Private Party (21 page)

“Whatever he’s doing to give you that look, I’m jealous.” Julie snapped her head around to look at Jen on the lounge chair next to her.

“Yeah,” Amy said. “I thought my fiancé was good, but clearly Chris has skills beyond most mortal men.”

“That’s probably true,” Julie grinned, “but I was actually thinking about how fun it is to work with him.

We really complement each other.”

“I’ll just bet you do,” Chrissy said with a giggle. “I bet he complements you all over the desk, all over the chair…”

“You have a dirty mind,” Julie laughed.

But even as she protested her brain was flooded with images from yesterday afternoon. Even with all the wedding craziness, Chris had found time to play.

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Carla had left to go talk to the chef. “I’ll be back in twenty minutes,” she said with a pointed look at both of them. “Got that? Twenty minutes.”

Chris had nodded innocently at Carla’s stern look. But the second Carla closed the door behind her, Chris was out of his chair and on Julie’s side of the massive desk. Without a word, he’d jerked her chair out and lifted her bodily onto the slick surface of the desk.

“What are—”

He’d stifled her protest with his kiss and shoved his hand roughly up her skirt.

His urgency alone had sent an answering heat thrumming through her body. To know that he wanted her so much was enough to make her instantly ready. He’d let out a satisfied groan as he felt the moisture that so quickly saturated the silky fabric of her panties.

He’d wasted no time, quickly slipping on a condom he’d conveniently stashed in the pocket of his shorts. Stripping off her panties, he’d laid her across the desk and pumped urgently inside of her, driving as far inside as he could possibly get.

Julie felt her body clench in bliss as she remembered the way she’d come almost immediately. They’d finished with five minutes to spare, giving Julie enough time to run to the bathroom to clean herself up and splash cool water on her face in order to mitigate the orgasmic flush that stained her cheeks.

By the time Carla returned, Julie had resumed her position across the desk from Chris, and she was studying the latest revision of the flower arrangements. Julie was convinced they had gotten off scot-free. Even if Chris had refused to give back her panties, preferring to keep them in his pocket.

“For good luck,” he said with a grin that curled her toes. But Carla didn’t need to know that.

“You two are ridiculous,” Carla said, and Julie caught the look of disgust on her face as she held the empty condom wrapper. “Trojan Magnum,” Carla read the label. “Chris, you are such a show-off. Just tell me you didn’t do it on my desk.”

Julie stuttered her assurances and fought the urge to run from Carla’s obvious disdain, while Chris, the jerk, just laughed uncontrollably as Carla checked her desk for evidence.

“You’ve got it
sooo
bad,” Amy said in a sing-song voice. The other girls chimed in, making kissing noises.

“Julie and Chris, sittin’ in a tree, f-u-c—” Jen sang.

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“Don’t say it, Jen,” Chrissy said. “It’s obvious they’re makin’
loooooove
.”

“Would you guys shut up? I’m trying to enjoy our last day here, okay?” Kara snapped. “It’s kind of hard to relax when you’re acting like we’re on the playground. So Chris is nailing Julie. Who gives a rat’s ass?”

Julie had no idea how Kara had gotten her reputation as a fun-loving party girl. Never in her life had she known someone so capable of sucking all of the fun out of a moment. But suddenly the Caribbean sun felt overbearingly hot, the breeze was blowing sand into her nose, and her mouth tasted brackish from her earlier swim. Even though she had a couple of hours before Chris and Carla were expecting her, she gathered up her stuff.

“Don’t go, Jules,” Amy pleaded. “It’s our last day, and I want to hang out with you.”

“Yeah—don’t mind her.” Jen didn’t bother to look up from her book as she nodded her head in Kara’s direction. “She’s just pissed she’s not getting any, and if we’re too loud, the island has lots of places where she can go to be alone.”

Kara took her iPod out of her bag, and with a pointed glare, slipped on the headphones.

“It’s okay,” Julie said, gathering up her beach bag. “I should be going.”

“Oh, come on,” Jen said, “You can hang out for a little while longer. We’ll have a drink, and you can tell us more about the supersecret wedding plans.”

