluff? She decided not to mention her favorite part of the paper was the society page.

“Yeah. Something with some news value.” He propped an elbow on the bar as he warmed to his topic. “I’ve been meaning to take a closer look at the reports on the scandals going on here before I went overseas last year. Did they ever find all the embezzlers who cleaned out the hotel’s profits? There were a few guys involved. Melvin Baxter was the front man, and then there was his silent partner. I’m trying to remember his name….”

The intoxicating current of desire that had flowed through her veins moments ago now morphed into a painful morning-after hangover at the mention of the embezzlement scandal. The reminder of how she’d unwittingly helped one of the criminals…

“Giselle?” Hugh peered at her more closely.

“No.” She wouldn’t allow herself to go there. She’d had enough of the recriminations. The guilt. And if she ever felt the need for more, all she had to do was initiate a conversation with her partner Lainie Reynolds. The woman’s skill with a dark glare had the power to remind Giselle of every way she’d done the woman wrong by inadvertently sleeping with her husband. “They never did capture them all.”

Hugh stared out to sea, his eyes roaming the distant horizon as the sun filtered across the Atlantic. “But they got the first guy. Melvin Baxter, king of the local Rat Pack. That’s what they called them, I remember. A group of slick players who took the whole city on a wild ride.”

“Enough.” Her skin turned icy at the memory. Her judgment in men had sucked back then because she’d never been allowed to exercise it. What made her think her B.S.-alert system worked any better now? “I don’t care to remember the club’s darkest hour.”

Hugh smiled as if totally oblivious to her discomfort. She made a mental note that the man’s keen observation skills seemed to go down the toilet when he got wrapped up in a new idea.

“The power of journalism is that it can shed new light on those dark places, Giselle. That’s what I do best.” His cocky smile might have been a tad arrogant, but then again Giselle didn’t have a problem with people who were certain of themselves.

She just had a problem when those people wanted to resurrect a past she’d tried hard to bury.

“I think some things are better left alone.”

“You’d never make it as an investigative reporter with that kind of thinking.” He grinned as he plucked a wind-tossed strand of hair out of her eyes.

While Giselle struggled to think of a way to redirect this conversation before it unsettled her anymore, Hugh snapped his fingers.

“I’ve got it.”

“What?”

Hugh’s eyes seemed to turn an even brighter shade of green. “The name of the silent partner in the old management group that ran this place. It was Robert Flynn.”

Robert.

Giselle gripped the planked surface of the bar in the tiny tiki hut for support as the name from her past knifed right through her.

Not that she still cared about the man who’d lied to her in the very worst way. No, the pain in her chest had nothing to do with a broken heart and everything to do with her guilt at having been sucked in by him. At having deeply injured his wife.

The woman who was now her partner.

Who would have guessed a man named Robert Flynn would be married to a woman named Lainie Reynolds? In her family of old world values, women always took the man’s name when they got married. Geesh. She was so freaking naive.

Combine the different last names with Robert’s lack of a wedding ring, and before she knew it, she’d slept with another woman’s husband.

“That was it, wasn’t it? Robert Flynn?” Hugh tilted his head as if to meet her gaze even though she stared at the sandy floor of the open hut.

“Yes.” She closed her eyes for a long, bracing moment, unwilling to let Robert cheat her out of something good with Hugh. She’d already lost more than enough to Robert Flynn, thank you very much. “That’s him. He’s one of the men they never captured.”

Giselle met his gaze, read the interest in his eyes.

“Sometimes renewed coverage by the media can lure criminals out of hiding. Ever see America’s Most Wanted? It’s the same premise.” He reached behind the minibar and pulled out two glasses, then poured them both a glass of water from a jug on the counter.

Giselle accepted the offering even though this pseudo-date was rapidly crashing and burning. She couldn’t allow Hugh to write any story that would “lure” Robert Flynn back to town. Having that man within a fifty-mile radius of Club Paradise would have explosive consequences for them all. She needed to squelch the idea as soon as possible.

“Apparently Flynn is living in comfort in the Cayman Islands and local authorities don’t have a prayer of extraditing him.” End of story.

Too bad the chemistry between her and Hugh—and her growing desire to learn much more about this man—wasn’t as easily dismissed.

NOW SHE WAS TALKING his language.

Hugh had made a name for himself in journalism by delving into stories full of problematic foreign ex-traditions and crooks in hiding.

