What She Needs - Lacey Alexander [4]
Jenna looked to Shannon, who said, “I think you should go for it. What do you have to lose?”
“But what if I get there and it’s . . . icky? I mean, what if there are people having sex all over the place, out in the open, and it creeps me out?”
“Then you get on a plane and come home,” Kev replied.
Okay, easy enough. They couldn’t make her have sex, after all. And they couldn’t make her stay if she was uncomfortable there. And though it was a far cry from the castles and battlefields of Europe, a tropical vacation sounded nice. “All right then. Hotel Erotique, here I come.” But that didn’t keep her from casting Kevin one last glare. “And you’d better hope this doesn’t blow up in my face, or you’re a dead man.”
Chapter 1
While everyone at home in Michigan was busy carving pumpkins and munching on candy corn, Jenna was stepping off a plane at the Miami International Airport. Miami—seemed like a probable-enough place for a hotel specializing in sexual gratification. Although the website made a big deal about the Hotel Erotique being in an undisclosed location—probably because the very concept was so kinky and “out there.” And if customers were more or less paying for sex, well, wasn’t that illegal? So no wonder the hotel’s address was a Miami PO box and the site was so cryptic about the exact locale.
That still didn’t prepare her, though, for what happened next.
She’d been told an escort would meet her at baggage claim, and sure enough, there he was—a man in his thirties, blond and mildly handsome with an endearing smile, holding up a card with her last name on it. And the moment they made eye contact, a horrifying thought struck her: He thinks I’m here for sex! He thinks I’ve come to live out hedonistic fantasies with strangers! Ugh.
She thought about defending herself, explaining the situation—but that would just seem childish, and even prudish, to a guy who delivered people to the Hotel Erotique for a living. Still, as she identified herself and he said, “Hi, I’m Gabe,” smoothly taking her bags, her face heated with embarrassment.
Oh brother. This was not a good start. How are you going to spend two weeks at this place if you can’t look at anyone without blushing? Unfortunately, though, this was the first moment she’d thought about the other people she would encounter there, or how they would perceive her. She’d—stupidly—envisioned herself sunning and swimming all alone, in complete solitude. Damn Kevin and Shannon for getting her into this.
The part that really threw her, though, was when she followed Gabe through the airport, traversing hallways, going through doors, until finally he led her out into the hot south Florida sun—not to a limo or shuttle bus, but onto a tarmac, where a small private jet waited, suspiciously devoid of color or markings.
“Um, where are we going?”
Gabe didn’t appear taken aback by the question—she must not be the first guest to get confused at this point. “To the Hotel Erotique, of course,” he said with a carefree smile. “It’s just a short flight away.”
“How short?”
“Once we’re in the air, thirty minutes.”
“So it’s . . . on an island?”
He nodded easily over his shoulder as they approached the plane, then bent to stow her luggage in an open compartment, which she noticed was empty but for hers. Well, that much was good. She didn’t want companions on this flight—people going there for sex who also thought she was going there for sex. Yuck.
“A private island between the Keys and the Bahamas,” Gabe clarified. “Self-contained. The whole staff lives on the island full-time.”
Wow. A private jet and staff accommodations. She was starting to get why this place was so high priced—even if a large portion of the fees did go to executing sex fantasies.
“We’ll have you soaking up the sun in an hour or two,” Gabe said with a wink that made the juncture of her thighs tingle. Just a little. Because of all the thoughts