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She’s sweet as sin
...and he’s twice as wicked!
Bombshell burlesque performer Kaylee Whitfield has perfected the art of the tease—especially when deliciously gorgeous Aidan Beckett is watching. Of course Aidan has no idea that she’s his ex-bestie’s little sister, or that he broke Kaylee’s teenage heart. It was supposed to be one sexy—and secret—tryst. But Kaylee has a few things to learn about searingly hot temptation...and risking her heart.
TARYN LEIGH TAYLOR likes dinosaurs, bridges and space—both personal and the final frontier variety. She shamelessly indulges in clichés, most notably her Starbucks addiction—grande six-pump whole milk, no water chai-tea latte, aka: ‘the usual’, her shoe hoard (I can stop any time I… Ooh! These are pretty!) and her penchant for falling in lust with fictional men with great abs. She also really loves books, which was what sent her down the crazy path of writing in the first place. Want to be virtual friends? Check out tarynleightaylor.com, Facebook.com/tarynltaylor1 and Twitter, @tarynltaylor.
Secret Pleasure
Taryn Leigh Taylor
www.millsandboon.co.uk
ISBN: 978-1-474-07151-2
SECRET PLEASURE
© 2018 Taryn Leigh Taylor
Published in Great Britain 2018
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.
www.millsandboon.co.uk
For Tina—this book would not be without you.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
And for Crystal—alpha consultant, proof-reader,
sanity-restorer, best friend. I don’t know how you do
it all, but I sure am glad you do. I hope this one lives
up to pineapple-shorted expectations.
Contents
Cover
Back Cover Text
About the Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Extract
About the Publisher
“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, put your hands together for the one and only Lola Mariposa!”
The rush of that moment, the split second before anything happened, hit like a freight train. Nervousness, excitement, fear, anticipation, all toppling over one another, crowding her chest, grappling for dominance.
The curtains whooshed open. The spotlight beat down. She could feel their gazes on her.
It thrilled her to her core.
The music started, the old song sounding a little tinny and scratchy in the top-of-the-line speakers, and just like that, Kaylee Whitfield disappeared completely into her braver, sassier, sultrier alter ego.
The blond wig, blue contacts, and stage makeup helped, of course, but there was something magical that happened when she was out on the stage. Anonymous. Free.
She sat at the prop vanity set, her back to the club, pretending to brush her hair and apply blush. Then the incomparable Ella Fitzgerald launched into the first verse of “Bei Mir Bist du Schön” and Kaylee threw a coy glance over her shoulder, careful to keep her sight line just over their heads as she placed her index finger between her ruby-red lips. In a practiced move, she tugged her black satin glove off with her teeth before twirling it over her head and tossing it aside.
She never made eye contact while she was onstage. Because her performances weren’t for the crowd.
No, this moment in the spotlight was all about her.
She let the silk dressing gown slip off one shoulder before pulling it back up. Someone in the back gave a catcall, and Kaylee’s sultry grin grew more so.
Being onstage was a physical expression for the rebelliousness she’d been swallowing down since she was old enough to realize her mother’s terse rebukes of “You’re embarrassing yourself” actually meant Kaylee was embarrassing her mother, her family, and the esteemed Whitfield name, and that some Draconian punishment awaited her when they arrived home. As a result, Kaylee had learned early on how to blend in, to not cause a scene. She was a master at dousing her wants and desires under an impenetrable veneer of propriety and good manners.
But once a week, burlesque saved her, set her free.
She loved its costumes and pageantry.
She loved its tongue-in-cheek showmanship.
And most of all she loved how in control it made her feel.
There was power in the art of the tease, in bringing people to the brink before retreating, only to do it again. She drew power from leaving them wanting more.
She tugged off the other glove in the same fashion before pretending to do a final check of her makeup in the vanity mirror and standing up.
As planned, she twirled one end of the sash holding the dressing gown closed and did her slinkiest walk toward the front of the stage. What was completely unplanned, though, was when her coquettish sweep of the crowd—carefully aimed just above their heads, of course—collided with a pair of green eyes that stopped her dead.
Not that she could see their color from the stage. But despite the distance and the dim light of the club, she knew they were rich jade, darker around the edges, and unlike any eyes she’d seen before...or since. That they squinted when he concentrated. That they sparkled when he teased. That they cut when he was angry.
