Embraced at Seaside by Addison Cole (33)

JANA STOOD ON the front stoop of her studio with a silk tie covering her eyes—the tie Hunter had used to bind her wrists the night before. She’d been surprised when he’d confessed that he’d showered, shaved, put on cologne, and changed into his suit to see her, after the celebratory dinner he had attended last night. And after they’d talked, they’d made love well into the morning. Clark was right; there was a world of difference between making love to a woman you adored and having sex.

Hunter stood behind Jana now, guiding her by the shoulders. When Jana had said she loved him, he felt like the luckiest guy on earth. He knew their relationship would probably always have its ups and downs. They were both stubborn, after all. He didn’t claim to have all the answers, but he had the only answer that mattered. He loved Jana, and he vowed to spend the rest of his life making her happy.

“Just promise me that if you don’t like what I’ve done, you’ll tell me.”

She laughed. “Has that ever been a problem for me? Just because you have me blindfolded doesn’t mean my mouth doesn’t work.”

“You do have a smart mouth.”

“You love my smart mouth.”

He moved in front of her and pulled her body against him. He couldn’t resist brushing his scruffy cheek to the sensitive skin just beneath her ear.

“Hunter…” Her needy voice sent a rush of heat straight through him.

He sank his teeth into her neck and wrapped his arm around her waist, catching her as her knees wobbled. “You look so tempting, blindfolded and wearing that slinky little miniskirt and tight frilly top. I can’t believe you’re mine. Tell me again.” He’d been teasing her all morning about finally admitting she wanted him.

She sighed dramatically. He could practically see her rolling her eyes. “Hunter Lacroux, I want you.”

He ran a hand along her waist and over her rib cage. “Tell me like you mean it,” he teased.

“Why would I do that?”

He tore the blindfold off, and her eyes blazed with desire.

“Because you mean it.” He tugged her tighter against him.

“Maybe so, but this is so much more fun.” She raised her brows with a sexy giggle. “Now kiss me or make love to me, but stop this teasing nonsense.”

“You’re a wicked pain in the butt. I’ll do everything to you, but first…” He pushed open the door of the studio, and Jana gasped as they stepped inside.

“Hunter! This is gorgeous!” She launched herself into his arms and wrapped her legs around his waist. “How about we check out the get-down-and-dirty kitchen?” A pretty blush rose on her cheeks.

He carried her through the hallway that led to the kitchen. “There’s a fee for entrance now.”

“Let me guess. Does it have to do with taking off my clothes?”

“From your lips to my ears.”

She slanted her mouth over his as he pushed through the kitchen doors. They were met with cheers of “surprise” and “congratulations” from all their friends and family. Harper, Brock, and Colton were front and center, beside Clark, who was holding little Billy in one arm, his other draped around Nina. Blue and Lizzie were standing arm in arm beside Bella and the girls and all their babies and husbands. Everyone was smiling and laughing and moving in for hugs.

Jana looked at him with wonder and love in her eyes, and that alone nearly brought him to his knees. Jana was finally his. Really, truly his, one hundred percent his. “How did you arrange all this?”

“Don’t you get it yet, pretty girl? There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”

If this is your first Sweet with Heat: Seaside Summers novel and you would like to read the entire series, there is a complete series list in the back of this book. You can start reading the series FREE with in digital format. Seaside Summers is the first subseries in the Sweet with Heat big-family romance collection, with many more subseries to come. All Sweet with Heat books may also be enjoyed as stand-alone novels or as part of the larger series.

Ready for Grayson and Parker’s story?

Chapter One

PARKER COLLINS SHOVED a handful of M&M’s in her mouth, eyes glued to Saw III. A burst of light illuminated the pitch-black media room, followed by a scream of terror. Christmas, her four-year-old English mastiff, sacked out beside her on the couch, pushed his big head beneath her legs as darkness shrouded them again. Another shrill scream brought her big chicken of a dog deeper into her leg tunnel.

“Whoever said dogs were a man’s best friend was an idiot. My best friend.” Especially now that Bert’s gone. A few tears slipped down her cheek.

