Summer kissed his lips to steal a taste

Jackson possessed a full, soft mouth for a man of such chiseled features and hard angles. Her eyelids fell shut, heightening the sensations of his kiss. The warm whiskey taste of him intoxicated her, made her even bolder.

Splaying a hand across his broad chest beneath his jacket, she absorbed the feel of starched cotton and warm muscle through his white dress shirt. Her fingertips itched to cover more ground, to explore the terrain of the rock-hard abs currently plastered against her. To follow the silky path of his tie to the leather of his belt then and dip lower still….

He deepened their kiss, delving into her mouth to join them further. Summer closed her eyes more tightly against the onslaught of heat, the tingly wave of needy sensation that tripped through her whole body. As his tongue probed hers, an answering shock wave pulsed through her.

She had to have this man…now.

Dear Reader,

Have you ever met a guy in an unusual manner? Maybe accepted a date with someone you wouldn’t have considered before, because his approach was just too standout to ignore? Jackson Taggart really wants to meet Summer Farnsworth in Girl’s Guide to Hunting & Kissing, and he’s not willing to trot out the stale old pick-up lines for an introduction. Would you say yes to a man who tried his tactics?

Welcome back to South Beach for the second book in my new series! Now that Brianne and Aidan have embarked on their happily-ever-after— Sex & The Single Girl, Blaze #104—ambiance coordinator Summer Farnsworth is starting to feel the tug of dissatisfaction with the lack of eligible men in her life. But can she date a guy who needs to play by the rules all the time? Of course, she might find it hard to resist a man as determined as Jackson to get what he wants.

If you enjoy Girl’s Guide to Hunting & Kissing, I hope you’ll join me for next month’s SINGLE IN SOUTH BEACH story. One Naughty Night will be a November Temptation title, #951, and we’ll finally get the scoop on Giselle Cesare’s sexy older brother, Renzo. Visit me at www.JoanneRock.com to learn more about my future releases or to let me know what you think about the series so far!

Happy reading,

Joanne Rock

Girl’s Guide To Hunting & Kissing
Joanne Rock

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Michele Goes, my childhood friend who always encouraged me to tell stories with a happy ending.

From our Barbie scenarios to our bedtime stories, we wanted the women to triumph! Thank you, Michele, for helping me to realize a dream. I wish you every happiness.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

1

Let the hunt begin…

BREASTS BOUNCED in every direction on the dance floor of the Moulin Rouge Lounge. The hottest new nightclub on South Beach overflowed with women dressed in clothes that would be at home on the beach as much as the bar scene—halter tops, plunging necklines and enough Lycra to clothe the U.S. swim team well into the next decade.

Despite the dazzling display of feminine flesh highlighted by flashing blue strobe lights, attorney Jackson Taggart wasn’t looking for breasts. Other guys might get caught up in cup sizes or long legs, but for his first venture into Miami’s decadent nightlife in nearly a year, Jackson narrowed his focus to one thing.

Tonight, he’d sell his soul for the woman with the right…mouth.

In an effort to forget the hell his private life had become over the last few weeks, he watched women of every shape and size flirt, dance and sip brightly colored drinks from the Moulin Rouge’s signature bar glasses featuring the frilly panties of a cancan girl with long, stocking clad legs.

He had a certain woman in mind, a woman unlike any he’d ever been with before. A bedroom goddess who didn’t give a damn about his well-known family or the scandal of the decade in which they were currently ensnared.

Flagging a brunette bartender dressed in a uniform of silky white lingerie, Jackson started to request his standard imported beer and stopped himself. The hunt for a wild bedroom goddess at least deserved a shot of whiskey. His order given, he settled in for the search, eager to engage in anything that didn’t involve damage control in the media, angry family shouting matches and an ever-looming pressure to enter a cutthroat state legislature race.

Damn.

Tossing back his whiskey, he concentrated on a single, simple task.

Finding the right mouth.

He scanned the crowd and found…pink bubblegum lips. Nah. Too sweet for what he had in mind. And even worse, too much like his ex-girlfriend.

Sparkly gold lips. High-maintenance diva—not a chance.

Bright-red lips looked wild enough, but broadening his visual scan he noted that the pale face and solid black outfit looked a bit Goth. Too moody.

None of those mouths pointed to the kind of woman he needed to find. But he had no intention of going home unfulfilled. Not this time.

Then he spied them.

The deep, rich muted burgundy that was neither too red nor too purple. Soft, full lips that suggested lush sensuality. A lack of shiny lip gloss made for a mouth that was at once kissable and not too self-conscious.

Bingo.

Jackson flung a bill across the bar to pay for his drink, scarcely noticing the glass-encased waterfall behind the throng of busy bartenders. Already on the move, he followed the woman who had caught his attention as she turned away and headed toward the back of the room.

From the brief glimpse he’d snagged of her face, he acknowledged she was uncommonly pretty. Still, he had a vague impression of her being a little unusual. Something about the odd mix of fabrics in her rosy-hued dress with the ragged hem maybe, or the wavy flaxen mermaid hair decorated with scattered thin braids that looked to be…pink?

He caught up with her just inside the bar’s back room—a decadent lounge ringed with private, curtained booths. She met a tall woman with auburn hair and kick-ass legs dressed in an unadorned, steel-gray cat suit. He didn’t bother checking out her lips. He’d already found perfection.

Straying closer to their position near a scaled-down minibar, Jackson didn’t necessarily mean to overhear them. They shouted over the music, making it nearly impossible not to hear them. Especially considering he loomed just a few feet away.

“No luck with the manhunt?” the auburn-haired woman asked between sips of a green drink. Margarita, maybe.

The blonde shook her head and rolled her eyes. She was as expressive as the redhead was reserved. “Every guy I’ve met here has been too forward, too obvious and too eager to cut to the chase. I’m not asking for big-time romance, Bri. I’d just like to see a little originality in the approach. I mean, where’s the…”

The sudden whirr of a blender at the minibar drowned out the rest. Jackson leaned forward, more than a little curious to know what the woman with the world’s most perfect lips had to say about her personal turn-ons. But by the time the blender switched off, the redhead spoke.

“…then again, Aidan is pretty much a case study in originality.”

The name caught his attention and made a few mental wheels turn. Jackson’s friend and former college roommate, federal agent Aidan Maddock had just got engaged to one of the new part owners of Club Paradise.

Could it be the same woman?

While he puzzled that out, the blonde yanked her friend by the arm. “Come on. You’ve got to come see my latest little pleasure palace. You’re going to love it.”

Pleasure palace?

Jackson could have used another drink—or two—as he contemplated what exactly these gorgeous females had in mind. Obviously women were discussing things a hell of a lot more interesting than the status of the NASDAQ and baseball box scores when they hit the bars.

Determined to keep those lips in his sights, he followed the pair as they leaned close to one another, whispering and laughing as they edged through the crowd.

Damn.

Picking up speed, he tracked them out the back doors of the club leading to the exclusive resort connected to the Moulin Rouge Lounge and followed them past the semierotic paintings gracing the spacious corridors.

Careful to stay well behind the women, Jackson watched the blonde flounce down the hallway, a definite swing to her hips.

“It has tons of erotic potential,” the bedroom goddess confided to her friend as she straightened some kind of see-through red shawl flung around her shoulders. “Not that I’ll ever be able to make use of it, but I’m sure other people will benefit from my ingenuity.”

“No whips and chains, I hope?” The tall redhead checked the oversize watch on her wrist while Jackson gulped.

“Now Brianne, you know we only allow velvet shackles. But this is much more refined. Very hot, very red. The room practically oozes sex.”

They rounded a corner and Jackson couldn’t possibly turn back. More than ever, he wanted to taste the lips of a woman who saw erotic potential and oozing sex in something so mundane as a room. How much pleasure might a woman like that find in a man?

The prospect effectively drowned out ninety percent of the other concerns that had been dogging his heels for the last month. Tonight he would pursue what he wanted instead of what everyone else expected from him.

While he wasn’t exactly Mr. Uptight, he’d never been a player, either. He’d always dated women from the right social circles with ambitions similar to his own. Ordinarily, he never played games.

And he’d never sought a woman purely for the sake of sex.

But the blonde had him curious. He just needed to find a way to meet her that was…what had she said she wanted?…original. And not too forward.

Hell, his ambitious clan had raised him to be politically correct in every facet of his life, how hard could it be to come up with something that wasn’t too forward?

Ducking behind a vending machine as the women turned down yet another hallway, Jackson peered out just enough to see his prey shove a tall housekeeping supply cart into the doorway of a guest room and then slip inside.

Pretty damned convenient she’d left the door propped open.

Growing more certain that he’d found the right woman, Jackson strategized the best approach.

