ZANDER thought he deserved a Royal Medal of Honor for his philanthropic efforts tonight. Not that he wasn’t having fun. He’d been enlisted by his friend Clementine Weltenham to be a fake date to Emma’s best friend, Caroline. The hope was that Clementine’s suddenly dense brother, Darcy, would finally realize he had feelings for Caroline, whom he’d met in America while traveling with Adrian. He was currently being a total fool and ignoring those feelings though. Just the thought of that was a mouthful. A veritable soap opera was unfolding on the shores of Monaforte.
His assignment at Pippa’s party was to be all over Caroline like white on rice so that when Darcy saw them entwined like lovers, he’d go ballistic and finally make up his mind to admit to Caroline he had feelings for her. Pretty easy job for Zander. He was a pro at wooing women. So much so he could do it in his sleep. For that matter, that’s often where he did his best wooing. Even though that meant he wasn’t actually asleep.
They’d just surfaced after a lengthy and most deliberate kiss, all in an effort to infuriate Darcy, who’d just arrived.
“Well, that ought to put the fear of God in him,” Zander said. “Wasn’t a bad kiss at all, if I do say so myself.” He buffed his nails on his chest.
“I’d like to believe I had a small part in the success of that kiss too,” Caroline said. “After all, I didn’t flail or choke and gag.” She winked at him.
“If you had, you’d have been my first.”
Caroline spluttered a laugh. “My guess is your first was when you were about ten. I must say, though, you’re a humble one, no doubt about it.” She looked him over, an appreciative gleam in her eyes. “Well, enough about taking credit, the question is, what to do now? Are we supposed to grope each other into the evening?”
“I’m game if you are,” Zander said with a cocky grin.
“Why don’t we keep to playing it up when he’s nearby rather than nonstop mashing?”
The two talked for a while and got a chance to eat as waiters in surfer shorts passed food to guests.
As sunset approached, Zander grew quiet.
“Hey,” Caroline said, poking him in his very firm stomach. “All of a sudden you stopped talking.” She followed his gaze across the pool to a table featuring a young woman with long, straight blond hair and the palest of blue eyes. She was engaged in conversation with Pippa, whose back was to them but was immediately identifiable because her curly dark brown hair was swept into a long plait that fell to her waist. “Someone you know?”
Zander squinted, trying to discern that what he was seeing was indeed what he was seeing. “Impossible. There’s simply no way.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Now’s time for my apology and rude exit,” he said, frowning. “You remember when I said I’d play this game until or if I happen to run into anyone in whom I might have a vested interest?”
Caroline nodded. “Yeeesss,” she said, cautiously drawing out the word to two syllables.
“That woman,” he said, pointing directly at the blonde, “is my vested interest. I’m so sorry to do this to you. And it’s been absolutely lovely making out with you, and I enjoyed the grope as well, but I have some very important business to attend to.” He reached out for Caroline’s hand and gently kissed the top of it. “I trust you’ll be fine getting home with Clementine?”
Caro shrugged. “I’m good,” she said, adding a halfhearted, “Go get ’em, Z.”
~*~
After getting out of the pool, Zander wove his way, dripping wet, between the throngs of people at the party. Naturally everyone pulled him in different directions to talk or laugh or just have a minute with royalty. Sometimes it bothered Zander to be so objectified, but usually he couldn’t care less. He was a happy-go-lucky man and generally content wherever he laid his head each night—both literally and figuratively, and for the most part, not much of anything bothered him. Except this whole—what did her mother call her? Andrea?—Andrea thing. It was stuck in his craw, and more than anything, he wanted to talk to her and straighten out all the confusion. And maybe even apologize. Preferably after he’d spent several hours getting to know her better in a carnal way. After all, he was a guy.
He’d gotten another glimpse of Andi as he was working his way past one of the bars set up near the pool. She was at the top of the steps, then walked across the length of the marble patio and into the house. God, once in there she could be anywhere. He might have to search for hours; the place was that big.
