He’d recognised her the minute he’d seen her, with the same hard punch he’d felt for her all those years ago.

Back then, it had been a half-formed yearning that Dom hadn’t quite understood. Now he recognised it. Oh yeah, he recognised it – plain, old-fashioned lust, sharp and immediate. Of course, generally when he felt this kind of need, it wasn’t coupled with the shock of seeing a face, a person resurrected from his past.

And from his dreams.

Approaching Delaney hadn’t been a matter of debate. He couldn’t have stayed away if he’d tried. The fact that she hadn’t initially recognised him had only added a little spice to the game.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Came down to take a break, do some diving. I think we should find somewhere quiet and do some catching up.”

She laughed as though she knew exactly what he was thinking.

“Absolutely,” she replied with a wink.

Dear Reader,

This is a story I’ve been looking forward to writing for a long time. For those of you who scoff at such coincidence, let me just say that the meeting described here really happened to my cousin and her husband, who didn’t see each other for fifteen years after breaking up at secondary school. The rest of the story, characters and particulars are of my own invention, but the tap on the shoulder in a Mexican bar is real, as is the fact that today the two of them are happily married with two beautiful daughters. Then again, my parents married two weeks after meeting each other and still hold hands fifty-two years later. Is it any wonder I’m a romance writer?

So we’ve come to the end of SEX & THE SUPPER CLUB, which I confess gives me a pang. I’ll be sad to see the characters go – I’ve got to know them well over the years. Hopefully, you’ll agree that this is a good send-off. Drop me a line at Kristin@kristinhardy.com and let me know what you think. Stop by www.kristinhardy.com for news, recipes and contests, or to sign up for my newsletter.

Have fun,

Kristin Hardy

BAD BEHAVIOUR

BY

KRISTIN HARDY

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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To Dee,

for letting me borrow her story.

And to Stephen,

may our story never end.

CAST OF CHARACTERS FOR SEX & THE SUPPER CLUB

Book 1 – Turn Me On Sabrina Pantolini and Stef Costas

Book 2 – Cutting Loose Trish Dawson and Ty Ramsay

Book 3 – Nothing But the Best Cilla Danforth and Rand Mitchell

Book 4 – Bad Influence Paige Favreau and Zach Reed

Book 5 – Hot Moves Thea Mitchell and Brady McMillan

Book 6 – Bad Behaviour Delaney Phillips and ?

Prologue

Los Angeles 1995

“A SEVEN,” DELANEY Phillips decided. “How I’m ever going to market a play starring a seven is anybody’s guess.” She raked a hand through her pale hair.

“A seven? How can you call him a seven?” Kelly Vander-vere demanded, as they sat in the nearly empty balcony discussing the dark-haired actor emoting on the stage below. “Look at that ass. He gets at least an eight.”

“Yeah, but his shoulders are weak and he’s not much taller than Paige is,” Delaney pointed out.

Set designer Paige Favreau stirred nearby. “Somehow I feel I should take exception to that.”

“To him having weak shoulders?”

Paige frowned. “Never mind. I think.”

Delaney’s lips twitched. “A seven,” she confirmed, taking a drink from her bottle of Coke. “Feel free to talk him up in your article for the school paper, Kelly—in fact, I encourage it—but you’re dreaming.”

“That’s just your opinion.”

Green eyes dancing, Delaney glanced at the handful of women sprawled in the balcony as they took their dinner break together. Work on the drama department’s spring production had come to a halt—temporarily. “Okay. Show of hands. All who agree with me? Sabrina, Cilla, Paige, Thea, that’s four. Oh, and moi.” She grinned. “That’s five in favor, Kelly, and only you and Trish who disagree. You’re overruled.”

“He’s got a pretty face,” Trish Dawson objected, a flush staining her almost impossibly fair redhead’s skin.

“And the Godzilla-sized ego to go with it,” added wardrobe mistress Cilla Danforth, in designer wear even for scrub work, with her Dolce & Gabbana ripped jeans. “Pass me the pizza, Paige.”

Paige handed the box to Cilla, along with napkins, her manners as tidy as her blond bob. “Yeah, the ego thing definitely takes him back to a six.”

“From an eight to a six,” Delaney said. “He’s dropping like a rock. Trish, you’re happy about the face because he looks hot reading your script.”

“He does a good interpretation,” said Trish, always fair. “The Godzilla ego is kind of a problem, though.”

“He moves like Godzilla, too,” choreographer Thea Mitchell observed, helping herself to a slice from the box as it passed. “Not that he’d ever take any input from me. I think he thinks I look down on him.”

Delaney glanced at the dark-eyed Thea, who at six feet had a perfect ectomorph’s body. “That’s because you do.”

“Well, I was ordered to stop it.”

Kelly made a face. “What are you supposed to do, slouch?”

“Be more encouraging about his movement.” Thea looked down her nose in an uncanny imitation of their prima donna. “I have it on high authority that he’s perfect.”

“Whose authority?” Delaney asked.

Thea looked amused. “His.”

“We ought to dock him a couple of points on general principles then,” interjected Cilla, “especially since I’m going to have to put in extra time in wardrobe to make him look good. Where does that leave us?”

“Four,” supplied Trish.

“How am I supposed to market a play with a star who’s only a four?” Delaney demanded.

“Sell the sizzle, not the steak?” Trish ventured.

“A four, in case you aren’t aware of it, is more fizzle than sizzle. Sabrina, is there anything jazzy you can pull from all the footage you’ve been shooting?”

Film major Sabrina Pantolini put her feet up and tipped her watch cap rakishly over one brown eye. “I’m shooting a documentary, not a showcase. Gritty reality. You want beauty, you’ll have to do something else. Get Kelly to drag out one of the photographers from the school paper.” Sabrina’s mouth curved. “I’m trying to film art.”

“With a four? Good luck on that one,” Delaney said.

Sabrina smiled wider. “It’s an indie production. Beauty isn’t a requirement.”

“Why did I ever volunteer for this anyway?” Delaney grumbled.

“I seem to remember you saying it would be more fun than interning at a local ad agency,” Paige reminded her.

“Yeah, well…”

“Of course, the internship would probably have been better for your career.”

“And maybe my social life, now that I think about it. I bet they have some hot guys working there somewhere.”

“You’re aware that sleeping with people isn’t exactly the smart way to rocket to the top, right?” Paige observed drily.

“Who cares about rocketing to the top? I want to have some fun.”

“Earning a paycheck is a way to start.”

“Always in such a hurry to grow up and settle down, Paige,” Delaney teased, dangling her legs over the seat ahead of her. “You can rush all you want to. Me, I intend to take my time. They want me to grow up, they’re going to have to drag me kicking and screaming.”

1

Playa del Carmen, Mexico 2007

“YOU WERE RIGHT.” Dominick Gordon looked over the blue waters of the Caribbean that spread around them, the wind of the dive boat’s passage stirring his dark hair.

Stocky blonde Eric Novak blinked. “Excuse me?” He shifted on the bench seat to stare at his best friend.

“You were right about coming down here. This is perfect.” The boat jounced a bit as it skimmed over the waves, motor roaring as they headed to the next reef. The tiny strip of land on the horizon was the Yucatan; ahead of them, larger, lay Cozumel. Paradise, Dom thought.

And for the first time in five years, he felt as if he could almost breathe. A week of swimming, diving, sleeping—after all he’d been through, it felt like an unimaginable extravagance. Almost as much as chartering the private dive boat instead of going with a package, but what was the point of success if he never allowed himself to enjoy any of it?

He’d somehow lost track of that.

“So this stuff about me being right, you want to repeat that for the record?” Eric asked.

Dom adjusted his sunglasses and leaned back. “You lawyers, always worried about the record.”

“Forget about the legal stuff, it’s the Guinness Book I’m talking about. ‘First time ever, tycoon-in-training Dom Gordon admits he was wrong.” ’

“I didn’t go that far. If I was smart, I’d still be at home working on the initial public offering.” At home, where the mantle of responsibility for Gordon’s Auto Centers weighed like an anchor on his shoulders.

“Jeez, will you get the IPO out of your head for five minutes? I keep telling you, all we can do right now is wait. It’s the perfect time for a vacation. If you were back at home, you’d just be gnawing off your fingers for something to do. Here,” Eric continued expansively, “because of my brilliance and foresight, you can take your mind off it by communing with the fishes.”

“Brilliance and foresight?”

Eric inclined his head modestly. “Mother nature has been good to me.”

“That’s not what you said when that dolphin surprised you.”

“Fickleness, thy name is woman. As you’d remember if you’d had a social life in recent memory.” The dive boat slowed, approaching a lighter area of water.

“Not this again.” Time off, Dom could use. Complicating his life with another woman just when he’d gotten untangled from the last one? No way.

The boat stopped and Dom zipped into the top of his wetsuit and strapped on his breathing tank.

Eric reached for his fins. “What I’m saying is, you’re getting awfully damned boring these days. Have been for a while. Don’t know why I hang out with you, now that I think about it.”