What would it hurt if—just this once—he applied all that smooth-talking charm that made the Taggarts famous for something besides courtroom closing arguments or speeches in the latest election race?

If he had his way, he’d be sweet-talking the blonde into helping him forget the nonstop disaster his life had become. At least for the next few hours, but even better, the next few days. With any luck, he’d find the wild bedroom goddess of his dreams.

He stepped lightly down the hallway toward the open guest-room door. Peering around the housekeeping cart piled high with guest towels, soaps and tissue boxes to get another glimpse of the unusual beauty, he discovered what she’d meant by a pleasure palace.

Damned if she hadn’t walked into the silky red luxury of a modern-day bordello.

SUMMER FARNSWORTH turned up the lights in the Bad Girl Bordello and looked around at her latest creation.

“Oh my God, Summer, it’s amazing.” Club Paradise’s security expert Brianne Wolcott sank into the room, her feet drawn to the red quilted settee outlined in cherrywood. “A visual feast.”

“It still gives me shivers to walk in here.” Preening openly, Summer soaked up her friend’s praise. As part owner and a self-described ambiance coordinator for the club, she took her job seriously. She’d worked as an activities director for the club during the previous ownership. The gig had been awarded to her by a snake-in-the-grass ex-boyfriend who’d absconded with all the resort’s profits.

Club Paradise had done a booming business as a couples resort for years before the major shareholders had embezzled the company’s money. Since then, the women who’d been left behind by the crooks—an ex-wife, two ex-girlfriends and, in Brianne’s case, a step-daughter—had formed a new holding company. Admittedly cynical about love in the aftermath of the Rat Pack’s defection, the new owners had converted the former couples haven into a hedonistic playground for singles.

Of course, Brianne wasn’t so cynical about love anymore. She and hottie Aidan Maddock had found happiness—and, it seemed, plenty of sexual contentment—over the last two months. Her friend’s fulfillment left Summer feeling all the more restless recently.

“Just be careful,” Summer warned as Brianne ran her fingers over the fresh varnish. “The finish is still tacky in some places. The fumes aren’t quite as bad since the afternoon, but it helps to leave the door open anyway for some fresh air.”

Glancing toward the propped door, Summer stared into the empty hallway behind her, unable to shake the feeling that someone had been there. Watching.

Normally, she possessed a finely tuned sixth sense. She knew when her parents were in trouble with whatever cult of the month they happened to have joined. She could tell when she was being lied to. And she could usually feel eyes on her from fifty paces, but apparently that particular skill was on the fritz tonight.

Although her skin prickled along the back of her neck and her heart skipped along at a nervous rate, no sexy stranger lurked in the doorway waiting to pounce.

Too bad.

Tearing her eyes from the hallway, she wondered if the last year’s worth of stifled sexual impulses could account for her hallucinating a stranger on her tail. Or maybe she could attribute the fanciful thoughts to being in the Bad Girl Bordello.

“This room is definitely naughty.” Brianne’s voice called her back to the present. She trailed appreciative fingers over the lush shirred velvet lining two of the walls. “Total fantasy.”

The deep burgundy color of the fabric was repeated in the bed and on an old-fashioned settee. Red satin trimmed with black lace skirted the bed and decorated pillows. Beaded antique lampshades rested over delicate brass light fixtures, while small crystal chandeliers twinkled in the soft light overhead.

“Told you it was a pleasure palace.” Summer reached to tweak one of the dangling prisms in the chandelier near the entry.

As in several other rooms throughout the hotel, the bordello featured erotic statues and framed lithographs of a couple in various positions described in the Kama Sutra. Even so, the room had taken on a mood and ambiance uniquely its own.

“Yes, but will you christen this room as thoroughly as Aidan and I christened the harem?” Brianne winked as she started rifling through the bags of thematic costumes Summer had bought as amenities for the luxury suite.

A rogue twinge of envy squeezed Summer as she thought about the kinds of pleasures Brianne and her new fiancé Aidan Maddock had enjoyed at the club. They’d been the first couple to make use of the sensual atmosphere Summer strove to maintain in all the refurbished rooms.

“Actually, I’m hoping to snag this room any time it’s free, but we’ll probably have lots of reservations for it once a few people have stayed here.” Summer had lived at the hotel for the last year, bouncing from room to room according to whatever was available. “I seem to be short a man for any real christening, but I have to say if I had an opportunity, this room would be my first choice.”

Some optimistic part of her had hoped to initiate a real relationship at this stage of her life. At twenty-eight years old, she was the only female she knew in her age bracket who had never formed a remotely long-term liaison.

Of course, that desire for a mild commitment had prevented her from making moves on the guys she’d always been most attracted to—the surfers with the rebel attitudes and the rock ’n’ roll studs who were living on the edge. Somehow she couldn’t work up the same lusty enthusiasm for the more staid investment brokers, entrepreneurs and lawyerly types that invaded South Beach nightlife.

“Want me to start keeping an eye out for you, Summer? I think I know your type. Unconventional, lives-by-his-own rules kind of guy, right?” Brianne pulled a crushed silk corset out of Summer’s costume bag and grazed the fabric against her cheek.

Summer frowned, surprised. “Since when did you become the intuitive one, Ms. High Tech?”

“You’re parading around the club wearing a vintage bustier and pink braids in your hair. Believe me, pure logic brought me to the conclusion you’d like an unconventional guy.”

“A bustier this gorgeous needed to be seen.” Shaking off the crocheted scarf she’d draped over her shoulders, Summer unveiled the silk moiré undergarment she’d snagged for herself during the costume-shopping spree.

She could have sworn she heard a swift intake of breath in the corridor outside the door.

What was it with her and the damn hallway tonight? The sense of someone watching her lingered. But she knew perfectly well Brianne had taken the extra remote security cameras out of the private rooms. No doubt the hot gaze she felt merely resulted from a shivery manifestation of overactive hormones.

Brianne tugged one of Summer’s decorative pink braids. “I think you’ve crossed over into the fantasy world you created. Did you realize your bustier coordinates perfectly with the bordello?”

“You think this is fantasy?” Summer adjusted the satin ribbon tying her outfit together. “This doesn’t come close to the ideas I have in mind if I ever found the right guy to christen the bordello with.”

Brianne pulled the requisite velvet shackles out of Summer’s costume bag and dangled them in front of her nose. “Would you make him your love slave?”

“Hardly.”

“You don’t have kinky toe fetishes or anything, do you?”

“Eeeww.” Summer whipped Brianne’s shoulder with one end of her satin bustier tie. “I’m thinking more along the lines of being totally overwhelmed.” She gestured vaguely around the room. “That’s sort of the whole bordello theme in a nutshell, isn’t it—being at a man’s whim? I mean don’t get me wrong, obviously we’re all grateful the women’s movement has given us so much power over our lives, but sometimes I feel ready to shake off the überwoman syndrome and just be…”

“Overpowered?” Brianne fanned herself. “Honey, that’s a smoking fantasy. Where do I sign up for that?”

“It’s definitely not on Club Paradise’s activity list. If it was, I’d be the first to sign on.” She could certainly use the stress-relieving benefits of sex. She’d been giving one hundred and ten percent to the hotel in an effort to prepare the rooms for a possible print pictorial in Wanderlust magazine this fall. The spread would be a professional coup, but it would mean publicly staking her success—and the resort’s—on her design talent.

Summer peered toward the door again, her skin tingling along with that overactive sixth sense.

Or maybe her skin simply tingled from thinking about her favorite seduction scenario.

“I’m right there with you.” Brianne stood, her eyes now glued on the miniature surveillance monitor she’d installed in a sort of wristwatch contraption. “But for now I’d better go check the security and make sure things are running smoothly around the club tonight.”

With a few more exclamations over the bordello, Brianne was out the door, leaving Summer by herself to unload the exotic lingerie costumes into a decorative armoire.

She turned back to the task, hanging corsets and merry widows from quilted pink hangers in the cherry cabinet.

Yet the maddening sensation of being watched returned. Spinning around, she followed her instincts this time, unconcerned if she was being paranoid. She skirted the settee and hustled to the open door. Leaning over the housekeeping supply cart, she poked her head out into the corridor and saw nothing. No one.

Brianne had disappeared in the hallway and no one else lurked there.

Okay, so she was definitely paranoid. Easing back into the bordello, Summer edged around the housekeeping cart. The satin ties on her bustier trailed over a stack of fresh towels and a shiny silver box.

No. A cell phone.

She reached for the item. As her fingers grazed the cool metal it started to vibrate.

A shivery sensation skated through her for a split second, confirming that she’d denied her sexual impulses for too long.

Jiggling the stack of cotton towels beneath it, the phone hummed and then emitted a shrill ring. Never a woman to mind her own business, Summer unfolded the sleek case and willed away the stray tingles humming through her.

