Sarasota Sin (8 page)

“Not today,” she answered, squeezing her knees at the thought. She was still horny, and it would be so easy to give in to Noah…then regret it later. Why were men suddenly getting to her? Lately, she hadn’t much time for sexual introspection, but a serious discussion with her inner slut was past due.

After a few heartbeats, he asked, “So did you make any headway with Avery Easton?”

“How’d you know?” She turned off the water and reached for a towel. Forcing her mind to forget everything that just happened would be hard, but she was fairly adept at fighting her libido.

“I spotted you walking across the street with him and tipped off Lib.”

“You know him?” Wrapping it around her head, she grabbed a second and dried her body in quick, efficient movements.

“Not personally, though when he’s in town, he shows up for the big functions, like the one you crashed last night.” She heard his belt hit the floor. “I’ve been fortunate enough to play at a few of those fundraisers, but mostly I’ve seen him in the society pages I followed.” Noah had been responsible for corralling interest in the firehouse and he’d pinpointed upper crust Sarasota first. “I wondered why one of them finally showed up. I mean;  Lib finagled a meeting with the city’s historical society. Lot’s of Sarasota big shots are involved in that group, maybe this Avery got wind of it.”

“The historical society is granting the firehouse air time?” She gripped the edge of the shower curtain and drew it back. “Why didn’t Libby tell me there was hope?”

Noah stood in his boxers, greasy and gorgeous. “Hope? Nah, Lib doesn’t believe in hope. So she wouldn’t encourage you unless she was guaranteed a positive outcome. Our girl’s not made that way, remember?”

“I remember,” she muttered, tightening the hold on her towel and stepping by him to her bedroom. Behind her, Noah went at it in the shower, hurrying so he wouldn’t run out of hot water.

Unfortunately, she had one clean outfit left: jean cutoffs, a faded pink T-shirt, walking boots, but no bra. She turned away from her door free threshold, slid on the shorts, and yanked the T-shirt over her damp body. Staring down, Payton realized her nipples were poking through.

Noah called out, “I’m sure you impressed him.”

“Oh,” she tossed back, “I wouldn’t say he was impressed.” Not when she ran out like an idiot .

Noah stayed quiet as he turned off the shower. She heard the towel moving over his hard body as she worked aloe over her arms and legs. Finally, he asked, “Who sent you those flowers?”

With the way he’d been acting lately, she wondered how he’d allowed this question to simmer all day. “Avery Easton, the man I mistook for our volunteer electrician.” She tossed her small makeup bag back in her dresser drawer, deciding not bother with it, and instead combed through her mass of auburn tangles. With an elastic, she pulled her hair into a ponytail. “He didn’t bother to correct me until Lib found us. I wonder how long he was going to play me.”

Noah stepped out with a towel cinched low around his waist, his expression unreadable. “So instead he got a glimpse into our unending problems.”

She slid her feet into her spare pair of walking boots and shouldered her backpack, keeping her eyes averted from his killer six-pack. “Our unending problems due to his family’s interference,” she corrected.

“So why the flowers?”

Because she drank too much and made out with him and his cousin. “Playing games, I suppose.”

“Then I need to have a chat with him.”

“I think we need to let Libby handle him. After all, we’ve had enough trouble from the Eastons to last a lifetime, right?”

“Anytime you need me, Pay, no matter what it is.”

She nodded. “Same goes for me.”

Brushing her arm as she passed through the narrow hallway, he explained softly, “I’ve given the actual electrician all the info he needs to stay busy through tomorrow. I can’t stay any longer tonight; I need to practice for Saturday’s gig.”

“I’m leaving, too. Thankfully, I picked up another tutoring job for two glorious hours a week. Rich kid failed Calculus II. He’s trying to avoid summer school so he can jet across Europe with his friends.” She kept walking, trying not to imagine where the ink etched down his right side ended. “I’m charging the father double since his son’s an ass.” She smiled over her shoulder at him. “He agreed wholeheartedly.”

Noah’s lips quirked but his eyes stayed sober. “Get my UM hoodie off the sofa.” He glanced at her breasts. “Cover up, Pay.”

She flushed. “I need to do some laundry.”

“Me, too. We can work on it tomorrow.” He ran his hand over the wall, examining a recently patched crack. “I’m sorry about earlier. You know, when I snapped at you.”