Julie laughed. “No way am I falling for that one.” The girls had been trying to trip her up and spill information on the bride and groom all day. They swore up and down they’d keep the secret, but Julie knew damn well it would be too juicy not to share with someone. Even she was having a hard time resisting the urge to call Wendy—Jane Bowden was one of Wendy’s favorite actresses.

“I promise I’ll knock off early and have dinner with you,” Julie said with a little wave, ignoring the girls’ good-natured protests.

“Hey, Julie!”

Julie smiled. The girls wouldn’t miss her for long. Mike, Brad, Greg, and Dan were all making their way down the beach. She took a moment to admire the mouthwatering display of tanned flesh over lean muscle. None of them could hold a candle to Chris, of course, but she wasn’t dead.

Amy was right. She had it bad. Really, really bad. And working with Chris was only making it worse, creating a snowball effect. The more time she spent with him, the more she craved his company. Not to mention the sex. That too seemed to feed on itself. Instead of dissipating, her desire for him grew more PrivateParty

intense every time they made love.

At one point, Julie had thought herself in love with Brian. Now she knew she had never even been close.

The mild affection and passing attraction she felt for Chris’s older brother was nothing compared to what she felt now. But there was no reason Chris needed to know any of that. As far as he was concerned, she was having a good time with an old friend, fulfilling a long standing crush. And if, when the time came for her to leave, she went home with a bruised and battered heart, well, that was her own damn fault.

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12

C
hris did his best to appear engrossed in what the supermodel was saying, but his attention was riveted on Julie where she sat with Amy and her friends and the diver guys. He also noticed, will no small amount of relief, that Mike was very well occupied with Chrissy perched in his lap.

Since it was the last night for several guests, including both the bachelorette and diving party, Chris was duty bound to socialize and mingle before heading to dinner with Julie. What he really wanted to do was hole up at his place with her as he’d already done several times in the past week.

Which was crazy, considering he was also spending several hours a day with her in the office working on the wedding. But he found that after they quit for the day, the idea of taking Julie out to one of the resort’s three restaurants held very little appeal. Most nights he just wanted to order room service and spend the evening watching their favorite movies and making love.

And just this afternoon she had moved all of her stuff over to his place so that her villa could be taken over by wedding guests tomorrow morning. He’d stood there, watching her unpack, putting her clothes in the drawers next to his, placing her razor carefully on the edge of the shower. The whole thing should have made him feel utterly claustrophobic, but instead it made him feel oddly content.

It was getting out of hand. All of his misgivings about getting involved with Julie were coming to pass.

She’d always been the one girl he couldn’t forget, the sweet, sexy, good girl who’d driven him crazy.

He’d put her on a pedestal, forced himself to keep his hands off, afraid that one taste of her, one touch, would never be enough.

Damn, he hated being right. When she’d first arrived at Holley Cay, he’d convinced himself she’d PrivateParty

changed over the years. That the sweet, funny, surprisingly smart girl he’d nursed a secret crush for in college didn’t exist anymore, if she ever had. That girl would have never married Brian. Nor would she have used Chris for revenge sex on her wedding night. He’d deliberately misled himself, he realized, thinking he could keep his distance and give her what they both wanted—a no-strings-attached fling that would satisfy their mutual taste for the forbidden.

He was such an idiot. From the second he’d seen her at her rehearsal dinner and had that strange, uncontrolled, falling-off-a-cliff feeling, he’d known he needed to stay away from her or risk getting burned. Now, he was royally fucked. Because in the brief time she’d spent here, she’d shown Chris that she
was
everything he’d built her up to be, and more. Working beside her every day, he fell more and more under her spell. He could all too easily imagine her here, in his life. As his partner, his lover.

He watched her across the crowded bar, his chest tightening as she flashed a smile at another guest. He’d been tempted, more than once, in the past two days to ask her to stay. Screw going home, screw her life back in San Francisco. Just stay here with him and see where this thing went. But despite the amazing connection between them, he didn’t really know where he stood. Obviously she liked him, liked being with him, and he had no question that she enjoyed the sex.