Aidan.
It had been ten years since she’d last seen him. Five since he and her brother had unceremoniously ended all contact. Still, she’d know Aidan Beckett anywhere.
Something suspiciously like desire bloomed in her abdomen, reminding her of hormone-addled summers spent pretending to read books by the pool so she could furtively admire Aidan’s sun-kissed chest and the way rivulets of water clung to his back muscles as he and her brother, Max, showed off for the omnipresent bevy of interchangeable, age-appropriate, bikini-clad girls giggling and preening nearby.
If he’d been sitting like everyone else watching the show, she never would have seen him. But instead, he was leaning against the wooden pillar at the edge of the seating area, with a bottle of beer in his hand, looking bigger and broader and more delicious than he had when he’d visited during college breaks. Manlier. Like he knew what he was doing.
In fact, he was so devastatingly gorgeous in jeans, a black T-shirt, and a black motorcycle jacket that she couldn’t look away.
With a deep breath and a swivel of her hips, she reminded herself that in addition to being a decade older, she was wearing a damn good disguise. And even if she weren’t, there was no way he’d ever associate the sexy, sensual Lola Mariposa with the awkward teenage incarnation of Kaylee Whitfield.
Then Aidan shifted and his tongue darted out to moisten his lips, the way it had all those years ago, right before he’d leaned in and kissed Natasha Campbell, unaware that a young, puberty-addled Kaylee had been jealously spying on the two of them from behind her mother’s prized rosebushes.
And just like that, lust and vindication shoved fear of discovery out of the way.
Because if he’d recognized the woman onstage as Max’s shy little sister for even a second, there was no way he’d be staring at her with such undisguised hunger.
And Kaylee intended to do everything in her power to make sure he stayed hungry.
She shed the dressing gown with no fanfare, catching her routine up to the beats of music she’d let slip by, reveling in Aidan’s undivided interest.
His attention crackled across her skin like an electrical current. A rash of goose bumps followed the same path as she expertly controlled his gaze—rolled a bare shoulder, swept her fingers along the sweetheart neckline of her black satin-and-lace corset, cocked a hip before tracing the edge of her matching panties. She shot him a mischievous smile before bending at the waist as she ran her hands the length of the leg closest to him, from the top of her garter belt down her black thigh-high it held in place. She paused at the bottom so she could undo the strap of one three-inch metallic-edged black T-strap heel, and then the other one.
Free of her shoes, she settled into the rest of her routine, letting her body dip and sway with the music, daring him not to want her.
Even her favorite part of the routine, when she put all the hours of ballet class her mother had forced on her to taboo use and used her perfect développé as an opportunity to unhook her garter belt before perching her toes on the stool and tugging the seamed stocking down and all the way off, was dedicated to Aidan tonight.
She spun so she was sitting on the stool and extended the other leg so she could remove that stocking, too, being sure to aim her flirtatious looks in his direction.
Her routine was all vintage bump and grind, from the music to the victory rolls in her faux blond hair, but there was nothing old-fashioned about the way her body was responding to having his eyes on her. She loved being onstage, but it had never turned her on like this before.
Kaylee put her back to the audience so they could watch her loosen the laces of her corset, every cell in her body acutely attuned to Aidan.
When she turned to face front, her body subconsciously angled toward him as she began undoing the hook-and-eye closures that ran the length of the bustier. After unfastening all of them under his careful watch, she held the stiff garment to her body, drawing out the big reveal, and her nipples tightened almost painfully as she imagined how differently her evening might have ended if, instead of a club full of people, this had been a private show for Aidan. Heat pooled at the apex of her thighs, and she bit her lip against the erotic thought of their bodies pressed together.
When her corset hit the floor, Kaylee was clad in nothing but sequined pasties and ruffled panties, but in all her performances, she’d never once felt so deliciously naked or so desperately wanted. She barely heard the applause and whistles. There was only her and Aidan and his stark look of desire as she executed an impressive shoulder shimmy and struck her final pose as the music ended.
She was breathing faster than normal, not from exertion but from the sensual thrill of stripping for the beautiful boy she’d wanted with her whole heart back then and the sexy man she wanted with her whole body now.
He lifted his chin and raised his beer bottle in tribute, and the intimacy of the moment in a club full of people stole her breath altogether.
Then the curtain rushed closed and swallowed him from sight.