She pulled on his sweatshirt, zipping the front and then cuffing the oversized sleeves to her wrists. “We’re all tense, Noah.”

“It’s more than this place and you know it.” His hand left the wall as he stepped closer. “Obviously, I’ve refused to go around pretending I don’t want you,” he explained. “But I…I’ll accept this isn’t the right time. Yet. Okay?”

“Okay.” Payton dug through her backpack and found her keys. She made a conscious effort not to downgrade herself because of her larger frame, her extra pounds. Libby was right. There were men out there who found her attractive, appreciated the extra curves on her size eighteen frame. But the funny thing was, Noah always dated thin women with hard-as-rocks bodies from too much gym exposure. Plus, they were all platinum blondes. At least, the ones she’d seen. She wondered where she fit in.  His narrowed criteria couldn’t include her, not logically anyway.

“You look as low as I feel. Are you sure you don’t want to have dinner tonight? My treat, and I swear not to try and kiss you again unless you ask.” He grabbed his guitar case from behind the sofa.

“I’ll pick up pizza,” she negotiated, gesturing to her clothes. “Nothing else clean to wear, remember?”

“Pizza is great,” he agreed. “And, Payton, I’m seriously hoping you spill something on yourself before tonight.” He winked and went out the door, bypassing Libby as she barreled through.

Libby wasted no time in asking, “Why would Noah want you to spill something on your clothes?”

“Underneath this hoodie is my last clean shirt.”

“Ah,” she replied knowingly, “he wants you in skin.” Her hand was still on the door, keeping it ajar. “Speaking of wanting you, Avery Easton won’t take the upstairs tour without you.”

What? “Why would he need a tour of our apartments?”

“I have a hunch he’s trying to help us.” She shrugged, the sunlight catching the gold in her hair. “He sent you flowers and that note for a reason. Why don’t you find out why?”

“He just wants to -”

“Of course, he wants to nail you! He’s a man, haven’t you noticed? Doesn’t mean you have to do it.” Libby stomped her foot, pointing her index finger at Payton. “Get your ass next door, and use those ginormous tits God gave you.” Libby patted her B cups for emphasis. “And persuade him.”

“Persuade him with my breasts,” Payton echoed. “Well, that’s just one giant step for women everywhere.”

Libby dropped a hand on her hip, cocking her head to the side. “Do you have a better idea?”

Five minutes later, Payton still hadn’t come up with a better idea, apart from begging. But she’d be damned if she was going to use any of her body parts to plead her case. It should stand on its own. The Sarasota Firehouse had a right to be here in any capacity the city deemed fit, and they had a right to conduct their business, apartments and community art studio, without undue interference from The Easton Company.

“We meet again, Mr. Easton.” She found him inside apartment B staring at the half-dismantled kitchen slopped with green slime still unattended by Bill. She toed a half-empty box of tiles to prop open the door, before stepping inside the lion’s den. “Three times in less than twenty-four hours. That must be a record somewhere.”

“You could have saved us the trouble by staying in my tower. I wanted to have breakfast with you, then lunch,” he trailed off, watching her watching him. “I was waiting until you sobered.”

Waiting to do what? “Then you shouldn’t have sent your security to kick me out.” Not that she would have stayed.

“I never sent you away.”

Back and forth they went. “Then who did?”

“I assure you.” His smile slipped a trace. “That’s something I will find out before the day’s end.”

“Speaking of day’s end,” she said, glancing at her watch, “I don’t have much time.”

“Oh, really?” Moving forward, he started herding her. “Tell me how to keep you in one place long enough to lose myself again, Red Bird.” He backed her against the countertop, placing his hands against either side of her hips. “Pour salt on your tail?” His thumb traveled the curvature of her left hip. “And what a lovely tail it is.”

Closing her eyes against one of the sexiest men she’d ever come across, she whispered, “Could you lose the dimples, maybe frown a little?”

“So you are affected by me,” he whispered back, still moving his thumb up and down, pressing in on the upstroke.

“Isn’t every woman?” Payton opened her eyes, fixing her gaze on his full lips instead of his searching eyes. Getting down to brass was the best decision she could make. “My friend is foolish enough to think you’re here to help us. Normally, Libby’s a realist so why would she think that?”

