What Happens In Sorrento, What Happens In, Book 1 (eBook)

Prologue

Music vibrated the walls, the deep base thumped and echoed in my brain. Bodies smashed up against each other, jumping, grinding, and dancing as DJ Precious Petrol made the hours-long wait to gain entry worthwhile. I raised my hands above me, spinning, absorbing the music, the sweat, the laughter, the crush of bodies all around. This was what life was made for. I loved it.
Fun. Far away. Free.
I spied my friend Clara, tongue deep with some unknown guy. A good thing. Her asshole boyfriend had never deserved her and made good on his promise of always being toxic by making her walk in on him with another woman.
Bastard.
“Maddie!” Evelyn, my second-best friend from college waved for me to join her at the bar. We were over in Spain on a vacation. Having just graduated from college, we deserved a vacay and what better place to go than Spain where the water was warm, and the men were hot. 
I joined her, my mouth dry from the smoke machine used in the club and from overexerting myself as a dancer, which I was not by any stretch. Eve bounded against the glass bar, sliding a shot glass of tequila toward me.
“Bottoms up, bitch!”
I downed it and it burned my throat. “This is so much fun!” The music grew louder, a dof dof dof that you couldn’t help but move with. “I don’t know how I’ll get up in the morning to clean all those rooms at the hotel.” It was a bit of a pain having to work during my vacation, but if it enabled me to travel to Europe with my friends it was worth it. “I’m going to be so hungover.” I downed another shot Eve slid my way. My eyes watered.
We both laughed. “Omg, yes! You poor thing, but at least we can say we danced the night away at Exile and enjoyed our last few days here in Ibiza.”
“True.” I ordered two more shots. I was going to be legless by the end of the night. But there was something about Spain that made you a little wild. People from all walks of life partied hard here, and we’d seen a few celebs on vacation walking about Barcelona just last week.
“I wonder who owns this nightclub. I bet they’re raking it in.” This was my first vacation overseas. In fact, my first vacation anywhere. Being in the foster system back in the US until I turned eighteen didn’t allow financially for European vacays. Not like my two best friends. Trust fund babies, but still somehow had turned out normal and nice. My only family really.
“They are rich babes.” Eve gestured toward the restrooms. “Just before I saw some chick almost leave her Dior bag in the bathroom.”
Not uncommon, seeing the oddest thing done by rich people who didn’t know what it meant to struggle. I ordered a beer, smiling at Eve, who shook her ass at a guy who walked past, eyeing her like a lollipop to lick. “Did you see Clara getting it on with some guy? He was fucking hot.”
“I’m happy for her.” And I was. It was about time she moved on and found her independence again. “What better way to get over someone than to get under someone else?”
Eve lifted her third shot of tequila in agreement and tapped it against my glass of beer.
“Guys! Guys!” Clara joined us, her lipstick a little smudged across her cheek. 
I wiped it off and cleaned her up as best as I could. “I’m leaving with Pablo.” Clara wiggled her brows. “He’s asked me to go back to his place, and I’m going to go.” 
“Are you sure?” There are a lot of crazies out there, and she hadn’t known him a night. Nor had Clara been in the dating scene at all. She was pretty green when it came down to it.
“What if he tries something you don’t like?” Eve asked.
“He won’t. He’s a teacher.” Clara reached for the man who certainly looked like he wanted to teach my friend a thing or two. I doubt it would be academic. “What teachers are cray cray?” Clara asked with a small smirk. 
I could tell she was looking forward to reclaiming a part of herself that her ex asshole stole.
“She has a point, Maddie.” Eve waved Clara off. “Go. We know your location by your phone. Do not lose it, and text us when you can.”
“Okay, I will. Byeeee.”