“Because you can’t find anyone else to take your money?”

“That was a marked deck you were playing with yesterday,” Eric said darkly. “No way you flopped a royal flush.”

“Face it, I’m one lucky guy.”

“Lucky, my ass. I want to take another look at those cards.”

“It was your deck.” Dom pulled up his hood. “And you went through it at least three times that I saw.”

“I still don’t believe it.”

Dom shook his head. “I can’t hear you at all, buddy. See you with the fishes.”

“You’d better start playing poker straight, or you’ll be sleeping with the fishes,” Eric grumbled.

“You’d better start playing smarter poker, or you’ll be broke,” Dom countered. Moving to the side of the boat, he let himself roll back into the water.

“OKAY, MUCHACHAS, WE’VE got alcohol,” Delaney announced as she and Sabrina walked up to the palm-thatched palapa, each of them carrying a handful of cups pressed together. The other five members of the Sex & Supper Club were flopped out on towels or chaises, somnolent in the sun.

Kelly stirred. “Did someone say alcohol?” she inquired wistfully, and with a bit of effort levered herself upright.

Delaney set her quartet of plastic cups on the little wooden ledge that encircled the center pole of the palapa, one of a collection scattered down the beach like giant drink umbrellas.

Appropriate, now that she thought of it.

“Okay, one virgin margarita for our little newlywed mama-to-be.” She handed it to Kelly, who was still hardly showing in a hot pink tankini. “And here’s one unvirgin margarita for our oldlywed.” Delaney passed a second cup to Cilla, who sat up, chunky gold earrings swinging.

“I’ll have you know I’m younger than you,” she informed Delaney.

“Marriage ages you artificially.”

“Not at all. Regular orgasms have documented health benefits.”

“Do I look like I’m missing regular orgasms?” Delaney asked.

Cilla considered. “Hard to say. It might just be that your new cut looks so good we don’t notice.”

Delaney had had her shoulder-length hair cropped the week before into a pixie, driven by one of her characteristic bouts of impatience. Life was too short to spend twenty minutes blow-drying and styling, she figured. The first time she’d showered and found her hands closing on air at the back of her head had been a shock, but Delaney wasn’t much for regrets.

Life was too short for them, too.

“I love it. It takes five minutes to dry. I’m in the bathroom and out.”

“It makes you look like Tinkerbell, all eyes and cheekbones.”

“Tinkerbell, huh?” Delaney laughed. “Yeah. Drink a few more of those margaritas and you’ll see my wings.” She picked up another cup. “Are you sure you really wanted a beer, Paige? I never once saw you drink it before you took up with that guitar player. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he’s been a bad influence on you.”

“Oh, I hope so.” Paige sank back on her lounger in the shade. “Zach’s introduced me to the finer things in life.”

“Here, here,” Thea put in, taking a sip of her own beer. “Although I’m not sure you can call this beer. Or fine.”

“You’re prejudiced because you live with a Pacific Northwest brew snob,” Delaney told her, handing a frothy white drink to Trish.

“Brady introduced me to the finer things in life, too,” Thea said.

“Back to that regular orgasm thing, are we?” Delaney studied her friends around her, all of them married or in long term relationships now, absorbed in their lives, moving on or moving away. Not just Paige and Thea, but the rest of them: Sabrina married to her college sweetheart Stef Costas, Kelly married to Stef’s partner Kev, Trish living with Sabrina’s cousin Ty. Even Cilla, who’d played the field about as much as she herself, had tied the knot.

Only Delaney remained resolutely, stubbornly single. But it wasn’t the same as it had once been. Life didn’t feel the same, she realized with a little twinge, as if she was being pushed to the cliff to jump off into grown-up land, whether she wanted to or not.

To hell with that, she decided.

Golden sand stretched down to the pale aqua waves. The sky arched overhead, periwinkle blue. Paradise. She set her margarita in the sand by her sun couch and untied her bronze sarong to reveal a leopard-spotted bikini. She was young, she was unencumbered. Life was good. Water, sun and fun, that was what she needed to think about, not the shifting sands of her own life.

With a sigh of bliss, Delaney lay back and took a sip of her margarita. “Okay, I am now officially on vacation,” she announced. “Effective immediately, I intend to party like mad, eat myself silly, and do absolutely nothing worthwhile.”

“Except go to the opening of my boutique,” Cilla reminded her.

“Except that.” Delaney took another swallow of her drink. “God, that’s good.” She closed her eyes and held up her cup in a toast. “Okay, here’s to the perks of being over twenty-one.”

“Being over twenty-one?” Paige repeated. “I thought you were the one who always said you didn’t want to grow up.”

“Who said anything about being grown-up? I said here’s to being of legal drinking age.”

“Being an adult does have some other benefits,” Trish observed.

“Name one,” Delaney demanded.

“Good sex,” Kelly said immediately. “High-school boys are clueless.”

“Oh, I don’t know. The best kisser of my entire life was my first boyfriend,” Delaney countered.

“Your first boyfriend?”

“Jake,” she added. “Jake the Snake.”

Cilla, in the middle of a swallow, spluttered. “Don’t tell me that was what he called his—”

“No,” Delaney said positively. “At least I don’t think so. I don’t know. We never got past the kiss and grope stage, but man, that boy could kiss. He was a surfer. Made me melt.”

“Ah, young love,” Trish said, fanning herself.

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

Sabrina raised her eyebrows. “Not your first love?”

“Come on. I mean, I was fourteen. Two years before that, I was ready to go all the way with Donnie Wahlberg. If I’d ever met him, of course, and if I could have figured out what going all the way actually meant.”

“You were nothing if not adaptable.” Paige tucked her tongue in her cheek.

Meanwhile, Trish rolled on her stomach to look at Delaney. “So who was your first love?”

Delaney laughed lightly. “I’ll tell you when I meet him.”

“You will, one of these days,” Trish said positively.

“I suppose. I can’t say it keeps me up at night.” She studied a couple of shirtless guys playing volleyball up the beach and licked her lips. “I’ve got other things to do that. So come on, I’m still waiting for the tide of benefits to being an adult.”

“Independence,” Trish said.

Delaney made a derisive noise. “Show of hands, how many people had to ask or check with their significant others before making plans to come here?”

“Well, you had to get permission for time off work,” Trish countered.

Delaney made the sign of the cross. “Back, demon. No talking about work. It’s officially a four-letter word this week.”

“Something wrong?” Paige asked.

“I work for Janet Whitcher. Of course something’s wrong.” Delaney’s job at Vision Quest Marketing defined the love-hate relationship. Love for the work, loathing for her boss. “Right about now, DataStor, fondly known as the client from hell, is filming a last-minute commercial they demanded I oversee.”

“Did you mention the little matter of a vacation?” Sabrina asked.

“That I’d been planning for a month and a half and already had the tickets for? Yessiree. I asked if they could push back the filming. Janet told me I was the one who should reschedule.”

“Ah. So the person we see is a cleverly produced hologram,” Cilla said.

“Exactly. Even as you watch me, I’m astrally traveling to inhabit Janet’s body while she’s supervising the shoot. When you see my mouth pinch up like a cat’s behind, you’ll know I’m fully mind-melded with her.” Delaney finished off her drink. “Basically, my life’s a horror flick when I get home, so eat, drink and be merry while ye may, I say.” She turned her cup upside down and sadly watched the last drop or two fall out on the sand.

“Poor little Tinkerbell,” Cilla said, leaning over to take Delaney’s empty glass. “Will another margarita ease the pain?”

Delaney eyed a strapping, dark-haired man as he walked by, shirtless in his blue-and-yellow swim trunks. “Several more margaritas and maybe a naked massage from Mr. Hunka Hunka Burnin’ Love over there.”

“I think he’s part of the entertainment staff,” Paige observed as they all tipped their sunglasses down to watch him.

“Heaven knows I need entertaining,” Delaney said.

“YOU’RE THINKING ABOUT it, aren’t you?” Erik asked.

Dom looked over at him. “Who, me?”

“Yeah, you. You’re making that face.”

They sat in an open-sided beach bar near the ferry dock in Playa del Carmen. The thatch of the roof rustled in the light offshore breeze. At the back, a band was milling around on a low stage hung with blue, scarlet and orange batiked cloth. On the horizon, the lights of Cozumel twinkled in the darkness.

Dom picked up the glass of tequila that the bartender slid across to him. “You really need to talk to someone about this paranoia you’ve got.”

Eric put a pinch of salt on the web between his forefinger and thumb. “Yeah, well, you obviously—”

“Need to teach you how to drink quality tequila,” Dom interrupted.

“What’s wrong with the way I drink tequila?” Eric asked, lifting his shot glass.

Dom gave him a pitying look. “Tequila’s like whiskey. The cheap stuff will strip the enamel from your teeth, which is where the salt and lime come in. Añejo tequila like this, though…” He swirled a sip around in his mouth and swallowed. “Slides down like twenty-year-old bourbon.”