CHAPTER TWO
JEE-ZUS.
Aidan Beckett took a long swallow of his beer.
He didn’t know how the fuck it had happened, but he was half-hard for the leggy blonde with the tiny butterfly tattooed on her ribs who’d just seduced him in a room full of people.
He’d never seen a burlesque show before. It was different from strippers. The women had a spark to them. No dead eyes and rote movements. There was joy on the stage. Cheekiness. Playfulness that made you feel like you and the performer were sharing some sort of inside joke, even if you couldn’t quite figure out what it was.
He’d been scanning the bar, half cursing his PI for sending him here on a wild-goose chase, half following the dance moves of some redhead in sparkly lingerie shimmying around and mugging prettily about diamonds being a girl’s best friend.
Then the audience had erupted in appreciative cheers, and he’d glanced at his watch as the emcee of the evening introduced the next performer.
That’s when she’d appeared.
Lola Mariposa.
There’d been something...electric about her, something that transcended the mile-long legs. The way she danced. Hell, the way she’d looked at him. Before they’d made eye contact, he would have sworn she didn’t even care that she had an audience. She looked like she had a secret she wasn’t about to share.
She might be dancing, like the performers before her. She might be saucily removing most of her clothes, like the performers before her. But unlike like the performers before her, there was something aloof about her, a definite “you should be so lucky” vibe, and he’d liked it.
But then, Aidan had always liked a challenge.
When their eyes had locked, something had pulsed between them.
Attraction.
Desire.
She’d ensnared him and she knew it. Reveled in it. It was one of the sexiest damn things he’d ever seen.
The kick of lust had caught him off guard. He’d been in a dark place lately. Too dark a place to put the effort into seducing someone. So he’d been making do, tiring himself out at the gym and in the boxing ring, and rubbing one out when the need arose. But for the first time in a long time, his hand seemed like a poor substitution for a down-and-dirty fuck.
The burlesque dancer had made him realize how much he’d missed sex—the give and take, the heat and friction, that release. She’d unwrapped her body and his libido at the same time.
He pushed away from the rough beam at his back and set his half-empty beer bottle on the tray of a passing waitress.
If it was any other night, he might have sought Lola out. Explored that pulse of want that had crackled between them. But tonight, he had business to attend to.
He’d come to the club looking for someone, but the minute he’d pulled his bike into the parking lot, he’d known the intel was shit.
Little Kaylee Jayne Whitfield, apple of her mother’s watchful eye, wouldn’t set foot in a burlesque club on the edge of downtown LA. But the PI he’d hired to track her down was the best, and he said he’d seen her car here on Friday nights for the last month.
No silver Audis had graced the parking lot when Aidan had arrived tonight. But his curiosity had him walking inside for Booze and Burlesque Friday anyway. He’d dropped Kaylee’s name, and a fifty-dollar bill, but the bartender hadn’t heard of her. A quick survey of the patronage hadn’t panned out any better.
He needed to have a word with his intel guy.
Aidan pulled his phone out of his leather jacket and headed for the side door of the club. Ignoring the Emergency Exit Only warning stuck to the door in peeling red letters, he pushed through into the parking lot, wedging one of his riding gloves between the door and the jamb. He’d go back in and do a final sweep of the club before he called it a night.
“What’s up, Aidan?”
“That’s what I want to know. You’re sure this is where you saw the car? Because it’s not the kind of place a Whitfield would normally frequent.”
He remembered a young Kaylee, her dark, shiny hair twisted in a bun, her mother forever dragging her to ballet class or violin lessons. This place was definitely not her style. Too seedy for matriarch Sylvia, not fucking seedy enough for patriarch Charles. There’d been a time when he could have talked Max out of his country-club ways and into a night of debauched fun at a place like this—but that felt like a lifetime ago.
Aidan shook off the inconvenient memory and focused on the phone call.
“I told you predictive stuff wasn’t a hundred percent. But yeah, it was her car. She’s been showing up at that address on Friday nights like clockwork.”
Aidan raked his fingers through his shaggy hair, shoving it back from his forehead. “I’ll do one more lap, but if I can’t find her, we’re going to need a plan B.”
“Well, she’s pretty consistent with her time at the gym, but I’m leaning toward the coffee shop. Her regular haunt starts construction on Monday, and with a coffee habit like hers, I think she’ll find a new place for her caffeine fix. I’m running numbers on her most likely deviation now.”
