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would never have imagined she’d give herself so fully and completely to a stranger—a hunky mystery man whom she’d never see again after she left the island.
Ty kissed her again and fondled her breasts. “Babe, that goes double for me.”
And he gave her an encore performance, doubling her pleasure into the night until they exhausted themselves.
Evan finished his shower, taking a thick towel from the shelf in Laney’s bathroom and wrapping it around his waist. Finger combing his hair back, he winced in the mirror at his two-day beard. He wasn’t exactly on the clock this week, doing some business with pleasure on the island, but the “pirate” look was wearing thin on him.
He needed a shave.
But he needed something else more.
He exited the humid room and walked into the fresh air of the master bedroom where he’d left Laney sleeping. She wasn’t in bed any longer.
He found her out on the private lanai overlooking the blue Pacific, on her cell phone. She wore his shirt from last night, the hem barely covering her shapely bottom. He followed the line of her long tanned legs to her bare feet and her white-tipped toenails. Classy.
Something raw tugged at him seeing her wearing his clothes like that.
Ty put on his briefs and trousers, then stepped out onto the balcony watching her body move as she spoke into the cell. He leaned against the French door and listened.
“Yes, I’m feeling a little better now.” Laney bobbed her head. “Yes, I know I’ve been gone almost a month. I miss you, too.
“No, I wasn’t aware the problems were escalating, Daddy. I’m sorry I’m not there for you right now.”
Laney let go a little sigh. “Of course I’ll come home soon. I—I think I’m ready. I love you, too. Very much.”
Evan heard the whole conversation including another sigh once she clicked the phone closed. He walked behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her tight against him. “Problems?”
She nodded, her blond waves tickling his chin. “It’s my father. He runs a big company and things are in chaos.”
This was exactly what Evan wanted to hear. He pushed her hair aside and kissed the back of her neck. “What kind of chaos?”
“Oh, that feels good.” She relaxed against his shoulder, fitting into him perfectly before she explained. “He’s losing money. It’s one mishap after another—fires, mechanical breakdowns, thefts and all kind of things. Now, his blood pressure is up. He wants people around him that he trusts. That means me,” she said quietly.
“Go on,” he said, “get it all out, babe.” Evan continued to nibble on her neck, kissing the soft skin just above her shoulders.
“I think he really needs me. He’s getting older and the stress is taking a toll on him. He hasn’t been the same since my mother died five years ago. It’s been hard on all of us.”
“That’s understandable,” he said, thinking about his own mother and the devastating way his father had died. The memory of that day haunted him still, yet Rebecca Tyler forged on, raising three sons single-handedly. They never had much money growing up, but now she had a good life, living in Florida and enjoying her retirement. Brock, Trent and Evan had developed a successful hotel chain and Tempest had made them multimillionaires within the first four years in operation. Although Rebecca Tyler never asked for anything, her sons made sure she wanted for nothing.
Yet, even knowing that, he couldn’t be too unhappy that Nolan Royal’s hotels were having trouble.
“How can you help him?”
She shrugged and her beautiful bottom wiggled against him. He was beginning to wish Laney Royal were any other woman. A woman he could pursue once they got back to the mainland.
“I’m not sure I can really. Lately, I’ve only contributed to his worries instead of helping him. But what he really wants is for me to play a more active role in the business and relieve him of some of the burden.”
“And you didn’t plan on that?”
Laney shook her head. “No, but I can’t afford to break his heart. He doesn’t want the company to fail or be sold. He’s worked hard all of his life. And now, he wants me by his side, so when the time comes for him to retire, he’ll have peace of mind that his legacy will continue.”
“And what do you want?”
She beamed with the same kind of passion he’d seen when she got all hot and sexy. “All I want to do is take pictures. I’m a photojournalist at heart. I’ve sold some of my work to magazines and I want to continue with it. But Dad thinks of it as a hobby. Anything I do outside the business isn’t important to him. He doesn’t take my work seriously.” She made a little hopeless shrug. “I’m all he’s got.”
She turned around, winding her arms about his neck and resting her pretty eyes on him. “Ty, thanks for listening, but I don’t really want to think about my father right now.”
Hell, how could he resist that kind of temptation? Evan braced her waist and brought her closer, breathing the sunshine in her hair, whispering into her ear, “I can think of a few ways to distract you.”
She ran her fingers along his unshaven beard. “Distract away.”
Evan cupped her sweet bottom bringing her up against him and took her in a long lazy slow kiss.
He’d found out what he needed to know for now. There was truth to the rumor that Nolan Royal’s hotels were in deep trouble. And that also meant he’d be less of an obstacle when Evan made his move to buy him out. Satisfied with the information he’d garnered, he spent the next part of the morning distracting Laney Royal and enjoying every minute of it.
Later that morning, they took a lazy stroll along the beach, flirting with the waves and each other, playing in the water and sunning themselves until their stomachs grumbled in hunger. Then Ty took Laney to his cottage suite at the opposite end of the Wind Breeze. It was clearly the largest the hotel had to offer. They had a catered lunch on the sundeck and then soaked in the private Jacuzzi.
Laney baked in the sun in the afternoon, Ty being diligent in lathering her with sunscreen, his hands roaming over her body in places the sun would never touch. But after two hours, she needed to rinse off and Ty offered her his shower.
Laney entered the suite’s enormous, marble-from-wall-to-floor bathroom, the shower area alone taking up half the room. Jets from all sides and top streamed down and, before she knew it, Ty entered the shower with only one thing on his mind.
“What do you think about the plumbing in here?” he asked, wearing an innocent expression as he approached in the nude. One thing Laney had learned, there was nothing innocent about Ty, the mystery man. He knew all the right moves and Laney was only too glad to be on the receiving end of his vast knowledge.
She gripped him below the waist, filling her hand with his firm length and returned his innocent look as seven jets rained upon both of them. “I think I’ve turned everything on properly in here, don’t you?”
She slid her hand up and down and Ty growled, the sound echoing against the Italian marble. “Babe, uh, yeah. You’ve pressed all the right buttons.”
Laney loved Ty’s sense of humor. It reminded her that she had one of her own. But when he backed her up against the cool marble wall of the shower, all thoughts of humor vanished. Ty had that look in his eyes and Laney knew she was going to be made love to all over again.
In the most delicious way.
They spent the rest of the afternoon in Ty’s suite, napping in his bed, eating room-service pizza and drinking beer. Laney beat Ty five games to three in gin rummy and much to her delight, she found out that Ty didn’t like to lose, which made teasing him all the more fun.
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