I had to hand it to him; he had the mysterious man routine down to a tee. Try as I might, I couldn’t get my heart rate to settle. Anna found me sitting at the bar, willing myself to calm down. Deep breaths.

“You OK?” she shouted over the music.

I gave her a drunken, excited grin. “Better than that. Wishes come true!”

“What wishes?” she asked, knitting her brow down and grabbing a stool.

“Zac-type wishes. He’s still trying to mess with my head, but I was dancing and wondering if he wanted to give me some hot lovin’ too, when he came over and grabbed me. I’m telling you, his lips on my hand blew me away. Just imagine what those lips would do to me elsewhere?! If he’d let me, I’d have fucked him right there in front of everyone.” I drew a deep breath.

“Congratulations. You pulled the most unobtainable, sexiest bachelor on the whole island. What else happened?”

“Well, then the alcohol got in the way because I thought he said ‘All the time’, but that wouldn’t make sense. How would he know what I was thinking?”

“It’s pretty obvious what you’re thinking, Jess. You’ve been obsessed with him since the day you got here.”

She had a point. Irritating as it was.

“Seriously though, I wish I knew what he’d actually said, it could be important. But with his damn sexy body so close to mine… and he called me Ma’am… in this rumbling cowboy accent. Ugh. I went all light-headed. It felt like I’d had a whole lot more to drink.” I instinctively looked at my glass to check how much was left. Damn. I really had drunk a lot. Again.

“I wish I had those sparks,” she sighed, looking around in disdain at the sea of sex-crazed animals.

“We best find you someone to scratch the itch then!” I slapped her shoulder.

“Men are like bank accounts,” she smiled. “Without a lot of money, they don’t generate a lot of interest.”

“Anna!” I gasped. “I didn’t have you down as a gold-digger!”

She could always be relied upon to crack a joke though, I swear she had them all written down in a little book, ready to be plucked out at appropriate opportunities.

She shrugged, “Not a gold digger per se, just looking for someone different to the broke party-boys around here. I can’t believe you’ve been here a week already. Our vacation time is going so fast.”

“Tell me about it. I’m nowhere near ready to sort my shit out.” My chest tightened at the prospect. Danny was relying on me. She was relying on me. I couldn’t screw up, not this time.

“You’ll be fine.” She leant forward and put her hand on mine. “You promised; one last blow out, then I’m helping you. We’re going to find different hobbies. Ooh, a book club! Yes! And we’ll start exercising together. We’ll join a gym. Get focussed. I know you can do it…” she paused, looking away, clamping her plump lips like she wanted to say more but didn’t know how.

“What is it?” The dread grew. I always found myself getting told off for something. My father’s voice rang in my ears. ‘Jessica, when are you going to learn? You’ll never make anything of yourself, you’re so damn stubborn and impulsive.’

The burn scar down my back and shoulder itched, in the way it always did when I thought of my father. After the explosion the doctors had said he had a fifty percent chance of surviving. He didn’t make it through, but at least he’d had that chance, which was more than my mother got.

“Just try to start choosing the right men and it’ll help you,” she mumbled.

There it was. The eternal wrong guy story.

“Since these weeks don’t count, I’ll let you off,” she continued. “Last blow out on booze and dodgy men, too.” She smiled, but her little chubby cheeks didn’t dimple the way they did when she meant it.

I gave her a tight smile in return and rolled my eyes in a mock tribute to my bad choices. She was right, of course. I had a habit of flitting from one disastrous relationship to another. The most recent – the cage fighter – or ‘Scary Twat’ as Anna affectionately called him, had been good for only two things; rough sex and teaching me to fight.

Falling for another bad boy right now would be a mistake. I did need to put myself first for a while, without interruptions from men and indulgence. Straighten shit out. Find new, healthier priorities. Vacation flings were one thing, but fling being the operative word. No more deep shit.

We sat in silence for a while and found ourselves sandwiched between several guys, all vying for our attention. I decided to take a stroll down to the shore for air. Anna hit the dance floor with friends and was gyrating like a geeky sex-kitten before I’d even reached the door.

I only got a short way down the beach when I was stopped sharply in my tracks. He was standing with his back to me, watching the surf. Even from behind he was too captivating for words. Something about the way he stood, hands in his pockets, stretching the denim around his tantalising ass. The slim-fit shirt hugging muscles that made me quiver.

I dithered a few yards away, stepping backwards and forwards, changing my mind about what I should do.

When did I become such a pussy?

* * *

“Hey,” he said, without turning around.

Sexy. Creepy.

“So, which one of us is stalking who?” He turned to face me and his smile was sly, naughty, breathtaking. His gaze wandered up and down my body.

“I’m not sure,” I stuttered, hoping my huge smile was dazzling him in the same way. It was generally a good weapon in my seduction arsenal. At school I was nicknamed Gobby, not for my big-mouth attitude, though that would have been apt; but for the sheer scale of it. My lips half filled my face at the best of times. As I grew older I’d felt awkward about it and as a teenager I tried not to smile too much. But then something happened in adulthood; the teasing stopped, and the guys started queuing up.

“You’re British? Here on vacation?” he asked.

I often forgot about my accent until someone reminded me. American guys love it. Just as I love theirs, especially the deep, southern drawl that was coming from his lips.

“No… yes… I mean, originally yes, but I’ve been here long enough to call it home.”

He dug a hole in the sand with the toe of his boot. Military para-boots, laces done loose.

“You’re in the army?” I asked hopefully. I loved a man in uniform. Holding a gun, even better.

“Not these days,” he shrugged.

A couple of men approached from nearby. They went straight to Zac and pointedly refused to look at me. Before they could even say a word he glowered at them and tipped his head skyward, taking a deep breath.