Eric eyed him. “This wouldn’t be your idea of a joke, right? Watch me take a drink and have steam come out my ears?”

Dom smiled. “You lawyers are too suspicious.”

“You start your career owing fifty grand in student loans and see how suspicious you are,” Eric invited.

“Your call, buddy. Stick with your lime and salt if you want, but you’ll be missing out.” Dom took another swallow and waited for the liquor to ease the tension that crouched in his shoulders.

Eric tipped the salt into an ashtray and took a cautious sip of his drink. His eyes brightened and he took another swallow. “Nice.”

“One good turn deserves another.”

“Good. Then tonight I’m going to take away your laptop when we get back to the hotel.”

“What?”

“You’ve been checking your e-mail again, haven’t you?”

“What makes you say that?” Dom asked, his voice elaborately innocent. Behind them, there was a thump of bass as the drummer of the band took his seat for the second set. Around them, the bar was filling up.

“You’re going to scare all the chicks away with that weight-of-the-world-is-around-my-neck expression on your face. This is supposed to be party central, not a boardroom.”

“If I scare ’em away, it’ll leave more for you, won’t it?”

“But who’s going to entertain my overflow until I get to them? That’s a logistical problem.”

“I’ve got faith in you, Eric. You’ll figure something out.” Dom tipped back his barstool a little and fought a smile. “Me, I’m just kicking back.”

Eric signaled the bartender. “You’ll kick back better with another shot, my man. As your lawyer, I advise you to drink heavily.”

“Ripping off Hunter S. Thompson, now?”

“It’s not a rip-off, it’s an homage.”

“You lawyers do have a way with words.” Dom clinked his glass against Eric’s. “To hitting it big.”

“Hah!” Eric pounced. “I knew you were thinking about that damned IPO again. You had that look.”

“What look?”

“The look that says you’re running through your road-show pitch. Dude, you’re on vacation. You’re supposed to be having a good time, not working.”

“Do I look like I’m working?”

“Yeah. Either that or thinking about what’s her name.”

Dom flicked his gaze to the ceiling and back. “Her name was Lynn, and trust me, I wasn’t thinking about her.” Their breakup a couple of months before had been a relief as much as anything. Lynn had been one more thing to manage, one more demand on his time, and as things got crunchier and crunchier between them, all pleasure had bled away.

“Well, you definitely don’t need to worry about the IPO,” Eric advised. “The numbers in the prospectus will sell the stock for us.”

Scowling, Dom took a swig of his tequila. “IPOs don’t happen by magic, you know. And if it doesn’t fly, I’m the one who’s on the hook.” Meaning, he should have been back in the room working the way he had every other night they’d been there, not blowing off the evening in a bar. Diving all day, sure, that was why he’d come. But there was a price for every pleasure, he’d learned that the hard way.

Eric, however, wasn’t buying it. “Number one, you’re on the hook to your mother and little brother and sister, who all worship the ground you walk on. Even if the IPO tanks, they’ll still walk away with more money than most of us have ever seen at one sitting, so you’re taking care of them. Number two,” he continued, warming to his topic, “we have a week of dead time anyway while the SEC combs over the draft of the prospectus. Then we go on the road to do the presentations, and I want you fresh for it. You’re supposed to relax. That’s the whole point of being here.”

Dom stared at Eric. “Really? It didn’t have anything to do with you wanting to dive the Colombia Deep and practice your Spanish on the señoritas?”

“Just looking out for your welfare,” he responded blandly.

“Because I could have relaxed at home.”

Eric snorted. “You wouldn’t have relaxed at home. Hell, you’re not even relaxing here.”

Dom thought of his e-mail inbox, piled high already with things he couldn’t handle long distance. “Too much going on right now for that.”

Eric sighed. “Look, Dom, there’s time. In a couple of days, you’ll be in the office. You can go back to being a workaholic then. But I’m telling you—”

“Give it a rest, Eric.” Even Dom could hear the edge in his voice. “Why are you busting on me about this?”

“Maybe it’s enlightened self-interest. You were a lot more fun in the old days.” The joking look disappeared for a moment. “And maybe because I’m your friend and I don’t like what I’m seeing. You’ve been doing this nose-to-the-grind-stone thing for five years now, ever since—”

“Got it,” Dom interrupted. “You don’t need to remind me.”

Eric hesitated. “You’re fried, my man, and I don’t mean sunburned. Time for a break. You’ve got competent people on staff and if they can’t handle things, they know where to find you. So do us all a favor, including yourself—for the rest of the week, kick back and have a good time. Tonight, you’re not a minitycoon in training, you’re not the next Wall Street phenom. You’re just a guy who runs a garage.”

“Oh, great. That’ll turn women on.”

“You kidding me? I bet there are a dozen grease monkeys between here and Cancun who are going to get lucky tonight. And at least one uptight millionaire-to-be who’s not, unless he lightens up a little.”

The night air was humid, but the breeze coming off the water was fresh enough to keep it from being oppressive. It had been a while since he’d been with a woman, felt soft, warm skin, driven himself into her heat. Maybe Eric was right. Maybe a quick, no-strings hookup with the right woman would be the way to forget his responsibilities for a night.

The problem was, thinking about the business had become a habit.

“Look around,” Eric invited. “This bar is packed with gorgeous women. Smile at one of them for a change. Shoot, I’ll even let you have first pick to show you what a generous guy I am. What about that redhead over there? Or the blonde? Or—oh, honey.”

At the change in Eric’s voice, Dom’s glance flicked over to see what occupied his friend’s gaze.

And found himself dumbstruck.

She was slender and blond, her hair cut short like some kind of little wood sprite, strands of silver and gold scattering over her forehead. She was dressed like a wood sprite, too, in a short, flippy dress of green that showed a lot of long, sleek leg. Something in the curve of her mouth suggested mischief, something in her eyes sparkled with devilry. She’d walked in with a half dozen other women, but she was the one he’d fixed on.

“That one with the long dark hair, she’s a model, I know it,” Eric said feverishly.

“I doubt it.” But Dom didn’t even bother to look.

“No, for real. I saw her in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition about eight, ten years ago. Look at that face, and, buddy, you wouldn’t believe her body.”

“Uh-huh,” Dom said, unable to take his eyes off the blonde. It was as though more light gathered around her than around anyone else in the bar. She walked—no, sashayed—into the room with an exuberance that made him wonder if she carried it over into everything she did.

Including making love.

When she leaned over to whisper something to one of her girlfriends, he could hear the husky murmur in his own ear, feel the warmth of her breath. He looked at her mouth and he knew what she would taste like, how soft her lips would be. She might have appeared as a pixie but she’d feel all woman in his arms. She’d press up against him and her breath would catch when he touched her just so.

And if he didn’t know how she’d look naked, his imagination was already efficiently painting the picture for him.

With a click of drumsticks, the band launched into a fast salsa number. The blonde swung her hips a bit, moving to the music. A night, Dom thought feverishly. An hour. Five minutes, even.

They could do a lot of things in five minutes.

“She ought to have a license to be so fine in public.” It was only when he heard his voice that he realized he’d spoken aloud.

“Hey, you can’t go after her,” Eric said aggrievedly.

“You were the one who was talking about relaxing.”

“Yeah, but not by hitting on her. That’s my job. Go after one of your own.”

Reaching for his tequila, Dom knocked it back in one swallow and stood.

“Trust me, buddy, I am.”

2

“NOW THIS IS A BAR,” Delaney announced as they threaded their way through the sea of warm bodies. Colored lanterns swayed in the breeze that drifted in off the whispering waves. Pulque bottles wrapped in netting hung from the thatched roof. The air felt sultry, full of invitation.

And Delaney felt alive.

“Well, it’s a bar. So was the last place we stopped, and we didn’t have to walk another mile to get to it,” Cilla grumbled.

“It wasn’t a mile. Only twenty or thirty feet, more like,” Delaney said, “and that other bar was exactly like some place you’d find in L.A. Bo-ring.”

“My feet weren’t bored,” Cilla sighed as they stopped. “My feet were happy with that bar. And the one before that.”

“You’ve got nobody to blame but yourself, wearing stilettos down here.” Delaney took in Cilla’s cranberry red spikes and matching skimpy silk dress. Versace, unless Delaney missed her guess. “Why didn’t you wear sandals?”

“You can look at these gorgeous shoes and ask me that?”

Delaney rolled her eyes. “Don’t worry, Granny,” she said, patting Cilla, “we’ll find you a chair.”

Just then, a couple moved away from one of the tall bar tables. Delaney pounced like a cat, neatly edging out a group of frat-boy types. “Sorry, guys, taken.”

“Why not share?” A guy with spiky orange hair winked at her. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

Delaney glanced at him and fought a smile. If he was twenty one, he was lucky. “I think we’ve got all the company we need.”

“I bet I could buy you a drink and change your mind.”

“It’ll take a lot more than that to change my mind.”

He moved in closer, cocky. “I’ve got a lot more than that, trust me.”

