Cherish Hard
Page 11
Two results came up.
One was an eighty-year-old married matriarch.
The other a twenty-one-year-old lissome beauty whose Instagram feed was full of images of her in various bikinis with captions that were either “motivational” sayings about working hard and achieving the dream or giggly reports about her latest vacation to some sun-drenched island so exclusive that you needed a private yacht to get to it.
According to her bio, she wanted to be the first woman to fly into space. Her goal was to be “an inspirational role model to younger women!” It seemed to have escaped Elizabeth Anne Victoria’s notice that a number of women had already beaten her to the stars. And that, to achieve her goal, she might need to study something other than the “meaning of life through a cocktail glass.”
“Lots of brain cells there, Dad,” Ísa muttered, wondering if the ink would even have a chance to dry on the marriage certificate before Stefán got bored. For a smart man, he’d never made a sensible choice in marriage partners, Jacqueline included. He either chose barracudas like Ísa’s mother or, lately, women who simply couldn’t keep up with the brain that had taken a fleet of failing cruise ships and turned it into a global empire.
Putting down her phone, Ísa stared in the mirror again. Her father was about to cross the last line—he was going to marry a woman younger than his daughter. That was it. Ísa had had it. “I don’t care what I have to do tonight,” she vowed, “but I am not coming home without misbehaving at least once!” No more playing it safe. Not tonight.
Devil Ísa cheered.
Decision made, Ísa threw open her wardrobe. It was filled with full-skirted day dresses, well-cut shirts, and skirts that flattered her body but weren’t too tight to wear to work. Clearly she couldn’t wear any of those things to a party where she intended to commit at least one sin, maybe two. She wanted to look dangerous and sexy and delicious, not like a prim and proper high school teacher.
“No turning back, Ísa.” Sucking in a breath, she pushed aside all the other clothes in the closet to reach into the very back. Her fingers brushed the hard edge of sequins. Stomach tight and fluttery, she pulled out the hanger holding the dress.
She didn’t know what Catie had been thinking, buying this for Ísa’s birthday a couple of years ago. Her sister had talked Harlow into going along with the choice—the two of them had pooled their money to be able to afford it.
The dress was a vivid royal blue and sequined from top to bottom.
That sounded impressive until you took the length of the dress into account: the thing had no straps and the one time Ísa had worn it—for her at-home birthday dinner with Catie and Harlow—it had only come to halfway down her thighs. Bending over hadn’t been an option, not unless she wanted to reveal the color of her panties to anyone behind her.
Resolve teetering, she almost shoved the dress back in. A woman with breasts her size was not meant to wear a strapless dress. But if she didn’t wear this, it would have to be a T-shirt and jeans.
Real sexy. Real wild. Real breaking the rules.
Annoyed with herself, she stripped down—bra included—and wiggled into the dress. It had a zip down the side that made it easier. It was only when she began to tug up the zip that she remembered the dress’s tight fit. It had made her feel like a fat sausage until Catie pointed out that the tight fit was on purpose so that her boobs wouldn’t fall out.
“And it’s meant to show off your curves,” her sister had said with a sigh. “I wish I had some curves to show off, but since I don’t, I’m going to make sure you don’t hide yours.”
According to both her siblings, she’d looked “hot, hot, hot” in the dress.
Dress on, she walked to the mirror again, then dared take a peek. The dress fit like she’d been painted into it, sliding down her back in a smooth curve before shaping itself over her rear. It was much the same in the front except that the smooth line was broken by the clever ruching across the stomach that made it appear as if she didn’t have a belly at all.
Up top, her breasts were impressively encased and pressed together just enough to create some admittedly sexy cleavage. Ísa took a second look… and smiled. She owed her little sister an apology, because the dress? It was perfect for the woman she wanted to be tonight.
Devil Ísa was now in charge.
Taking down her hair, she went to pick up her hair straightener—only to realize her wildly tumbled locks looked insanely sensual, as if she’d just gotten out of bed… or the back seat of the gardener’s truck.
Blushing red-hot, she waved her hands in front of her face while still grinning; okay, yes, she’d run away before really doing anything, but at least she’d done something. And if she ever ran into him again, she wasn’t going to run away. No, she’d take him up on his invitation to enter the back seat, should the offer still be open.
Her core threatened to melt.
