Perfect for the Beach
Read Perfect for the Beach Online
Authors: Lori Foster,Kayla Perrin,Janelle Denison
Damn. No wonder she hadn’t wanted to rush into any other man’s bed. Cary turned her, hauled her into his arms, and kissed her. Not a gentle kiss this time, but one of hunger and need and possession. He hurt for her and wished for some way to erase those memories from her mind, even while he sought a way to claim her.
She wasn’t really kissing him back, but her hands clutched his shoulders and he could feel her fast breaths. “Give me your tongue.”
She parted her lips, shyly did as he ordered—and Cary was lost. He drew her soft pink tongue into his mouth, sucked gently, teased with his own and followed her tongue back into her mouth, licking, tasting. Hot. Damn, she was hot.
The kiss went on and on, sharing, taking, giving. It required all his concentration to keep his hands on her waist and not lift them to her breasts, or drop them to her bottom. It was enough that he could feel her skin, wet from her swim, warm from the summer day.
Slowly, before he pushed too far too fast, he pulled back. She struggled to get her heavy eyelids lifted, then her gaze locked with his and her tongue flicked out, tasting her lips. “I liked that.”
She wasn’t helping his self-control, saying things like that. He cupped her face. ‘’You’ll like everything I do to you, I swear. We’ll be incredible together, Nora.”
from
“Some Like It Hot” by Lori Foster
PERFECT
FOR THE
BEACH
Lori Foster
Janelle Denison
Erin McCarthy
MaryJanice Davidson
Kayla Perrin
Morgan Leigh
All copyrighted material within is
Attributor Protected.
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
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Copyright © 2004 by Kensington Publishing Corp.
“Some Like It Hot” copyright © 2004 by Lori Foster
“One Wilde Weekend” copyright © 2004 by Janelle Denison
“Blue Crush” copyright © 2004 by Erin McCarthy
“My Thief” copyright © 2004 by MaryJanice Davidson
“Hot and Bothered” copyright © 2004 by Kayla Perrin
“Murphy’s Law” copyright © 2004 by Laura Leigh Arce
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
eISBN 13: 978-0-7582-6719-1
eISBN 10: 0-7582-6719-3
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First Trade Paperback Printing: June 2004
First Mass Market Paperback Printing: June 2005
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CONTENTS
ONE WILDE WEEKEND: Janelle Denison
HOT AND BOTHERED: Kayla Perrin
Harsh sunlight found its way through the miniblinds on the window in exam room four. Though it was well after six, there were no clouds and no breeze to offer relief from the ninety-degree day. Saturday and Sunday promised to be just as stifling. Cary Rupert peeled off his requisite white coat, loosened his tie, and opened the top button of his dress shirt with a sigh.
Maybe the heat could account for his adult patients being so cranky, as well as the incessant whining of his younger patients. Appointments had run two hours over; nothing serious—a summer cold, sunburn, poison ivy rash. Cary was more than ready to head home. He wanted an easy chair, a cold drink, and a smiling, willing woman.
Hell yeah, he’d take all three. Didn’t matter where he got the first two, but the third was a specific craving for one elusive woman. Maybe today he’d finally get lucky.
Leaving his office assistant and two nurses to lock up, Cary stepped outside, a man on a mission. Immediately, he was struck with a wave of hot, humid air. He reached into his breast pocket and fished out his reflective sunglasses for the short walk across the lot to the complex next door, where his best friend, Axel Dean, had an office and where the woman of his dreams worked.
Last year he and Axel had leased space side by side in the new medical complex. As a general practitioner, Cary saw patients of all ages, with just about every ailment under the sun. Axel had specialized as an OB-GYN, so he had only female clientele with the occasional husband or boyfriend stranded in the waiting room. A few spaces down were an ENT and a plastic surgeon. Other various businesses unrelated to medicine filled the complex, and not too many yards away, a Hooters restaurant kept a packed parking lot.
There were no men waiting in Axel’s outer office on this late Friday. Cary had no sooner removed his glasses and taken a breath of the air-conditioned lobby air before Axel stuck his head out. “I’ll be out of here in ten minutes. You wanna do dinner?”
In doctor mode, Axel was a different person. Serious. Concerned. Attentive to his patients’ every word.
Away from the job, he became a complete hedonist, hysterically funny, and the world’s biggest ladies’ man. Cary liked him a lot. “Sure thing.” Cary cleared his throat and tried to sound casual. “I’ll just gab at Nora till you’re ready.”
Axel rolled his eyes as if he’d expected no less. “She’s filing papers in the back,” he said, then pointed a finger. “Don’t distract her too much. She needs to finish up before she heads home.” He ducked back into the hallway and disappeared into an exam room.
Cary’s heart beat a little faster in anticipation. From the day he met Nora Chilton eleven months ago, she’d always had that effect on him. She stood five feet, six inches tall, had light brown hair, and kept her soft brown eyes shielded behind librarian-type glasses. Physically, there was nothing to drive a man into a frenzy of lust. But … sometimes these things didn’t make sense, they just were.
He’d been frenzied from jump, and it just kept getting worse, not better. When she smiled, his abdomen clenched as if accepting a punch. Once she’d assisted a pregnant woman to her car, and her gentleness had his pulse tripping. Seeing her in quiet conversation with an expectant father made him tense in what felt too damn much like jealousy. And watching her work, her head bent in just that way, her brows puckered in concentration, caused a slow burn. He loved the way she moved, the gracefulness of her hands, her studious expression behind her glasses.