Christmas whimpered, pulled his head from beneath her legs, and licked her from chin to eyes, getting every last one of her tears and coming back for more. He’d been lapping up her tears for two weeks, ever since she’d lost her friend, mentor, and the only family she’d ever known. Bert Stein had suffered a massive heart attack while Parker was in Italy filming her latest movie, and she’d been moving on autopilot ever since: picking up Christmas from his housekeeper in Los Angeles because Bert had been watching him while she was away, attending Bert’s funeral, trying to remember how to breathe, and finally, coming to her house in Wellfleet to mourn—and, she hoped, to mend a fence Bert was never able to with his estranged brother.

Holing up in the bay-front home she’d built for the Collins Children’s Foundation, where no one would look for her, was the only way she could grieve without negative ramifications. Heaven forbid an A-list actress went out looking like an average woman whose heart had been ripped from her chest. Rag magazines would pay big bucks for pictures of her puffy, tired eyes and I-don’t-care tangled hair. She could just imagine the headlines: Parker Collins’s New Drug Addiction, or Unplanned Pregnancy for Parker, or anything else that would sell magazines. Nobody cared that she’d never even smoked a cigarette, that she needed to have sex in order to get pregnant, or that she’d gone so long without, she wondered if her best parts even worked anymore.

She pressed her hands to Christmas’s droopy cheeks, kissed her bewildered boy’s snout, and reached for the bottle of tequila she’d been nursing. She’d never had tequila before tonight, but it was the perfect addition to her chocolate–horror movie grief remedy. After pouring herself another shot, she tossed it back in one gulp, savoring the warmth as it slid down her throat and drowned her sadness.

She set the glass beside her on the couch and shoved her hand into the jumbo bag of peanut M&M’s that had consoled her throughout the evening—because a big lazy dog was great for licking tears, but nothing quenched sadness like candy-coated chocolate. And tequila. Definitely tequila. Her fingers scraped the bottom of the bag. Darn it. She tossed the empty bag to the floor. Christmas hung his head over the side of the couch and whimpered.

“Don’t judge me. It can’t be that bad.” She leaned forward to assess the damage, knocking an empty pizza box to the floor, and reached for the coffee table to stop the room from spinning. “Whoa.”

Another scream brought her eyes to the movie, then toward the movement in her peripheral vision, where a shadowy figure blocked the entrance to the media room. It took her alcohol-drenched mind a minute to realize the tall, broad man filling the doorway wasn’t supposed to be in her house. Panic spread through her veins, catapulting her to her feet. Christmas darted to the stranger with a friendly woof.

“Oh gosh.” She reached for the wall to steady the spinning room, fighting to push through her drunken haze. She’d seen enough movies to know she was going to die in the media room of this lonely house, wearing chocolate-stained sweatpants—or more accurately, ice-cream-, tequila-, pizza-sauce-, and chocolate-stained sweatpants—while her dog made a new friend of her killer.

“Stay back. He’s a killer. One command and you’re dead!” Not likely with her loving dog.

The man sank to one knee, his face hidden by her big, traitorous dog.

“Yeah, I can see that,” he said casually, as only a coldhearted psycho killer could.

Searching for a weapon, she grabbed the tequila bottle, only too late realizing it was spilling down her wrist. She flipped it upright, wishing this was a movie and someone would yell, Cut!

A piercing scream drew their attention to the heart-pounding terror on the projection screen. Suddenly the room was showered in light. Parker’s eyes slammed shut against the sensory invasion, then flew open to get a look at the man who would probably find fame as the Parker Collins Killer.

Her breath caught in her throat, and her hand flew to her frantically beating heart, as she took in the Greek god rising to his feet before her. His smoldering dark eyes nearly brought her to her knees. Grayson Lacroux.

“Grayson?” Do I sound scared, drunk, or like I want to jump your bones? Probably all three, which wasn’t good. Grayson had won a two-year contract in a design competition last summer, and for the past ten months he’d been designing artwork for the Collins Children’s Foundation. As the founder of CCF, Parker headed up the project, and they’d exchanged hundreds of emails—emails that felt intimate and meaningful and had pulled her through too many long, lonely nights to count.