“Hello?” She tucked back into the bordello, hugging the phone to her ear with one shoulder.

“Thanks for picking up.” A smooth and sexy masculine voice rolled through the airwaves. “I’m trying to track down my cell phone so I thought I’d ring the number and see what happened.”

He’d ignited a lonely woman’s libido with a vibrating phone. How perfectly clever.

“You seem to have misplaced it on a housekeeping cart.” She glanced back at the maid’s apparatus and wondered what the man on the other end of this amazing voice might look like. “Right between the triple-milled French soaps and the lavender hand lotions.”

“Of all the places to land in an exotic hotel, I get stuck in the rolling soap-supply station.”

“Actually, the soap station was teetering on the threshold of the Bad Girl Bordello. I call that kind of exotic.” A smile warmed her insides. When was the last time she’d flirted with a man?

“Now that sounds more like it. I don’t know how my phone ended up there, but I did wander through the resort earlier tonight before I went into the bar. I’m Jackson, by the way. Would you mind if I came by to pick up the phone?”

Mentally she reviewed why that wouldn’t be a good idea. She should meet him in a public place like the lounge just in case he was a serial killer. Then again, she could always just ask Brianne to check on her in a little while.

“Sure. I’m Summer Farnsworth and the phone will be with me in the bordello.” Could she help it if her inner bad girl still made occasional appearances? “It’s on the ocean side of the main floor.”

“I’m on my way.” The line disconnected as she folded up the phone.

Hesitating a moment, she opened it again and placed a quick call to Brianne to make sure her friend would keep an eye out for her tonight. Brianne’s experience with a creepy stalker had made everyone at Club Paradise a little more cautious.

That done, Summer was feeling less paranoid by the moment. In fact, she felt downright eager. She suspected she was about to meet the man behind the eyes she’d sensed on her this evening. Her every intuitive Aquarian impulse told her so. Instead of frightening her, however, the thought only heightened her anticipation.

This guy—Jackson—had gone out of his way to hunt her down and meet her. He’d used a very non-traditional means that could turn a girl’s head. Maybe he was the kind of sexy rebel that had always attracted her. And while she had tried to outgrow the flings of her youth, she couldn’t deny a hot, quickie interlude with a mysterious stranger might be just the cure for her recent restlessness.

As she dug in her vintage beaded handbag for a tube of lipstick, Summer made up her mind to jump her visitor if he had a tattoo. She’d jump him twice if he had a tattoo and an earring.

Which left her with only one thing to ponder.

Would tonight’s Mistress of the Bordello leave her bustier ties opened or closed?

2

While stalking your prey, be sure to dress for the kill.

JACKSON STRAIGHTENED his tie outside the doorway labeled Bordello on a creamy slab of light-colored marble. The maid’s cart still propped the door open, so he hung back a moment to gather his thoughts while a sultry blues tune drifted through the open archway into the hall. He began to button his suit jacket and then, on second thought, left the olive gabardine garment undone.

If Summer proved to be half as flirtatious in person as she’d been over the phone, maybe he wouldn’t be leaving his jacket on for long anyway. A woman who designed sexy bordellos for a living couldn’t be all that reserved.

Besides, he possessed privileged information to give him an edge in his seduction quest.

He knew Summer’s secret fantasy.

Not that he planned to use the information—yet. His knuckle hovered over the door as he debated tonight’s approach. When she’d given him her name over the phone, he’d identified her as one of the four primary owners of the revamped club. Translation—she was hip-deep in scandal and controversy herself these days. Many Miami Beach residents had been cheated out of their investments with the club’s former owners and they didn’t necessarily approve of the business’s reorganization and reopening.

Just what a politician needed—to be linked to someone making all the wrong headlines.

Still, he wanted Summer. Badly. And he couldn’t officially call himself a politician yet. Despite pressure on all sides, Jackson hadn’t thrown his hat in the ring for state legislator in his district.

Reaching around the housekeeping cart to rap on the bordello door with a bit more force than he’d intended, Jackson made up his mind to live for himself tonight. He’d been a prisoner to the press and his family’s high-profile lifestyle too damn long.

He waited, watching the propped door swing all the way open while Billie Holiday belted out a torch song within.

Summer Farnsworth and her bedroom goddess mouth were there—utterly delectable and framed in a backdrop of crimson. Her ruby-red dress blended with the rest of the room while her creamy pale skin and platinum-blond hair stood out all the more. Shoulders bared in a tiny top that had to be some sort of undergarment, she had untied the ribbon that laced the outfit together.

Could she be thinking along the same seductive lines as him tonight?

His gaze searched her face for those answers, but she seemed to be studying him with every bit as much fascination. Her eyes lingered on his tie.

He could have sworn she mumbled something about no tattoo under her breath, but obviously he’d misheard.

She glanced up at him while she refastened the loosened ties just above her breasts.

Damn.

“You’re Jackson Taggart.” Her lips cocked in a wry grin not exactly brimming with enthusiasm. Tiny crescent moons dangled from her ears.

“Didn’t I mention that on the phone?” Of course he knew damn well he hadn’t. His family name carried all the wrong connotations in the press lately.

“You just said Jackson. I would have remembered the Taggart part.” Still, she stepped aside and gestured him in. “Let me get your phone.”

Not wanting to push his luck, he stood just inside the doorway and waited while she crossed the room to a sitting area. He watched with appreciative eyes as she edged her way around the antique furniture, her gently swaying hips inviting attention.

She bent to retrieve his phone from a table covered with silky black satin and lace. Good God, the woman had buried his phone in lingerie.

Knowing he was going to be shown the door in about two seconds if he let this silence stretch out any further, he tore his eyes from Summer and her undergarments with an effort. “I have to admit, I was pretty curious what a bordello looked like. Thanks for letting me in.”

Cradling the phone in her palm, she tapped the antenna against her chin in a rhythmic motion. “I’m banking on your very public reputation that you’re a gentleman. Just in case, I told my girlfriend to make periodic drive-bys to make sure I’m safe in here. If she doesn’t hear from me at the designated time…”

She shrugged, leading him to believe he’d be a dead man with the bodyguard.

Still, he had to admit it was a clever plan. “Good thinking.” But he had no intention of cruising forward too fast and possibly overstepping his welcome. “Being in the public eye definitely gives me a high level of accountability for my actions.”

And, lately, his father’s actions.

She wandered closer, still toying with his phone. “So you need to color inside the lines in your type of work, Jackson?”

His name on her lips slid over him like the silky blues music—sweet and seductive. “Can’t hurt to play it safe when you know your actions will only be dissected in the morning news.”

Pausing a few feet in front of him, she extended her hand and the cell phone she carried. “And yet you followed me tonight.”

Mesmerized by the way her mouth curled around her words as she spoke, Jackson almost missed their meaning. “What?”

“You weren’t exactly coloring inside the lines when you followed me and Brianne to the bordello earlier.” Her gray eyes pinned him, measuring him.

Suddenly his tie felt way too damn tight.

“You knew?” So much for smooth-talking his way into meeting her. He obviously wasn’t nearly as slick as he’d thought.

Waiting for her to boot him out into the hallway, he took the phone she still held out to him. His fingers brushed hers, sending a current of pure sensation through his hand.

“I’m very intuitive.” She shrugged and the dangling crescent moons in her ears grazed her shoulders. “Highly developed sixth sense. Want me to guess what you’re thinking right now?”

He was thinking how fast he’d blown his chance of ever being naked with this woman. “I’m rather hoping you won’t guess, actually. And I’m sorry about following you. It certainly hadn’t been my intent to make you uncomfortable.”

“No?” She smiled as if thoroughly enjoying herself.

Jackson was now totally out of his element. “I only hoped to meet you, but you left the lounge before I had the chance.”

“So you put your phone on the housekeeping cart on purpose?” She studied him so hard Jackson wondered if she was attempting to read his thoughts again.

Just in case, he concentrated on thinking about what a good guy he could be. Normally.

“I wanted to find a way to meet you that wouldn’t make me look like Joe Stalker.” He backed up a step toward the door, knowing he sounded like a lunatic. Good thing he hadn’t told her he’d been lured to follow her by her lips. “I’ll understand if you want me to take off now.”

Even though he’d hate it.

He wanted this outrageous woman more than he wanted his next breath. And no matter what he told her, Jackson didn’t have any intention of backing off all together. She might look at him and draw conclusions about him from the suit, but she had no way of knowing the restless man inside it.

The restless, determined-as-hell man inside it.

He hadn’t won a reputation in the courtroom by trotting out generations of Taggart good breeding and polite manners. No, he’d earned a win-loss record any prizefighter would envy by single-minded pursuit of his goals.