Clara danced off toward her Spanish hunk, and boy, he was good-looking. Handsome enough to tempt anyone to disappear into the night without knowing a single thing about him. A little pang of jealousy spiked through me. I so wished I’d had at least one romantic fling while on vacation. For the last two years, I had prioritized my advertising and marketing degree, determined to remove myself from ever being vulnerable again. To land a dream job that would give me security for life. I was so close now for that future to become reality I could taste it, and there was no way that I was going to let getting into a relationship get in my way or cloud my judgment. In another two short years, I would graduate with a masters. Nothing must distract me.
A fling, though, that I would do. Still, dick eluded me the last month. Was I giving off prude vibes? Maybe I wasn’t as hot as I thought I was. I had a nice body, was intelligent with nice skin. I sipped my beer. God, I needed a man. “I hope she has a great lay.”
Eve laughed, her green eyes sparkling with wickedness. “Oh, so do I. Her vibrator needs a break for one night.”
I chuckled, glad that the little buzzing sound so often heard through the thin walls of our college accommodation in NY may soon cease for a night or two. “True.” 
The music morphed into a melody, and the lights dimmed, giving the club a dark and mysterious air. A guy Eve had been dancing with earlier joined us and snatched her back onto the dancefloor. I sat on a barstool, surrounded by hundreds of people, and yet alone. My friend’s happiness made me smile. This summer had been one of the best of my life, and our month-long party was ending tomorrow. I didn’t want to feel down about it. With luck, I could be back in Europe soon if I landed the job I wanted, which had great benefits and pay, including generous leave. I reached for my beer and frowned. A hand covered mine, stopping me from picking it up.
I looked to see whose hand was on mine. My mouth gaped, and my heart did a ridiculous lurch.
All that was holy, who the hell was he? I did a double take, snapping my mouth closed. The stranger had a cocky, confident grin that sent heat directly between my legs. He was hot, and he knew he was fucking hot and the kind of effect he had on women.
He tilted his head, his dark-brown eyes slipping over me like a physical caress. Goosebumps rose on my skin, and I swear I could hear my heartbeat hitting my chest. The urge to run my fingers through his dark hair bombarded my thoughts and I fisted my hands to stop myself. I bit my lip, breathing deep to stop the erotic imaginings of how else I could clasp his hair and when. 
“Is something wrong?” I managed, glad I didn’t sound like a starstruck idiot who was drooling at the hot dude still holding my hand on my beer. I may be desperate for dick, but I didn’t want anyone to know it. Especially him.
He stepped close, wagged his finger before my nose. “I saw someone drop a pill in your drink. They saw me coming, and before I could get over here, they bolted. Don’t drink that.” He leaned on the bar and yelled at the bartender for another.
Fuck. My chest squeezed at the implication of what I escaped. “Wow, thanks.” Horror images of being date raped filled my mind and a shiver wracked my body. I hadn’t even seen anyone beside me.
The bartender poured me a beer, and I didn’t know where to look. I really wanted to look at my rescuer standing so tall and handsome at my side. His dark hair and sun-kissed skin shouted Italian, not to mention his long, dark eyelashes. But his accent was more British than Italian. Maybe he was here on vacation too.
“Here you go.” The bartender threw a napkin beside the drink and went off to serve others.
I took a sip, swaying to the music. “You’re my knight in shining armor. Or is that Armani?” I teased, smiling at the quirk of his lips. His mouth screamed sin, and his lips were fuller than a lot of women I’d seen here in Ibiza who were addicted to filler.
I swallowed, feeling out of sorts and well out of my league. No American girl from multiple foster homes and a university scholarship pulled these types of men at bars. I certainly had never had such luck, but maybe tonight, that fortune was changing for the better.
I may get dick after all…
He glanced at his clothes and shrugged, unimpressed with what he wore, as if it were a common everyday thing to be dressed so expensively. Maybe he was a drug lord, a high-flying CEO, or a rich boy. Even if he were all those things or none of them, the way he was looking at me right at this moment made my heart beat fast and my mind scrabble not to speak like a blubbering fool.
“You’re not from around here?” A statement more than a question.
