Sitting on her lounger at the beach, Presley was ready to scream with frustration. The blowhard man who’d followed her from breakfast down to the beach wouldn’t give it up.His name was Algernon. He wore a tiny banana hammock under his protruding gut. He was bald and bragged how he didn’t have hair anywhere on his body at all, wiggling his eyebrows in what Presley was certain he meant to be suggestive. The thought was confirmed when he said no hair meant she wouldn’t be picking it out from her teeth when they became closer during the vacation.She’d tried to ignore him, putting her earbuds in and picking up a book she’d brought to read but now he boldly removed the earbud from her ear and was asking her if she wanted to get out of the heat and get into the water with him.“We could swim deep, and I could get very deep.”A woman traveling alone needed to be careful. Setting a man off was dangerous, especially one who was staying directly across the hall from her. She gave a benign smil
Coming out of the water, she felt Cruz’s eyes on her and she wanted to smack him. Why wouldn’t he go away? He was sitting on the end of her lounge chair, his hands clasped loosely between his knees watching her intently.Grabbing her towel, she patted herself dry and then wrapped up in her beach cover up. Without saying a word to him she began packing up her belongings.“Ladybird, we need to talk.”She maintained her silence and when all of her things were packed into her oversized beach bag and her slides were slipped onto her feet she began walking the short distance back to the hotel. He walked behind her, silently, as if waiting for her to blow up.In the elevator she was contemplating all the ways she was going to murder him. Narnurs the intergalactic cop was going to get a sequel. He and his two dicks were going to die a tragic death and the female love interest in the story was going to find a man with three penises and maybe a vagina too. Maybe the funeral process on Narnurs’
Presley considered never in a million years did she ever consider her vacation was going to be ruined by Cruz Hawley. She’d made her escape free and clear, and her father sold her out.She was sitting in small swinging chair in the garden area of the resort licking her wounds and preparing to call her father. After throwing the coffee mug which was the closest thing to her fingers at Cruz’s face, he’d barely ducked away from it, and it bounced off his chest to shatter at his feet. A large shard impaled the top of his foot and gave her the escape she needed.She felt a miniscule amount of regret for making him bleed but she remembered the time he broke her arm as a kid and pushed it away. Now she was kicking her toe off the rocks of the quiet area and trying to get her thoughts in order.She called her father’s cell phone and waited for him to pick it up. After the third ring he answered, and his voice told her he was dreading whatever it was she was going to say.“Hi P.”“How could yo
“Hey Mom.”“Did you tell your father he’s not your father anymore?”“Did he tell you he called me a horrible human being for using Cruz Hawley’s likeness on my book?”“No.” the tone of her mother’s voice told her that her father was in shit when she got hold of him.“He scolded me saying I went too far. Cruz has bullied and abused me my entire life. I did the thing the at the restaurant. He demanded I make restitution in the way of dating him on four dates. I negotiated him agreeing to do the cover. I showed him the photo I was going to use, Mom. He approved it. I agreed to four dates to fix his image with the company because of the restaurant thing and I got to use his photo. He agreed. He signed off. It’s not my fault he chose not to read up at all on what my book was, who my audience is or to even ask proper questions.”“You make a compelling argument,” her mother laughed.“Dad gave him my itinerary, Mom. Dad actually gave him my full itinerary and the name I’m traveling under. Cru
His words should have been a catalyst to her coming to her senses. They should have been an icy dousing of frigid water along her sun scorched skin. Yet as he peeled her cover-up over her head and tossed it onto the tiny bench behind them, she already yanking at the strings of his shorts. When her bikini top followed the cover-up, her hands was already wrapped around his long length stroking him up and down.“It’s only one but it should do the trick,” he grunted right before his mouth claimed hers.His fingers yanked the strings of her bottoms, and they fell to the floor. He wasted no time stroking his fingers through folds. He ripped his mouth from hers, “too short.”“I’m not too short,” she wanted to kick him in the shins but then he lifted her, pinned her to the wall and sucked her left nipple deep into his mouth, the roughness of his tongue sending a shocking burst of pleasure straight to her navel. “Can’t reach,” she tried to get his meaty cock back in her
“You fucked Odin’s sister.” Anderson was more judgemental than Cruz expected.“It happened. I have zero regrets. She fits.”“She fits?”“Like in my arms. She fits. I could carry her strapped to my chest and she fits there. The sex was smoking.”“You hate her.”“Hate is a strong word, but I admit I never liked her much because she was always so damn antagonistic. I swear to God every time we turned around as kids she was pulling some other kind of shit on us. As adults though, I don’t really know her now.”“She singlehandedly ruined a fifty-million-dollar deal.” Anderson reminded him.“I know.”“My sister gave me shit for hacking Presley’s itinerary and getting you into the rooms. I told her we could have a war of hackers if she tried to undo what I did. I told her I was going to monitor everything constantly t