“Focus, Ísa,” she ordered herself. “Stop thinking about the gardener. I’m sure there are plenty more fish in the sinful sea. And you’re going fishing.”
She picked up her makeup and got to work.
Finished after a careful twenty minutes, she stepped back—and found a stranger looking out at her. A stranger in a smoking-hot dress with a tumble of red hair around her shoulders and lips so lush and plump they looked bitable.
Yes, her hips were wider than was fashionable, and she definitely had more curves than she should, but tonight Ísa was going to forget about should. Tonight she was going to celebrate who she was and let out the vixen within. Maybe if she did enough vixening, she’d forget the man with the blue, blue eyes who’d touched her as if he wanted to devour her in small bites.
Those eyes…
She frowned, still unable to shake the feeling that she’d seen them before, though that was impossible. She’d have remembered that gorgeous face, those sexy lips, that incredible build. No, she’d never met her gardener before that steamy kiss that haunted her dreams.
* * *
NAYNA WHISTLED WHEN SHE SAW Ísa. “Talk about sex on legs!” she said from the driver’s seat while Ísa got into the passenger seat. She’d come downstairs to wait for Nayna, determined not to chicken out and change.
“Wow,” Ísa said of her friend’s own dress. “It looks like you wrapped a black bandage around yourself and said you were done. It’s holy-crap fantastic.”
The dress had thin straps, but otherwise it was similar to Ísa’s in that it hit Nayna midway down the thighs. The bandage look was made all the sexier because it didn’t cover every single part of Nayna’s body. A little gap by her ribs, a hint by the curve of her hip, a strip along her lower back; the exposed sections were tiny, but that was why they looked so damn tempting.
Some of those exposed areas, however, were located in—
Ísa’s eyes widened. “Are you naked under that?”
A distinctly naughty smile from her best friend. “Shh.” Giggling at Ísa’s scandalized gasp, she said, “I had to hide this from my mother. I put it in a box marked Tax Documents and left my stilettos in the car. Then, tonight, I walked out in a giant coat and sensible shoes.”
Ísa couldn’t understand Nayna’s decision to live at home, just as she couldn’t understand her friend’s agreement to an arranged marriage, but it was what Nayna wanted. “I approve of your cunning ways.”
One was an eighty-year-old married matriarch.
The other a twenty-one-year-old lissome beauty whose Instagram feed was full of images of her in various bikinis with captions that were either “motivational” sayings about working hard and achieving the dream or giggly reports about her latest vacation to some sun-drenched island so exclusive that you needed a private yacht to get to it.
According to her bio, she wanted to be the first woman to fly into space. Her goal was to be “an inspirational role model to younger women!” It seemed to have escaped Elizabeth Anne Victoria’s notice that a number of women had already beaten her to the stars. And that, to achieve her goal, she might need to study something other than the “meaning of life through a cocktail glass.”
“Lots of brain cells there, Dad,” Ísa muttered, wondering if the ink would even have a chance to dry on the marriage certificate before Stefán got bored. For a smart man, he’d never made a sensible choice in marriage partners, Jacqueline included. He either chose barracudas like Ísa’s mother or, lately, women who simply couldn’t keep up with the brain that had taken a fleet of failing cruise ships and turned it into a global empire.
Putting down her phone, Ísa stared in the mirror again. Her father was about to cross the last line—he was going to marry a woman younger than his daughter. That was it. Ísa had had it. “I don’t care what I have to do tonight,” she vowed, “but I am not coming home without misbehaving at least once!” No more playing it safe. Not tonight.
Devil Ísa cheered.
Decision made, Ísa threw open her wardrobe. It was filled with full-skirted day dresses, well-cut shirts, and skirts that flattered her body but weren’t too tight to wear to work. Clearly she couldn’t wear any of those things to a party where she intended to commit at least one sin, maybe two. She wanted to look dangerous and sexy and delicious, not like a prim and proper high school teacher.
“No turning back, Ísa.” Sucking in a breath, she pushed aside all the other clothes in the closet to reach into the very back. Her fingers brushed the hard edge of sequins. Stomach tight and fluttery, she pulled out the hanger holding the dress.
She didn’t know what Catie had been thinking, buying this for Ísa’s birthday a couple of years ago. Her sister had talked Harlow into going along with the choice—the two of them had pooled their money to be able to afford it.
The dress was a vivid royal blue and sequined from top to bottom.