I shook my head, sipping my new beer to delay the inevitable of telling him he was wasting his time. I was leaving the day after tomorrow, and our paths would never cross again. “New York, as a matter of fact. I’m in Europe for a working vacation this summer. And you?” 
“A weekend break before I go back to work, although I mixed my weekend with work.” He raked me with a gaze that left my skin prickling with awareness. Heat licked my body, and I shivered. As tipsy as I was, this highly polished man liked what he saw, and so did I.
“Where is work normally?”
“Rome. I fly back tomorrow morning.”
“Right.” I bit my lip, forcing my breathing to calm the hell down. Why did I feel like I’d run a marathon? My body felt aflame. The thrumming warmth between my legs did not help. Did he know I found him gorgeous? That merely being beside him made me want to do things no good girl ought?
He stared at me with dark, hooded eyes, and I wanted to ask if he was thinking the same dirty, sexualized thoughts I was. Maybe my drought between men had been too long this time, and I was hornier than I thought.
Damn.
I smiled to hide my nervousness, but it didn’t help. He read me like a book and reached out, taking my hand. He pulled me through the nightclub, the dancers moving out of our way as we walked in the direction of a roped-off VIP area.
Of course, he was a VIP. He certainly gave off that vibe, and I should have known. Without saying a word, a bouncer lifted the rope and allowed us to enter the room. I looked around at the people who occupied the tables and lounges. I was certain I’d seen Heather Scott from the hit TV series Situation Unsure. Surely, I was seeing things.
The Roman god glanced back at me as we walked, entering another room. It had a glass wall, where I could see the people in the nightclub dancing and drinking, enjoying their night. The music was a little muffled in here, but the atmosphere was heavy with expectation. Black leather booths sat against the walls, yet they were empty.
We were alone…
He pulled me inside and closed the door, the snick of the lock loud even with all the noise surrounding us. “Do you know what I want?”
I nodded, knowing what he meant. I could feel what he wanted, words were irrelevant. He stepped close to me, his warm, hard body pressed against mine. I sucked in a startled breath, my hands sliding up his shirt.
The shirt was soft, well made, Armani was quality. Yet corded muscles, hard and flexing beneath my palms, were in contradiction to his attire.
He stared at me, his eyes piercing right to my soul, reading me like a book and knowing what I wanted. I wouldn’t be here with him if I wasn’t up for being naughty. Without saying a word, his large hands cradled my face before his mouth crashed onto mine. Our tongues tangled, teased, and beckoned to be wicked. Heat dropped low in my belly, running all the way to my clit. I moaned, wrapped my arms around his neck, and kissed him back. He tasted of fruit and wine, delicious and as intoxicating as the alcohol I had consumed all evening.
He pressed against me, his cock thick and hard in his pants. I surged against him, undulated against his body. My skimpy dress no barrier to our need. I reached down, fondled him. I gasped through the kiss, feeling his size. He was so thick, for a moment I felt hesitant, then he sucked at my tongue, and I knew I needed him inside me.
He was walking satisfaction, and I needed him to scratch that itch.
I had never been with a man like this before. Never been so brazen. But something told me that if I were to have a one-night stand on the last night of my European vacation, I wanted this man to be the one who popped that cherry.
“You’re beautiful,” he murmured against my ear, biting my lobe.
His hands reached for my dress, yanking it up with such force the stitching ripped. I didn’t care. All my thoughts, wants, and needs were focused on having him inside me. Thrusting his sizable cock into me, filling me to completion. I grew wet at the thought. The sweet ache between my thighs begged for gratification.
He grabbed the crutch of my panties and tore the little strip of fabric away. 
“Yes,” I gasped as he ran his fingers along my cunt. Stroking, teasing…
“You like that, New York?”
I liked the name he bestowed, a little mystery to go with our tomfoolery. A finger slipped into me, and I gasped. I pressed down on his hand, wanting him deeper, faster, harder.
It wasn’t enough. I wanted more. So much more.
He wrenched my leg onto his hip and pressed me against the glass wall. I remembered where we were, seeing the people dancing but inches from the glass.