She laughed, the pure merriment melting away his bravado. “We’re all set for tonight, thanks,” she said, resisting the urge to pat the top of his head.

“And here I thought he was your type.” Kelly slid onto one of the tall stools as he left. “You go for the bad boys.”

“Bad boys, not underage boys. He’s about ten years too young to be interesting. I’d rather hold out for better.”

“Getting choosy in your old age?” Sabrina asked in amusement.

“Or slowing down,” Paige put in.

“Give me a break.”

“Think about it,” Paige said reasonably. “First, you skip the crowded, noisy bar and then you turn down a hot guy who’s hitting on you. I think it’s pretty clear what’s going on.”

“Oh, please.” Delaney rolled her eyes. “You keep talking like that, you’re going to drive me to drink. Speaking of which, I’m going to make a bar run, so figure out what you want.”

Slowing down? Absolutely not. Just because she didn’t want to walk into some neon-filled cave that was pumping with acid house music, or mash with a youngster didn’t mean she was getting old. Especially down here, Delaney thought as she waited for the rest of the gang to make their choices. The week ahead was wide open with possibilities for fun. No responsibilities, no place to be, just pure play, out on the town again with her posse. She wasn’t slowing down, she was merely getting started.

Reaching out, she caught the edge of the table and shook it a little.

Kelly raised her eyebrows. “Checking it for stability?”

Delaney moved her shoulders to the beat. “Who knows? We may be dancing on it before the night’s over. Okay, four margaritas, two piña coladas, one virgin daiquiri,” she ticked off. “I’ll order. Who’s going to help carry them back?”

“I’ll be there in a minute,” Cilla said.

Practically like old times, Delaney thought as she stood at the bar, nodding to the music and waiting to catch the bartender’s attention. The whole Supper Club, together again. Lately, it seemed, the group of them almost never managed to make it out, and if they did, it was only for a quiet dinner. Gone were the days of roving wild, of shutting down the clubs and hunting for after-hours joints. Something about finding a man had made all of the others more sedate, happy to relax at home for an evening.

And Delaney’s deep, dark, unsettling secret was that some nights she felt exactly the same way.

Working too much, that was all. It wasn’t that she was slowing down, getting boring. Never in a million years, not the way she felt in that moment. Definitely no way she was going to let herself get tied down. So maybe the rest of them had found their men and fallen in love. She was genuinely happy for them. But she also understood the obligations, the accountability, the compromises of a committed relationship. Sure, Sabrina and Trish and the rest never seemed to mind what had to be the ongoing frustrations and concessions that made up the fabric of their lives.

It would drive her nuts. Dating a guy for a few weeks, maybe a couple of months was one thing—she had her own space and she could walk away at any time. Commitment? That was different.

She’d grown up with parents who’d had too little of everything—money, living space, time. The only thing they’d had too much of had been kids, six of them, all close together. As the youngest, Delaney had always found herself fighting for her slice of everything. Not that she didn’t love her family, but when she’d finally moved out and gotten a place of her own, she’d sworn that she was done with sharing and compromising and living packed cheek by jowl with anyone else. She’d guard her space jealously, be extravagant, live exactly as she chose.

And if she found herself at loose ends every now and again, whose business was it but hers?

“Hola, señorita.” The bartender’s eyes gleamed at her with that unapologetic appreciation that never failed to give her a buzz.

“Hola, Rodolfo,” she read off his badge. “Quattro margaritas, dos piña coladas, y uno…” How did a person say virgin daiquiri in Spanish, she wondered. “Y uno daiquiri, no…rum, por favor.”

“No rum?” he repeated in English. “No fun.”

“Oh, we have fun.” Her eyes sparkled. “We always have fun.”

“I always have fun, too. Maybe you and I, señorita, we have fun together.”

“Are you hitting on me, Rodolfo?”

He frowned, even as his hands moved from bottles to blenders in an efficient blur. “What is hitting on you?”

“Inviting me to have fun.”

“Ah.” His teeth gleamed. “Señorita, only a dead man does not invite a woman like you to have fun. And I am not a dead man.”

Delaney winked at him. Flirting. It made her feel good. How could she settle with one guy and give that up? Give up the excitement of a first date? The anticipation of never knowing how a night might end—or with who?

The tap on her shoulder had her sniffing. “About time,” she said, turning. “I thought I was going to have to—”

The words died in her throat. And all she could do was stand there, staring at the man before her.

He was, purely and simply, gorgeous. He had one of those faces that was all intriguing planes and angles, the kind of face a sculptor might chisel for a statue of some dangerous god, Ares, perhaps. Or Eros.

Something fluttered in the pit of her stomach.

He was tall, tall enough that she found herself tipping her head back to look at him, and close enough that all it would take was leaning forward a fraction to have her mouth on his. His brows were dark and straight, the same color as the hair that flowed thick and unruly to his collar. His jaw was darkened by a rather overgrown Vandyke. His eyes were so black that in the dim bar she couldn’t see the pupils.

As she watched, some spark of humor flickered in them. “Your drinks are here,” he said helpfully.

Oh, and it was a bedroom voice, low and a little rough, perfect for late-night promises and demands. Anticipation sped through her. She paid Rodolfo and turned back. “Were you trying to get to me or the bartender?” she asked lightly.

He looked her up and down, his gaze warming her. “You. Definitely. How am I doing?”

Her mouth curved. “You’ve got my attention.” And that of her hormones.

“That’s a start. Small world, huh?”

Gorgeous, maybe, but not so great in the brains department. And Delaney required brains. “Gee, you’re right. You’re American, I’m American, both of us in Mexico.” She widened her eyes. “What are the chances?”

He studied her a second and laughed out loud, a sound that sent something vibrating deep inside her. “Pretty small. I’d call it fate.”

“You think?”

“Absolutely. What brings you down here, vacation?”

“No, I work down here.”

That seemed to surprise him. “What do you do?”

“Oh,” she cast about, “I’m a, uh, professional agouti wrestler.”

“Agouti?”

“You know, those little brown jungle animals that look like rats on stilts? No tails, just these underprivileged-looking behinds?”

“An agouti wrestler.”

Delaney’s lips twitched. “They’re a lot tougher than you’d think.”

“That must mean you are, too.” Before she realized his intent, he reached out to run his fingertips over the curve of her bare shoulder. “I guess I’d better watch out.”

It shouldn’t have sent heat bolting through her. Some banter, a smile, a quick touch was all it was. It shouldn’t have set her heart to thudding. So why was she standing there without a thought in her head, she who always had a comeback for everything? She moistened her lips.

And if possible, his eyes got even darker. “You know, you have a great mouth. I bet you played flute or something in school.”

“Flute?” she repeated blankly.

“Yeah. You’ve definitely got the lips for it.”

It was a guess, she told herself, a lucky one. “Now there’s a line I haven’t heard before.”

“Not a line.”

“No? So what are you, an orchestra director on the lam?”

He shook his head. “Nope. I don’t see you in an orchestra anyway. Band, I think. And every time you put that flute up to your mouth, I bet you broke some poor kid’s heart.”

“You’re betting a lot tonight.”

His smile widened. “I’m feeling lucky.” He watched her closely, his eyes unsettlingly intent. Amusement glimmered in his irises, something that suggested an inside joke—on her.

And suspicion dawned. “My friends put you up to this, didn’t they?” Delaney demanded, rising on tiptoe to stare at the rest of the gang. They were watching avidly, though, not a grin among them.

“Nope, no help,” he confirmed when she glanced back. “Why, am I right?”

She raised her chin. “Who’s asking?”

“You really don’t know?” He grinned. “Come on, don’t tell me your memory’s already going at thirty.”

“If you wanted to flatter me you’d have said twenty-five.”

“If I hadn’t known better, I would have guessed twenty-four.”

And like a seismic vibration, the beginnings of recognition quivered through her. “I don’t believe it,” she said slowly. A younger face, rounder, peach smooth with adolescence. Not him, but someone shorter, blonder. Someone who was… “Oh, my God!”

“What?”

“It can’t be.” She stared. “I know you. It’s Jake, right? Jake from South Junior High School. Jake—”

“Gordon,” he finished. “Hello, Delaney.”

HE’D RECOGNIZED HER THE minute he’d seen her, with the same hard punch of reaction he’d felt for her all those years ago. Back then, it had been a half-formed yearning that he hadn’t quite understood. Now, he recognized it, oh, yeah, he recognized it—plain, old-fashioned lust, as sharp and immediate as he’d ever known. Of course, generally when he felt this kind of need, it wasn’t coupled with the shock of seeing a face, a person resurrected from his past.

And from his dreams.

Approaching her hadn’t been a matter of debate. He couldn’t have stayed away if he’d tried. The fact that she hadn’t recognized him had only added a bit of spice to the game.

“But you’re…” She waved her hands feebly at him. “Different.”

He threw his head back and laughed. “That’s reassuring, considering it’s been, what, fifteen years?”

“Sixteen,” she corrected faintly.

