Juicy. Noelle Mack
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watched him warily, hanging on to her security sheet. No way would a man like Jaz Claybourn, hard-driving CEO and bedroom bounty hunter, give up that easily. Bliss took a deep breath, waiting to hear what he would say next. He didn’t say anything. In fact, he looked as confused as she felt.
He went into the bathroom, washed up, and came out with a low-slung towel tied around his hips. “Seen my pants? I gotta get going.”
She wasn’t going to ask where.
Bliss pointed to where he had dropped them on the floor and swept past him into the bathroom, slamming the door on the trailing sheet. She swore and undid the knot, letting the sheet fall off and standing on it. She pulled out the water knob and adjusted the temperature, then yanked up on the knob that switched the flow to the showerhead. She stepped under the pounding spray, but not before she heard him check in with Dora on his cell phone and laugh in an intimate way.
Mm-hm. Suspicions confirmed. Dora saw him nearly every day and there had to be something going on. But Bliss couldn’t shake the feeling that he wasn’t totally, officially taken.
She soaped up, rinsed off, and got out, wrapping herself in a big towel. Jaz opened the door without knocking and stuck his head in, grinning like a wolf. “Okay. Dora’s going to chuck Alf under the chin tomorrow morning and make excuses for me. He worships her, says a blonde gives the place class.”
She waited for him to contradict that. Say something postcoital and flattering. Brunettes are much sexier. He didn’t.
“He’ll believe whatever she tells him,” Jaz went on, oblivious to Bliss’s irritation. “I’m taking a four-day weekend starting tomorrow, which is Thursday, and you’re coming out to Pine Island as soon as you can.”
“No.”
He didn’t even pretend to hear her. “You get to fly back to New York first, of course. Tell Vi you nailed me to the wall.”
“I would phrase it differently, but go on.”
“You have the account. She’s sure to give you Friday off. The ferry runs every hour from Havertown on Fridays. Very convenient. Like I said, you can take the train from Manhattan. Transfer at Glenwick for the Havertown train, and take a taxi to the ferry dock. Easy as pie.”
“I hate you.”
He rested his head on his muscular arm and looked down at her. “I don’t think so. You’re just nervous.”
“You make me nervous.” Looking at him naked from the waist up was dissolving her brains again. And her resolve. He seemed to be on the verge of a smile. A very contagious smile. Bliss felt the corner of her mouth twitch.
“We’re going to have a great time, Bliss.” He put a finger under her chin and tipped her face to his for a long, lovely kiss.
On the general principle of making him wait for it some more, two weeks went by before Bliss headed out to Pine Island. Two weeks of tossing and turning in an empty bed. Two weeks of fantasizing about Jaz. Two weeks of not caring if she did lose her job—because she could get unemployment and another job, but that wasn’t going to happen because Vi was jubilant about getting the HT account. She bought a half page in AdWeek to gloat publicly and promoted Bliss on the spot, even throwing in a tiny raise.
But Bliss still hadn’t found the courage to tell Vi that she was seeing the CEO of Hot Treats. She’d worn sunglasses and a big scarf on the ferry out, just in case. Halfway across the immense bay, Pine Island came into view, stretching east and west for more than forty miles. Bliss had realized how big the island was and relaxed a little.
Jaz had arrived on the island only a couple of hours before, she found out when she called him from the ferry on her cell. He met her at the dock, looking built in ragged shorts and a faded T-shirt.
His house was nestled among low, wind-sculpted pines and she felt safe enough from discovery there. She’d mostly forgotten about Vi when he’d suggested going to the beach, taking what seemed to be a roundabout way to get there.
“Want to see where your boss lives?” Jaz pointed to the house.
“No fair. You didn’t tell me it was on this path.”
Jaz shrugged. “It’s the shortest way to the beach.”
Bliss almost expected to see flashes of lightning around stone battlements and flocks of malevolent bats hovering above the Beach House of Doom. But the structure was plain enough: gray-sided trapezoids thrusting skyward, pierced by angular windows, one of which displayed, in an ironic way, a faded prom dress in aqua chiffon with a matching satin sash.
Maybe the dress had once belonged to Violet, who now hung it in her beach house window as a warning to former classmates who had failed to recognize her genius. Maybe there was a bucket of blood suspended above it for those who failed to recognize Violet’s genius now. Bliss walked a little faster, dragging Jaz by the hand.
“What’s the hurry?” He stopped to get a better grip on their beach chairs and leaned them against Violet’s split-rail fence. “Don’t you want to stop in and say hello?”
“No.”
“Why not?”” Jaz looked up at the house and listened. “Someone’s there. Hey, Vi!”
Bliss just gaped at the sight of her boss sliding open a glass door and stepping outside. There was a tall, cool drink in her hand. Bliss prayed that it contained gin. A lot of gin.
“Bliss! What are you doing here?” Vi poked a finger into her glass and retrieved a maraschino cherry by the stem, popping it between her lips and munching it thoughtfully. “Care for a Shirley Temple?”
“Uh—no thanks.” Bliss very much doubted that her boss was drinking a non-alcoholic beverage. “I came out with Jaz.”
“Hello, Jaz!” Vi said, a little too brightly. She squinted at him. “You look familiar.” She turned her head in Bliss’s direction. “Enlighten me.”
“I’m Jaz Claybourn,” he answered before Bliss could reply. “I’m your new client—the CEO of Hot Treats. Pleasure to meet you. But I think we’ve met before, at the Buchanans’ deck party last summer.”
“Of course. Now I remember. You were thinking of taking the helm of the company back then. And I saw your picture in the HT press kit. Bliss, you naughty girl, I believe that’s a conflict of interest.” She downed her drink and licked her lips. “Gin and cherries. Disgusting but tasty. Want one?”
“We’re good, Vi. Thanks. We were just heading home.” Bliss patted the beach towel slung over her arm, trying to send a telepathic message that home was where the towel racks were. She didn’t think her boss would notice that they had been heading in the opposite direction, to the beach. She really didn’t want Vi to join them.
Her boss was well past decoding messages, however. Viemitted a ladylike burp. “Jaz, didn’t your father build a lot of the Summer Club houses back in the day? And didn’t you help him?”
“Yes, I did,” Jaz said, with a low laugh.
Bliss looked at him with astonishment. He looked as strong as a house carpenter with those broad shoulders and mighty arms, but it had never occurred to her that he could actually accomplish something as down-to-earth and practical as building a house. She tended to think of white-collar executive types as having been born that way: able to decipher complex spreadsheets and forecast the vagaries of the stock market, but not actually able to do anything.
Hmm. She was impressed.
“Rocco knew your father,” Vi mused. “Your late father, I mean.”
“I sure did,” a deep voice intoned. “Will Claybourn was my best buddy.” A very tall man who had to be well over sixty stepped through the open glass door to stand next to Vi. He had a lion’s mane of silver hair streaked with black and soulful dark eyes. Bliss noticed the splotches of paint on his faded denim shirt and jeans, and took him