“They can’t see us. We can only see them.”
I sighed, relieved not to be on show for everyone in the nightclub. His large hands slipped about my ass, squeezing my cheeks, hauling me up into his arms. I wrapped my legs around his waist. My breath hitched at the wild, untamed light in his eyes. It promised satisfaction, hot, uncensored sex. No commitments, no names.
His wild gaze met mine. A dark light burned in his eyes that warned me of the pleasure to come. An indulgence I was more than willing to relish. He did not scare me. Only the thought of not fucking him and having this memory did.
“Do it now. Please,” I begged, the juices of my desire running down my legs.
“My pleasure.” I thought he would thrust into me. Claim me. Instead, he pulled a condom out of his pocket, slid it on and then pushed into me, with a slow, torturous stretching that was too much. I dug my fingers into his shoulders, threw my head back and screamed.
I came.
“Fuck you’re sweet, but you screw like sin, New York.”
His words made my orgasm rip through me with such a force that I saw stars. I convulsed against his rigid, large cock, quivers shot out to every fingertip and toe. I rode him, took what I wanted and savored the pleasure for as long as I could.
He was my first one-night stand. First fuck in a club.
I could get used to such satisfaction without commitment.
He thrust into me. I gasped at the pressure, the first sweet ache building again for more deliciousness to come. He was big, not just his dick, but him. Tall, broad, strong arms. He took me against the glass wall as if I weighed nothing at all and never lost his stride. I was consumed by him, at his mercy and trying not to lose myself in his overpowering ways.
“You’re so wet for me, beautiful.”
I was, there was no denying that. So lost in his ministrations I couldn’t answer, merely nodded. “Keep fucking me,” I managed, my words breathless.
He growled and devoured my mouth. The kiss was devastating. Deep and consuming. His teeth nipped my bottom lip and I yelped. A wicked grin twisted his lips before his tongue licked along where he bit, soothing the hurt.
His hands clasped my ass as he thrust into me. Good God, I couldn’t catch my breath. He hit a spot within me that begged to be stroked, satisfied.
The man was a master.
My body shook. The need to come again beat through me. I could feel it coming, so deliciously close until he pulled out and set me on my feet. The change in position made me sway and I leaned against the wall as he dropped to his knees.
Holy fuck, he wouldn’t.
He did.
He set my leg on his shoulder and bared me to his gaze. If I thought his eyes couldn’t darken more with desire, I was wrong. They were liquid heat, pools of sin that taunted me to join him in his vice.
His tongue glided along my sex. I sucked in a breath, moaning as his mouth suckled my clit before he slipped one finger into me. “Oh God,” I breathed.
His answering moan shot pleasure through my core. He fucked me with his mouth, ate me like a man starved of sustenance.
Who did such a thing to a person they’d only just met! I couldn’t reconcile the highly polished man who saved me from drink spiking to the wicked Italian god on his knees worshipping my cunt.
I undulated against his mouth, rode him like a woman possessed. No fear, no shame. Who the fuck was I?
“Oh yes, please. Fuck yes,” I mumbled words, incoherent with a tinge of begging, but I didn’t care. He owned me, played me like a musical instrument and I was his sheet music.
“You taste so good.” His words, muffled by my sex, made pleasure slice through me. I was so close to orgasm, one that threatened to be even stronger than the last.
Just before I combusted into a million pieces, he stood, wiping his mouth and chiseled jaw of my juices. “Turn around.”
I did what he commanded without question. Expectation ran through me, making me malleable. His cock pressed against my ass. He tipped my hips, pressing against me and took me from behind. I groaned, my face against the glass, the air of my breath frosting the wall.
It was too much.
I couldn’t catch my breath.
Couldn’t breathe.
Think.
My pussy fit him like a glove. His corded chest pressed into my back, his fingers pinching the skin on my hips. He slipped one hand down my stomach, slicing over my sex to roll my clit with his thumb. I jumped at the touch, his fullness in me, along with his wicked fingers driving me beyond coherent thought.