Her scent was different now. When they were kids it had been light, playful. Now, it conjured up images of smoky jazz clubs and throaty laughter, of velvet-clad chanteuses singing over the husky tones of a saxophone.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Came down to take a break, do some diving.”

“Fifteen years go by—”

“Sixteen,” he corrected.

“Sixteen. And you live where?”

“Long Beach, more or less.”

“Once a surfer, always a surfer. I live in West L.A.”

“I thought you were an agouti wrestler.”

“I moonlight,” she said in exasperation. “Sixteen years. I never once see you after you go off to private school, not in Anaheim, not in L.A. I go to an obscure bar in an obscure town in Mexico and presto, you’re here?”

He looked hugely amused. “Like I said, small world.”

“I guess.” She folded her arms, looked him up and down. “You turned out well.”

“So did you.” It was Delaney and yet not Delaney, her face more angular, her hair shorter than he’d ever seen it, and silky looking enough to have his fingers itching to touch. He’d approached her because of the girl he’d once known, but she was a woman now, and that changed everything. “I think we should find somewhere quiet and do some catching up.”

She laughed as though she knew exactly what he was thinking. “Oh, you do, do you? I’ll tell you what I think, I think we should—”

“Are you holding our drinks hostage?” a voice demanded from behind them. Dom glanced back to see one of the women Delaney had come in with. Here to track down the cocktails, maybe, or to check him out. You never knew with the sisterhood. Always looking out for one another—and always curious.

“Aren’t your feet hurting?” Delaney muttered to her.

“They’ve recovered. Excuse me,” the woman said to him, reaching around Delaney to rescue a couple of the drinks. “I’m Cilla,” she added over her shoulder.

“Dom,” he said automatically.

Delaney, juggling three of the other glasses, sent him a sharp look. “Dom?”

He nodded. “Need some help?”

“The more the merrier,” Cilla said happily.

He picked up the other two and headed after them.

Delaney flicked a glance at him as they sidled through the growing crowd. “Wait a minute, I’m confused. When did you start going by Dom?”

“It always was my name. Jake was just a nickname my dad gave me because I was so into the wrestler when I was a kid.”

“Jake the Snake,” she said in sudden comprehension.

“Bingo. When I switched schools to St. Joseph’s, it seemed like a good time to drop it.”

“Not to mention a few other things,” she replied.

He gave her a quick glance. Her voice didn’t carry the slap of old anger so much as challenge. Then again, Delaney always had kept him on his toes. It could, he decided as they arrived at the table, be an interesting evening.

“Want to join us?” she asked.

He wanted a whole hell of a lot more than that. He wanted to be somewhere private where they had all the time in the world. Yeah, he remembered what it had been like to kiss her, he thought, staring at her mouth, and he was now imagining what it would be like to kiss her again. But he wasn’t fourteen anymore and kissing wasn’t enough to satisfy him. Not even close.

For now, though… “I’m here with a buddy. Let me go get him and then you can introduce us both at the same time.”

And then, because he couldn’t quite keep all his needs clamped down, he leaned in to brush his lips over hers before he turned and walked away.

“HE’S GORGEOUS,” WAS the first thing out of Kelly’s mouth. “I can’t believe you just walk into a bar and a guy like that falls into your lap. If I weren’t so deliriously happy I’d be jealous.”

“Where did he go?” Paige wanted to know.

It took Delaney a moment to respond because her lips were still tingling from his. It hadn’t been a real kiss, barely even a touch. So why was her heart sprinting in her chest?

And why could she still feel the warmth of his mouth on hers?

“Earth to Delaney,” said Paige.

“To get his friend. It’s Jake,” she added, trying to blink away the fog.

Cilla gave her a blank stare. “He said his name was Dom.”

“It’s him, Jake,” Delaney repeated. “My eighth grade boyfriend.”

“Your eighth grade boyfriend you weren’t in love with, that guy?” Paige asked incredulously.

“Well, he didn’t look like that in eighth grade,” Delaney defended. “Shorter, a lot shorter. And rounder. And no moustache.”

“At fourteen? Gee, imagine that.”

“And his hair was so light and he didn’t have those…” she waved in the direction of her shoulders. And when had he gotten that voice, that husky voice that made her want to rub herself all over him like a cat? She took a swallow of her drink. “I still don’t quite buy that it’s him.”

But it was. Somewhere down in her gut she knew, because she felt that same twisting, flipping feel that she’d had for him in eighth grade. Before he’d broken up with her and gone off to private school. And now here, three thousand miles from either of their homes, she’d run into him. Sixteen years later, she had another chance, to laugh, to give him a hard time for the heartache. To boink his brains out.

And to be the one to walk away.

3

DELANEY TURNED AS JAKE approached with his friend. Giving the two of them a brilliant smile, she turned to the rest of the Supper Club. “Okay, guys, this is someone I knew from junior high school, Jake—”

“Dom,” he corrected.

“Right. Dom Gordon.” Humor leapt in her eyes. “I still think Jake the Snake suited you better.”

The guy with Jake—Dom—let go a burst of laughter. “Jake the Snake?” he repeated.

Dom scowled. “It was a nickname. And this is Eric Novak, my sometimes friend.”

“Hi, Eric. I’m Delaney,” she said, “and this is my college gang—Sabrina, Cilla, Paige, Thea, Trish and Kelly. Pay attention, there’ll be a test after,” she added.

Eric looked like he couldn’t believe his luck. “Nice to meet you all.”

“To new friends.” Delaney raised her margarita.

“And old ones,” Dom added. With a clink of glasses, they all drank.

Eric put down his glass, still staring at Thea. “You used to be a model, didn’t you?” he blurted.

And all of them, the whole Supper Club, tensed a little. Maybe none of them knew quite what had happened to Thea back in New York, but they knew that any reminder of that time had a bad effect on her. Delaney waited now to see how she’d respond.

And to her everlasting shock, Thea smiled.

That was Brady, Delaney realized, the man Thea had fallen for just a month before. Somehow Brady and Portland—and love—had healed her.

“It’s been years since I modeled,” Thea was saying calmly. “Now I just teach tango.”

“And live with the best brew master in the Pacific Northwest,” Delaney added, seeing the adoration plastered all over Eric’s face.

He closed his eyes briefly. “That crashing sound you hear is my heat breaking,” he told Delaney. “But thank you.”

“Reality is sometimes painful.”

“How could you?” He turned to Thea. “Why didn’t you wait? You must have known I was going to be here.”

“Sorry,” Thea told him. “Poor planning on my part.”

“And I suppose you didn’t bring any copies of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit picture to sign, either.”

She spread her hands apologetically. “Fresh out.”

He gave a mournful glance at the flashes of gold and diamonds that adorned several of the other hands at the table. “Married, married, married,” he ticked off. “This is looking more tragic all the time. I don’t suppose any of the rest of you are single,” he added hopefully.

“Delaney’s the only holdout,” Kelly said with a wicked smile.

“And holding hard,” Delaney added fervently. “How about you, Jake the Snake?”

“Slipped the noose so far,” he said.

“I see. And what do you do with yourself when you’re not slipping the noose? Or is that a full-time job?”

“Oh, I—”

“He runs a garage,” Eric supplied, leaning over toward them for a second.

Delaney’s mouth curved with pleasure. “Stan’s? Your father’s old place?”

“You need your tires rotated, Dom’s your boy.”

“I’ll remember that.” Her eyes gleamed. “I’ve got great memories of the garage. Do you remember the day your dad came in and found us riding the lift up and down?”

Dom winced. “Hard to forget. You and your dares.”

“Admit it, you had fun. How’s your family, by the way?”

Dom moved his shoulders. “My mom’s good. She’s still teaching special ed at St. Joseph’s.”

“And the twins? I still remember them as babies, but I guess they’re not anymore.”

“Nope. They’re starting college in a couple of weeks.”

Delaney stared. “College?” she repeated faintly. “Now, that’s scary.”

“Tell me about it.”

“And how’s your dad?”

A beat went by. “We lost him about five years back. Mouth cancer.” He smiled briefly. “He never could give up those stogies.”

And she saw in his eyes what it cost him to joke. “Oh, Jake, I—” She stopped. “Dom, I mean. It’s hard to get used to.”

“It doesn’t matter. Dad still called me Jake even after I changed over.”

“I’m sorry,” Delaney said simply. “He was a good man. He made me laugh.”

And she was rewarded with a smile. “He always liked you. Gave me hell when we broke up.”

“Good for him.” She gave him a mock scowl. “He should have.”

“You still holding that against me?” he asked easily.

“Hell, yes. You walked off with my Smashing Pumpkins T-shirt.”

“Did I?” He suddenly found something in his glass very interesting.

“It was a collector’s item.”

“It was.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Define ‘was.” ’

“You can have it back if you want.” He cleared his throat. “Most of it.”

“Most of it?” she repeated dangerously.

“It got too small for me after a while. I’ve been using it to wax my car.”

Delaney breathed out through her nose. “I loved that shirt. You could have sent it back. My parents only moved away a couple of years ago.”