And somehow over the course of this evening, Summer Farnsworth had become a goal he damn well planned to attain.

SUMMER HAD ALWAYS been able to size up people.

As a child, she’d known when her parents had chosen a good cult to get involved with and when they’d landed in a militant crowd that would make all their lives a living hell.

Right now, her sixth sense told her she could trust Jackson Taggart—even if he seemed to be thinking some deep thoughts right now as he stared back at her. He might have used underhanded means to meet her, but she had to give him points for originality. In fact, she was damned flattered he’d gone to so much trouble not to spook her.

At six-foot-plus, he dwarfed her by a good five inches. His neatly buzzed sandy hair was bleached blond at the tips, attesting to a Floridian love of the sun. A strong jaw, cheekbones she would kill for and steely blue eyes made him a gorgeous man.

It was the suit that had thrown her.

Crisply pressed and perfectly pleated, his olive suit looked expensive, high-class, and just a little too starchy for her tastes. Not that she’d ever been quick to judge a book by its cover, but something about his slick exterior made her think he wouldn’t appreciate a woman who wore a bustier in public.

Then again, he might not be the tattoo-bearing, earring-wearing superstud she’d been hoping to meet, but the beach-bum muscle-heads she used to date hadn’t exactly provided lasting fulfillment.

Jackson Taggart was considered one of Miami Beach’s hottest bachelors, and he certainly filled out his suit in all the right places.

Maybe she just needed to get to know him a little better before making any decisions. If he turned out to be a stuffy, no-fun politician type, she would be able to walk away from him easily. But after their intriguing meeting, she could at least find out more about him.

“You don’t have to go.” She nodded toward the intimate sitting area on the other side of the room. “Why don’t you have a seat and tell me about your political ambitions instead?”

The smile he shot her sent a shimmer of tingly heat through her. The man would win any election with a grin like that.

“You’re going to make me accountable for my actions now, too, aren’t you?” He extended his hand in the classic “after you” gesture.

Had she ever dated a man who’d done the “after you” thing?

She obliged him, making her way to the newly varnished settee so he could have the safer seating of a taupey-gold colored wingback. Only, Jackson didn’t take a seat. He prowled about the bordello, about her, at a leisurely pace.

Summer watched him for a moment as he lightly fingered the shirred-velvet walls, exploring their lush softness.

Clearing her throat to cover the sudden catch in her breath, Summer chose to ignore his wandering fingers and answer his question.

“I just figured since you tricked me into this meeting, the least you can do is let me in on the truth behind all the Miami Beach gossip. Is it true you’re going to make a late election bid for state legislator?”

“You follow politics?” He glanced her way as he moved on toward the cherry armoire. Slowly. Deliberately.

She had a momentary vision of him in the courtroom, stalking the witnesses on the stand with his deceptively casual stroll.

“Not usually. But it just so happens your photo ends up in the paper on all the same days mine does so I’ve been sort of following the rumors surrounding you.” The media continually questioned his integrity when, in fact, it obviously had been his father who’d screwed up by accepting kickbacks from criminals in his long-ago position as an FBI director.

Still, the local paper had been quick to put Jackson under a microscope, scrutinizing every facet of his personal and professional life. Which, now that she thought about it, was a definite strike against getting involved with this man. Summer’s funky clothes and penchant for wearing crystals to resonate with whatever energies she happened to need in her life at the moment would never bear up well under a microscope.

Especially not when her mood crystals were paired with a straight-laced politician.

“They’re not true.” At the moment, he had walked somewhere behind her, so she couldn’t gauge his expression. Instead, his voice rumbled through her from a few feet away, the low, quiet intensity of his words giving passion to the statement. “I’m trying to understand my father’s decisions but that doesn’t mean I’m doomed to make the same ones.”

He seemed to loom closer as he spoke. Summer’s neck tingled all over again with that sensation of being watched. Studied. Assessed.

Goose bumps rose on her arms, the sensation not entirely unpleasant. She fought to stay focused on their words instead of the peculiar physical dance taking place in the room. That chatty sixth sense of hers told her she was way out of her depth with this man.

Curving her hands about her shoulders to warm the chill bumps away, Summer considered Jackson’s tenuous position in the public eye.

“Believe me, I wouldn’t want to be judged by my parents’ actions.” She adored Willow and Phoenix Farnsworth, but their lifestyle was far from normal. “I don’t know how you handle so much inquiry into your business.”

She’d hated that about the cults her parents had continually joined. There were too many bizarre rules, too much close contact with people who wanted to regulate your life. No, thank you. She would not “regulate” anything about herself again. Ever.

Jackson shifted behind her. Moving closer?

She waited, wondered what he might be doing back there until the soft fabric of the crocheted shawl she’d worn earlier fell around her goose-bump-covered shoulders. Out of the corner of her eye, she spied Jackson’s hands on the garment for a fraction of a second before he released it, those long tanned fingers nearly grazing the back of the settee. Nearly grazing her. She sensed the heat of his body, could almost guess what those hands would feel like on her.

And instead of chasing away a chill, her shawl only increased the cool quiver dancing along her skin.

Tugging the ends of the shawl a little closer to wrap around her midsection, Summer watched as Jackson resumed his lazy prowl around the room.

As if he hadn’t just sent a shock wave of latent desire through her system.

He toyed with a framed photo on the writing desk, a gilt frame that she knew perfectly well contained turn-of-the-century erotica in the form of a naked woman playing piano.

“I remember going to my first press conference riding on my dad’s shoulders. I guess it hasn’t bothered me in the past because I was used to it. It’s getting a little too intense for me now, though.” His gaze traveled from the photo to her. He studied her with those magnetic blue eyes, his relaxed posture totally at odds with the heat of that steady gaze. “I came to the club tonight to take my mind off the whole mess. The pressure has been…distracting.”

Summer shifted in her seat, too aware of this man. The bustier that had felt so sexy an hour ago, now seemed to constrain her, provide too much friction against her breasts.

In an effort to get her mind off her rising temperature, she redirected their conversation. “You know, you never answered my question about the legislature bid.”

“You don’t miss a trick, do you?” He gave her a wicked grin before his attention shifted to the monstrous red-shrouded bed in the back of the room. “I couldn’t answer you on that because I honestly haven’t made up my mind yet.”

Could he be serious? “No one joins an election in September.”

His shrug wrinkled the perfect lines of his suit. Summer idly wondered what he would look like if she wrestled him to that big bed and messed up the rest of his tailored outfit. The Mistress of the Bordello would never let a man walk away without tousling him a bit, would she?

“Confidence is a good thing in my business, Summer.” He eyed her as he smoothed a hand over the red satin duvet covering the mattress. And while she knew technically they were discussing politics, she had the distinct impression Jackson’s confidence extended to the bedroom, as well.

No way could she delude herself that the man was the dry, buttoned-up type anymore. As of right now, she was toast where he was concerned. She wanted her one night with him. Badly.

While she debated how to make that one night a reality, Jackson blithely went back to discussing politics.

“Besides, I’ve got a solid track record in smaller elections. I’ve never lost yet.” His gaze strayed to the pile of lingerie on the coffee table. “Is it going to be my turn to ask the questions any time soon?”

She smiled at that even as she wondered if confidence might be an aphrodisiac. If anyone else had boasted about never losing, Summer would have written it off as conceit. Yet Jackson seemed to be just relating facts, quietly sure of his ability.

And she had to admit, there was something damn attractive about that. Not that she necessarily wanted to be turned on by a man so intrinsically wrong for her. She lived to create scandal while he worked diligently to avoid it.

Still, she couldn’t deny she wanted him.

Would it hurt to follow this attraction for just one night? How much trouble could one night cause to a girl’s heart?

“Can I ask you one more nosy question and then I’ll let you off the hook?”

“Ask away.” Tearing his gaze from the lingerie pile, he quirked a sandy eyebrow, waiting.

She picked at the ragged hem of her silky handkerchief skirt, certain he wouldn’t be waiting patiently much longer. Her every feminine instinct told her he was ready to make a move, no matter how lazily he strolled the room right now.

Soon, Summer would be enjoying that supreme male confidence of his in a much more physical way. She glanced up at him through her lashes, hoping she had her seductive moves in place. “How exactly did you plan to blow off steam tonight?”

Jackson couldn’t remember any pointed press conference question that had put him more on the spot than this one. His glance tripped over her willowy form draped across the settee, his eyes lingering on the satin ties that she’d refastened on her strapless crimson top.

By the time he managed to meet Summer’s not-so-innocent gray gaze he decided he owed her the truth, even while he extended their cat-and-mouse game a little longer.

“After two weeks of mental turmoil, I wanted to escape to a realm of pure physical sensation. Blaring music, flashing lights, a shot of straight whiskey—anything that might drown out the rest of the world for a little while.”