Dipping his head, Avery inhaled over the sensitive flesh behind her ear. “Because I am.”

How did this veritable stranger make her feel alive more than any guy who’d ever attempted touching her, even Noah? “Why should I believe you when the complaints from your company say our little firehouse would hurt your business?”

An exasperated sigh escaped him. “This morning, I cancelled a meeting and read all correspondence between my company and yours.” He trailed his hand higher, finding her waist beneath Noah’s hoodie, and gently squeezed. A gasp left her, her legs parting on their on violation, making way for his pressing weight. He settled between her thighs, stroking her throat with his tongue, much the same way his fingers had on the tower’s balcony. “On the contrary,” he murmured between flicks of his tongue, “from the documents I’ve read, we never implied your venture would hurt our business.”

“Not your hotel, no, but what about that projected thirty-six hole golf course you want to add to your hotel?” When she felt his thigh take a swipe against her core, a needy groan rent the air, followed by the swift heat of embarrassment. “Y-you n-need an adjacent property access and want to tear down this place for a clear thoroughfare to our intersection.”

His head snapped up. “Where did you get that information?”

She focused on the slimy floor, fighting within herself, striving to compose her aching body. “We aren’t the only ones with leaks.”

“Still.” His hands slid up her back, smoothing circles between her shoulders, his breaths doubling when discovering she wore no bra. “Our golf course is not a definite.”

She had to laugh, the distraction a welcoming relief. “You have golf courses on all of your Florida properties, this one being the only hotel without.” She pushed at his chest until he backed up, allowing her to slide away from the warm haven of his body. “Not definite, huh?” The only reason it wasn’t definite was due to the firehouse standing in his way, literally. “So your lawyers are always this aggressive over nothing?”

Looking down at her, Avery’s hands fisted at his sides as though he fought not to touch her. “I peg you for enjoying particular aggression, a submissive in certain settings.”

“Cleverly inaccurate assessment, Mr. Easton.”

“Oh, I’ll tell you what’s clever,” he purred, his chiseled face breathtakingly savage with the scars marring his throat. “Clever is how you turned a demolition-worthy structure into an arts program that will inevitably give back to the community and still turn a sweet profit for you, your partners, and assorted, visiting artists. With the addition of these apartments offering short term leases for most, and then the four that offer long term leases for a stable, monthly bread-and-butter, you’ve covered all bases, protecting a promising investment even before opening day. Not bad for small business,” he mused.

“I’m no fool,” she snapped at the beautiful beast, understanding his spies had done their homework. But they had nothing to hide here. Could Avery say the same? “Of course, I covered my bases. I love Sarasota, have lived here all my life, but I’m no philanthropist. I wasn’t born in a family such as yours, and I have to earn a living somehow. Why shouldn’t I earn it by what I enjoy?”

Slowly, he licked the inside of his bottom lip before he said, “You’re taking offense over my admiring your business cunningness, when you haven’t completed your bachelor’s degree, much less your MBA?”

That did it! “Cunningness?” She fisted her hands, much the same way as his.  “Cunningness! Try business savvy! Not all talent comes from a piece of paper sealed and signed by a university.”

In a flash, his lips pressed her ear. “Last night, I couldn’t get the taste of your skin off my lips, the feel of your flesh from my hands. That happening to me is…intriguing. Today, I discovered the idea of transforming this old firehouse into a thorn in my family’s side was completely yours. Again, I’m uncharacteristically intrigued.”

“Believe me. Attracting your family’s notice was never in my game plan.”

He kept his cheek against hers, his midnight whiskers rasping across her jaw. “Well, you’ve certainly attracted my notice.” His hands stayed fisted at his sides, clenching and unclenching. “Luscious body, spectacular face, and strength of mind and soul, how could I not want you, Payton Calloway?” Beneath his cool composure, his warrior’s physique covered in rich man’s clothes, he prodded almost desperately, “Tell me.”

“Unless your company backs off, nothing will happen between us.” Drowning in his scent, she leaned into Avery. “So you shouldn’t want what you can’t have.”

“There is nothing I can’t have.” He trailed his lips to her temple, pressing a soft kiss there. “In my note, I told you to be ready for me.”

“Ready?” she asked in bewilderment. “Ready for what?”

“Everything.”