He’d parlayed that talent into something even bigger and more important as far as he was concerned. He wouldn’t trade his specialty of shedding light on harmful foreign policy for anything. No woman would ever decide lightly to enter a foreign country hostile to females with her young son in tow again if Hugh could help it. Information about frightening foreign customs hadn’t been readily available when his mother had decided to pack him off to a little known Middle Eastern hellhole at a young age, but Hugh had made it his mission in life to ensure things were different now.

For as long as he was a journalist, he would always choose to write those kinds of stories over some fluff piece on the local tourist scene. But if he had to write something about Club Paradise, at least he finally had an intriguing angle.

He’d have his story written and his path cleared to Giselle’s bed within the week. And if the article broke the way he anticipated, there would surely be a few follow-up pieces that needed to be written. A fact which would keep him in South Beach long enough to revisit that bed.

Often.

“Looks like I’ve found the angle I need.” He downed the rest of his water and set the glass back on the wooden bar inside the small tiki hut. Now he was ready to start his research. Sleep could wait once adrenaline started fueling him this way.

Giselle, on the other hand, seemed to have grown quiet over the last hour since the sun had fully risen. She was probably feeling the effects of having been up so long since she didn’t have the benefit of a new journalistic undertaking to keep her going.

She looked ready to speak, but Hugh swooped closer to spare her the effort. He kissed her with all the longing that had been plaguing him since he’d laid eyes on her. She molded to him, her soft curves and pliant limbs conforming to the hard angles of his body.

A vision of the pastry she’d fed him flitted through his brain as her breasts flattened against his chest. He couldn’t wait to see the real thing, to taste her nipples instead of the bright red cherries she’d served him.

And just like that he wanted her naked. Needed her naked.

With a groan of regret he pulled away, knowing he wouldn’t be able to fulfill his end of their bargain if he continued to kiss her. Especially since a lush hotel full of exotically decorated bedrooms loomed fifty yards away from their tiki hut retreat.

“I’m going to write this story faster than I’ve ever penned anything in my life.” He stroked a hand through her mane of thick, glossy curls and calculated the days until he could feel that hair spilling over his bare chest. “If I come by later, do you think you could answer some questions for me?”

She blinked, hesitated.

“I can ask someone else if today isn’t a good time. It’s just that I usually end up with a handful of simple questions after my first round of research. You might be able to answer them faster than I could scout around for the information.”

Biting her lip as if weighing indecision, she finally nodded. “Okay. I’ll probably be awake around two this afternoon. I’m living at the hotel for a few months while we build our business, so you can just ask for directions to my room at the desk.”

Picturing the two of them together in a hotel room—especially a room at the hedonistic singles playground Club Paradise—painted wicked visions in his mind.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea considering our deal to wait until after the story runs?” He was having a hard time keeping his hands to himself in broad daylight on a public beach. How would he ever maintain distance in a decadent bedroom?

“We can head to the kitchens if we get too tempted. Where are you going now?” She smoothed her palms over the lapels of his lightweight jacket.

Even that simple touch set him on fire. Something about this woman lit a torch to his insides in a way no one else ever had.

He backed away before he gave in to the urge to scoop her off her feet and beg her to tell him the exact location of her hotel room. Right then. “I’m going to head into the Herald offices to check out the archives.”

She looked distraught but Hugh didn’t dare to hope that was because he had to leave. He might know a hell of a lot about luring criminals out of hiding by hitting the right story buttons, but he was man enough to admit he didn’t have a clue when it came to understanding female emotions.

Scrambling for a gesture that would make it all okay, he reached for her hand and kissed the back of her soft, bronze skin. Inhaled the perfumed scent at her wrist that lingered even in the growing heat of another South Beach scorcher. “Until later.”

As he straightened, he spied a hint of a smile at her lips. A trace of the woman he’d seen dancing around the kitchen while singing Sinatra at the top of her lungs.

Something inside him shifted. Lightened. For a chef who baked erotic pastries for fun and liked dancing barefoot, Giselle Cesare had a surprisingly deep, potent effect on him. An effect he couldn’t wait to explore in detail as soon as he finished this story.

Robert Flynn would be headline news before the guy knew what hit him, and Hugh could get back to what he’d wanted to do ever since he’d glimpsed Giselle’s bright red panties.

Indulge in pure and simple uncomplicated sex that would leave them both hungry for more.

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