His Final Seduction Read online

  “Forgot to mention?” The world crashed around him.

  “Oopsie.” She shrugged with a glint in her eye.

  Panic twisted inside his gut. “What clause?”

  Her right hand opened and a piece of parchment appeared in a ball of flames. Leaving the contract to hover in midair, she blabbered as she scanned the page. “Blah, blah, blah…oh, here it is. ‘Contract can only be terminated when borrower’—that’s you—‘provides guarantor’—that’s me—‘with the life-force of Sydney James, borrower’s final seduction’.”

  “I have to kill her?” His psyche revolted along with his stomach, and Giselle’s earlier line of questions made sense. By choosing his final victim, by sharing that decision with Giselle, he’d doomed Sydney James to death.

  “All you have to do is steal her soul and give it to me.” She shook her head like it wasn’t a big deal. “Then your debt will be considered paid.”

  His body went limp but he stood tall. “And if I refuse?”

  She moved in front of him, standing toe-to-toe, and wrapped her arms around his neck. He made a move to push her away, but his body no longer accepted commands from his brain. Giselle’s succubus spell glued him to the spot, and he had no defense against her when she pulled him close and whispered in his ear.

  “Refusal means you’ll belong to me, Damien Blake. For all eternity.”

  Chapter Two

  Sydney stood with her mouth open wide. Gorgeous didn’t begin to describe her room, and she was pretty sure the dizzying affects of alcohol were no match for the intoxicating atmosphere. She had to fight the urge to dance around naked, laughing and screaming madly at the top of her lungs, but the guests on either side of her probably wouldn’t appreciate the commotion.

  Sheer earth-green curtains danced in the wind above the open double-paned glass doors leading to the patio. The floor was an eclectic variety of colored tiles—broken and whole—strewn about in a haphazard fashion. Bumps and dents distressed the neutral-toned tables and dressers in that shabby-chic fashion she liked so much, and fresh flower arrangements sat on top of their grainy surfaces, giving the room a tropical scent that mingled with the salty ocean air.

  The focal point of the room, however, was a super-king-sized four-poster bed. A beige comforter with pale pink and yellow swirls lay atop the mattress, and the corner nearest her was pulled back in an inviting fashion. Pillows—decorative throws and shams as well as three king pillows—lined the headboard. There were also a few oddly shaped ones—rectangles and wedges—that seemed out of place, but hey, maybe that was the in thing down here.

  Finally giving into the effects of the room, she reverted to the mental state of a two-year-old and sprinted toward the bed. Letting loose with a high-pitched squeal, she jumped onto the mattress but didn’t notice the squat, rectangular box until it was too late.

  She landed right on top of it and heard a buzzing noise echoing inside the now-bent sides. It sounded like her battery-powered toothbrush.

  Smiling, she rolled from the box and ripped it open.

  And her good mood took a nosedive.

  hhh

  Damien sat alone on the sandy beach outside his house and watched the sun peeking in and out of the angry clouds swirling on the horizon. He often came here to think, to try and assuage the growing guilt that ate at his heart like a metastasizing cancer, but it all felt different this time. He’d have to do more than sleep with the last woman—he’d have to kill her.

  He cursed himself again for the deal he’d penned with Giselle and mourned the man this contract had murdered, hated the man it had birthed. He’d used every excuse in the book to assuage his guilt—I’m not permanently hurting anyone…they come down here looking for sex—but the justifications didn’t help anymore. Who was he kidding? They’d never worked.

  When he’d been a randy college student, then later as a successful hotel manager in Paris, seducing women had been a game. A little smooth talk, a bit of flattery and a bottle of alcohol equaled a night of consensual fucking, but what he was forced to do now was beyond unforgivable.

  Hell, he couldn’t even remember how long it had been since sex and the thrill of seducing a woman carried even the slightest appeal. It wasn’t even a challenge anymore. As part of the deal, Giselle had bestowed on him all the irresistible charm of the sex demons. Seducing a woman was as easy as deciding which woman he wanted to seduce. Easier actually.