He walked through the solarium, grabbed a quick beer from Pippa’s fridge, saving him time in line at a bar, and moved through the formal dining room, all the while searching out that white-blond hair and those damned azure eyes that he was unable to forget.
In the next room some people were finishing up a round of pool just as he saw her leaned against the wall, a beer tipped up to her lips, looking sort of innocent and vulnerable and bloody sexy with her bare belly just taunting him like that. And those long, tanned legs, completely being wasted with her standing there when they could be busily wrapped around his waist.
Zander grabbed two pool sticks and walked toward Andi. As he approached her, she looked up, and for a fleeting moment, a smile broke across her face. Though she seemed to rethink that and wiped it away with her hands.
“I’d challenge you to a game of strip pool, but I fear you’d make a matching red mark on my other cheek,” Zander said, a smile curving sheepishly on one side of his face.
Andi hung her head for a second, then squinted up at him. “It left a red mark? Really?”
Zander pulled his phone out of his pocket and handed it to her. “Call Lorenzo and ask him yourself.”
She winced. “I suppose an apology is in order for that.”
“I suspect I might owe an apology or two to you as well.”
“Not sure this is the time or place for a huge mea culpa.”
“Definitely not,” he said, handing her a pool cue. “I won’t make you play strip pool, but I’m not gonna lie, if you play your cards right, we could end up naked by night’s end.”
Andi rolled her eyes. “Are you for real? If so, you’re downright insufferable.”
“I suppose that was my wishful thinking talking. But I’ll settle for a game of pool with you, and maybe I can buy you an apology drink?”
“As long as you agree I buy you one too.”
“Deal,” he said. “Let’s rack ’em up.”
“I haven’t played pool since high school,” Andi said. “Hope I remember what to do.”
“It’s simple,” Zander said, moving behind her and lining his body up with hers as he leaned her over with the pool cue, motioning how to hit the ball. “Aim for this, and you’ll get that.” He pointed as the ball went into a pocket.
“Do I need to have you behind me to achieve that then?” Andi smiled, flirting with him for once.
“Let’s put it this way—no one’s complained when I’ve been lined up behind them like that in the past.”
Andi rolled her eyes as she reracked the balls. “I’m guessing that line usually pulls them in, hook, line and sinker.”
“Does that mean it didn’t work with you?”
“I’ll think about it,” she said as she lined up her first shot and hit it into the center pocket.
“Ouch, looks like I’ve got a shark on my hands.”
“I could say the same about you,” she said with a wink.
For a miraculous stretch of time, Zander and Andi interacted without even a hint of contrariness.
“I think we’ve set a world record,” Zander said.
“For?”
“According to the clock on the wall, we’ve gone a full forty-five minutes without a single act of violence against one another,” he said. “I think we ought to congratulate ourselves on such self-control.”
“Ha-ha. Very funny. But not so fast, sonny boy. Because I’m calling the eight ball in the corner pocket, and you are going to be furious that I just kicked your ass at pool.”
Zander decided to keep it to himself that he couldn’t care less if she beat him. In fact, if that empowered her enough, perhaps she’d let her guard down and give him a chance to move in for the kill.
He held his hands up in surrender as soon as Andi sank the ball. “Okay, lady. You win. I am at your mercy.”
“Oh, you are? I didn’t know that was the prize, or maybe I’d have won earlier.”
Zander arched an eyebrow, incredulous at that statement. “I’m telling myself not to react to cruel taunting. Instead, come with me.”
He grabbed Andi’s pool cue and hung it with his, then took her hand and pulled her away from the crowd.
They walked down a dark hallway, turned a corner, then stepped into a sunken room with plush white carpet, navy-blue walls, and scattered leather sofas. Zander pushed a button and a wall parted to reveal a large screen.
“Pips’s screening room,” he said. “This is one of my little escapes. Sometimes I just want to get away from things, so Pippa and I will come down here and watch films.” He grabbed a remote, pushed a button, and a selection of movies came up on the wall. “What’s your poison?”
