Soon, he rested alongside her as she snuggled against him, fitting perfectly in his arms.
“Mmmm,” she murmured. “We do good make-up sex.”
“We do good every-fucking-time sex,” he said on a soft laugh.
“That too.”
They lay on the deck, under the stars, the water lolling lazily against the sandy shore nearby. She turned to him, propped up on her elbow, and brushed a fingertip along his hipbone. Every ounce of contact with her was such a rush.
“I like it better when we get along,” she said.
“Me too.”
“Let’s keep being open with each other.”
He nodded. “Yes. No more shutting down and not talking.”
“Dirty talking, and sexy talking, and honest talking.”
“Sign me up.”
“Because I think we make a damn good team,” she said, her lips curving up in a sexy grin.
“Speaking of being honest, did I ever tell you what we originally planned to name this hotel chain?”
She furrowed her brow. “No. I don’t think you did. It wasn’t always The Luxe?”
He reined in a smirk as he tucked his hands behind his head and stared at the stars. “You can’t tell anyone, okay?”
“Promise,” she said, sounding eager to learn his secrets.
He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Originally, we were going to call it The Sock on the Doorknob Hotel.”
Her mouth fell open and she laughed, the kind that must have spread through her whole body as her shoulders shook. “Was The Sex Panther already taken?”
He nodded. “It was. Another option was Bed Barista.”
“Oh, that’s good,” she said, admiringly. “But if that hadn’t worked out, you could have tried the Spork of Love.”
He snapped his fingers as if to say aww shucks. “Or the Tunnel of Chubb.”
She pointed in the direction of the villa. “By the way, I hope you don’t mind, but I did put your sock on the doorknob. I figured it was the best way to let housekeeping know not to disturb.”
“Perfect,” he said, wrapping his arms around her, and everything was in that moment as they returned to who they were before, laughing and loving every minute together.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
New York, same day . . .
Ethan cursed.
His boss had just put him on notice. Revenues were down at the Victoria Hotels and it was his job to turn this ship around or else. He kicked the side of the desk in frustration. How hard did a man have to work these days? The answer—too hard. He’d been working his ass off for the last two years, and his boss railroaded him on nearly all his ideas to improve their image. And then, the guy took it out on him. Blamed him for lackluster quarters and poor performance. He let out a long stream of air, the frustration thick in his blood.
Things were supposed to be different. He was supposed to be CEO of The Luxe. He’d worked in this business long enough, he had known that hotel inside and out, and he was sure the top job would’ve gone to him.
Instead, Nate Harper had won the gig. Nate was younger by a few years, and it ticked him off that the time he’d put in wasn’t enough to beat out the young hotshot. Ethan hadn’t stayed on at The Luxe after losing that two-man race. That would have been too hard, so he’d sought out a new job, and grabbed the chance here, thinking he could make a difference. But most days he was banging his head against a brick wall.
He sank down in his chair, swiveled around, and stared out the window of his office building in midtown. He wanted something to change the image of Victoria Hotels. Make it more like Victoria’s Secret. Something sexy. Something alluring. Hell, that’s why he’d reached out to Casey Sullivan in the first place, trying to strike a deal with Joy Delivered. Victoria wouldn’t be the first hotel to include pleasure packs in its rooms. Plenty of high-end hotels around the world included anything from shag bags to condoms to feather ticklers to blindfolds, and such perks had been proven to spread positive word of mouth—but he wanted something no one else had. With the way Joy Delivered’s star had risen in recent years, he’d wanted to pair up with that company.
But Casey had given him the blow-off in her messages. Maybe he needed to try something else, another sexy type of product. He turned around, grabbed the phone, and dialed Grant Abbott at Entice. He knew the guy because the Victoria Hotel in Chicago featured an Entice boutique in the lobby.
“To what do I know the pleasure of this phone call?” Grant said, his southern drawl coming through loud and clear from New Orleans all the way to Manhattan.
After a bit of friendly chatter, Ethan tackled the matter at hand. “What are the chances that we can expand our deal with Entice?”
“You know I’d love to do something with you. But right now my energy is focused on this new partnership with Joy Delivered. But perhaps, we can discuss it as soon as that’s done.”
His spine straightened and his radar went off. There was that name again. What the hell was Casey up to? “What are you doing with Casey?”
“Just launching a new product with them. It’s the ultimate pleasure toy on the path to prolonged orgasm,” Grant said, speaking in an over-the-top voice as if he were narrating an infomercial.
“Which means?”
“Apparently it’s like being licked and fucked at the same time,” Grant said, choosing bluntness now. “That’s not how we’ll be positioning it in our boutiques, but that’s what it is and what it does, evidently. Tried it out myself with a lady friend in Hong Kong and it pretty much sent her flying. So there you go.”
When the call ended, Ethan flipped open his laptop and hunted through his emails to Casey Sullivan. He stabbed his finger at the screen as if he’d caught her red-handed. Because right there, in black and white in her reply from a few days ago, she’d told him that she was already working with another hotel. His antennae went into overdrive, a memory resurfacing. Hadn’t Nate told him on the phone when he’d called to give him the Danya report that he was doing business with her?
What the hell? Had she taken his idea and given it to fucking Harper?
Searching through his sent messages in a flurry, he found his original note to her. Early June. His eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched.
Harper again. Coming out ahead.
If she’d stolen his idea and handed it over to the man who took the job he’d wanted . . . well, he’d find a way to get what rightfully belonged to him.