“Might be too small for you, too,” he said, studying her. “Although I bet it would look interesting.”

Something about the glint in his eyes had her swallowing. “Hmmph. You owe me, big time.”

“A drink?” he offered.

“More like free tire rotations for life.” He had good hands for rotating tires. And other things.

“All you’ve got to do is show up.”

“Don’t think I won’t, buddy. You’re responsible for burning out my CD player, too.”

“I am?”

“After the seventh straight day of playing ‘Nothing Compares 2 U,’ it started smoking.”

The corners of his mouth twitched.

“My sister’s still scarred from it. She threatened me the last time we were out driving and the song came on the radio.”

“They say family members are the first ones the cops interview after a murder.”

“Better that than wasting away. I started to, you know, after you broke my heart. Laid on my bed weeping. Walked around looking tragic, wasting away to skin and bones.”

“How long?”

“Oh, most of a week, at least. Jeff Doane helped comfort me in my time of need,” she added wickedly.

“Now that hurts. You never told me you took up with Jeff Doane.”

“You never asked me,” she tossed back at him. “Besides, you were the one who left me at the altar.”

“At the altar?”

“You’d promised to be my date for the Sadie Hawkins dance, remember? No date, no one to French kiss in the corner, no one’s lap to sit in for the picture, just me in my Daisy Dukes and my red check shirt. My life’s never been the same since. In fact, I don’t know why I’m even talking to you,” she added, enjoying herself.

“I’d be happy to give you a reason to.”

He looked down at her, eyes hot and dark and that quickly the breath clogged up in her throat. She’d kissed him for hours, once upon a time, sitting on the bleachers at the school yard, hanging out behind the garage. It had been a revelation, that first kiss, the soft pressure, the sliding heat and the sudden, surprising taste of him. His mouth had been her obsession, his mouth and the places it could take her, by turns gentle and more urgent, though neither of them quite knew what lay beyond. And she’d dreamed of him since, vivid, startling dreams that took her to places they’d never gone together.

Places she could go with him now.

“Yes. Well.” Desperately, she groped for something to say. Behind her, Eric was telling the others a tale of fighting off a fearsome barracuda armed only with an ill-fated crab.

“…two inch teeth, I’m telling you.”

Up at the gazebo, the band was doing a spirited rendition of “Livin’ La Vida Loca.” “Let’s dance.” Delaney rose abruptly, looking not for escape but time. No more of those quick, brushing kisses from him to scramble her mind, not until she was ready for it. Although, from the look in his eyes, he’d given up the idea of brushing kisses for something more…ambitious.

And she had no objection, at least in theory. Getting naked with him would be all well and good—more like excellent, probably—but only as long as she was driving things. After all, she needed to torment him at least a little for his sins. She couldn’t have him thinking that it was fine to waltz back up with a glance and a smile after dropping her sixteen years before. He needed to work for it, first.

Or she needed to work him.

So she headed for the floor without checking to see if he followed.

The song had her snapping her fingers, nodding her head even before they stepped onto the painted concrete in front of the band. It was crowded enough to force them to dance close, Delaney saw in satisfaction, with enough room to let her move. And move she could. She wasn’t Thea, with years of training, but when the beat got into her, it was the next best thing to sex.

IT WASN’T THE FLAILING they’d done as kids to Depeche Mode and Jane’s Addiction, Dom thought. Delaney wasn’t a kid anymore and she didn’t dance like one. Hips swinging to the rhythm of the music, counterpointed by her shoulders, she danced like a woman.

Her arms and hands wove teasing patterns through the air and all he could think of was how she’d look undressing for him, pulling that stretchy green dress up bit by bit, over her hips to her waist to reveal smooth, golden skin. Sliding it up to her breasts and over her head, tossing it aside to come to him, soft and warm and naked. All that, somehow, was suggested by her movements: the abandon, the arousal, the demand.

The desire.

He didn’t hear the beat so much as feel it, thumping out of the speakers, pulsing up through the floor, vibrating off her. And then she reached out to put her hands on his shoulders, never missing a step but swaying her own shoulders back and forth so that they were now moving in sync, moving as one.

Moving with the rhythm of sex.

Her eyes seemed bigger, darker, filled with adventure. She slid her hands up to run her fingers through his hair so that all his nerve endings came to the alert. And always to the beat, always the sinuous movements of her body that made him think now of how she’d move on top of him, against him. Slowly, eyes wide and staring into his, she let her hands slide down his neck, moving in closer now, hips bumping him, mouth tempting. He felt her fingers trail teasingly over his chest, dipping into the open collar of his shirt then going lower.

He could feel himself starting to get hard, watching her, feeling her, inhaling the scent of her that rose all around him. He reached for her hips without conscious volition, knowing only that he had to touch her or go crazy. It was all too much, the beat, the motion, the gleam of arousal in her eyes. And he was so absorbed in trying to tame his hard-on that he almost didn’t notice when she slipped her hands up to his shirt buttons, unfastening first one, then the next.

“Getting a little warm in here, isn’t it?” she said into his ear.

When she slid her hands inside the fabric, he jolted. A hot flash of triumph flared in her eyes. And he could only stare in that first stunned second as she traced her fingers over his bare skin, over his chest, over the tightening muscles of his belly. He ached to be away from all these people, to have her against him naked, ached to bury himself in her.

Her fingers dropped to the next button.

In self-defense, he clamped a hand around her wrist. “That’s good for now,” he rasped, as the song stopped.

Her laugh was quick and sultry. “Oh, I don’t think so. I’m just getting started here.”

“Outside, then.”

“What, no bad behavior for a nice private-school boy like you? Come on, Jake, you’ll like it. Stay here and dance with me.” She slid her free hand inside his shirt, her gaze full of temptation, and leaned in until her mouth was right over his. “I dare you.”

I dare you.

It had been a staple of their time together, the two of them egging one another on to discover the new, the forbidden, the outrageous.

I dare you.

“Outside.” And he turned and led her off the floor, still holding her wrist.

TIKI TORCHES LIT THE patio outside beach bar, their shadows flickering in the sand. From here, the music and buzz of conversation inside was muted. Palm fronds rattled overhead. Beyond, the waves whispered, lit by the moon that hung above. It was quiet, nearly deserted, the handful of couples populating the patio more interested in each other than anyone else.

“What’s up?” Delaney asked as Dom released her near a cluster of palm trees on the beach. She’d had to hurry along next to him, rushing out without a word to her friends. She hadn’t protested, though. Instead, irritated with him, she’d gone along for the moment. Irritated at him and irritated at herself.

Because underneath the irritation was a sneaky flush of arousal.

“I wasn’t through dancing,” she informed him.

“You weren’t dancing anymore.”

“No? What was I doing?”

“You know what you were doing.” He eyed her. “I’d rather not make a fool of myself on the dance floor.”

“Now why would you say that, sugar? You dance fine,” she purred, coming closer to him.

“I’m not talking about dancing and you know it. Whatever happens between us, happens between us,” he said softly. “Not in a crowd of people. I want to be able to concentrate.”

The mix of heat and arousal in his eyes started tension coiling in her belly. And a sudden, surprising flash of nerves. “What makes you think anything’s going to happen? Maybe you’re assuming a little too much, Mr. Cave Man.” She started to walk past him back into the bar.

Before she could react, he’d caught her, spun her around to press her back against the trunk of one of the palm trees. “Oh, you think so?” he asked softly, his breath feathering over her lips. He leaned in, his body brushing lightly against hers.

And she felt the answering tug deep inside her. She could feel the heat of him, human and real and there. His shirt still hung open from where she’d unbuttoned it; in the torchlight, his skin gleamed copper. With his shadowed jaw and unruly hair and black eyes, he looked determined, focused and maybe a little dangerous.

She moistened her lips. “Let me go.”

The flames of the torches were reflected in his eyes. “Is that honestly what you want?” He traced the line of her collarbone with his fingertips. “It didn’t seem that way on the dance floor.”

Delaney shivered. From the first, she’d watched his mouth, fantasizing how it would feel. How would it have changed over the years? How would he have changed? She’d watched him and wondered.

And wanted.

Dom stared down at her now, his gaze never wavering, his black eyes deep, dark pools she could drown in. Her heart thudded in her chest as though she’d been sprinting, as though her rib cage had suddenly grown too small to contain it. Abruptly she couldn’t find any air. Everything else receded and all she could see was him, the mesmerizing glint in his eyes as he shifted toward her, the intensity as her lips shuddered apart.

Too soon, she thought frantically, moving away a fraction. Too much. Too…she didn’t know, confusing. It was the past, it was the present, it was fun and then suddenly all too serious.

And she needed more time.

“No,” she whispered, as much to herself as to him.

But he didn’t step away. “Aren’t you curious? Don’t you wonder what it’s like after all this time? You know you do.” His gaze delved into hers. “Come on, Delaney,” he murmured. “Kiss me. I dare you.”

And with a curse, she dragged his head down to hers.

