Girl's Guide to Hunting & Kissing. Joanne Rock

rogue twinge of envy squeezed Summer as she thought about the kinds of pleasures Brianne and her new fiancé Aidan Maddock had enjoyed at the club. They’d been the first couple to make use of the sensual atmosphere Summer strove to maintain in all the refurbished rooms.

      “Actually, I’m hoping to snag this room any time it’s free, but we’ll probably have lots of reservations for it once a few people have stayed here.” Summer had lived at the hotel for the last year, bouncing from room to room according to whatever was available. “I seem to be short a man for any real christening, but I have to say if I had an opportunity, this room would be my first choice.”

      Some optimistic part of her had hoped to initiate a real relationship at this stage of her life. At twenty-eight years old, she was the only female she knew in her age bracket who had never formed a remotely long-term liaison.

      Of course, that desire for a mild commitment had prevented her from making moves on the guys she’d always been most attracted to—the surfers with the rebel attitudes and the rock ’n’ roll studs who were living on the edge. Somehow she couldn’t work up the same lusty enthusiasm for the more staid investment brokers, entrepreneurs and lawyerly types that invaded South Beach nightlife.

      “Want me to start keeping an eye out for you, Summer? I think I know your type. Unconventional, lives-by-his-own rules kind of guy, right?” Brianne pulled a crushed silk corset out of Summer’s costume bag and grazed the fabric against her cheek.

      Summer frowned, surprised. “Since when did you become the intuitive one, Ms. High Tech?”

      “You’re parading around the club wearing a vintage bustier and pink braids in your hair. Believe me, pure logic brought me to the conclusion you’d like an unconventional guy.”

      “A bustier this gorgeous needed to be seen.” Shaking off the crocheted scarf she’d draped over her shoulders, Summer unveiled the silk moiré undergarment she’d snagged for herself during the costume-shopping spree.

      She could have sworn she heard a swift intake of breath in the corridor outside the door.

      What was it with her and the damn hallway tonight? The sense of someone watching her lingered. But she knew perfectly well Brianne had taken the extra remote security cameras out of the private rooms. No doubt the hot gaze she felt merely resulted from a shivery manifestation of overactive hormones.

      Brianne tugged one of Summer’s decorative pink braids. “I think you’ve crossed over into the fantasy world you created. Did you realize your bustier coordinates perfectly with the bordello?”

      “You think this is fantasy?” Summer adjusted the satin ribbon tying her outfit together. “This doesn’t come close to the ideas I have in mind if I ever found the right guy to christen the bordello with.”

      Brianne pulled the requisite velvet shackles out of Summer’s costume bag and dangled them in front of her nose. “Would you make him your love slave?”

      “Hardly.”

      “You don’t have kinky toe fetishes or anything, do you?”

      “Eeeww.” Summer whipped Brianne’s shoulder with one end of her satin bustier tie. “I’m thinking more along the lines of being totally overwhelmed.” She gestured vaguely around the room. “That’s sort of the whole bordello theme in a nutshell, isn’t it—being at a man’s whim? I mean don’t get me wrong, obviously we’re all grateful the women’s movement has given us so much power over our lives, but sometimes I feel ready to shake off the überwoman syndrome and just be…”

      “Overpowered?” Brianne fanned herself. “Honey, that’s a smoking fantasy. Where do I sign up for that?”

      “It’s definitely not on Club Paradise’s activity list. If it was, I’d be the first to sign on.” She could certainly use the stress-relieving benefits of sex. She’d been giving one hundred and ten percent to the hotel in an effort to prepare the rooms for a possible print pictorial in Wanderlust magazine this fall. The spread would be a professional coup, but it would mean publicly staking her success—and the resort’s—on her design talent.

      Summer peered toward the door again, her skin tingling along with that overactive sixth sense.

      Or maybe her skin simply tingled from thinking about her favorite seduction scenario.

      “I’m right there with you.” Brianne stood, her eyes now glued on the miniature surveillance monitor she’d installed in a sort of wristwatch contraption. “But for now I’d better go check the security and make sure things are running smoothly around the club tonight.”

      With a few more exclamations over the bordello, Brianne was out the door, leaving Summer by herself to unload the exotic lingerie costumes into a decorative armoire.

      She turned back to the task, hanging corsets and merry widows from quilted pink hangers in the cherry cabinet.

      Yet the maddening sensation of being watched returned. Spinning around, she followed her instincts this time, unconcerned if she was being paranoid. She skirted the settee and hustled to the open door. Leaning over the housekeeping supply cart, she poked her head out into the corridor and saw nothing. No one.

      Brianne had disappeared in the hallway and no one else lurked there.

      Okay, so she was definitely paranoid. Easing back into the bordello, Summer edged around the housekeeping cart. The satin ties on her bustier trailed over a stack of fresh towels and a shiny silver box.

      No. A cell phone.

      She reached for the item. As her fingers grazed the cool metal it started to vibrate.

      A shivery sensation skated through her for a split second, confirming that she’d denied her sexual impulses for too long.

      Jiggling the stack of cotton towels beneath it, the phone hummed and then emitted a shrill ring. Never a woman to mind her own business, Summer unfolded the sleek case and willed away the stray tingles humming through her.

      “Hello?” She tucked back into the bordello, hugging the phone to her ear with one shoulder.

      “Thanks for picking up.” A smooth and sexy masculine voice rolled through the airwaves. “I’m trying to track down my cell phone so I thought I’d ring the number and see what happened.”

      He’d ignited a lonely woman’s libido with a vibrating phone. How perfectly clever.

      “You seem to have misplaced it on a housekeeping cart.” She glanced back at the maid’s apparatus and wondered what the man on the other end of this amazing voice might look like. “Right between the triple-milled French soaps and the lavender hand lotions.”

      “Of all the places to land in an exotic hotel, I get stuck in the rolling soap-supply station.”

      “Actually, the soap station was teetering on the threshold of the Bad Girl Bordello. I call that kind of exotic.” A smile warmed her insides. When was the last time she’d flirted with a man?

      “Now that sounds more like it. I don’t know how my phone ended up there, but I did wander through the resort earlier tonight before I went into the bar. I’m Jackson, by the way. Would you mind if I came by to pick up the phone?”

      Mentally she reviewed why that wouldn’t be a good idea. She should meet him in a public place like the lounge just in case he was a serial killer. Then again, she could always just ask Brianne to check on her in a little while.

      “Sure. I’m Summer Farnsworth and the phone will be with me in the bordello.” Could she help it if her inner bad girl still made occasional appearances? “It’s on the ocean side of the main floor.”

      “I’m on my way.” The line disconnected as she folded up the phone.

      Hesitating a moment, she opened it again and placed a quick call to Brianne to make sure her friend would keep an eye out for her tonight. Brianne’s experience with a creepy stalker had made everyone at Club Paradise a little more cautious.