“Where have you been hiding, New York?” His words kissed my cheek. His hand circled my throat. His tongue flicked out, teasing the underside of my ear.
“I cannot get enough… I’ve never…” Why couldn’t I speak? I fought to clear my mind, attempted to get my words out. “I’ve never done anything like this. I’ve never been so audacious.”
He growled, the sound dark and full of warning. “You’re mine now.”
I wanted his words to be true, but then, this was a one-night thing, a moment in time that would pass like everything else. Would I see him again? I did not think so. The realization made me bold.
He relentlessly took me, and I gave myself up to his dominance. My orgasm teased at the fringes of my sex, so close and yet wickedly aloof. He tipped my hips to a different angle, and that was all it took. I came hard, my body rocked to its core by the gratifying tremors that shot through me. My legs shook and my knees threatened to turn to water.
“I’m coming,” he rasped, his cock swelling within me.
I pressed against him, my body drinking in his seed. His rapid heartbeat thumped against my back and matched my own against the wall.
“Fuck, New York. You’re amazing.”
I leaned against the wall, the cool glass chilling my brow. I forced deep breaths into my lungs, trying to calm my pulse. He slipped out of me, and I shuffled down my dress, ignoring my torn panties that lay at my feet.
Our eyes met and I was rocked by how fucking handsome this man was. I lay my hand against his jaw, needing to feel his stubble against my palm, pinch myself I hadn’t imagined having the best sex in my life with a stranger.
His cocky grin was addictive. It also told me he was a player, a man who was used to getting what he wanted whenever and wherever that was.
“Have dinner with me. Tonight. I know a great restaurant not far from here. It’s quiet and we can talk.”
Was he wanting this interlude to be more than a one-night stand? Not that I was complaining. I would love to see him again, tomorrow night would even work, my last night in Ibiza. Go out with a bang and have him on a bed, which promised to be even better, hotter than against a wall.
“I’ll have to tell my friend where I’m going first or she’ll worry, but I can meet you outside in ten minutes?”
He nodded, running a hand through his hair that had fallen across one eye. He was a disheveled god, his suit a little ruffled, his lips swollen from my kiss. He reached down and shoved his large cock back into his boxers before zipping up his pants. I licked my lips, tasting him still.
God, he was so hot.
My body heated and I felt myself grow wet at the thought of fucking him again.
He leaned forward and kissed me, the embrace slow and tender. The opposite to the raw, dirty kisses we shared while fucking.
“I’ll see you out front in ten.”
I left him, making my way through the VIP room. My legs shook and I forced myself to raise my chin and not look sheepish and utterly smug. I found Eve at the bar with the same guy who stole her from me, ordering another round of shots. I downed a vodka she lifted before my face.
“I’m heading to dinner with a guy I just met. I’ll meet you back at the hotel tomorrow morning. I think I’ll be sleeping at his tonight.”
“You hooked up with someone?” Eve’s eyes sparkled with excitement.
“I did and he’s so fucking hot. I think I may have found my vacation fling. A little late, but better than never.”
“What happens in Ibiza stays in Ibiza,” Eve’s guy friend shouted, laughing.
I picked up another shot glass, downed the vodka, the sharpness of the drink bringing tears to my eyes. “Later, Eve. I’ll tell you everything in the morning.”
“Make sure the story is a good one.”
“Oh, it will be.” I moved toward the exit, dancing through the crowd, my mood carefree, my night looking up, even if it was my last.
I paused at the sound of a woman’s shriek followed by men shouting. Madness erupted near the entrance of the club. Men shouted and fists were unleashed. The music continued as the all-in brawl spread through the nightclub like cancer. I fell to the floor and crawled toward the wall, trying to get out of the growing melee.
I hunched on the ground, trying to protect myself as everyone went crazy, before a foot, attempting to kick some other random clubber connected with my face. A polished black Massaro loafer was the last thing I saw before everything went black.