It was practically culture shock as it had been so long since Andi had been to the movies. It almost made her feel like she was back home again. As Zander thumbed down on the remote through the selection of movies, Andi commented on whether each one was a contender.
“Most of these I don’t even know. I’m so out of pop culture at this point in my life.”
“And you think I’m into it? Hell no! My history at movie theaters was purely about scoring some points.” He plunked himself down on a sofa and kicked his feet up on the table in front of them. “When I was growing up, I always liked the seats in the back of the theater so I could make out with girls.” He patted the seat next to him, motioning for her to sit down. “Trust me, nowhere did the movie present as a factor to me.” He winked at her.
Andi closed her eyes, emboldening herself to do what until this point had instinctually been the direct opposite of what she’d normally do.
She settled in on the sofa and couldn’t help but skim her hands over it and again. “I can’t believe how soft this is.”
Zander reached over and mimicked her actions with his hand on her leg. “My thoughts precisely.” He leaned over and gently touched her lips with his. She took a deep breath before reaching her tongue out to stroke his lips, extending the invitation Zander had been waiting for. And he didn’t miss a beat, opening his mouth and twining his tongue with hers as his hands explored her body. He’d been fantasizing about getting up under that belly-baring top for hours, and finally his hand found its way to her side, where it roamed over her soft skin while his fingers inched under the clingy top, beneath her barely there bra, until they found her full breasts. He thought he was going to lose it, it felt so heavenly.
It was as if they were in an isolation booth, far, far from the party crowd, in this windowless, soundproofed theater. All they could hear was the panting breath of the other and the sounds of their mouths making contact in a frenzied effort to get to know each other better. Zander reached around and deftly unhooked Andi’s bra, and together in one motion they got her top off and cast that bra somewhere across the room.
Zander pressed Andi down on the sofa, and he reluctantly moved his mouth away from hers, instead wending his way with his tongue down the column of her throat, working his way farther down till his mouth found her breast and he laved her nipple with his tongue, leaving Andi moaning with pleasure. His hand managed to unzip the side of her skirt and shimmy it off. Next to go was her thong, which he flung behind him, eager for his hands to get to a more lucrative destination. His fingers found her folds, wet and ready, and he stroked her slowly, to Andi’s delight. She urged him on by pressing herself against his fingers, which he began to move in and out of her as her moans grew louder and the thrust of her hips faster. He took a gentle bite of her nipple, which was enough to send her over the edge, and she shouted his name as she shuddered against him.
Zander made quick work of his shorts, already damp from his foray into the swimming pool earlier in the evening, and his boxer briefs while Andi lay sated, glowing with a natural smile he’d long hoped to see on her face.
~*~
Andi gave Zander an approving once-over as he stood naked for a second time before her, this time with her as the sole audience. She reached her hands out to pull him down, but was able to first wrap her hands around that glorious cock she’d seen once before. This time her amazement took on a whole new dimension, excited to try him on for size, as it were. As she pumped her hands up and down on him, he grew even larger, to her great pleasure. It was Zander’s turn to groan.
He pointed at himself, then at her, and said, “Now.”
Andi stopped for a minute, remembering at last something of vital necessity, pointing at his cock. “Protection?” she said with a slight plea in her voice.
Zander scrambled for his shorts, reaching into the back pocket and pulling out a condom, holding it up like a sweepstakes prize. “I think they say in your country ‘a Boy Scout is always prepared.’” He smiled as he settled himself between her spread legs and slid with ease into her warm body. They lay still for a minute as each savored the sensation of skin on skin. Andi could feel Zander’s heart pounding in his chest and hear his breathing grow faster. She pulled his head down to kiss him, and he began a slow slide in and out of her, spreading her wider, pushing deeper, while Andi grabbed for that gorgeous ass of his to pull him toward her. They both groaned and gasped and pumped harder and harder until Zander let out a loud groan and held himself deep inside her, and Andi followed him with a moan that seemed to go on forever.