  With a simple thought, a touch, he could melt through any woman’s resolve and fan the smoldering flames of her passion until they roared with such intensity and power they burned out of control. He’d never actually forced a woman to do anything she truly didn’t want to do. He’d simply made it impossible for her to resist her own desires, and as long as she didn’t fight, the sensations she experienced while he drank in her energy were like bursts of pure concentrated pleasure.

  But with each body he used, every woman he robbed, his self-hatred grew even stronger. Sometimes he wondered if his battered soul even had anything left to be salvaged. For reasons he couldn’t explain, the face of the auburn-haired woman from the foyer developed in his mind.

  The woman he’d doomed to death. Shit. Sydney James had no clue she’d even been pulled into his tangled web of sex, deception and death.

  He shook his head. Would he be able to stoop to murder? On any other day, the answer would have been a resounding “No!” But to stop now, to leave the contract unfulfilled, would seal his fate for the rest of eternity.

  Neither option carried much appeal.

  hhh

  “You booked me at a sex club?”

  Gripping the cell phone so hard she feared it might break, Sydney shook with rage. She’d never been so livid in her life. A sex club? What the hell were her friends thinking? She felt like a bitch who’d been shipped off to a breeding farm because she was in heat. Sure, she’d been in an anti-relationship funk the past year, but it was of her own choosing and was no one else’s damned business.

  “It’ll be fun.” Genny’s gloating voice shrieked though the earpiece. “You know what they say…‘what happens in the Caribbean, stays in the Caribbean’.”

  “This isn’t Vegas, Gen. It’s a sex club.”

  “A world-famous sex club, I might add. You can’t imagine the kind of favors we had to pull just to get you a reservation.”

  “Oh, good God!”

  Sydney glared at the crushed box that had instigated this conversation. What she thought might be a battery-powered toothbrush turned out to be a vibrator—one of three in varying shapes, sizes, and colors. Oh, but that wasn’t all. Personal lubricants. Lickable body oil. A Kama Sutra book. Self-help videos. Hell, there were even varying forms of physical restraints, and she hadn’t even finished reading the pamphlet of items for purchase or rent in the gift shop or the schedule of parties the club hosted daily. This was shaping up to be the week from hell.

  Or maybe not, her body hummed. Either way, she was in some serious trouble here.

  “There’s no way I can stay here, Gen.”

  “Sure you can. You haven’t been out on a date since you moved back from LA. If you were a guy, I’d wonder if your dick hadn’t shriveled up and fallen off.”

  “Damn it, Genny.” She shoved her hand through her hair. If she’d been within arm’s distance, she’d have strangled her long-time friend.

  “Come on. When’s the last time you got laid?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  Genny’s laugh sounded like something that belonged to a hyena. “Don’t remember, do ya?”

  Sydney let out an exasperated breath. She remembered all too well when she’d last had sex—she just didn’t want to remember the office escapade that had ended her aspiring legal career. It was never a good idea to sleep with a married man, but it was doubly stupid when the cheating bastard and his ice-bitch-queen wife were both partners at the law firm where she worked… That spelled unemployment in all caps.

  “I can’t belie
ve you did this to me. Sending me here is like sending a recovering alcoholic to a party with an open bar.”

  “Oh, stop being such a prude. It’s not like you’re going to fuck every man on the island…just a couple of them.”

  “I’m not fucking anyone.” Sydney turned her back on the box of sexual goodies and walked onto the balcony to get some fresh air.

  Didn’t her friends understand? Sex got her into trouble. Bad trouble. It always had. It was the reason she’d sworn off men. She needed to get a handle on her libido. Her sex drive couldn’t be the driving force in everything she did.

  “Come ooooon. Get lucky with at least one guy. I’m sure you’ll remember how good it feels. Hell, get lucky with a woman. I know how much you’ve always wanted a little taste of the lesbian lifestyle…”

  “I do not!” Surrendering to the muggy heat, Sydney peeled off her top shirt and used the cotton material to swipe at the sweat beads popping up on her forehead and neck.