“I think you’re forgetting one very obvious physical sensation that South Beach nightlife often provides.” She retrieved the satin ties that lay across her arm and absently wound one end around her finger.

He caught the invitation behind the words. And he’d bet many a man would have made a dive for her right then and there.

But despite Summer’s come-hither outfit and the wild pink braids in her blond mermaid hair, Jackson guessed there were more layers to this woman than the sexy veneer. Her knowledgeable questions about his work had surprised him. Pleasantly so. And she couldn’t be the seduction queen her outfit implied if she was still sitting politely on her antique settee after he’d been in this pleasure palace of hers for nearly an hour.

If he leaped at his first chance with her, he might find one night of incredible physical sensation. And granted, that’s what he’d thought he wanted when he’d walked into Club Paradise tonight—pleasure without commitment.

Their conversation had made him rethink the strategy. Her scandal-making, adventurous nature fascinated him, appealed to his own wild side that he’d kept under wraps by necessity because of his family. His job.

But hell, his old man had basically incinerated the family name so he didn’t need to worry about that anymore. And as for his job, maybe he wouldn’t even have a shot at the election given the scandal surrounding him.

It seemed he was suffering all the effects of negative press and he hadn’t had any of the fun of creating it.

Maybe he wanted something more from Summer Farnsworth than a night of incredible sex. He didn’t know what that might be, but he had the feeling he would never have the chance to find out if he rushed headlong into a physical relationship.

He studied her now while Ella Fitzgerald sang, could see the surprise in her eyes that he hadn’t made a move on her yet. The curiosity.

He moved closer to her. Sank into the chair she’d pointed out to him earlier. Leaning forward to prop his elbows on his knees, Jackson wanted to make it clear that just because he didn’t jump her right away didn’t mean he wasn’t interested. “The prospect of sex definitely entered my mind when I walked into the club tonight.”

“How about when you walked into the bordello?” Summer shifted her legs, re-crossing them in the other direction and giving him plenty of opportunity to glimpse toned calves and a hint of creamy thighs below the jagged hem of her skirt.

Delayed gratification wasn’t going to be a stroll in the park when it came to this woman. But he had goals to achieve, damn it. He didn’t have any intention of wavering from his chosen path.

“What was I thinking when a gorgeous woman ushered me into a red velvet bordello and conversed with me over a pile of exotic lingerie?” He flicked an errant bra strap sliding off the edge of the coffee table. “I’ll bet you have a good idea what I’m thinking. That doesn’t mean I’m going to act on it.”

He nearly changed his mind when he saw a flash of disappointment—quickly concealed—in her light-gray eyes.

She released the red satin ties to her outfit she’d been playing with and tugged her shawl more tightly around her shoulders. “How…noble of you.”

“Not noble. Just patient. Ten seconds into our conversation tonight I realized I wanted to know you better than any night of rushed sex would ever allow.” As he spoke the words, he embraced the objective all the more. There was something very intriguing about this woman who dressed like a gypsy, flirted with a vengeance and owned a quarter of the hottest new spot on South Beach. Not the least of which was the fantasy he’d heard her relate to her girlfriend about being overpowered. What might it be like to play out that particular scenario with her? “I’d rather not miss out on the chance to get to know you by fast-forwarding through the preliminaries.”

Relinquishing the garment she’d been clutching about herself, her jaw dropped for a split second before she snapped it shut again. “You’re not looking for sex. You just came into the bordello to talk?”

She spelled it all out as if to be certain of the facts. Damn. Was his request so unusual? And if it was, didn’t that say something pretty freaking sorry about the condition of the dating scene in the new millennium?

“Honestly, sex would be very welcome at some point down the road.” He concentrated on making eye contact with her so his gaze didn’t unwittingly roam her tempting body. “I just hoped we could go out sometime.”

“You and me?” Her tone told him she thought the idea ludicrous. She shook her head. “You’ll never stop making scandalous headlines if you hit the town with me, Jackson. My clothes alone draw enough attention to keep me in the paper every week. Can you imagine what kind of press you’ll get if I’m out on the town with South Beach’s most beloved bachelor? You’ll never win your election.”

“Isn’t that for me to worry about? And why should my personal life have to revolve around elections?” He’d been walking the straight and narrow for too damn long and for some reason it took meeting Summer with her bedroom goddess lips and decadent bordello to make him realize it.

She rose, brow furrowed, and edged around the coffee table to circle the sitting area. From the way her teeth sank into the soft fullness of her lower lip, Jackson gathered she was thinking. Worrying, maybe?

Pausing beside an open armoire, she folded her arms under small but oh-so-enticing breasts. “You’re asking me on a date?”

“Are you already seeing someone?”

“No. But look at us.” She gestured between her body and his. “Anyone could tell we’re mismatched.” She shook her head and started pacing again. “What sign are you?”

“What sign?”

Stopping again, she leaned against a sleek, unobtrusive marble wet bar and sighed. “When’s your birthday?”

He had so lost the thread of this conversation. “May twelfth?”

“Of course, you’re a Taurus. I’m an Aquarius.” She withdrew a silver pendant that had been hidden under her dress. From his vantage point, it looked like a disk with a few wavy lines carved across the front. “You’re the bull and I’m the ever-changing water sign. It will never work.”

Ah. A challenge.

If Summer Farnsworth had known him better, she would have realized she couldn’t chase him off by declaring he couldn’t possibly win. Throughout the course of his career, challenges had always fueled him. Fired him up. Made him all the more determined.

Rising, he stepped closer to Summer. Plainly, the time had arrived to employ stronger means of persuasion. “This Aquarius condition…does that make you clairvoyant or something?”

She tilted her chin as he neared and he could almost see her dig her heels into the plush taupe carpet. “I once accurately predicted a hurricane in a Tarot-card reading. But in general, no, I’m not psychic.”

“Then you can’t possibly know what might happen between us if we got together.” He stopped a fraction of an inch inside her personal space, just close enough to catch the wild floral scent of her.

“It just seems unwise for a man in your position to court trouble.” Her breath caught, a fact he noticed since his glance had somehow strayed to her chest.

Dragging his attention back to her wide gray eyes, he concentrated on listening to her words as opposed to her body language.

“Especially when we have so little in common.” She cleared her throat, licked the rim of her lips.

Too bad Summer talked in very articulate body language. Jackson didn’t have a prayer of ignoring it.

Or her.

Or what he’d wanted from the moment he’d first spied that rosy-colored mouth of hers.

“It seems even more unwise to pretend we don’t feel what’s going on right now.” He reached for her, his fingers skimming her jaw while his thumb found the soft fullness of her lower lip.

She swayed slightly. Her eyelids fluttered but refused to fall.

“I’m the kind of person who craves freedom. I break rules all the time. Just for fun.” Her voice held a note of warning, mild panic. “Didn’t I tell you I was the original bad girl behind the Bad Girl Bordello?”

Jackson had no interest in being warned off. The temperature between them cranked up a few more degrees, giving him no choice but to pull her to him and mold her slender body to his.

“I don’t see you breaking any rules tonight, Summer. If I’m going to be convinced you’re such a bad girl, I think you’re going to have to prove it.”

3

Be aware that kissing can lead you into dangerous territory.

PROOF?

Summer had greeted the man with her bustier untied and now she was practically unraveling in his arms from just a touch, yet he required proof of her wild and wanton streak?

Well by God, she would gladly show him.

Stretching up on her toes, she brushed her lips over his the way she’d wanted to for the last hour. Sitting beside sexy Jackson Taggart in the lush sensuality of the bordello room had made her more than a little edgy. And since the kiss was simply an exercise in proving a point, she didn’t bother to hold anything back.

She flicked her tongue across his lips to steal a taste. He possessed a full, soft mouth for a man of such chiseled features and hard angles. Her eyelids fell shut, heightening the sensations of his kiss. The warm whiskey taste of him intoxicated her, made her even bolder.

Splaying a hand across his broad chest beneath his jacket, she absorbed the feel of starched cotton and warm muscle through his white dress shirt. Her fingertips itched to cover more ground, to explore the terrain of the rock-hard abs currently plastered against her. To follow the silky path of his tie to the leather of his belt and then dip lower still…

Yet she contented herself with reaching to touch his face, to cradle his rough-hewn jaw and stroke the crisp hair at the back of his neck. His aftershave smelled clean and expensive, elusive enough to make her want to linger so she might catch the scent more strongly.

But then Jackson expelled a throaty growl of pure male hunger and tightened his grip. Arms banded around her, he locked her body against his, his formerly still hands now coming to life.

He deepened their kiss, delving into her mouth to mate and join them. Summer closed her eyes more tightly against the onslaught of heat, the tingly wave of needy sensation that tripped through her whole body. As his tongue probed hers, an answering shock wave pulsed between her legs.