Damn. This was getting too complicated.
That’s exactly why plan A was for him to “accidentally” run into Kaylee tonight, play the “old friends” card, and hope his ongoing feud with her brother wouldn’t deter her from accepting his offer to take her to dinner tomorrow. From there, installing the malware on her phone and downloading a copy of the app should be easy. According to his sources, she was one of five people that Max had trusted to test the prototype version of SecurePay, the digital cryptocurrency app that was poised to take Whitfield Industries to the next level.
Actually, plan A had been to buy the damn SecurePay app legally and have his guys pull it apart to find the string of code he needed to prove Max had violated the exclusivity clause in his contract with John Beckett. Unfortunately, thanks to a security breach, the launch of Whitfield Industries’ flagship tech had been scrapped at the last minute. So now if Aidan wanted to gain the rights to his father’s legacy, he’d have to improvise.
“Let me know what you come up with.”
“Will do.”
He hung up and glanced over at his bike, pulling a hand down his face.
Jesus, he hated this covert bullshit.
You have a problem with someone, you tell them to their fucking face.
Like you’re doing right now? his conscience asked.
Aidan frowned.
He had no choice. Right now was when the stars had aligned.
Charles Whitfield had been indicted for blackmailing a key member of the SecurePay team, Emma something-or-other, and Aidan was damn sure it wasn’t the first time. Because five years ago, the same day he’d died, Aidan’s dad had signed away all rights to the code that represented the pinnacle of his life’s work, a move so out of character that coercion was the only explanation that made any sense.
No way in hell was he going to let Max rule from on high, poised to make billions by commandeering tech that existed only because of John Beckett’s genius. Besides, he thought darkly, there was a certain poetic justice to using the only Whitfield who meant anything to Max—the shy, studious girl who’d stared at Aidan with hearts in her eyes, the intense, focused woman who currently served as her brother’s PR consigliere—to take him down.
Yes. Kaylee was the nuclear option—the quickest, most brutal way to ruin Whitfield Industries the way Whitfield Industries had ruined his father.
And Aidan wasn’t in the mood to wait.
“Damn it.”
Kaylee pulled her hand from her bag to find it covered in liquid foundation. Her jeans were coated in beige, her white T-shirt splotched with it. So much for a fast getaway. She’d been hoping to change and sneak out as quickly as possible. Fooling Aidan from a distance was one thing, but she didn’t want to tempt fate by running into him again.
She laughed at herself as she flipped the light switch in the tiny backstage bathroom with her elbow. As if Aidan would be looking for her at all. Unlike her, he’d spent the majority of their youth completely unaware of her status as a member of the opposite sex. She stuck her makeupy hands beneath the tap, washing the mess from her skin.
She remembered the first time she’d seen him. He’d stolen her breath, throwing her long-held beliefs that boys were gross and cooties were a fate worse than death right out the proverbial window. A golden boy with shaggy hair and a leather jacket. He’d been fifteen to her eleven, and she’d thought he was the coolest guy she’d ever met. So different than Max’s other friends. There was something rough about him, more dangerous than the country-club jerks she’d grown up with. But the best thing about Aidan was that he never ignored her. And sometimes, when Max was busy doing something for their parents, Aidan would talk to her, tell her stories full of adventure—races he’d won, fights he’d started, the trips he planned to take.
Her crush had only intensified with puberty, and by the time she was fourteen, she was counting down the days until Max and Aidan came home from university on break. By then, his boyish promise had been realized, and Aidan had grown into his cocky swagger. He didn’t just have the attitude anymore but a muscled body that could back it up. Kaylee had been mesmerized.
By that point, Max was a cool, distant stranger, but Aidan still made time to greet her, tell her a story, flirt a little. At least she’d thought it was flirting, until one fateful evening when she’d come home from studying at the library to find Max was having a get-together. Kaylee had witnessed firsthand what real flirting was like when she’d covertly watched Aidan and their neighbor Natasha wrapped in each other’s arms, indulging in the kind of kissing that Kaylee had only seen in movies. She’d fled from the passionate scene with a heavy heart, made heavier when she’d heard that Aidan had gone on to seduce the pretty blonde right out of her bikini. Or at least that was the story as Natasha had told it later that summer.