CHAPTER TWO
“Okay, you’re both crazy,” Sage laughed, almost doubling over with hilarity as they stood just outside the hotel, waiting for their limousine.
She had already done six of the fifteen things on the damn list, including ordering for a limousine, drinking an entire bottle of chardonnay before dinner, going without any underwear, flirting with a bell boy, flashing the cameras in the lift, and hiding her shoes in her bag and coming downstairs barefoot.
She hadn’t done the first thing, though, and Eden insisted they would not leave the hotel until she had flashed some handsome stranger. So far, all the men she had seen had been with their wives or girlfriends, and while she was here to have fun, she didn’t want to cause trouble for some hapless man. If there was one thing she knew, her breasts were show-stoppers. They were large and round, and men tended to stare at the girls even when they were covered up, never mind when they were exposed. Why, one time, she had gone to the beach with Brent and he had gotten so jealous of all the glances men kept stealing her way that he had whipped out his sweatshirt and demanded she wear it. That was the first and last time he had ever taken her to the beach, even though he knew she loved swimming. If she flashed some man now, and he stopped to stare, she didn’t think his lady would be particularly amused.
“Don’t be a wuss, Sage. Come on, flash that elderly man and his wife,” Eden suggested, pointing at a pious-looking elderly couple sitting a few feet away.
Sage shook her head, dimples flashing as she smiled at her friends. “And what would happen if they keel over from the sheer shock of it? I can’t have that on my conscience.”
Beth laughed throatily, flinging back her blond head as she did so. “Okay, flash that super model’s boyfriend,” she suggested mischievously, pointing at a tattooed couple necking in the lobby of the hotel. They were trying so hard to appear romantic and in love, it was almost painful to watch.
“No, her breasts are the size of mosquito bites; I don’t want her to develop a complex,” Sage overruled. “Two years from now, she’d be telling Oprah how she developed a drug use problem because some blond woman flashed her guy in a hotel lobby in Spain.”
Beth snorted with laughter at that one, but Eden sighed and began to complain about the passing time. Sage rolled her eyes, opened her mouth and started to tell Eden that this had all been her idea so she could well wait until she saw whoever she was supposed to shock with her breasts and that was when she saw him.
He was tall, very tall, with a height of at least six-two; his hair was coal-black and in artful disarray around his head. It was sexily mussed, as though he had just gotten out of bed after rolling around for hours in said bed. His brows were dark, bushy and defined the sheer masculinity of his face, and even from this distance, she could see his eyes were also black as night. He had a pair of firmly chiseled lips, a firm masculine jaw, high cheekbones that strangely defined his masculinity, and a long aristocratic nose that gave his face character. His shoulders were so wide they tempted a woman to just lay her head on them and his chest strained with the promise of raw strength with every step he took.
He was so handsome he looked like a Greek god in the flesh, Sage thought dazedly as she stared openly at him. He was striding towards the hotel from the parking lot, his eyes glued to the smart-phone in his right hand while his left carried a backpack. He was dressed casually, in jeans and a shirt, but somehow, an invisible aura of power clung to him; he exuded confidence and authority. Barely restrained physical strength was also apparent in every line of movement his body made.
Eden and Beth had identical shocked expressions on their lovely faces as they stared at him, their mouths open. Sage licked her lips to keep her mouth from falling open. The man was truly delicious!
The man looked up just then as he came up to them, and his eyes met and held hers. Unable to stop herself, and without giving it a second thought, Sage reached up and slowly, very slowly, let the left sleeve of her dress fall, barring the creamy, silky skin of her full, thrusting, left breast all the way to the nipple and the fleshy, soft undersides of her breast.
The man’s eyes dropped to her large, naked breast, caressed the breast, feasted on it, before rising slowly to hers. Sage waited triumphantly to see the inevitable spark of desire in his eyes no man ever saw her breasts and didn’t go a little crazy. They were large, firm, fleshy and just begged to be caressed.
The naked revulsion and distaste that looked back at her from his black eyes were a surprise and it hit her like a splash of cold water. His lip curled in a sneer of distaste, making her feel lower than an insect.
Hastily, she scrambled to drag the sleeve of her dress into place and opened her mouth intending to apologize, but the man had already walked around her and her friends, giving them a wide berth, before disappearing into the hotel without a word or a backward glance.
“Who does he think he is?” Sage grumbled hours later as she sucked the lime from her drink.
She hadn’t been able to get the handsome stranger out of her mind, and not because of his looks, either. He had shaken her confidence in herself, which was something that had not happened since her teenage years; why, even Brent hadn’t managed that with all his unkind words. Yet, this man, with just one look, had managed to strip her of every last shred of confidence in a nanosecond. She had actually been on the verge of apologizing to the creep!
“He’s a boorish party popper, that’s who! He should have kissed the ground in gratitude that you picked him to show your jugs to,” Beth declared loyally.
“Forget him. It’s a vacation memory,” Eden said breezily. “You need to make out with a waiter,” she added in the next breath.
“What?” Sage gasped.
“Yeah, it’s the next item on the list,” Eden said earnestly, one long, manicured finger tapping the paper like it was the law of the universe itself.
“That damn list! I wanna see it!” Sage demanded, snatching it out of Eden’s hand over her friends’ protests.
Her eyes quickly scanned the rest of the list and she looked up and glared at her friends. “I may make out with the waiter in front of everyone, but that’s it. I am certainly not going to sleep with a stranger and snatch his wallet after that!”
