Hot and Bothered Read online

  Hot And Bothered

  * * *

  Illicit Encountered 1

  C.J. McLane

  Hot And Bothered

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

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  Chapter One

  THE BEACH STRETCHED out in front of Elize, a ribbon of white between the baby blue surf and tropical greens of palm trees and jungle flora. Elize walked along the strip of well-trodden sand down the middle of the beach. It ran from a cove around the bend behind her to the resort a few hundred feet in front of her. The waves that lapped the beach were soft, never having the white cap that remained like a sailor cap on waves that beat against the breakers off the shore in the distance. The resort had a large dock, some called it wharf, extending from its front down to the where the water met the earth.

  The resort, Hotel Caribbean, was a little known tourist destination in the Caribbean. It wasn't as plush as the other, high end places to book rooms at, and that was exactly the point. Before booking her vacation, Elize had read an article in Forbes magazine about how the hot spots visited by the vacationing business elite were becoming scuzzy with thinly veiled prostitution rackets and drug rings. Although many businessmen visited them exactly for this reason, it left Elize and her peers seeking other destinations off the beaten path.

  The article went on to talk about how some of the regular old four or five star resorts were the next hidden gem to be discovered in the world of travel and leisure, and so she booked her trip accordingly.

  When she got here Elize didn't really know what to expect. She hoped the accommodations would be on par with high end resorts, but she also realized that she was conceding a few things to get a little bit of class and privacy in return.

  At first it was a strange experience, the less bourgeoisie tourists that surrounded her were much different than the usual beach goers she was used to.

  No more running into other lawyers on the beach, that much was certain.

  Elize was a high profile corporate attorney for the law firm owned by her father and piloted by her socialite mother — and she was a damn good one at that. When she had first started, she'd had to shake the stigma of higbeing daddy's little pet, though. Now she was recognized at one of the leading talents in the law industry.

  Elize had a knack for getting big corporate accounts to sign with her, where the stuffier of her colleagues seemed time and again to come up short for whatever reason. Her father was sick of the reasons, that much he had made clear to her before she'd left. Elize remembered the long tangent he'd tried to get through to her as she'd sailed out of the office during her last few minutes before going home to grab her bags and to head to the airport.

  “Elize you've got what so many others don't have in this industry; a combination of drive, talent and charisma that leave so many of the other people I hire in the dust,” her father had ranted. “I wish you didn't feel the need to run off to the islands for some peace and quiet. But I understand if you feel like it's a priority. Why I remember...”

  Elize hadn't heard the rest of it because she'd tip toed out of her office and sprinted to the elevator before the rest of it could reach her ears. It wasn't hard to get her old man going, and he had been going off on the same old speech he'd been going off on for months and months now. He would blame how law schools were run or how shitty so many of his younger lawyers in the firm were doing. It wouldn't matter what anyone else offered to the discussion, no matter how insightful, he would keep on that tangent until he became tired and had to go home.

  Elize didn't have time to wait for her father to calm down, and in fact it had been the exact kind of situation that drove her from the office on a number of occasions. Things at her father's firm had always been serious, but now even her success was being used as rant material. It made her feel like she couldn't win, like anything she did would be brought up later in some kind of argument or nag fest.

  So she tip toed out of the room and flew to the Caribbean like any young professional would do.

  Elize walked on the small rut in the white powder sand of the beach while she looked at the horizon out past the breakers. This vacation was exactly what she needed.

  Well, she could have also used some male companionship, but some things couldn't be helped. She knew she would feel dirty and regret it later if she paid for someone to hang out with her while she was here, even if nothing intimate happened.

  It wasn't really about that.

  Elize was just having a hard time reminding herself that she was sexy as she padded up the beach toward the resort in a bikini that left very little to the imagination. Her long black hair flowed down her back in locks that reached the dimples in her back and her breasts bounced and swayed with her every step. Being only five foot four inches, Elize wasn't tall at all, and the heat from the beach's sand radiated up to put the sheen of sweat on her brow.

  As she wiped her head she wondered if it was just the heat or if worry about possibly moving up the ranks in her father's firm.

  Or... marrying her fiancé, Gerald Martin.

  Chapter Two

  GERALD HAD STAYED behind this vacation, wanting to give Elize as much space as she seemed to need to clear her head. Elize appreciated it. But she wondered if he understood that the pressure would be waiting for her as soon as she got back, just as she'd left it.

  It was like leaving a spring loaded trap, knowing you would have to come back and deal with it at some point.

  The feeling of dread in her stomach had been building over the last few days as her departure time drew closer. Elize would have to fly back home to Gerald, and to her father, and to the title of her last name, Adamson — and everythinghea> that went with it.