But he was no idiot. He knew a big part of the reason she came here was to escape the chaos at home, and she was extending her stay to avoid the same. But when it came down to it, she wasn’t ready—if she ever would be—to turn her back on her family and start a new life with him.

“We can’t wait to come back with Nicole and her boyfriend, but you have to promise not to leak it to the press,” Nadia was saying.

“Of course,” Chris replied, forcing himself to focus on his conversation and not on his ambiguous relationship with Julie. “We’re known here for our discretion.”

“Discretion? I guess that only applies to your guests and not to yourself.” Chris turned at the sound of the voice. Kara was standing so close that when he turned around, he couldn’t possibly avoid the brush of her ample breasts. And just in case Chris didn’t notice the deep cleavage displayed by her halter-style dress, Kara subtly squeezed her arms against the sides of her breasts until they threatened to spill from the confines of her dress.

Under other circumstances, Chris would have appreciated the lush display of feminine flesh. But it was disconcertingly easy to focus on Kara’s face as he said, “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“You and Julie,” Kara replied, as she exchanged her flirty smile for a sullen pout. “The way you two are groping each other, I’m sure the press would love to hear about how she went from one brother to the other.”

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He tensed. “I don’t know how they would find out,” he said in a warning tone.

“Don’t look at me,” Kara said in mock innocence. “I don’t need to give the press any more reason to bother me.”

Chris snorted, well aware of her reputation. “You’d go to the opening of an envelope if you thought the paparazzi might be there.”

Her smile tightened around the corners and her green eyes took on a flinty edge. “In any case, I don’t need the competition for column space,” she said, glancing derisively at Julie. “Not that I have much to worry about.” She ran her fingers seductively down Chris’s forearm. “Listen, after Miss Priss goes home, if you find yourself in need of a real woman, give me a call. Daddy’s jet is on 24-hour standby.” He resisted the urge to wipe away her touch. Before he could respond he felt a familiar warm presence behind him. Julie. He didn’t even need to turn around to know that she was there. He could smell her soft, flowery perfume and the clean scent of her shampoo.

Relieved, he turned and caught her with an arm around her waist, pulling her snugly against his side.

“Hey, Buttercup,” he leaned down and placed a lusty kiss on her mouth.

Her expression softened, but she shot a wary glance at Kara, who seemed determined to pretend she didn’t exist. “Everyone’s headed to the restaurant,” Julie said with a bright smile for Kara. “Amy wanted me to come tell you.”

Kara gave Chris one last, sultry look before she turned and strutted away.

“That is one woman I will not miss,” Julie said fiercely.

Chris chuckled. “Feeling a little bit territorial, are we?”

“Do you have a problem with that?” Her chin tilted in challenge.

“Absolutely not,” he grinned, cupping that stubborn little chin in his hand. And he didn’t, which was really scary. Usually when a woman started acting jealous, it was high time that he put a little distance between them. “I like it that you’re jealous.”

“Good,” she whispered and leaned up to kiss him on the neck, right in the spot guaranteed to make his cock spring firmly to attention. Simultaneously, she pressed something into his hand.

“What’s this?” he managed.

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“Just a reminder.”

Chris felt himself grow even harder as he looked down at the wad of silky material he held in his fist.

Her panties. Her pale pink, silk and lace thong panties. He groaned even as he smiled. Never in a million years would he have ever imagined Julie Driscoll giving him her panties in the middle of a restaurant.

This was another surprising side to her that he loved, the surprisingly sensual, sexually confident woman who’d come to life in his bed. He remembered back to their first time, only weeks ago, but it felt like years. He’d been so worried, holding himself back, not wanting to shock her with the full force of his hunger for her.

But since that night that started on the beach and ended on the bed, she’d let go of her inhibitions. He’d given his lust free rein, knowing she could take it all and give it right back. To his great delight, he’d discovered behind those wide, innocent-looking eyes lay a dirty little mind.

“A reminder?” he asked, his eyes scanning the bar for the fastest escape route. Screw mingling with guests. He needed to get Julie somewhere private before he injured himself or someone else with the massive hard-on he was suddenly sporting.