In the recesses of her brain, she heard the bluesy piano of Duke Ellington somewhere in the background, but even the vivid reds of the bordello were fading to black when forced to compete with the magnetic draw of this man.

Jackson.

In her mind’s eye, she could see no one and nothing else. The heel of his hand smoothed over her cheek while his long fingers combed through her hair. Her scalp prickled with warmth while her breasts tightened against his chest.

The silk moiré bustier that she’d retied now strained at the seams with her erratic breathing. She could already anticipate what it would feel like to peel off the stiff fabric and press herself intimately to Jackson’s hard chest.

Bliss.

She wanted this man with an intensity that surpassed any longing she’d ever felt for a tattooed surfer. How had she ever thought Jackson was low-key or laid-back when he kissed with the exquisite finesse of the devil himself?

He backed her closer to the bed recessed in a private alcove of the larger room. Or perhaps she drew him toward the bed. It seemed their chemistry had exploded all of a sudden, leaving them both in the grip of a power that was hotter and more volatile than either of them.

Her thigh skimmed the red satin coverlet as the black lace grazed her ankle. The dull thud at the back of her leg barely fazed her, but it seemed to bring Jackson back to life.

He broke off their kiss, his eyes refocusing on their surroundings.

On her.

“That’s not so bad in my book, Summer.” His voice hit a smoky note, blending in with the gravelly blues singer emanating from the bedside radio.

She struggled to recall what they’d been discussing, or what his words had to do with climbing into bed right now and not getting out for the next forty-eight hours. “Hmm?”

His hands wandered over her bare shoulders. Apparently she’d lost her shawl again on the way to the bed. Now, the warm pad of his finger gently cruised the slope of her collarbone then dipped into the hollow at the base of her throat.

Wasn’t Brianne supposed to be making a few security checks on her tonight? If Summer didn’t get some help soon, she would surely burst into flame from Jackson’s touch.

“I said that wasn’t so bad.” His voice rumbled in his chest even as his whispered the words.

Summer felt the words as much as she heard them.

“Damn straight it wasn’t so bad,” she whispered back, debating how difficult it would be to topple him down onto the bed with her. “In fact, that was downright fantastic.”

The distinct sound of a smothered laugh drew her attention from the logistics of maneuvering a six-foot-plus man into bed. Her gaze landed on a mouth suppressing a smile.

“I meant that you aren’t so bad, Summer. As in, maybe you’re not quite the bad girl you think you are.” He twined his fingers through hers.

Ah. She’d rather forgotten that conversation and her last-ditch effort to scare him off before his kiss had rocked her world. In the past, she’d chosen quick liaisons with no-commitment men who were willing to follow her lead. While those relationships hadn’t been overly fulfilling, they’d at least taken the edge off her sensual longings and allowed her to pretend she was in control.

But Jackson had a way of taking charge that unsettled her even though her body was already responding.

“Maybe kissing wasn’t such a great way of showing off my wild side.” Or maybe underneath Jackson Taggart’s oh-so-refined suit beat the heart of a tattooed thrill seeker.

Then again, maybe he was nothing like any guy she’d ever been with and she was totally out of her depth.

“Or maybe you’re just not giving me enough credit for being able to take whatever you dish out.”

A little thrill of a different kind skipped through her. Not that she would let it sway her decision. “I’m sure you could handle it. I’m more concerned that your public won’t be able to.”

“Then again, maybe you’re just scared to take a chance on me.” He leaned closer to look her in the eye, the challenge simmering in his words. The man looked mighty at home framed in the background of shirred burgundy velvet that covered the walls of the sensuous bordello.

Damn. How could she be so transparent to this guy? She hadn’t been accused of being scared of anything since—well, since she’d been old enough to armor herself with wild clothes and crystal talismans. Her mystical image combined with a few random outrageous acts had always made people keep their distance.

Until now. She sniffed, hoping she could regain lost ground. “Hardly.”

“Prove it. Go boating with me tomorrow.” He called her on the bluff.

She shouldn’t be surprised. Jackson had skillfully outmaneuvered her from the moment he’d strolled into the bordello in his deceptively buttoned-up suit.

“Boating?” Could she help it if her ears perked up a bit? She’d decided to quit her gypsy lifestyle and hang out in southern Florida on a permanent basis just because of the beach.

“No better place to improve your outlook than skimming over gulf waters. You Aquarian types ought to appreciate that.” He tugged the leather thong around her neck, dislodging the silver pendant with the water markings of her astrological sign from the narrow valley of her cleavage.

Did he realize how the action teased her breasts?

She gazed up at him and found heat smoldering in his eyes. Of course he knew what it did to her.

Still, she had no clue how to conduct a real relationship, and Jackson didn’t seem to be interested in a one-night conflagration. What man wasn’t interested in easy sex? Not that she had a vast amount of experience in that particular arena, but growing up in communes had given her a lot of knowledge.

She had to admit, a man who could deny immediate sex for the sake of something more possessed an admirable amount of control. She couldn’t help but wonder what kind of sexual prowess a man with so much control might possess.

Still…

No matter how intriguing that particular thought might be, Summer knew she couldn’t give him what he wanted.

Even if she wanted to venture into real-relationship terrain, a public figure on the verge of a big career move was definitely not the right kind of guy to play trial and error with.

Her errors would be dissected on the six o’clock news.

“Come on, Summer.” He whispered the words in her ear like a devil perched on her shoulder. “You can’t let a straight-laced attorney one-up you in the thrill-seeking department. You’re risking your reputation as a wild woman.”

She had to smile. “Who’d have thought South Beach’s golden boy would turn out to be such an instigator?”

“Can I take that as a yes?”

No. No. No. Definitely not.

“Yes, on one condition.” Damn it, how had she blurted that out? She hadn’t consciously made up her mind when the words were tumbling from her lips. But then, her impetuous nature had brought her as much good luck in life as bad. She owned a quarter of the controlling shares of Club Paradise thanks to following a whim.

As long as she kept an upper hand in this relationship, she would be okay. And her condition would provide that edge she needed to stay in charge.

“Name it.”

Reaching up to his neck, she loosened his tie and then carefully unfastened the top button of his perfectly pressed shirt. She could do this seduction thing, couldn’t she? Surely she could find a way to rattle Jackson’s oh-so-admirable control.

Allowing her voice to hit a breathy note, she gazed up at him. “You let me teach you how to go a little wild.”

Maybe part of her hoped he’d back down. That way she’d never have to risk having a good time with a man all wrong for her. Of course, that was the same part of her that also wished they could have just slept together tonight after that amazing kiss. They could have taken the edge off all those lusty feelings zinging back and forth between them without the messy complications bound to follow in a relationship.

To his credit, Jackson never even hesitated. “You’ve got yourself a deal, Summer. And lucky for us I just happen to know the most legally binding way to seal the bargain in the absence of a notary.” His hands materialized on her shoulders, the hardened palms providing a pleasing rasp against her skin.

“You do?” She was too busy worrying about whether she’d just made a crazy decision based on physical attraction to follow Jackson’s thinking.

But as his gaze narrowed to her mouth and he loomed closer, Summer realized what he had in mind.

And maybe it wasn’t too late to tumble all gorgeous six-foot-plus of Jackson Taggart into bed tonight.

HER KISS seared his insides. Hell, his outsides were pretty much on fire, too.

Must. Not. Hit. The. Sheets.

Jackson clung to the thought as Summer tugged at his shoulders and wriggled her way toward the lush red satin bed.

He never should have indulged in another kiss. He’d only wanted a little taste of her to tide him over until tomorrow and make her anticipate their day together.

But she’d thrown herself into the lip lock with no restraint, and now she proved to be every inch the bedroom goddess he had pegged her for when he first spotted her in the lounge tonight.

If he allowed her to woo him into her bed, his gut told him she’d skate out of their date tomorrow and he’d never have the chance to learn anymore about her.

Damn it, he wanted more from her than that.

He wanted to see what she had in mind for teaching him how to go wild. No doubt, he’d have a few surprises in store for her in that department, but he was perfectly content letting her take the lead if it made her feel more comfortable.

And just maybe part of him looked forward to thumbing his nose at his family, the press and all his government contacts pressuring him to run in a race he hadn’t had time to really even consider.

Dating unconventional Summer would certainly be a public declaration that he was tired of being the golden-boy bachelor.

After too many years of dating ambitious society debs who played all the same games as him, he’d have a hell of a time smashing that picture-perfect image of himself.

If he wanted any of those things to materialize, however, he needed to stay out of Summer’s bed tonight.

Pulling away from her sultry embrace despite the flames licking over him, Jackson searched for a breath that wasn’t laden with the musky floral scent of her.