“What are you doing here?” She cringed at how breathless she sounded. Even in her drunken state she knew it had nothing to do with her initial fears and everything to do with the towering male across the room.

His lips curved up as he surveyed the room. She’d come straight down to the media room in full-on holing-up mode after arriving from LA. Her open suitcase lay in the middle of the floor, lace and silk seeping over the sides. The clothes she’d worn on the flight were strewn across the hardwood floor. One pink high heel peeked out from beneath an empty bag of Twizzlers; the other was nowhere in sight. An orgy of fun-size candy bar wrappers and M&M’s littered the floor.

“I might ask you the same thing.” His voice was low and rich and made the room feel fifty degrees hotter.

Maybe that’s the tequila.

“I came to take measurements for the railing and heard a noise. I didn’t know you were here.”

Measurements? She couldn’t think with his dark, assessing gaze trained on her as he crossed the room. Each step was a declaration of power and control—the same air of confidence he relayed in his emails. Parker was used to beautiful people, but holy mother of hot and sexy men, Grayson brought manliness and sex appeal to a whole new level. An enticingly tempting level. She was five nine, and he had several delicious inches on her. His bulbous biceps and massive breadth made her feel more delicate than she was. His tousled, thick dark hair and unwavering air of command made her knees wobble. She took a deep, unsteady breath and backed against the wall to stabilize those wobbly knees, but he stepped closer, assaulting her senses with his musky, and somehow summery, scent.

Nope. Definitely not the tequila. The man was a walking heat wave.

He eyed the tequila bottle in her hand, and his eyes filled with amusement. “Having a little party?” He plucked a sticky piece of candy from her hair and held it between his large finger and thumb with a cocky grin.

A crazy-hot cocky grin that sent dirty thoughts about his mouth rushing to the front of her mind. “Not exactly,” she mumbled.

“You’ve been avoiding my emails.”

She’d been avoiding email, voicemail, and life since Bert’s funeral. Grayson was on her callback list, along with her agent, a few foundation staff members, and about a dozen so-called friends.

“I…Um…” Can’t really think clearly. She lifted the tequila bottle. “Care to join me?”

His gaze dragged down her tank top, reminding her she’d taken off her bra. As if on cue, Christmas woofed, Parker’s pink lace bra dangling from his mouth. Grayson’s eyes brimmed with heat, making her want to put him on a totally different kind of to-do list.

He’d been the subject of her late-night fantasies for so many months she felt like she already knew him well enough for him to own that list.

This was bad.

Very, very bad.

Parker didn’t have that kind of to-do list. She did relationships. Or rather, didn’t do them, based on her dating history.

Ugh! Her head was too fuzzy to try to untangle the web of lust she’d weaved with every email, every intimate glance into his private world of family, friends, and his love of his craft. Grayson worked with heavy metals, as evident from his insanely perfect physique, which no gym in the world could produce, and his designs were excruciatingly unique and beautiful. Parker had probably driven him crazy making changes, but if she had, he’d never let on. She loved reading his descriptions about why he designed certain pieces and how he felt when he was creating them. Sometimes he wrote about missing his family, or about bonfires and outings he’d gone on when he flew home to work with his brother on specific designs for CCF. She’d been careful not to ask personal questions, so she wouldn’t feel inclined to share her personal life, but she had secretly clung to each of his tales, treasuring the emotions he’d so eloquently shared. She’d made excessive design changes just to keep those intimate glances of him coming.

And now he was here, all six-something feet of him, close enough to see and touch and taste—and between her grief and his hunkiness, she was clearly losing her mind.

She pushed past him, grabbed the lingerie from Christmas, and tossed it into her suitcase. “Lie down.”

Christmas walked in a circle and plopped onto a pile of clothes with a huff.

Parker grabbed a shot glass from the bar, determined to remain in her inebriated state so she could deal with all the testosterone flinging around the room, and sank down to the couch. “Coming, big guy?”

To continue reading please buy

Sign up for Addison’s newsletter to be notified of her next release!