  She felt like she had to let her father promote her like he was obviously hinting at, which would more or less mean she would be signing her future over to some kind of grandiose exaltation of her last name, a name that she would soon be changing since she had said yes to Gerald's engagement.

  She could tell that he knew she had some hesitation, but didn't want to press the issue by prying. She had said yes, and she had meant it, but there were a lot of doubts that swirled in her head regarding the union.

  Were they ready to settle down so young? Sure they both had serious, high profile jobs, but in the end she felt like they had rushed past their child hood head long into—

  Elize looked up from the ground just in time to see she was about to run into a tall man. The look on his face was one of surprise, worn by someone who similarly just looked up to see they were about to walk into someone.

  Between the heat and the sound of waves on the shore there was something hypnotic about the atmosphere of the beach and it was easy for a person to get lost in themselves as they walked. Elize realized she had been walking and thinking for a little, while judging by the amount of sand she'd crossed to come pretty near the resort.

  “Hello, my name is... Joey. A pleasure to meet you,” the man said as he extended his hand.

  Something about the way he said it, the moment of hesitation, told her he'd just pulled a name out of the air for his immediate needs. She also noticed something else — he’s a strikingly handsome guy.

  Well shit, Elize thought, if he can do it so can I.

  “Well hello,” Elize said. “My name is Anna. Sorry to almost run into you. I've been deep in thought as I've been walking and, you know...” She trailed off.

  “I know exactly what you me
an,” Joey said. “In fact I was doing the exact same thing. I think it's called brooding when someone is deep in thought about things that are particularly serious.”

  Elize smiled big at a word she had just looked up a few days earlier after reading it in a newspaper. “Brooding,” she said. “You know, the world is so full of coincidences because I just looked up that word in a magazine arti—”

  Joey cut her off. “In the Forbes article about where to go when you don't want to run into the snooty professional crowd on your beach vacation?” Joey said, and then laughed.

  When he laughed, Elize couldn't help but laugh as well, her mouth stretching until it hurt. “Yeah, that's the one!” Elize said. “You know, it would seem that similar thinking brought us to a similar destination and that would seem to defeat the purpose of the article all together.”

  “I thought that might happen, you know...”

  Joey, or whatever his real name was, started going off on some fairly intellectual tangent that normally would have impressed Elize if she wasn't already being impressed by his looks. Looking him up and down as slyly as she could, she took in his rock hard abs — a six pack that looked like it was made of granite — the black locks of hair on his head that curled and cascaded down to shoulder length and the chiseled definition of his features.

  His dark brown eyes seemed to hold a depth that she wasn't used to seeing in Gerald's eyes. Suddenly his words broke through to her.

  “Are you okay? You seem to be a little thrown off. Are you sure you don't need some water or something?” Joey asked.

  “Umm, yes, water would be good, thank you,” Elize said.

  They started to walk back toward the resort when Elize hesitated for a moment.

  “What exactly are you doing on the beach, anyway?” she asked.art she a

  “I was taking pictures of surfers,” Joey said. “And I saw you coming at me and tried to move, but then at the same time forgot I needed to move and started taking pictures again. Not that I’m a photographer, really. I just want to try it out since I enjoy it from time to time.”

  Elize surveyed Joey and noticed a camera slung around his neck. From the looks of it, it was vintage, and he didn't have any of the fancy stuff that the hipster photographers that populated her town seemed to like to tote around, as if a tripod and a set of spare lenses would magically give them some kind of talent they didn't have before.

  “And where are we going?” Elize asked. She wasn't usually so ready to go anywhere with strangers.

  Joey's face had a smile break across it before he answered, as if he realized that Elize was having second thoughts about going with him — not because she didn't want to but because she felt like she should feel like she didn't want to.

  “Well,” Joey said. “I figured that we'd go back to where I’m staying since it’s very near from here. My buddy is renting it to me for the weekend. I'm a painter and my pal that frequently stays in the Caribbean has a little pad right off of the resort. I think it was actually here before the resort got put in a few summers ago. What do you say?”

  Elize hesitated, not sure of what she should do. Joey was right about one thing, she was confused, and about many things at once.

  “Well,” Elize said. “I guess it couldn't hurt anything. This place we are going to, will anyone else be there?”

  “Yes and no,” Joey said. “The best part of this little pad is it is right off of the main road a ways, but nestled into a palm grove with a clear view of the ocean. My friend, Jude, owns it and rents it out to me on the cheap. His dad owns a bunch of banks or something. Who knows, really? Anyway, let's go!”

  Elize hesitated for a second. What if this all went wrong? She was having trouble thinking of ways it could go wrong that didn't belong in some kind of murder mystery, so she just decided to go with it.

  “Well, then lead the way,” Elize said with a smile.

  Chapter Three

  AS THEY WALKED in a direction that would send them into the jungle behind the resort, some of the locals to the island that were out peddling to tourists said hello to Joey. He seemed to be someone that frequented the island a lot.