That sounded impressive until you took the length of the dress into account: the thing had no straps and the one time Ísa had worn it—for her at-home birthday dinner with Catie and Harlow—it had only come to halfway down her thighs. Bending over hadn’t been an option, not unless she wanted to reveal the color of her panties to anyone behind her.
Resolve teetering, she almost shoved the dress back in. A woman with breasts her size was not meant to wear a strapless dress. But if she didn’t wear this, it would have to be a T-shirt and jeans.
Real sexy. Real wild. Real breaking the rules.
Annoyed with herself, she stripped down—bra included—and wiggled into the dress. It had a zip down the side that made it easier. It was only when she began to tug up the zip that she remembered the dress’s tight fit. It had made her feel like a fat sausage until Catie pointed out that the tight fit was on purpose so that her boobs wouldn’t fall out.
“And it’s meant to show off your curves,” her sister had said with a sigh. “I wish I had some curves to show off, but since I don’t, I’m going to make sure you don’t hide yours.”
According to both her siblings, she’d looked “hot, hot, hot” in the dress.
Dress on, she walked to the mirror again, then dared take a peek. The dress fit like she’d been painted into it, sliding down her back in a smooth curve before shaping itself over her rear. It was much the same in the front except that the smooth line was broken by the clever ruching across the stomach that made it appear as if she didn’t have a belly at all.
Up top, her breasts were impressively encased and pressed together just enough to create some admittedly sexy cleavage. Ísa took a second look… and smiled. She owed her little sister an apology, because the dress? It was perfect for the woman she wanted to be tonight.
Devil Ísa was now in charge.
Taking down her hair, she went to pick up her hair straightener—only to realize her wildly tumbled locks looked insanely sensual, as if she’d just gotten out of bed… or the back seat of the gardener’s truck.
Blushing red-hot, she waved her hands in front of her face while still grinning; okay, yes, she’d run away before really doing anything, but at least she’d done something. And if she ever ran into him again, she wasn’t going to run away. No, she’d take him up on his invitation to enter the back seat, should the offer still be open.
Her core threatened to melt.
“Focus, Ísa,” she ordered herself. “Stop thinking about the gardener. I’m sure there are plenty more fish in the sinful sea. And you’re going fishing.”
She picked up her makeup and got to work.
Finished after a careful twenty minutes, she stepped back—and found a stranger looking out at her. A stranger in a smoking-hot dress with a tumble of red hair around her shoulders and lips so lush and plump they looked bitable.
Yes, her hips were wider than was fashionable, and she definitely had more curves than she should, but tonight Ísa was going to forget about should. Tonight she was going to celebrate who she was and let out the vixen within. Maybe if she did enough vixening, she’d forget the man with the blue, blue eyes who’d touched her as if he wanted to devour her in small bites.
Those eyes…
She frowned, still unable to shake the feeling that she’d seen them before, though that was impossible. She’d have remembered that gorgeous face, those sexy lips, that incredible build. No, she’d never met her gardener before that steamy kiss that haunted her dreams.
* * *
NAYNA WHISTLED WHEN SHE SAW Ísa. “Talk about sex on legs!” she said from the driver’s seat while Ísa got into the passenger seat. She’d come downstairs to wait for Nayna, determined not to chicken out and change.
“Wow,” Ísa said of her friend’s own dress. “It looks like you wrapped a black bandage around yourself and said you were done. It’s holy-crap fantastic.”
The dress had thin straps, but otherwise it was similar to Ísa’s in that it hit Nayna midway down the thighs. The bandage look was made all the sexier because it didn’t cover every single part of Nayna’s body. A little gap by her ribs, a hint by the curve of her hip, a strip along her lower back; the exposed sections were tiny, but that was why they looked so damn tempting.
Some of those exposed areas, however, were located in—
Ísa’s eyes widened. “Are you naked under that?”
A distinctly naughty smile from her best friend. “Shh.” Giggling at Ísa’s scandalized gasp, she said, “I had to hide this from my mother. I put it in a box marked Tax Documents and left my stilettos in the car. Then, tonight, I walked out in a giant coat and sensible shoes.”
Ísa couldn’t understand Nayna’s decision to live at home, just as she couldn’t understand her friend’s agreement to an arranged marriage, but it was what Nayna wanted. “I approve of your cunning ways.”
