Serial Book 1- Tempted to Submit (3 page)

I inhaled then let the air out, repeating until I felt calmer. When I realized that I’d just done a relaxation breathing exercise in front of a sexy stranger, I felt like smacking myself upside the head.

Of course, I’d also just told him that I was so alluring that I couldn’t keep a man, so the breathing was probably nothing.

Biting my lower lip, ashamed, I dared to sneak a peek at the man sitting across from me.

He was watching me with eyes at half-mast, and he looked so damn sexy that I actually trembled.

He opened his mouth as if to speak, but whatever he was about to say was interrupted by the arrival of the dessert that I hadn’t wanted, and wasn’t sure I could stomach, not with my internal upheaval.

I couldn’t help but notice that the scarlet color of the strawberries was enticing against the stark white of the bowl. I caught the eye of the waitress, who winked at me knowingly as she added a separate dish full of soft whipped cream.

I felt my skin flush, the same hue as the berries, with mortification. For something to do, I took a 18 Surrender to Temptation Part I: Tempted to Submit / Jameson, Lauren

berry in my fingers, toying with it so that I didn’t have to look Zach in the eyes.

He had to know how attracted to him I was feeling, I was certain of that. There wasn’t a woman in the small restaurant that wasn’t watching him at least out of the corner of her eye— and that included Suzanne, the owner, who had looked at least eighty when my parents had first brought me here twenty years ago.

“Let me.” Zach’s voice had dropped in timbre, sounding even more alluring to my ears than it already had. Reaching across the cheerfully checkered tablecloth, he took the strawberry from my fingers.

The small patch of skin burned where his fingers brushed my hand. Inhaling sharply, I jolted, forgetting that now wasn’t a good time, forgetting that I’d just met this man. His expression mirrored mine in intensity. I had no idea what had just happened, but unless I had been robbed of all of my senses, he felt it, too.

“Open your mouth.” Zach swiped the berry that he had nipped from my fingers through the mound of whipped cream before pressing it against my lips. I opened my mouth, my tongue flickering out to lick up the cream.

He moaned softly. Emboldened by forces that mystified me, I took a small bite of the juicy berry, chewing slowly, licking my lips after I’d swallowed.

His eyes followed the motions of my mouth, entranced, before flickering back up to look me in the eyes.

“What is going on?” I regretted the words the moment that I’d said them—how naive was I? I knew exactly what was going on, but I didn’t have the sophistication to make the next move.

Though my better judgment was screaming at me, I was praying that Zach would ask me to come with him to his hotel, to his house, to his tent, if that’s where his bed was. My flesh felt swollen, full to bursting with need.

With a brief thought of the dark blue negligee that was still in its bag in my car, I told myself that I Surrender to Temptation Part I: Tempted to Submit / Jameson, Lauren 19

deserved one night of pleasure.

My words might as well have been a slap. Another persona entirely came over Zach, one who was calm, in complete control, and who washed away all traces of the sexual creature who’d been in his place only moments before.

“I must go. I have an early morning.” He shifted on the chair, pulling a wallet from the pocket of his snug jeans. The movement made the muscles of his arm tense, and I was entranced, as well as confused.

“Oh.” That had been abrupt. I blinked, my mind sorting furiously through the last few minutes.

Had I said something wrong? Done something strange?

I didn’t think so, and I had just enough wine left in me to be irritated by the sudden withdrawal of this fascinating man.

“Well, thanks for the company.” My voice was heavy with sarcasm. “Always lovely to meet a new person.”

Zach had been in the process of standing, and he straightened as though I’d struck him. I again got the impression that he was not at all accustomed to being questioned.

“Agreed.” He peeled a bill out of the folds of a wallet that looked to be made of hand-tooled leather and placed it on the table without checking the denomination.

“Before you go, tell me something: What’s a man like you doing in a tiny beach town like this?” I had nothing to lose by asking. Clearly I was not going to have all of my desires satisfied, so I wanted at least to have my curiosity quenched.

Apparently I’d asked something either very insulting or very personal, since a hint of anger flickered over his strong features. He didn’t answer, just nodded in my direction before striding away to the front door.

