Page 28 of Last Resort

And then I drank some more. To bury the grief over the loss of my father. To feed the fury over my brothers’ threats and suppositions. To dampen the desire to call Sutton and fuck her again.

All three felt valid and important.

All three still do.

And yet when I woke up with a wicked hangover, I resolved to get my shit together.

I’d go to the resort. I’d turn shit around as fast as I could, then walk away to that dot on a map where I could fall off the grid. Oh, and I’d keep my hands off Sutton.

The last one was my least favorite of the three by far.

But isn’t that what Ledger and Ford expect of me? To spend way too much time pursuing her—or some other piece of ass—and not do my job?

So fuck if I’m not here, elbow deep in spreadsheets and managers’ reports, stuck inside this office with paradise taunting me outside the open window, trying to get up to speed before my meeting with Sutton and the resort’s manager, Brady, in a few minutes.

Sutton.

Shit.

Talk about a clusterfuck of epic proportions.

I can’t sleep with her, can I? Isn’t that what I told myself? That if I was going to do this, I was going to do it wholeheartedly even at the expense of my own goddamn pleasure.

It’s fucking cruel to her. Keeping her wondering, guessing if I’m him. Johnnie Walker. But isn’t that the best for both of us? If she doesn’t know then it’s cleaner that way. Her feelings can’t be hurt. Things will have to remain platonic.

So . . . no. There will be no sex. No touchy-feely. No fucking anything. Just constant reminders of every damn minute I spent buried inside her.

But how do you keep your hands off the best sex of your life?

There. I said it. She was. It was. And I haven’t stopped thinking about it or her since I walked out of the suite that morning.

I can tell myself she was a one-night stand, that we both knew it walking up to the suite that night, and so keeping it to myself that I was the guy isn’t really that big of a deal. She wouldn’t have known who I was if we’d never met again, so why should it be any different now?

The problem is me.

I want her again.

I fucking can’t stop thinking about her or her body or that soft little moan that would escape just as her orgasm slammed into her.

What man wouldn’t?

“Shit,” I mutter as I start over at the top of the report for the tenth time, my cock hardening at just the thought of her.

I see a lot of jerking off in my future.

That same thought echoes in my mind a few minutes later as I walk across the sprawling landscape of Ocean’s Edge to The Cove, the resort’s high-end restaurant, where I rescheduled for us to have our meeting. Maybe I should have stolen away to the villa to do just that first. Get off thinking about her so that when I do come face-to-face with her, when I do smell that subtle scent she wears on her skin, I don’t get hard immediately.

I’ve never had this problem before. The urge to have seconds. The need to have more. Or even the want to.

I step into the restaurant, my laptop and some loose-leaf folders under my arm, and check out my surroundings. The first time in person. It’s rich in colors with dark woods and dim lights to set the ambiance and not take away from the real showstopper—the ocean lapping up against its patio.

I take in the guests. By all accounts, their clothing and jewelry telegraph to me that they’re middle class. Not the ones who will spend the big bucks but the ones who have scraped together enough money to say they went to the Virgin Islands but couldn’t spend the cash on the activities to make the trip worth it.

Ugly as the truth may be, these are not the guests the S.I.N. brand looks for. We want the upper class. The elite. The guests who don’t give a second thought when they set down their American Express Black card to buy souvenirs or clothes from the many shops we have on-site or buy all the tickets to a group excursion so they have privacy for themselves. They’re the ones we can raise prices on, and they won’t bat an eye at them.

Quick appraisal done; I head down the hallway to the back room where our meeting is being held. I thought a nice dinner meeting with Sutton and our resort manager would be a good way to break the ice.

Having a third party present would help prevent me from breaking the promise I made to myself in telling Sutton who I am.