  “I just wanna see you have a little fun. You were party-girl extraordinaire in college, and after graduation, you were the up-and-coming lawyer every woman would have given her right breast implant to be. Now, let’s face it…my grandma gets more action than you.”

  Genny’s laughter bubbled through the phone’s earpiece, and Sydney clenched her fists. Strangulation sounded like a better idea with each passing moment.

  “Tell me I don’t need to remind you how to have sex. Okay, first you—”

  “Fuck off, Genny. I remember all the mechanics.” Not even the blissful brilliance of the rolling hillside in the distance or the lapping waves put a damper on her anger. “But it doesn’t matter because I’m boarding the next flight out.”

  “That’s fine,” Genny agreed easily, a smile in her voice as though she were talking about an inside joke Sydney didn’t understand. “There’s not another plane scheduled to leave until Saturday, so like it or not, you’re stuck there. You might as well make the most of it.”

  “Shit.” She closed her eyes. What was she going to do? Locking herself in the closet sounded like a good alternative.

  “Just accept your fate, get drunk, find yourself some good-looking guy—or woman—and let your imagination and hormones run rampant.”

  A knock at the door preempted Sydney’s rebuttal. “I gotta go.” She ground out each word with deliberation. “Someone’s here. But don’t think for a second this conversation is over.”

  “Wait. Is it a guy? Is it—”

  She clicked off before her friend got another word in. The conversation had gone on too long anyway. She tossed her shirt and iPhone onto the bed. The cell bounced off the mattress and into the box of goodies.

  Rolling her eyes, she ripped the door open and almost fell on her ass.

  The man she’d seen earlier—the one who’d set off a slideshow of X-rated pictures in her mind—relaxed against the doorframe, one foot crossed over the other. He was gripping a laptop-sized box. White linen pants encased his legs and tanned skin peeked through his unbuttoned shirt, revealing a chiseled chest and a sprinkling of dark hair. A restraint tied wet, jet-black locks at the nape of his neck, and a smile hot enough to heat the entire southern hemisphere decorated his face.

  Sydney leaned against the door to alleviate some of the pressure from her suddenly shaking knees. “M-may I help y-you?”

  “I sure hope so.” He thrust the box toward her. “My name is Damien Blake. I’m the owner of Club Carnal.”

  “I-I…”

  And just like it had happened in the lobby, a wave of lust annihilated her senses. Her grip on the door tightened and her legs started to buckle. It took every ounce of willpower she possessed to resist the impulse to rip off his linen pants, throw him down in the middle of the hallway and ride his cock until she screamed.

  Whoa. She shook her head, sucked in a deep breath. Where the hell did that thought come from?

  “W-what’s that?” She pointed to the box he held toward her and, unable to control her shaking hands, grabbed the container and quickly pulled it to her chest.

  His smile grew. So did the fire nipping at her clit. “A gift.”

  God, even his deep voice seduced her sanity into relaxing its rigid control and, as his gaze skimmed over her body, an elixir of heat under her flesh erupted into a boiling frenzy.

  “Mind if I come in?”

  “N-no,” she lied, taking an unsteady step to the side.

  As he walked past, his shoulder brushed hers. A potent cocktail of sun and sex teased her nose, and she shook her head, tried to beat back the sudden rush of hormones his accidental touch unleashed.

  “I hope your accommodations are to your liking, Ms. James.”

  “They’re perfect.” She turned as slowly as possible, needing the time to soothe her frenzied wits. “Is there something wrong, Mr. Blake?”

  “Wrong?” His face split into another dazzling smile. “No, nothing’s wrong. And please, call me Damien.”

  “Okay.” She crossed her arms and clutched the box against her breasts. Was it the Caribbean heat or something more potent stirring her senses to new heights? Never before had a man’s simple presence caused such a fierce reaction in her body. “Is there something I can help you with then?”

  “As a matter of fact, there is.”