She looked up when Cruz stepped onto the patio. “Go away.”“Can’t. I made us dinner reservations.”“I am not having dinner with you. I’ll order room service and sit here.”“You will not. Come on. If I can hobble down to the restaurant down the street, you can get out of your funk and come with me.”“I don’t want to.”“Tough shit. You’re coming with me.”She felt her anger bubbling over, “I said no.”“And I said you don’t get a choice, Ladybird. You created this monster of a shit storm which made my company lose a hundred million dollars in a single week. I do not know if I’m going to bounce back from it. Have you even been on any social media since you’ve been here? Have you seen the news? Have you watched any of the programs from back home which depicts me as a pervert who makes medical equipment for chi
Presley came into the bedroom wearing a towel wrapped around her body and ignored the way the man who was looking at his computer screen suddenly looked up and groaned loudly.“Damn, Ladybird, you are beautiful all wet.”“I know.” She retorted and grabbed her makeup bag and headed back to the bathroom. It felt incredibly light, and she opened and turned to him furiously. “Where is my make-up?”“You don’t need it.”“You have got to be kidding me!”“No. I left your face cleaners and moisturizers and shit, but you don’t need to hide your freckles and,” he ducked as she whipped a container of her moisturizer across the room, and it bounced off the wall over his head. “Why do you always resort to violence? Stop throwing shit!”“Get my make up back!”“No.”A furious squeal ripped from her lungs. “I’m goi
Presley saw the way his eyes widened, his pupils dilating and his breath hitching as he rested his forehead against hers and exhaled quietly.“Do you mean it?”“I do.”“Thank you, God.” He whispered quietly.“I’m still really angry, Cruz.”“I know you are. You have every right to be. I promise, I’ll make it up to you.”She stared into his eyes and then admitted, “I wouldn’t have married him.”“What?”“If he would have proposed, I would have said no.”“Why? You loved him.”“I did. I loved him a lot but,” she felt mean for saying it, “his mother was a third wheel in our relationship. I was with him for almost four years, and I never introduced him to my parents as anything more than a friend and told him Daddy threatened to cut off my tuition if I got a boyfriend during college, which was true, but he said it as a joke.”“Your father said that?”She nodded, “So at first, we were only hooking up, but he got serious faster than I did. Then we decided third year we were going to room toget
Presley stood staring at the water lapping gently on the shore. It was quite possibly the calmest the sea had been since she arrived. It mocked her. While everything seemed right in nature, her entire world was imploding all around her.“Say something,” Cruz said from beside her, standing close enough she could feel the heat from his body and yet it felt like the entire world was between them. “Tell me you don’t think I’m a pervert for wanting you when you were seventeen or nineteen or twenty-one. Tell me you’re not going to leave me before we’ve even really gotten started.”She remained quietly watching the shoreline, the echoes of people laughing as they strolled the pathway between her patio and the beach, straining her ears.“Presley,” he stepped closer, his fingers reaching to grip her baby finger, “Ladybird, talk to me.”“Was it a prank?”“What?”“When you called your friend to offer the job, was it a prank?”“What do you mean a prank?”“My entire life, or at least from the time
Presley waited until the room was emptied other than her and Cruz and then she turned to him.“What is the secret? What is it you’ve been hiding from me which is making Anderson give me strange side-eyes and hissing at you constantly?”“Can we sit?” He motioned to the patio, “preferably away from the mess in here.”She led the way to the patio table and sat on the chair facing the beach. Couples walked hand in hand the way she and Cruz did earlier in the day, and she realized it felt an entire lifetime ago.“Are you okay?” he asked as he sat down opposite her, his hands flattening and fisting atop the table as if nervous.“What do you think Cruz? Somewhere in this resort there is a mobster who is expecting to take me as a payment because my insane brother thought it would be a clever way to settle his debts and get rid of me.” She gave an upset huff, “no, I’m not okay.” She blinked angry tears away, “do you think this guy really killed his last two lovers?”“I don’t know. All I know i
“What the hell happened?” Gavin came into the room with Scarlett quick on his heels. Odin was awake on the bed, but Algernon was sitting on him, refusing to let him up.“Cruz punched me out,” Odin laughed hysterically. “He’s mad because I told Presley the truth about how he’s not really going to marry her and it’s all a big prank.”“No, you giant asshole,” Cruz grunted from where he leaned against a wall, “I punched him because we found out he tried to sell Presley off to a mobster.”Odin’s head snapped up, “What?”“You told Liborio Bartoli you could make your sister be his mistress in exchange for your debt being paid off.”“How did you find out?”The blood caking Odin’s mouth made Presley grimace but then his question caught up from her ears to her brain.“You really did?”“I told you, you bitch, I hate your fucking guts. If a mobster wants to make you his sex slave in exchange for wiping my debt off, who am I to say no?”“What the hell is wrong with you?” Gavin asked clutching his