Watching him walk away was like having a limb amputated. I tried to convince myself that the melancholy was because of the recent turn of events in my life, but I knew better.

20 Surrender to Temptation Part I: Tempted to Submit / Jameson, Lauren

I’d found something that I wanted desperately, something that made complete and total sense in the chaos that was my life.

It had stayed just long enough to tease me with what I could never have.

Growling with frustration, I tipped my head back and downed the last inch of wine in my glass, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand when I’d finished. As I lowered my chin I caught the stare of two girls who were barely out of high school, if at all. They wore tight, sheer tank tops and shorts that rode up high on the thigh. Though one was a blonde and one a brunette, their faces were nearly identical, smirking with amusement at my predicament.

My face flushed. I was already embarrassed enough. And then I did what it seemed I was becoming very good at doing.

I ran.

***

“I own a house in Cambria. I’ve come here since I was a child.” I gasped as the voice came out of the velvet night. Turning toward the man who had spoken, I glared, hands on hips.

“How lovely for you.” Suddenly furious, and angry at myself for the burst of joy I’d initially felt at encountering him again, and for finding that the mere sight of him did strange things to my insides, I moved briskly off down the quiet street. My motel was only a block or so away.

Main Street was close enough to the water that I could hear the water lapping at the shore. The sound usually soothed me, but tonight it grated at my nerves. I’d gotten nearly all the way back to my motel when I felt a hand on my shoulder, turning me.

Then Zach’s hands were fisted full of my hair, his lips a whisper away from my own. My breath caught in my throat, and my body pressed itself into his.

My entire being was drawn to his heat, to the smell of soap and musk and man.

I opened my mouth to say something, and gasped when he tugged on my hair, drawing my head Surrender to Temptation Part I: Tempted to Submit / Jameson, Lauren 21

back until I had no choice but to look up into his eyes.

Wetness surged through my cleft. I’d never been held this way, never been looked at with torment and desire at the same time.

I loved it.

“I am a very successful man, Devon. I’ve had to be ruthless to make my way.” His eyes narrowed, judging my response, but I found that his harsh words only made me tremble with need.

“That ruthlessness applies to all areas of my life. I am not a nice man.” His expression dared me to argue with him. I wasn’t about to. He seemed like a lot of things right in that moment, but nice wasn’t one of them.

“I don’t care.” It was naive, I knew, but I truly didn’t. Part of me thrilled at his violent words, a part of me that I would never have guessed even existed.

Something flashed through his expression, gone so fast it was hard to believe that it had even been there, but I knew what I’d seen.

He liked the way that I responded to him. Liked it a lot.

“I’m not for you.” I was about to speak, about to object, and instead found myself moaning when he slowly, deliberately closed his teeth over the pulse beneath the line of my jaw. He bit just hard enough to sting and, I imagined, to leave a mark, his actions those of an animal asserting dominance over his prey. As he bit, his hand found the soft mound of my breast. He pinched my nipple through the fabric of my top and bra, then pulled, then pinched again.

A short, hard burst of pleasure rocketed through me and I cried out loud, right there at the end of Main Street.

Then I was trying to stay upright on legs that were trembling ferociously. I stared up at Zach with what I knew was raw need and confusion in my gaze.

I watched as he pulled that second Zach back over himself like a cloak, the Zach who was calm and reasonable and not governed by desire. I opened my mouth to say—well, I don’t know what I would 22 Surrender to Temptation Part I: Tempted to Submit / Jameson, Lauren

have said. He cut me off before I could try to frame a sentence.

“Stay away from me.”

***

“Excuse me. Miss Reid?” I tried to erase the scowl from my face as I turned toward the clerk who called me over to the front desk where he stood. It wasn’t his fault that I had lain awake half the night with dark dreams that left me sweaty and trembling. It wasn’t his fault that my early morning walk along the beach hadn’t been able to erase any of the feelings that had been stirred up the previous evening.

“Yes?” The Sand Pebble Inn was a lovely, clean motel, and I was expecting the young man to ask me to fill out a customer survey, or something of that nature.