  That calmed down Elize's worry some, since if he had a terrible reputation people wouldn't be as excited to talk to him or see him around.

  At least she hoped that was how it worked here. What if it was Caribbean culture to be super friendly to the assholes?

  Elize shook of her weird thoughts as the beach got steeper and they walked onto a trail that wound through the jungle for a little bit until they burst out of the foliage into an open field of coconuts.

  It wasn't until they were about half way across the field that Elize realized it butted up against the south end of the nearest village. The old architecture of the run down, rural town intrigued her more than the beach had a few moments ago.

  Why had she never left the beaten trail before? It seemed so rudimentary to get away from everyone and off on her own for a little bit, even if she wasn't really alone if she was spending time with her new friend Joey.

  “What's the name of this little town?” Elize asked.

  “You know, I don't really know,” Joey said. “But I should know. I've spent the last couple weeks keeping to myself in this little spot right over yonder.”

  Up ahead was a sman'tUll one room house in the style of the natives, it had a big open air patio. In the middle of the patio stood painting on an easel.

  “Are you a painter?” Alize said.

  “Sometimes,” Joey replied. “I mean, I would love to be a painter full time, but it is really what I do for fun when I want to relax by myself. I've gotten pretty okay at it but wouldn't ever even consider trying to sell my work at this point. And really, I wonder if I should ever be thinking about that at all, selling something that I created in the spirit of something completely different than commerce.”

  Elize let the pseudo hippie talk about not making money sink in for a second and found that she actually agreed with it. Most of the time, she couldn't help but feel disdain for anyone that passed up a buck. But Joey had a good point—it didn't really make sense to sell something you never had any intention of selling at any point of the creation process. It seemed like nursing a sick puppy from a near death experience, only to sell it to the first jerk walking down the street.

  When they get to the house, Joey suggested she go inside and get a drink from the tap while he finished up the painting.

  Elize poked around a bit inside while she filled up her glass. There was surprisingly so little in the house. What was there was mostly furniture, but not very much of it.

  The house was comprised of a kitchen, dining room and bedroom that had its door shut. Elize poked her head in the room to see clothes scattered about the floor. She couldn't help but smile to herself and resisted the urge to think something about how Joey was a typical guy to leave his room a mess like that.

  Oh, stop that, you hate it when people try to pigeonhole you based off of one or two things they know about you, Elize thought to herself.

  She tiptoed away from Joey's room and filled up a tall glass of water before letting herself out on the patio. Joey had rearranged things so that the easel was in the center of the patio facing the house and right in front of the easel was a plush looking couch.

  “Have a seat on the couch,” Joey said. “I need a model for my next assignment.”

  Elize walked over to the couch and had a seat facing Joey. “Next assignment?” Elize said. “You mean you aren't a freelance painter? Do they even exist anymore?”

  Joey let out a small laugh. “You know, that's a good question. I'm not really sure if there are no joke freelance artists anymore, especially painters,” Joey said. “But the assignment I'm completing is more a master’s program. I'm doing one via correspondence at a university in upstate New York. It's pretty cool. I like it, anyway.”

  “Oh, really,” Elize said. “What do you have to do for it?”

  He shrugged. “About once a
month I paint something that really moves me and send it to them to be critiqued,” Joey said. “It's costing me a lot of money but someday, I'm sure it will pay off.”

  Elize leaned back on the couch and stared up at the sky. It was light blue, with little flecks of white clouds floating here and there. A few jets roared overhead, striping the sky with the streamers of their exhaust. The day was beautiful, they couldn't have asked for a more fighting backdrop for the painting.

  Turning her head to the right, she took in the house with its winding ivy creeping up the sides and beautiful flowers planted in windowsill gardens. The roof top appeared to have some kind of furniture on it, making Elize think of how nice it would be to tan in the nude up there.

  She blushed, and deeply. It would be entirely possible for her to take her top off and lay back on the sofa, allowing Joey to paint her in the nude.

  Hell, it would probably anuld pro help him fulfill some kind of requirement with his school that said he needed to do so many nude figures before graduation.

  Chapter Four

  “SO, THIS SCHOOL...” Elize said.

  “Yes,” Joey replied. He was moving the easel closer to her; moving around a little bit so to frame her better against the house.

  “Do you have to paint any nude models?” Elize asked.

  “Actually, yes I do,” Joey said. “Although I haven't done it yet because so few women are willing to get naked in front of the easel. It's almost like they think it's a camera or something. It's not like people will be able to recognize you from what I've painted. I wish I were that good,” he said wistfully. “Well, really it isn't because I'm not that good, it's just because the faces of the figures I paint are often small because I usually over-emphasize the backdrop.”