Presley was in her suite alone pacing.During their lunch, Odin took a phone call out in the lobby and then disappeared. Her parents were pissed off but they, as well as Marsha, were also too tired to deal with him so they, Sloane and Halima all went to their respective rooms.Anderson told Cruz he needed to talk to him about something and the way Anderson was watching Halima walk away, Presley figured the man needed to get his best friend’s advice on how to proceed. She thought Anderson was asking the wrong guy considering Cruz chased her with the tact of a bulldozer over an ant hill but what did she know?A knock on the door made her grimace, “Cruz, stop forgetting your key.” She grumbled as she opened the door to find Odin there. She immediately wanted to slam it shut.“What do you want?”“I need Dad’s room number. They wouldn’t give it to me at the desk.”“Can’t help you. I don’t have it.”“I need him to do the transfer.”She frowned, “what?”“We ate brunch together. He owes me tw
Presley smiled when Cruz’s hand rested on her knee under the table during their luncheon with their friends and family. He was acting like a possessive boyfriend, a real boyfriend, and while she knew he wanted them to be a real couple, it felt good to know he was still of this mindset even in front of the family.He was doting and it felt nice and even her father shot a couple of little smiles in their direction.Her happiness though felt a complete contrast to Halima’s. The woman was pissed off. She couldn’t help but snicker at the way Halima was shooting Anderson death glares and she and Sloane exchanged more than one curious look at the way their friend was behaving. They were realizing she was not as immune to Anderson as she said she was and to Presley and Sloane, it was kind of funny to see their unflappable friend at a loss.Her thoughts were interrupted by her name being called.“Presley!” a voice called from the end of their table. “Wow, you have everyone here.”“Paris,” she
“Well, you two look good together,” Anderson said with a smirk.“Don’t we? Told you she fits. See the way she fills all my negative spaces? It’s perfect.”“You have it bad.”“Not as bad as an idiot who told a woman she’d be having his brown babies within a year,” Cruz frowned at Anderson. “Did you actually think it would work?”“I blurted it out. First time in my life I ever panicked in front of a woman. I flirted with her, and she wouldn’t even respond and I fucking panicked and now I’ve been hiding from her brother. Have you ever seen him? The man is jacked. I mean he’s not as big as you, but they could use you as a body double for Dave Bautista. Few men on earth are as big as you but fairly sure Halima’s brother weighs a hundred and five kilos, easily. He’s also been arrested multiple times for running with a motorcycle gang.”“I thought for sure you’d take the hit.”“I’m a lover not a fighter Cruz. I need this face to convince her I’m pretty enough to be with her.”“You’re an idio
Presley was tucked under Cruz’s shoulder, her arm wrapped around his waist, laughing at the way he was hoping Paris would find a way to get Ramona to piss off when she heard her name being squealed loudly.She ripped herself out of Cruz’s grip and raced to Sloane and Halima and fell into their group hug. “Oh my god, I’m so glad you’re here.”“This place is incredible!” Sloane looked around excitedly. She leaned sideways, “hey Cruz, looking massive as always.”“Sloane,” he shook his head at her comment, “you and I need to have words about sending my ex here.”“I’m sorry she’s stressing Presley out. I’m not sorry she’s pissing you off though. You’re an ass.”Halima snorted, “yeah. A ginormous ass.”“We’re together now,” Cruz motioned between himself and Presley, “you should be nice.”“No.” Sloane laughed in his face. “She’s confused by the massive dick I keep sending photos of to everyone. Why your ex kept multiple pictures of your junk is unclear, but it’s been helpful in my support of
Presley walked into the hotel lobby her hand engulfed by Cruz’s and felt her stomach rolling uncontrollably. Her parents were due at the resort shortly. Cruz did his best to keep her mind occupied about their arrival. The ache at her thighs told her he’d done a particularly excellent job indeed but now, out of the safety of their room, and not wrapped completely in his warm embrace, she felt the weight of the impending arrival of everyone crushing over her.“Babe, you’re squeezing my fingers so tight it would hurt if you were actually strong,” he teased her, lifting her fingers to his lips and kissing them. “It’s going to be fine.”“It doesn’t feel like it. My stomach wants to purge the entire contents of my breakfast in bed.”He chuckled at her words, “it’s going to be fine. I promise. I’ll be right with you the entire time.”“Every time in my life, whenever I’m present when Odin gets confronted, he immediately targets me.” She came to a stop near the doors of the lobby. They’d decid