I make my way to the heart of the bar.
Okay, what is happening? Is everyone in this resort just very frisky, or is it all the Piña Coladas they’re consuming?
Everywhere I look, there are people in varying degrees of fondling. Enthusiastic fondling.
My cheeks burning with embarrassment, looking up is the only way I can avoid them, but then I notice an illuminated sculpture right at the top front of the bar. Not another very confident, well-lit dick. No, it can’t be. It’s a banana. It must be a banana.
Everything that looks like a dick is a banana. It’s an island. It fits. But then my attention snaps to the name of the bar: The Hook Up Resort Bar.
Umm... where did the word ‘up’ come from? Did I really miss it completely? Well, it is a little hidden under the word ‘Hook,’ somaybe I can be forgiven. I’m much more observant at my job, thank goodness. I love animals except the three billionaire types who are utter beasts. But I don’t love... ugh, lust them anymore. Okay, the plan is to get to that point of no lusting, but I’m on my way.
“Hello, there.” A voice says from behind. I spin around and come face-to-face with a nice-looking man I’ve never met before.
“Harry Whitaker,” he says, holding out his hand.
“Hi, Clover McAllister,” I say, smiling. “Umm, can I ask you a question?” Harry nods. “Is this an actual hook-up island?”
Harry laughs. “It is. Sex for singles. Clean hook-ups, no commitments. That’s what the island is all about. So, can I get you a drink?” Harry winks at me in a very seductive way.
My mind works a mile a minute. Clean hook-ups. Maybethiswas what I needed all along. A hook-up, no strings attached. That will certainly get me out of this rut I’m in. So what if I don’t feel any spark of attraction for Harry? Not even when he thought he was giving me his best wink.
But the idea is just to get rid of my virginity and thereby get rid of my broken heart and my stupid yearning for three guys who were never going to love—oh, for the last time, lust me back.
“I would love for you to buy me a drink, Harry.” I wink back at him, and he giggles. It wasn’t even my best wink.
Chapter Six
Kellan
Fuck.
“Do you have any idea where she is?” I growl, my fists pressing hard into the polished surface of my desk. Behind me, the entire Manhattan skyline stretches across the floor-to-ceiling windows of my corner office.
My business partners and lifelong friends, Nolan Williams and Oren Flynn, are also in my office, equally furious that Clover McAllister, the bane of our existence, disobeyed her brother’s direct order to remain in her house until protection arrived.
Jesus, that woman is going to be the ultimate death of us.
Her brother Troy McAllister, Nolan, Oren, and I grew up together. We met at boarding school and quickly formed a tight bond. We’re in our thirties now, and while Nolan, Oren, and I took over our family business after our time in the military, Troy remained and joined a covert team of operators. Our bond, however, still remains.
Troy had briefed us about a crime boss he’d taken out. Somehow, information had leaked to the son, and he’d vowed to exact revenge against Troy’s sister now that he knew her whereabouts.
I ignore the fire that burns beneath my skin at the thought of anyone touching her.
Nolan and Oren, I know, feel the same, also suppressing their utter rage at the thought of anyone touching her.
She’s Troy’s baby sister. That is all she is to us. Nothing more. We live by a code: We don’t fuck each other’s sisters; they’re family. It doesn’t matter that mine, Nolan’s, and Oren’s sisters are already married. The code still stands. Butfuck, why did she, of all women, have to be Troy’s sister?
As if her image isn’t already etched in my brain, her dark brown eyes, long golden hair, and perfect lips flash before my eyes. And immediately thereafter, her fucking ass, streaked red after the three of us marked her naked skin with our hands. So fucking hard she won’t be able to sit for a month, her ass aching in memory of our brand of punishment. Let’s see her try to put her life in danger then.
Because, of course, she disobeyed a direct order from her brother to stay fucking home.
“She turned off her location tracker,” Troy says through the speakerphone on my desk.
“Fuck. I told her to stay in the house,” Troy repeats, his voice filled with worry. “And I can’t get out of Tokyo right now, not without my cover being blown and my head shot off my shoulders. My men were on their way to her. She would have been safer there.”
That’s not fucking true. She’s only safe with us. That is a collective thought that plagues us day in and day out.
“I don’t know where she is, man. She could be anywhere. And by the time my men locate her—“