4

IT WAS DIFFERENT, WAS HER first thought. It was unlike anything she’d ever felt with him. Dom had been gentle once, tentative. But that had been years before. Now, he dove into the kiss, feasting on her mouth, each touch and press igniting the demand for more.

And she dove in headlong after him.

Heat. Hunger. She nipped at him. Her lips parted, more in demand than in invitation. It wasn’t enough just to touch, she needed to taste. She moaned when his tongue stroked against hers, not the long, leisurely swirls she remembered from before but a tantalizing dart and slide that teased more than it satisfied. And before she’d had anything like enough, he backed off, drawing her lower lip into his mouth.

It was the same and yet not the same. The last time they’d kissed, he’d been not much more than a boy. Now, he was a man and she could feel the tickle of his beard.

And she could taste the desire.

More than that, she could feel the strength in his hands and arms, the hard muscle of his body. He was lean and rangy but she felt the power there, felt the solid width of his back as she wrapped herself around him.

The kiss stretched out. Time didn’t matter, only the slide of lip against lip, the slick duel of tongues. It seemed extraordinary that just that morning she’d had no idea whether he even still existed, and now she was so desperate for him that she wanted him everywhere at once.

As though he’d heard her thoughts he shifted to press his lips to her neck as if seeking sustenance. She could only let her head drop back helplessly as his mouth traveled lower, down her throat, into the deep neckline of her dress.

When she’d kissed him last they’d still been amazed and overwhelmed by the novelty of French kissing, by the pleasure that mouth could give mouth. And later, she recalled, by the startling feel of his hands on her breasts, hot even through the fabric of her shirts.

Save for that one startling night behind the garage, hidden away, when he’d put his hands under her bra and scared her a little. They’d never gone further than that, though, and things ended soon after.

She’d wondered about him over the years, wondered how it would have been if she’d capitulated that night. But what could that fourteen-year-old boy have known about making love?

Now, though, he wasn’t fourteen any more. He’d learned in the intervening years, he’d learned all kinds of tricks. Kissing was no longer an end in and of itself, kissing was the invitation—enough to tantalize, to have the tension curling deep inside her, the demand whispering through her veins.

She wasn’t a girl, she was a woman who knew what she wanted.

And what she wanted was him.

DOM HAD WATCHED HER, FELT her on the dance floor, needed until his system throbbed with it. Now, all he wanted to do was devour the softness of her mouth, feel that willowy body against his, sink into her. And when she growled low in her throat and took the kiss deeper, he felt himself harden.

She caught his lip between her teeth and bit down, the flash of pain jolting him for a fraction of an instant before the soft slide of her tongue wiped it away. There was addiction in that wide, mobile mouth. There was addiction in the sweet, spicy taste of her. And all he wanted was more.

He could tell himself he’d approached her because he’d wanted to see her again, wanted to talk with her. But that wasn’t it completely and he knew it because all he really wanted, all he’d wanted from the instant he’d recognized her was this moment of crushing her against him, devouring her mouth with his, rediscovering her taste, her touch, the softness of her lips. Need hammered at him, to have her naked against him, under him, to feel her wet heat as he drove himself into her. He had to have her.

Now.

“I think we should—” Then he inhaled sharply as he felt as much as heard his zipper coming down. “What are you doing?”

Delaney laughed against his lips. “A guy your age, you shouldn’t have to ask that.” And she caught a breath. “Why Jake the Snake, no underwear? A nice private-school boy like you?”

He’d thought he was already as hard as he could get, but at the first brush of her fingers on his bare cock, he swore he turned into granite. “Stop,” he growled when he could get a breath.

“Stop?” she repeated, moving her hand. “Why?”

He was about two seconds away from coming and he didn’t want to waste it like this. “We’re behind a bar, for one thing.”

“So? We used to make out behind a garage.”

“Not like this, we didn’t.” She shifted her motion and he swore. “There are people wandering around.”

“Here?” She glanced at the patio behind them, then slipped her hand in farther. “Those people don’t care what we’re doing. They’re too wrapped up in each other. Besides, isn’t that what vacations are for, a little bad behavior? Come on.” She nibbled on his earlobe. “I dare you.”

“Stop it.”

She furled her fingers more tightly around him. “Don’t you like it?” She pouted.

Oh, he liked it, all right. He liked it enough that he was about ready to drag her off to some dark place, push that dress up around her hips and—

She leaned into his shoulder, draping herself over his leg, licking his neck. “I like it,” she whispered. “I like feeling you hard. I like knowing that I was the one who got you that way.”

She’d never touched him like this when they’d been together. If she had, he could pretty well guarantee that he would have lost it. Even now, all these years later it was taking all his control to hold on against the tempting slip of those clever fingers, the feel of her tongue on his skin.

He slid his hand up over her breast. And when he heard her catch her breath, it was his turn to laugh and still the movement of her wrist. “I think maybe you’d better let me take over,” he said softly, running his hands down over her hips. And slipping one hand stealthily up underneath her short skirt, trailed his fingers over the smooth skin of her inner thighs. She moaned again. He chuckled low in his throat. “Yeah , I think it’s my turn.”

He leaned down and pleasured himself by ravaging her mouth with his, bringing his fingers up higher beneath the silky fabric she wore under her dress. Only to find her already hot and slick and wet. Pure, unadulterated lust slammed through him.

There was nothing like this, using his fingers to touch her and intimately feel her body quake, hearing the inarticulate noises she made against his mouth. Knowing he was bringing her pleasure. Knowing he was taking her to the edge.

And he wanted more. Feeling her wasn’t enough, pressing into one another like the teenagers they’d once been wasn’t enough. He wanted everything, wanted her naked.

Wanted her now.

“Let’s get out of here,” he muttered feverishly. “Where are you staying?”

“Aqua Blue.”

“I’m at La Hacienda. It’s closer.”

“You just said the magic words,” she whispered.

He kissed her hard and then broke away, breathing heavily. “No, the magic words are ‘I have a condom.” ’

She grinned wide and beautiful. “I have lots of them,” she said.

HIS ROOM WAS DARK, the louvered doors closed. The first thing Delaney did was walk over and open them up wide.

“What are you doing?”

“I want to hear the ocean.” She went out on the balcony to look down at the darkened beach, the lights of Cozumel beyond. The top of the waist-high wall surrounding the balcony was a planter full of lush tropical ferns. She turned to face Dom, sitting on the edge of the low wall to enjoy the sight of him coming toward her. He’d been a good-looking kid, but that was nothing compared to how he looked as an adult. The soft boyishness was gone from his face, replaced by hard planes, as though the excess had been stripped away to show the man beneath. It showed even in the way he moved, not a swagger, exactly, but a stride of pure confidence, pure focus.

And she was his focus now.

It made her shiver as he stopped before her, stood between her parted legs. His shirt gapped open, showing the dip and flow of muscle beneath. Slowly, softly, she traced her fingertips over the corrugations in his belly. It quivered at her touch. His breath hissed in.

Intentionally taking her time, Delaney reached for his shirt and unfastened the last button, then pushed the garment off his shoulders. Hands shaking just a little, she unfastened his belt buckle. “Time for this to go, I think,” she said as lightly as she could manage and unbuttoned the waistband of the shorts below. “And these.”

The shorts dropped. His gaze never wavering from hers, he stepped out of the garment and stood there before her, utterly naked and completely gorgeous in the night.

Her mouth went dry. Mesmerized, she slid down off the balcony edge. “So I guess it’s true what they say about big hands.”

“Why don’t you get some of your clothes off? It’s hot out here,” he murmured, reaching for the hem of her dress but she moved her hands away.

“You’re right, it is hot,” she said quickly, sinking down on the chaise lounge tucked in a corner of the balcony. “And I bet it’s going to get hotter.”

She’d never actually seen him when they’d been kids, never touched him intimately. She’d been in the middle of a memory storm all night, but in this moment, everything was new. This had nothing to do with the Jake she’d known as a boy. This was Dom, the man. He came to her now. And as she nuzzled the silky soft skin of his cock, she knew that this was what she had wanted.

And oh, he had a beautiful cock, long and thick, standing up stiff and hard. She pointed her tongue and licked the small ridge below the base of his glans.

He made a little involuntary sound.

Delaney smiled and did it again, harder this time. Then she licked him from base to tip, stroking that sensitive patch of skin over and over, feeling his cock twitch with her every touch. Tilting her head slightly, she opened her mouth to suck on the shaft so that her lips were half around him, moving her head just to tease him, letting him feel the warm heat on one side and nothing on the other. She held him in place with one hand, slid the other up his back, over the marble-hard cheeks of his ass.

And she was betting it was a perfect ass, but as hard as it was, it was nothing compared to his cock. Hunger stirred in her and she substituted her hand for her lips, stroking the hard shaft of him as she positioning her mouth over his glans. And then she took him deep and fast.

