Behind the Curtain - Page 13

Then he turned and hurried into the forest, intent on intercepting his friends and preventing their intrusive gazes.

Chapter Four

What are you, half asleep or something?”

Laila focused with effort on her cousin’s beautiful, artfully made-up face. Twilight was falling, and the wrought iron streetlamps had just switched on along Main Street in charming downtown Crescent Bay. Zara stared at her, half in puzzlement and half in exasperation as she held out an ice cream cone in Laila’s direction.

“Sorry,” Laila mumbled, accepting the cone. She swiped her tongue across the chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream with determined enthusiasm.

“You’ve been weird ever since dinner,” Tahi declared bluntly. They stood in front of the outdoor-indoor ice cream parlor. Music filtered across the street from the crowded downtown park. A jazz band currently had center stage at the music festival. “Did something happen to you this afternoon?”

An image of the dark-haired guy standing on the beach, wearing nothing but a pair of blue swim trunks and tennis shoes, popped into her mind’s eye against her will. His body had been long and hard and intimidatingly virile. So male. His chest wasn’t super hairy, but there had been some fine, dark hair in the middle of a powerful chest, trailing off into a thin line between his ribs and down a taut abdomen. At first, her brain had been shocked into stupidity, as if she’d never seen a man before and didn’t know what he was.

Which made sense, Laila thought as she rapidly ate her ice cream. Because even though she’d seen men wearing swimsuits at the beach and in movies and television, she’d never seen one like him before. Seeing him standing there had struck her as intensely intimate, for some reason.

Maybe because you were naked, stupid.

And maybe because you could see his erection through the trunks when he’d lunged onto that beach.

Both thoughts caused her cheeks to burn. Why couldn’t she stop picturing it? His obvious arousal had panicked her in the moment. But now, she couldn’t seem to stop thinking about it. Or his eyes. Or the concerned, almost panicked expression on his handsome face as he’d backed away from her.

Someone snapped their fingers in her face. She blinked and saw Tahi giving her a puzzled look. “Hello.”

“Hi,” Laila mumbled, licking her ice cream more determinedly. In the periphery of her vision, she noticed Zara and Tahi sharing an incredulous glance.

“What is up with you?” Zara demanded loudly. She grasped Laila’s upper arm and started to pull her toward the curb—in order to interrogate her away from the crowd milling around the ice cream parlor, no doubt. In midmaneuver, however, she glanced toward the street and immediately froze. A change came over her cousin in a split second. Laila recognized the temptress smile that spread over Zara’s face.

Her secret was safe for now. More interesting prey must be approaching.

“Hello,” a man said smoothly behind Laila. “Something tells me you’re not from around here.”

Laila turned slightly and saw a tall, dark-haired young man. A swooping sensation went through her stomach until she focused in on his face and saw the blatant, heavy-lidded glance of appreciation he was giving every inch of Zara’s tanned, knockout figure. Laila was used to seeing similar lewd stares at her cousins. Zara and Tahi were both beautiful and dressed a lot sexier than Laila did. At least when they were out, they did. The buttoned-up, modest clothing Zara and Tahi wore when they left the house usually ended up flung all over the seats of Zara’s Ford Focus within minutes of them leaving their parents’ field of vision. Her cousins had perfected the art of the fifteen-second vehicular wardrobe change.

“What makes you think we’re not from around here?” Zara purred, her big hazel eyes and curving smile a blatant invitation.

“Because this little backwoods town could never have produced something so exotic. So fantastic,” the guy said huskily, stepping closer.

Laila mentally rolled her eyes at the guy’s reference to them as exotic. It rubbed her the wrong way, as though they were outsiders in the idyllic small town. Besides, coupled with the almost indecent sexual hunger in the guy’s gaze as he checked out Zara, the word took on an additional offensive charge. She didn’t always think people meant to be racist when they called her or a family member exotic.

But she definitely got that bad taste in her mouth when this guy said it.

Still, Laila had to admit, he was very good-looking. Zara was an accomplished manhunter. Knowing her cousin the way she did, Laila could tell that Zara was feeling like she just hit the jackpot. Although his dark hair and tall, lean, muscular body had initially made Laila’s heart jump because she’d thought of the man on the beach, he was completely different. His face was almost too perfect, like the guys on her mom’s Telemundo soap. And if the man on the beach had been giving her that

lean, ravenous look this guy was giving Zara, Laila’s panic would have gone full-blown.

“So where are you from?” the good-looking guy asked Zara.

“From her accent, I’d guess Chicago or Detroit,” another guy said to Tahi, nodding in Zara’s direction. “Rudy Fattore,” he said, bold as brass. He held out his hand to Tahi.

“You’re right. Detroit, born and bred. And from your accent, I’d guess New York,” Tahi said without hesitation. She shook Rudy’s proffered hand and matched his brash grin. Oh, what Laila would give to have her cousins’ poise around guys. Rudy was shorter and nowhere near as good-looking as Mr. Perfect Face, technically speaking, but he was cute. He seemed to exude warmth, charm and the promise of a good time.

“East Bronx, to be exact. You’ve got a good ear on you. Among other things,” Rudy said, wagging his eyebrows suggestively. Tahi laughed and rolled her eyes. “So what are three gorgeous ladies like yourselves doing in Crescent Bay?”

“We’re here on vacation,” Tahi said.

“Looking for a good time. Just like everyone else,” Zara murmured, never breaking her steamy stare with Perfect Face.

Laila shifted awkwardly on her feet. She was pretty used to this scenario: Zara and Tahi always managed to attract a horde of men, but Laila was rarely included in those first few rounds of flirtation. The bold attracted the bold, apparently. A third man lingered on the curb. He was good-looking, with nice, serious, dark brown eyes. Maybe, like Laila, he was the shy one of the group. He smiled and stepped toward her, nodding in greeting.

Tags: Beth Kery Erotic
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