“We’ll get there. Now make out with that waiter, he’s cute. You need to also go flirt with a group of guys when you’re done.”
“This is beginning to feel more like torture than fun,” Sage moaned, leaning her head against her hands. “I’m drunk!”
“Which makes it easier,” Beth cajoled.
“What the hell does that mean?” Sage wondered.
“Dutch courage,” Eden informed her. “Here he comes now,” she sang.
Sage looked up blearily at the waiter. He was cute, if her type ran to twelve-year-olds barely out of the schoolroom. She was just twenty-six, and yet, somehow, she felt as though she would be violating him if she planted one on him.
“Can I get you Senoras anything else?” he asked in thickly accented English.
“How old are you?” she croaked before she could think better of it.
“Twenty-two,” he said without as much as a flicker of surprise.
“Oh, you’re legal,” she breathed.
She rose to her feet in one fluid motion and before he could as much as draw another breath, she planted her lips firmly against his, drawing his lips in for a deep, deep, tongue-tangling kiss.
He gasped against her mouth and then his hands tightened around her waist.
“In your dreams, sailor,” she breathed as she pulled out of his arms.
The kid blushed, and then turned and fled towards the kitchen, his handkerchief flapping in his hands.
Beth and Eden dissolved into giggles.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing? Why did you have to use your tongue?” Beth whispered.
“How do you mean?” Sage whispered back.
“Come on, he’s a good-looking guy in an exotic tourist country with girls trooping in by the thousands daily; who knows where that mouth has been? He could have herpes!” Eden said.
Sage paled. “Why didn’t you tell me that earlier?” she asked, her heart hammering with fear.
Eden whooped with laughter and Beth actually slid off her seat in the booth onto the floor overcome with laughter. By now, everyone in the restaurant was looking their way and either grinning or shaking their heads.
Sage frowned suspiciously at her laughing friends, “What?”
“Did Did you see her face?” Eden laughed, one hand clenching Beth’s shoulder as they both convulsed in laughter, breathlessly struggling to regain control.
Sage glared at them. They had been kidding around, frightening her with thoughts of herpes. A sneaking suspicion entered her mind and she yanked the collar of Beth’s dress, hauling her off the floor and back onto the booth.
“Who did you kiss, Beth, during your own list thingy?” she demanded.
“Same guy. What gave me away?” Beth asked, grinning widely.
Sage shook her head in exasperation. Her friends had to be the most annoying people she had ever clapped eyes on!
She looked away angrily.
“Sage? Are you mad at us?” Beth asked, her laughter fading.
That was Beth; for all her occasional carefree attitude, she never wanted to hurt anyone. She was always the first of all three of them to apologize. Sage immediately felt like a heel when she saw the contrite expression on Beth’s pretty face.
She opened her mouth to assure Beth that she wasn’t angry but Eden forestalled her with a breezy, “Angry or not, you still have to do the next item on the list.”
Beth and Sage rolled their eyes in unison.
Sage looked at the list. Flirt with a group of guys and get them eating out of your palms.
Easy; or at least it should be. They were presently sitting in a restaurant cum bar and it was positively teeming with guys of all ages. Sage looked around, and for the first time, realized she was getting bored again; the men all looked alike for some reason. She really didn’t feel like flirting with a bunch of strangers; besides, flashing lobby guy hadn’t worked out so well. He had stared at her as though she were a bug that had crawled out from beneath his expensive loafers and strode away, perhaps to nurse his offended sensibilities.
Oh, what had she been thinking? A man like that definitely had a girlfriend. Now maybe he was laughing at her with his girlfriend.
“Earth to Sage,” Eden cried, clicking her fingers in front of Sage’s face.
“Sorry.”
“Get on with it then,” Beth said, nodding in the direction of a group of three men, sitting and laughing at a table for six. “And don’t forget the fourteenth item on the list; you can take any of them home tonight and snatch his wallet before morning,” she reminded her, eyes sparkling with mischief.
Sage leaned forward, “I am not going to bed with any of those guys!”
“Fine! All you have to do is take him into a room and drug him silly, then grab his wallet and run for it,” Eden said exasperatedly.
Sage stared at her friend’s red head as though she had grown an additional head. This was beginning to sound like something straight out of Most Wanted.
With a shake of her blond head, Sage slowly rose to her feet before striding to join the men at their table, her eyes trained on them with a deliberately predatory air that seemed to be fail-proof with guys these days.
“Hi fellas,” she purred, her voice huskier than usual.
Cougar mode; not that they were younger guys, though.
“What the hell? Who are you?” one of them asked rudely.
Sage tried not to let her confidence falter at that one. It was already battered, thanks to lobby guy. She grinned saucily at the guy who had spoken; he was hot in a boy-next-door kind of way.
She opened her mouth to respond but she was forestalled by a shrill, “Who the hell is she?” from behind her.
She didn’t even have to turn around to know she was the ‘she’ in question.
“Sorry. My bad,” she began, casting a wry look over her shoulder at the three ladies standing behind her.
“Look at that, Lou, we turn our backs for one second and someone is panting after our guys,” one of the three ladies whispered sotto voce.
“Yeah, someone’s got some explaining to do,” the third lady said, coming forward aggressively.
Sage barely refrained from rolling her eyes at such drama.
“Listen ladies, I was not panting after your guys, I was only ”
“Waiting for me,” a deep voice interrupted with quiet assurance from somewhere behind them.
Everyone froze. Slowly, Sage turned around with everyone else to see who had spoken and she paled; it was lobby guy!