It ripped a groan from him. And how was it that as she licked his most sensitive spots, she was the one who was feeling the growing heat of arousal between her thighs? There was no mouth on her breasts, no hands between her thighs, only the sound and the textures, the hard and the soft of giving him pleasure. She moved the circle of her mouth over his shaft, working him with one hand below, where she couldn’t reach.

And then she took a breath and bobbed her head down, taking him deep, taking him all the way in.

A curse exploded out of his lips. His fingers clutched her shoulders, digging in mindlessly as she did it again, then once more. And then he was holding her head with shaking hands. “Stop or I’m going to lose it right now.”

“So lose it.”

“No way. There’s too much else I want to do.” He drew her to her feet. “And the first thing is to get you out of that dress.”

He dragged the green fabric up over her head. Delaney raised her arms up to help him, laughing softly. “Aren’t you worried about being naked out on the balcony?”

“I don’t give a damn,” he muttered, pressing her back down on the chaise. “Besides, if you’d stop arguing and lay back, you’d be out of sight.”

And with a chuckle of delight, she obeyed.

For a minute, he simply stood and stared at her. It made Delaney’s breath come faster, the look of total absorption, discovery in his eyes. Then he started to touch. His hands were urgent and a little bit rough as he unsnapped the clasp of her bra and peeled back the cups. Like being tugged out of the bar, it turned her on in some elemental way. She liked it a little rough. She liked him rough.

When he bent to her, she drew in a breath of giddy expectation. She could feel the heat of his mouth on her skin. At the touch of his tongue on her nipple, she said his name. But when he blew on it, bringing her a momentary chill, he won a moan from her. And the dark red nub furled into a tight bead.

Delaney stared in awe. “You didn’t know how to do this in eighth grade.”

As though ravenous, he drew her nipples into his mouth one at a time, sucking them, licking them as he molded her breasts with his hands. Each touch sent a pulse through her body, setting up an answering throb of arousal lower down. Lightly, playfully he bit at one of her nipples with his teeth, sending a sensation through her like an electrical shock.

She jolted and gave a strangled cry. “You definitely didn’t know how to do this back in eighth grade,” she gasped, fighting for breath as he did it again.

He shifted, licking his way down over her flat belly. “I’ve learned a few things since then. Want me to show you?”

“Show and tell was always my favorite part of school,” she managed, moving against that wet, tantalizing touch, the light brush of fingers that had her shivering.

“Me, too. Although maybe I should concentrate on the tell part—I’m better with my mouth.” He moved down, settling between her parted legs, curving his arms around them, his rough cheek next to her skin.

Delaney prepared for his onslaught, but all he did was lick first one thigh, then another. Slowly, he kissed his way closer to where she ached for him to touch her. When he finally did, it was only with the tip of his tongue, stroking those private lips folded protectively together. She quivered at the contact. He gave a long, leisurely stroke of his tongue, then another, tracing a gradual furrow into where she was already slick and hot and wanting. With his fingers, he traced the dip, then for a breathless, whirling instant, he opened her to his gaze, his breath.

And then the shocking heat of his mouth was on her.

Her body bucked against him. He’d learned, oh, he’d learned since junior high, things she’d never had any idea of back then. Liquid caresses, slick patterns that tormented as much as they satisfied. If his tongue had teased her in their kisses, that was nothing compared to what it was doing to her now, flicking over her clit, stroking it. And each touch sent a pulse of arousal to every part of her body. She moved helplessly, moaned as the tension wound tighter, like an arc of heat across her hips.

When he brought one of his hands back under her, she barely noticed. Until his fingertips moved lower to find other places, other sensations even as his tongue and lips drove her relentlessly.

She didn’t know she could teeter so completely on the edge of orgasm, be dragged higher and higher still without going over. She was stretched tight as a wire, heart pounding, lungs tight, every fiber of her focused on that one spot where he used his mouth, his lips and tongue to torment her with desire. Then he pushed his fingers inside her and it was that that had the orgasm exploding through her, tearing a strangled gasp from her throat even as she jolted against him.

He didn’t stop, though. He kept at her with his mouth, so that the climax went on and on. And startlingly, instead of ebbing away into hypersensitivity, the sensations began to swell again to another peak, this one bigger, more powerful. She cried out in shock, in arousal, in pleasure, and when she finally went, it rocketed through her body, wracking her with intensity, sending her shaking against him with a single, long gasping cry.

Followed by helpless laughter.

He raised his head. “You’re laughing?” he growled. “You’re not supposed to be laughing. You’re supposed to tell me this was a life-changing experience.”

“Oh, it was, it was,” she assured him, giggling helplessly. “But we’d better get inside before someone calls the policia on us.”

“More like the Federales. They probably thought someone got murdered.”

“They don’t call it the little death for nothing.” She levered herself upright and sagged against him, finding her legs almost too weak to hold her up. “Although I’m not usually so loud.”

He moved back to let her through the door. “I’m not buying that,” he said, following her into the room. “I bet you make all kinds of noises.” He caught her around the waist from behind and swung her onto the bed, making her yelp. “Like that.”

She turned into him with a throaty chuckle. “Give me reasons to make noise and you’ll see.”

And then he did and the laughter was forgotten.

How extraordinary it was that they could morph that quickly from heated intensity to laughter and back to passion. His mouth was urgent against hers, his hands demanding on her breasts. When she slid her fingers down, she found his cock harder than ever, almost flat up against his belly.

“Tell me you were serious about those condoms,” he said hoarsely.

“In my bag, on the bedside bureau.”

He handed it to her. With clumsy fingers, she dug out the condom, tore open the package. “Roll over on your back,” she murmured.

“Wait, I want to—”

“Roll over.” She pressed his shoulder.

DON COULDN’T REMEMBER having been so turned on in his entire life. His cock ached, he ached with the need to drive himself into her. He waited to feel her roll on the condom.

Instead, he felt the warm heat of her tongue. And his fingers clenched the sheets. “I want to be in you,” he said raggedly. Then he realized that she was rolling the condom onto him with her mouth. And even through the latex, he felt the soft stroking pressure that had him grinding his teeth. “You really are trying to drive me crazy, aren’t you?” His voice was tight with strain.

Delaney just chuckled, but she started using her hand, too, to speed things up.

He wasn’t sure if that made things better or worse.

And then it was on. She worked her way up to straddle him. “Now, what was that about being in me?” she murmured.

He caught her by the shoulders and flipped her onto the mattress and poised himself over her. She looked like some goddess of eroticism, her eyes large and dark, her lips swollen from his. And with a mischievous, knowing smile, she reached down to take him in her hands, to rub him through the slickness between her thighs.

It had come to this, all the anticipation, all the banter, all the caresses. It had come to this breathless moment when it was just the two of them, their naked bodies and no barrier at all between what was him and what was her.

And then he pumped his hips and the two were one.

It tore a cry from her, a cry echoed by his groan.

“Is it all right?” He trembled with the effort of not moving in the sheath of her tight, wet heat.

She let out a held breath. “Oh, yeah,” she said, and he began to slide, cautiously, clenching his jaw with the need for control. “Oh, glory, it’s better than all right,” she breathed. “And it’ll be better still when you really fuck me.”

“That’s what I’m doing,” he told her.

“No, right now you’re trying to be careful, trying to go slow.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Trust me, big boy, you won’t.”

Gradually, his strokes lengthened, deepened until he was moving rhythmically. He’d tried to imagine it all those years ago, taken the stories he’d heard, the kisses he’d stolen, the fevered moments he’d had of finding his own private release. He’d tried to imagine what it would be like to slide into her, how soft, how slick, how hot.

He’d fallen miserably short of the mind-blasting pleasure. She was under him, lithe and strong, her legs around his waist, pumping her hips against him, tightening on every stroke so that every inch of him was straining to hold himself back. And oh, those throaty little moans of hers worked on him, pushing him even closer to the point of no return.

“Come on,” Delaney muttered, clutching his back, wrapping her legs up higher. “You can do better than that. Let it go, let it go. Oh, like that.” Her voice rose like an incantation as he pumped harder, faster. He felt her rake his back with her nails and the last vestiges of civilization fell away. Unleashed, he stroked into her, searching out his own ecstasy, hearing hers in her cries.

Pleasure became pain, pain became pleasure, labels irrelevant in the face of such utter sensory overload. Delaney felt him so deep she thought he was going all the way through her. Every instant she was sure she couldn’t take another moment of it, and she couldn’t bear to have it end as each stroke dragged her past any feeling she’d ever known. So she clutched at his slippery back, trying to hold on to her sanity even as she cried out without volition, her body drawn tight with tension. She felt the orgasm looming, building, swelling, enormous and more intense than she’d ever felt before with anyone.

Head flung back on the pillow, she opened her eyes and found Dom staring down at her, his eyes burning with heat, his face taut. “Come on, give it to me,” he muttered and slammed into her hard.

And suddenly the climax exploded along her entire body, shaking her, shattering her into a million burning pieces. Dimly, she heard herself crying out and felt Dom stroke a handful of times more before he spilled himself into her while she was still convulsing.

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