  He planted his hands on his waist and the edges of his unbuttoned shirt split apart, revealing even more tanned, toned skin. Like a toddler ogling a cookie jar, her gaze caressed every muscular rise and fall. The thought of tracing each of those defined lines with her tongue scattered gasoline on the simmering fire in her loins.

  “I was hoping you’d join me for dinner, Ms. James.”

  Her brow shot up. A strange, gorgeous man—the owner of an entire island—wanted to take her to dinner? Seems more than people’s clothes were off down here.

  “The chefs have a wonderful lineup this evening,” he tempted her further.

  “Dinner? Me?”

  “Yes.” His laughter fanned the flames of lust. “What do you say?

  “I, uh…”

  She scrubbed a palm over the side of her neck. How was she supposed to think about anything when her clit burned with the intensity of an out-of-control wildfire?

  Shit, none of her reactions made sense. Before, she’d never accept gifts or agree to dinner with someone she’d met less than five minutes earlier, but as carnal thoughts tripped up the logic centers of her brain, the words just came out.

  “Sure. I guess.”

  “Wonderful.” He pointed to the package clutched to her chest. “While there’s no dress code per se, I took the liberty of bringing you a little something for the occasion.”

  “You brought me…clothes?” Confusion wrinkled her brow and she looked at the box. He didn’t even know her, and he was bringing her gifts? Something wasn’t just off, it was alternate-universe off.

  “Yes.” He lifted his right hand and stroked his middle finger down the side of her neck. Her eyes drifted shut. “It’s just something to accentuate the beauty of your body.” His other hand settled on her waist, drew her closer. “The contours of your curves. The brilliance of your breasts.”

  On the verge of going supernova from his boldness, Sydney went limp and the box fell to the tiled floor. The only thing keeping her from joining it were the masculine arms that banded her.

  “I’ve got you, Sydney.”

  He sure did.

  Rational thought dissolved. Her hands inched up his muscular forearms. The heat of his skin kick-started a chain reaction of lust cascading through her blood, boiling the fluid with fantasies and desires long denied.

  “Who are you?” she whispered, losing herself in the sensual fantasy he spun with a single touch.

  “Whoever you want me to be…”

  He slipped the strap of her tank from her left shoulder and tugged the thin cotton until he exposed her breast to his hungry gaze. A thick spell of erotic mojo dampened reality, and the thought to stop him, to demand an explanatio
n, never occurred to her.

  He lowered his head and his tongue found the rigid peak of her nipple. Mindless to anything but physical gratification, she gripped him with tense expectation, completely absorbed by his sudden seduction. The sensations wrenched moan after moan from her body. She buried her fingers in his hair, disrupting the perfection of the restrained strands, her actions begging him for more. But he pulled away.

  “Not quite so fast,” he whispered, his breath a burst of moist heat against her aroused nipple.

  Sliding deeper under his enchantment, she shook her head from side to side. “Why not?”

  “Because we’ve got all night to do this, beautiful.” He nibbled at the pebbled peak in a series of aggressive nips but refused to give her the full contact she craved.

  “Please…”

  His hand molded against her back, slid down to cup her ass. The thin material of her capris offered a scant barrier against his scorching touch. He kneaded the round mass for a torturous moment before sliding farther down.

  “You beg like a woman who knows what she wants.” He hooked his hand around the back of her knee and tucked it alongside his waist. “And there’s nothing sexier than that.”

  In a move she’d never forget, Damien pressed his thigh against her damp pussy. And rubbed.

  “Oh, God…”

  Long denied of pleasure, she clung to Damien’s wide shoulders as the slight friction propelled her over the edge, and a decimating orgasm ravaged her body. Frantic ripples drenched her in heavy surges. Her nails bit into his skin.

  “Welcome to Club Carnal, Sydney.”

  Damien’s chuckle caressed her hormone-soaked senses as the battering waves tapered into a series of lingering swells and recoils. She twisted her fingers into his hair and pressed her face into the crevice of his neck, breathing in his sun-and-sex fragrance.