“Back off, guys, not now,” he spoke slowly and quietly, but he looked anything but calm. In fact, he looked like he was barely keeping a hold of himself. The tension between them made me take a step back.

They didn’t move.

“Go!” he yelled, his eyes suddenly full of venom, swirling with golden hues, mesmerising and terrifying.

They hurried away with their tails between their legs, like chastised puppies. The shift in his demeanour startled me, my hand flying involuntarily to my heart.

“I’m sorry about that,” he said stiffly. “Sometimes they forget their place.”

“No worries. I love a dominant man,” I blurted.

Wait. What?! Wrong words, Jess. Back up.

His smile was brief, “Yes Ma’am, I know you do. That’s a problem.”

Seriously, if he called me Ma’am one more time I might lose control of the shred of willpower that was stopping me from launching myself at his lips.

“Why? You don’t seem like the sort of man to have an issue with taking charge?” I bit my lip, taking a step towards him.

“Exactly,” he said, hungry eyes sinking into mine.

Hardcore BDSM? I could deal with that. I mean, I hadn’t before, not the major kinky stuff anyway, but there’s a first time for everything.

He laughed, deep and seductive. “Not like that.”

“Huh?”

“Not like you’re thinking. I’m not going to shove a ball gag in your mouth and bring out the nipple clamps and butt plugs.”

Oh God. Those words out of his sexy mouth made me wet.

“What are you going to do with me then?” I took another step closer, so that we were almost touching hands. My heart jumped all over the place. There was no need for more words, which was convenient, because it was hard to think of them around him, and I was clearly saying the wrong ones.

I should have been asking him about that angry exchange with his friends. Or why he’d spent so long watching me without speaking. Or why his eyes looked like they were alive with something out of this world.

Instead, I lifted my chin to kiss him.

He took three steps back, looking at me in horror, as if I’d grown a third arm right out of my forehead and turned purple.

“I’m so sorry,” he muttered, looking at his feet, eyes wide. “There’s something… I need to do…”

Then he turned his back on me and slunk away into the night. Just like that.

Son of a bitch.

This took mortified to a new level for me. I prayed for a giant sinkhole to open up beneath my feet and devour me.

What a prick.

So why did the sight of him walking away make me want to run after him, grab hold and never let go?

Fuck!

* * *

“What’s going on over there?” I pointed across the beach to a crowd gathered around a bonfire, curbing my instinct to go check it for safety measures.

“That would be your boyfriend, Zac, and his crew,” Anna said dryly.

“What?” I yelled, a little too loudly, slamming my shot glass down with finality. That was the last one. I’d spent the last hour drowning my embarrassment with copious amounts of alcohol… no more until after sleep. “Wow. Had something to do, did he? We’re so gatecrashing that party.” I attempted to stand on wobbly legs and had to grab the stool for support.

“You can’t exactly gatecrash on an open beach party, Jess.”

“What?” again, even louder, possibly sounding shrill this time. “Why aren’t we there already? Why didn’t you tell me he was there?”

“Now, his twin brother Alex on the other hand,” Anna rambled on, ignoring my complaint. “He’s equally gorgeous, obviously, also equally weird. Lives out on the other end of the island, to the South. You never see the brothers together. There’s all sorts of rumours about why they don’t get on. So anyway, what was I saying?” she frowned, looking at her drink and pushing her glasses up higher on her nose.

“Oh yeah,” she continued. “Alex’s parties are different. He owns a couple of bars with strict entry requirements. Namely that you have to be hot. They love spring break, with the influx of young girls all desperate for their attention. It’s a little sick actually.”

“Hmmm, sounds it,” I mumbled, as I began heading towards the party. “Wait, what?! Zac has a twin?!”

Now my shouty, shrieky levels were through the roof and I could do nothing to control it.

“Not identical, but close. And we aren’t over there because I actively avoid that lot.” She hung back and I sat down again, mainly so I could stop wobbling on my feet.

She looked miserable. Probably the sixth shot. She better not puke on me.

“Those guys, I love looking at them and dreaming about them, but that’s as close as I go. They freak me out, and to be honest I’ve already been there and done that with the Elwood Brother Obsession. I’m over it. I don’t want to get involved in the shit they do. I don’t think you should either.”

She had my full attention now. “Like what? What shit?”

“I dunno, they’re just wild. They don’t live like normal people.”

“Has someone stolen my best friend and replaced her with an impostor? What are you talking about? They sound like a perfect match for us!”

Okay, maybe not for us, but for me. She’s the only person who could claim to actually know me, though she still didn’t, not really. She knows I’m weird, yet she doesn’t run like everyone else. I have issues, ones that ‘normal’ people can neither relate to nor understand. I can’t even understand them myself.

But she tries, and she’ll brush off my quirks, telling me to get over myself, pulling my feet back to the ground when I start flying away on my own hype. And she knows how to party, but she rarely crosses the line, no matter how hard I try to drag her over it.

“They’re… creepy. You never see them doing regular stuff. They’re up all night and dead to the world all day. They race their motorcycles up and down Ocean Boulevard each week and—” she cut herself off, taking a breath.

“They race their bikes?” My eyes were surely glowing like beacons. “Come on, I thought this was party therapy time, so nothing dodgy counts, right?”

“There are so many rumours about them, Jess. You know, the police once raided one of Alex’s parties and found an actual dead body. They all got away with it. It was reported as an accidental drug overdose.” She shook her head as if it were nonsense.

“Maybe it was. Must happen a lot around here?” I gestured wildly at the throng of wasted souls to prove my point.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you. I have a bad feeling about this,” she moaned, but she stood, and we walked, wobbled, down the beach.