Found none.

Much to his male satisfaction, her eyes remained closed for a long moment afterward. It would be so easy to resume their kiss, to follow the irresistible pull of her…

Desperate for a way to keep things under control before he lost it completely, Jackson’s gaze seized on the pile of lingerie on the other side of the room.

Thank you, God.

“So is it my turn to ask the questions yet?” He traced a line down the bare skin of her arm and slipped his hand around her fingers. Her nails were short, painted with barely-there polish. She wore a silver band woven with a Celtic pattern on one thumb.

She blinked twice, tucked a strand of silky blond hair behind one ear. “Ask away.”

“Is that your lingerie over there?” His loosened tie and unbuttoned collar didn’t make him feel any less hot. And although Summer’s lingerie collection wasn’t exactly safe conversational territory, it was a damn sight better than falling into bed with her before he could find out more about her.

“I chose the pieces, but they’re all going to be specialty amenities and props for the bordello.” She eased her fingers from his grip and made her way toward the coffee table where the mountain of silk, satin and velvet presided. “Some are vintage and some are new, but they’re all reminiscent of nineteenth-century bordello garb.”

To illustrate, she held up a creamy-colored corset thing edged in black lace. Black satin garters dangled from the bottom.

“Very nice.” He peered from the creamy corset to the crimson lace-up garment Summer was wearing. “It’s sort of like what you have…on.”

An image of those garters hugging her thighs blasted into his brain in full-blown color. His throat promptly dried to dust.

A wicked smile kicked up the corners of her mouth. “It’s exactly what I have on. Same vendor, different color. I have to admit this job is dangerous to my personal budget, but I find a lot of gorgeous clothes and furnishings this way. Did you know I’m the ambiance coordinator for the club?”

He hadn’t known, and he scrambled to pick up the conversational thread before he drowned in sensual visions of Summer’s pale thighs draped in black satin and lace.

“Is that like a decorator?” His voice sounded strangled even in his own ears.

“The decorating is just a part of my job. I have a hand in the total sensual experience of Club Paradise from the food and the music to the colors, party themes, flowers…” She laid the creamy corset back on the pile of silky undergarments. “…and occasionally, lingerie.”

The comment called to mind snippets of the conversation he’d heard between Summer and her girlfriend earlier. He happened to know the bordello was her favorite fantasy room.

“So did you come up with the concepts for the hotel suites?” Crossing the thick pile carpet to where she stood near the sitting area, Jackson peered around the room with new eyes, taking in the details of the lush seating, the silver-plated cigar box on the night stand, the framed sepia-toned photographs depicting half-clad women from another era.

“I brainstormed with my partners to come up with the themes and then I ran with them.” She reached into the open cherry armoire and pulled out a padded hanger. With careful fingers, she draped a frothy pink scrap of lace across the padding and hung the costume in the closet. “I’m proud to claim full responsibility for the bordello however.”

He recalled her wistful remark to her friend about being totally overwhelmed and at a man’s whim. Dangerous, forbidden knowledge he had no right to have heard.

Still, he’d trade his stellar track record as a trial lawyer for a chance to be a part of Summer’s fantasies.

“You should be.” He walked over to the silver cigar box to prevent his restless body from getting closer to her again. He didn’t know how much longer he could be in the same room with Summer without touching her again. Removing one of the Cuban smokes from its velvet-lined case he sniffed the aroma. “I’m no expert on the historical authenticity, but if you were aiming for a design that promotes intense sexual thoughts, the ambiance of the bordello is dead-on.”

Summer watched Jackson finger the cigar before replacing it in the box, his words causing her blood to pump a bit faster through her veins. She paused as she reached for a wine-colored merry widow and straightened.

Did he think to play games with her that he would rev her engines so acutely and then turn away?

“Actually, I’m beginning to wonder if I failed miserably in the design now that I’ve shared this room with a man for the first time. How come a room that promotes intense sexual thoughts doesn’t inspire any actual…sex?”

Jackson flipped the lid closed on the cigar box. When his gaze met hers across the room, his eyes glittered with new heat. “Never let it be said I left this room uninspired tonight.”

As he turned more fully toward her, the tent-effect of his trousers told her just how inspired he’d grown.

Realizing she was staring, she struggled to lift her gaze. Failed.

Had she had that affect on him?

Suddenly she felt quite inspired herself. She blurted the first thought that entered her mind. “So why leave the room at all?”

The question hung there, an echoing reminder of her recklessness.

When he didn’t answer right away, Summer couldn’t resist the urge to keep right on talking, thinking out loud. “Or is that too impulsive for you, Jackson? As a public figure, do you need to script out your every move ahead of time, or can you ever act according to whim and…inspiration?”

“I can act on impulse when the situation calls for it.” He crossed the room, his slow, deliberate steps a physical reminder of the way he carefully crafted his next move. “But when something is very important to me, I’d prefer to rely on well-thought out strategy.”

The implication that she—a free-spirited gypsy who’d never stayed anywhere longer than six months until now—might rank as important to him caught her off guard. She’d had to say goodbye to too many friends in her life to risk her emotions with someone who thought she might be important. Much easier to keep things simple. And okay, maybe a little superficial.

“How am I ever going to teach you to go wild with that kind of attitude?” Planting a fist on her hip she licked her lips, flirting openly. She still held out hope she could sway him to break his rigid ideas of how this relationship was going to progress. “You must realize careful strategy is directly opposed to everything that being wild represents.”

“I think we can effectively co-exist on both ends of the spectrum.” He halted a few steps from her, almost as if he drew a mental line between them.

What would he do with all his damn strategy if she plastered herself against him right now and let her body to the talking?

Then again, according to the local newspaper, Jackson Taggart had made a name for himself in Miami with thorough trial preparation and an ambitious career strategy. He’d left the lucrative family law practice at a young age to work in the D.A.’s office, quickly accumulating an amazing track record as a prosecutor.

Summer admired that kind of drive even if she’d never possessed it herself. Old self-doubts threatened as she wondered if she’d be able to claim half as much success in her own new business. Could she—the woman who’d held twelve different jobs before this one—ever stick with something long enough to make it a success?

Tamping down the twinge of insecurity, she crossed his physical line to stand toe-to-toe with him. “Are you prepared to settle for just co-existing when we could be doing so many other more interesting things?”

To prove her point, she laid her hand against his chest and walked southward with her fingers.

Jackson caught her wrist as she hit his belt, his fierce grip an indication that she might have pushed him to his personal limit.

They stared at one another in the swirl of blues music and the sea of red velvet, silent for a tense moment.

Finally, Jackson released her wrist to a more gentle hold, soothing her skin and her racing pulse with the pad of his thumb.

“How about tonight you go along with my strategy and tomorrow I’ll adapt to your impulses?” His voice was even but his breath huffed out in a ragged sigh.

Nodding, she agreed, even as she wondered if she’d lost her mind.

Clearly this steely-willed Taurus man was all wrong for her artistic, move-with-the-flow Aquarian self. Even the stars said she had no business dating Jackson on a boat or anywhere else.

As much as Summer looked forward to the freedom of the waves and the lure of the water tomorrow, she also couldn’t help but fear she was already in way over her head.

4

Sensual inspiration may ambush you when you least expect it.

“I MISS the hot-tub meetings,” Summer groused to her co-owners the next afternoon in one of their frequent executive sessions. Today they were taking care of business in the vacant and half-finished Sensualist’s Suite. At least, she’d be taking care of business for another couple of hours before she saw Jackson again. “How come we’ve created one of the most hedonistic playgrounds on South Beach and now we’re relegated to the rooms that still have scaffolding and paint brushes?”

Lainie Reynolds, an attorney with shrewd business sense and a thirst to take revenge on her cheating ex-husband by turning his former club into a raging success, tossed Summer a spiral notebook with a pen wedged in the wire coil. “Because now we’re open for business. We can’t indulge ourselves in the hot tubs anymore. Personally, I’m not in any hurry to put my thirty-year-old bod on display beside the swarm of European models and twenty-one-year-old party monsters in tangas by the downstairs pool.”

Summer cracked open the spiral notebook with a huff. “Please. You could give them all lessons with your silk cover-up and your high heels.” She spared a glance for her sleek blond partner as Lainie passed out notebooks to their co-owners as the other women entered the suite. Lainie’s black robe had a fire-breathing dragon embroidered on the back, her toes painted the same fire-engine red shade as the mythical creature stitched across her shoulders. “You’ve got some sort of Grace Kelly meets Grace Jones thing going on there. I think you could hold your own with the beach babes by the pool.”