Instead, he slid an envelope across the desk to me. DEVON was written across the white paper in masculine lettering that was surprisingly tidy.

“A gentleman left this for you while you were out for your walk.” I saw his eyes flick down to the sand that caked my calves, the sandals that I carried in my left hand, but instead of feeling embarrassed, as I normally would, I grabbed for the envelope.

I only knew one person in Cambria, unless you counted Suzanne from the diner.

“Thank you.” I refrained from opening the envelope until I was back in my room, where I sank down on the bed. With shaking fingers, I ripped into the paper and drew out a thick rectangle of paper.

A business card.

The card was simple, the lettering black, printed on paper of lemony cream. The words
Phyrefly
Aviation
were worked into a logo with a small, sleek airplane. Below the logo were a phone number and a San Francisco address.

I turned it over, searching for Zach’s name. The reverse had a handwritten message, but was otherwise blank.

IF YOU NEED A JOB, YOU WILL FIND ONE HERE.

Surrender to Temptation Part I: Tempted to Submit / Jameson, Lauren 23

That was it. No signature, no
nice to meet you
. No
thanks for letting me grope you last night
. Still, I knew without a doubt that it was from Zach, and even as I huffed with exasperation at the short, blunt words, I knew what I would do next.

I was going to San Francisco.

Chapter Three

Phyrefly Aviation quite literally took my breath away.

In the first moment to myself that I’d had all day, I inhaled rapidly, over and over again, trying to catch my breath—I felt as I had been sprinting since six o’clock that morning.

It had been two days since I’d received that business card in Cambria. One day since I’d arrived in San Francisco. Still reeling from the prices of hotel rooms in the city, I had decided that a job was my first priority.

Well, truthfully, pursuing anything that might connect me with the man who had taken possession of my mind, incessantly haunting my every waking thought and my sleeping ones, too, was more important still.

I didn’t see why the two couldn’t go hand in hand.

“Miss Reid.” The man who entered the office where I had been placed had to be at least six and a half feet tall, and couldn’t have weighed more than one-fifty if he’d been drenched with a garden hose.

Hair that was a forgettable shade of brown flopped messily around his head, and he had a moustache, more, I think, from forgetting to shave than by design. “I’m Glen Stevens.”

“Pleased to meet you.” Standing, I held out a hand for him to shake. It was my third interview at Phyrefly that day, and I was exhausted. When I had torn open that envelope and found the business card, I had expected that the company was something along the line of a car dealership. Or maybe a repair shop for small planes. Instead, at seven thirty this morning my cab had dropped me off here, in front of a massive skyscraper constructed seemingly of glass and nothing else. It dazzled my eyes, as well as my mind, and was the first hint that maybe I didn’t know what I was about to get myself into.

24

Surrender to Temptation Part I: Tempted to Submit / Jameson, Lauren 25

I had taken note of the fact that I hadn’t had a single panic attack since the day I’d met Zach, though, and that was something to cheer for. I hadn’t needed any of the anti-anxiety pills that I carried in my purse, either. I’d been far too busy, my mind too full.

“I imagine it’s been a long day for you already.” Glen gestured for me to sit in one of the plush armchairs that sat against the far wall of his office. He was smooth, but I didn’t miss the quick once over that he gave me. I knew that I had just been assessed.

Since I had worn one of my best I-used-to-work-at-a-law-office outfits, a black blouse with a small ruffle around the deep collar, a black pencil skirt, and black hose, I was satisfied that I would pass the inspection.

“Well, Miss Reid, how would you like to work at Phyrefly Aviation?” Glen offered me a bottle of water from a minifridge neatly disguised as an end table. Not sure that I’d heard him correctly, I accepted the bottle, unscrewed the lid, and drank deep.

The condensation felt great on my palms, which were hot and sweaty with nerves.

“I—I mean—wow. That was fast.” I blinked and laughed a bit, but I wasn’t really amused. No, I was surprised, and knew somehow that Zach was behind this.

But who was he to a massive corporation—like I had discovered that Phyrefly Aviation was—to be able to land me a job like this? I knew he’d done something. The entire day had seemed like a ruse, like everyone had already known that I would be coming.