“Still mad we can’t sit in the hot tubs anymore?” Brianne Wolcott strode into the partially renovated suite, her auburn hair a sharp contrast to her cool gray skirt and neatly tucked white blouse. She slid off one high heel to plunge her toe in the man-made brook that streamed through the exotic room. “Why don’t you just dip your feet in the stream for your water fix?”

Summer didn’t mention that her water fix was going to come from another source today. She’d never been the type to keep secrets about the men she dated before, but something about this date with Jackson struck her as more tenuous than her one-night interludes with surfer studs in the past. “Putting my feet in the water isn’t the same. I just don’t want our group to turn into some rigid corporate crowd where we feel like we need to sit around a conference table wearing power suits.”

Giselle Cesare, the fiery Italian head chef and fourth owner of Club Paradise, patted Summer’s shoulder as she waved a pink pastry box under her nose. “But at least if we ever do sit around a conference table, I can personally guarantee you we’ll still be munching on erotic confections to keep things lively.”

Summer’s spirits lifted slightly. She wasn’t joking about her fear of going corporate. She’d never be able to make it in a job where she couldn’t occasionally don overalls and do a little spackling and tiling on her own walls, damn it.

“Really?” She reached for the pastry box as both Lainie and Brianne hovered closer. “And just what naughty treat do you have for us today?”

Giselle’s only response was a sly smile, urging Summer’s fingers to flick open the box and see for herself.

And there, nestled on a bed of wax paper and covered in delicate frosting, were the chef’s prize delectable… “Kama Sutra cookies.” Brianne and Summer breathed the words with similar hushed reverence.

Even Lainie let out a momentary sigh of longing before she asked, “Shouldn’t we save these for guests?”

“No. These are actually a few of the flawed ones. You’ll note the extra arm on one of them, the anatomically impossible position on another, and one cookie depicts a very huge male member thanks to a slip of my wrist while painting.” She rolled her eyes as she began handing out the cookies. “I finally found time to make a batch despite my brothers being underfoot all week trying to convince me the club is no place for an innocent young lady like me. Can you imagine? So I finally decided to put them to work as long as they were here. I made Renzo clean the kitchen and Nico organize the pantry, which gave me tons of time to paint my cookies.”

Summer gazed down at the sweet in her hand, which depicted a woman kneeling before a man as she pleasured him. Sure enough, there was an extra arm in there, but the work remained lovely. The woman’s long dark hair fell over her shoulder to graze the man’s thigh while the man’s head fell back in sensual abandon. “Damn, but you are a genius, Giselle. If you ever decide to try painting on canvas instead of sugar cookies, I’ll be the first in line to buy up all your artwork.”

And how. The simple picture was enough to give a woman sweet shivers. Especially if she already had a virile, gorgeous man on her mind.

Lucky for her, Jackson had said he was ready to go a little wild with her, and she had managed to shuffle her day off so she could take full advantage of their time on the boat today. Would he be amenable to letting her try out the sensual position depicted on her cookie, she wondered?

Perhaps the sexy thoughts were catching because Lainie was fanning herself as she stared down at her treat. “I think I’m going to frame mine just in case I forget how it’s done. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled to be divorced…” Her eye lingered on Giselle for a moment, making them all tense since Giselle had unwittingly had an affair with Lainie’s husband in an earlier lifetime. “…but the lack of sex is less appealing.”

Clearing her throat, Summer removed the cap from her pen before a catfight broke out in the Sensualist’s Suite. She needed to get her mind off Jackson anyway and focus on the business she’d worked so hard to bring to life. “Maybe we should get down to the work at hand then?”

She really shouldn’t be letting Jackson Taggart dominate her thoughts. She’d undertaken the mission of Club Paradise to prove to herself that she could be successful and have fun doing it. No way would she let a man overshadow that dream already.

But nearly an hour later, Summer feared for her dream.

According to the dismal income figures Lainie had shared with them all, business wasn’t booming as much as they needed yet. Sure, the nightclub was hopping and the lines to enter the Moulin Rouge Lounge were impressive, but the hotel suites weren’t yet booked to capacity and the women were running on a thin margin for loss given how much they’d each strapped themselves to personally invest in Club Paradise.

To keep them financially solvent, they needed to fill every room every night and reserve them well into the next six months.

Of course, Lainie had a plan for a massive promotion campaign that included assignments for everyone. Hence the spiral notebooks.

“Brianne, you can call some of your contacts from the film industry and see if anyone wants to use the resort as a setting for a movie.” Lainie never asked questions. She issued orders.

“It can be difficult to—” Brianne started, but Lainie was already on to the next assignment.

“Giselle can muscle some of the food magazines about reviewing the restaurants at the club. We need a food critic in here—or several—so we can get some write-ups. And Summer has already contacted a travel magazine, so I’m sure we can expect a visit from them any day.” Lainie tapped her silver pen against her yellow legal pad as she perched on a corner of the scaffolding crowding the half-finished room. “We really need the positive press. We’ve been in the papers ever since the first Rat Pack embezzler was put behind bars. Mel Baxter’s trial has been calling into question the club’s reputation and making out-of-towners more leery of staying here. If we want to keep our heads above water this first year, we have to start fighting back.”

Lainie couldn’t have issued a more powerful call to action as far as Summer was concerned. She wouldn’t—couldn’t—fail in her first attempt to pour something of herself into her work. Always before she’d taken jobs to bide the time, jobs to make money, jobs to allow her to travel around and see the country.

Her work with Club Paradise was about more than that. She didn’t want to be a gypsy forever. She wanted to prove to herself that she could stay put long enough to accomplish something important, something special, something that contained a piece of her long after she’d gone.

So even though her nerves throbbed with expectation at the thought of seeing Jackson again, she needed to delay her trip to his boat until she placed another call to Wanderlust magazine. For that matter, she would need to delay the date if she couldn’t get business sewn up first.

Because no matter how much she wanted to get a little wild with South Beach’s hottest politician, her job had to come first.

“DON’T YOU THINK your career needs to come first, Jack?”

The voice of his future campaign manager rasped through Jackson’s cell phone, making a point he damn well didn’t want to hear. Fortunately, Jackson had walked through life masking annoyance for the sake of his family’s political ambitions many times and he smoothly lowered the small wooden gangplank on his sailboat while he set Lucky Adams straight.

“I’m still determining my next career move, so it’s actually always in the forefront of my mind.” Though that might be stretching the truth a bit, since he was keeping one eye on the pier for Summer’s long blond hair and tiny pink braids the whole time he prepped his boat to hit the water. “I’m not going to make a lot of campaign plans until I’m one-hundred-percent sure this is what I want.”

“Every day you wait, your chances of winning decrease.” Smooth-talking Lucky was a slick manager in his early thirties who’d already developed a reputation for building his clients into heavy hitters. He proceeded to launch into a well-articulated diatribe about the dire state of Jackson’s political future while Jackson checked the fuel tank and rolled up the canvas tarp covering the seats in the back of the boat.

He didn’t need to hear the tirade again to know he was taking chances with his future by putting off his announcement to run in the state legislature race. But he’d been in a tailspin ever since the scandal involving his father had been uncovered. Ever since he’d learned his father’s entire political career—from his stint as an FBI assistant director to his term as a high-powered judge—was based on lies and deception.

Sort of robbed the job of some of its sheen.

Add to that the fact that the media would dissect all his father’s mistakes in relation to Jackson’s campaign and the whole proposition became less enticing.

And then, there was Summer…

Jackson spied her just as she jumped into his mind. She strode down the pier and onto the long wooden dock, her high heels traded for a pair of bright white tennis shoes with no socks and endlessly long legs tucked into denim shorts. A tiny white T-shirt with a bright blue emblem for water—the astrological thing again—didn’t quite reach the hem of the shorts. In one hand she held a shiny chrome cell phone that she now tucked inside her purse.

The pink braids from last night had vanished without a trace. Today her hair was all blond and gathered in a loose ponytail which she had tossed over one shoulder.

She would have looked almost conventional if not for the silver sunglasses she sported. The frames around her eyes were shaped like seashells and coated with glitter.

His brain lost all focus as he absorbed the sight of her—sexy and eccentric, a definite original. Relief charged through him with as much force as anticipation, because up until that moment he hadn’t been entirely sure she would show.

Yet here she was.

“You there, Jackson?” The smooth-talking masculine voice on the other end of his phone jarred him.

“I need to head out now, Lucky.” The words fell off his lips with wooden heaviness, his brain on a totally different path that had nothing to do with forming words. “I’ll stop by there later tonight and we’ll figure out when to schedule the press conference.”

He disconnected the call and turned off the ringer for good measure. Jogging two steps down into the berth he tossed the phone on the bed in his stateroom. Out of sight, out of mind. He’d told Summer he would be impulsive today, hadn’t he? Taking time off from politics—both family and professional—would be a first for him.