Wild, Hungry Hearts Read online

  Wild, Hungry Hearts

  Wild Hearts, Book 1

  Beth Kerry

  Copyright ©Beth Kery 2019

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by reviewers, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Cover Design by Croco Designs

  Book Formatting by The Deliberate Page

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  www.bethkery.com

  Contents

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Epilogue

  A Note from the Author

  Wild, Wounded Hearts

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter One

  Esme had always known that a male could go from a willful, touchy mood to charming warmth within a matter of seconds. She’d accepted this as fact since she’d been a little girl on a self-appointed spy mission against the new boys that had mysteriously appeared at Beckett Lodge that summer.

  She’d first seen Jude Beckett through the manzanita shrubs that separated their Lake Tahoe family homes. At the time, Jude had been wearing nothing but blue swim trunks, a pair of ratty, once white tennis shoes, a layer of sweat that covered his deeply tanned, rail-thin naked torso, and a fierce—almost frightening—scowl of determination as he went back for a pass. Jude threw a football like he was throwing a tomahawk at a target painted with his mortal enemy’s face. Always had. Seconds later, when a taller boy with an equally tanned, skinny body, caught Jude’s pass in the kid-contrived end zone, that’s when the sun broke out on Jude’s thin face.

  Even at age six, Esme hadn’t been able to unglue her stare from the brilliance of it.

  When Jude stepped onto the elevator at the Peninsula, Beverly Hills hotel twenty-two years later, Esme immediately recognized not only his familiar face, but that he was in that fierce, storm-cloud mood. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t laid eyes on him in two years, or that she’d just downed two Scotches at the hotel bar in quick succession. She’d always read Jude as easily as bold script.

  Yep. She was a bit tipsy, and all because she was trying to convince herself that of course she was the type of woman to propose a night of casual sex to a man about whom she knew nearly nothing, and whom she cared about even less. She’d given Thor Redfern her room key after the photo shoot late this afternoon. Yes, the guy’s name was Thor. Or at least that’s what his model/actor/artist resume said it was. Esme’s smirk at his pretentious name had faded when Thor had arrived at her office for an interview a month ago. And she was far from being smug about his name this afternoon when he’d swaggered onto the set wearing only a pair of EsmeEs Sierra Monster pants and biker boots. The man rippled and bulged pure sex.

  But the memory of Thor’s hypnotically gleaming muscles dissolved to mist at the vision of Jude Beckett’s black slanted eyebrows and burning face. That particular expression was as familiar to her as the low, thrilling call of an owl interrupting a Lake Tahoe silence, or the sound of an adult’s unwanted call on a starlit summer night, bidding them to come inside, and bursting the bubble of their magical childhood world.

  Jude punched irritably at a floor button on the panel, his back turned to her. She strained to take a deep breath.

  “What’s got your knickers in a twist, Beckett?” Esme asked, heartened to hear the usual half-amused, half-bored tone of her voice.

  He twisted around in the process of distractedly smoothing his silk tie. As always, his eyes seemed to scream wild, almost alarming intelligence. For a split second, he went completely still. Esme froze too. The elevator door shut. She felt a swooping in her gut that had nothing to do with the elevator car lifting them swiftly upward.

  Then it happened, as it always did. The sun broke, fast and brilliant.

  “Esme. What the fuck?”

  She found herself crushed against his chest, her cheek pressed into his crisp cotton shirt and the lapel of his suit. He squeezed her so tightly she gasped. She inhaled his scent—the subtle spice of his familiar cologne, fresh soap, and just a hint of wintergreen on his breath. He’d sucked on Wintergreen Lifesavers since he was thirteen and started to notice girls. The mixture of the scents defined male. At least for Esme, it did.

  She felt that familiar panic rising in her and backed out of his arms.

  “What are you—”

  “The Global Economic Conference. Just got here this afternoon,” he replied, anticipating her question.

  “Some kind of coven of finance?” she asked, eternally amused at the idea that her savage childhood friend had so skillfully smoothed his rough edges and transformed himself into a sleek warrior of the mighty dollar and politics. A Beckett boy gone legit. Well, come to think of it, Jude always did attack a math equation with the single-minded focus that he sliced a football through the air or shredded a half-pipe.

  He nodded, his now warm gaze glued to her face. “This hotel is a hive of worldwide economic wisdom at the moment.”

  “I thought there was an unnatural amount of geeks in suits wandering aimlessly around the lobby.”

  His gaze slid lazily down over her. Her abdomen tightened. She couldn’t prevent the tingle of excitement in her lower belly caused by his stare.

  “I’m sure you were driving the geeks nuts in that get up. Some things never change, huh?”

  She smoothed her hands over her leather-covered hips. “I’ll have you know these pants are the centerpiece of our fall line and are already selling like fashion crack in London and Paris.”

  His expression turned speculative as he stared at her EsmeEs Designs skin-tight, breakaway leather pants. He seemed to come to a decision.

  “You look like some combination of a classy biker, a superhero, and a stripper.”

  “Can I use that for the catalog sales description?”

  He gave a slashing grin. She laughed, a feeling of euphoria rising in her. God, it was good to see him.

  “So…you said you arrived just this afternoon? And you’re already pissed off?” She stepped back to grip the railing. Hard. A head rush of happiness had left her giddy. This was a very unexpected event.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You looked like you were ready to kick some serious ass when you walked onto this elevator.”

  “Oh, that.” Jude shook his head in the manner of someone trying to rid himself of an irritating fly buzzing around his head. “Yeah, it was nothing. Work stuff. The Assistant Treasurer for Financial Institutions loves to make me look like an idiot in front of our boss. Wall Street dickwad,” he muttered under his breath, eyebrows once again tugging into a scowl.

  “I thought that was your job: the Assistant Tre
asurer for Financial…er…whatever.”

  “I’m the United States Assistant Treasurer for Financial Markets, not Institutions,” he said, his small smile conveying that sweet, resigned forbearance she recognized all too well. “It’s not that your bad at math, Es, you just won’t fricking study.” Damn right she wouldn’t study. Back then, Esme Esterbrook had far too many thrilling, pointless and potentially self-sabotaging activities on her calendar to waste time with her nose in a book.

  “Sorry,” Esme muttered, making a face. She was proud of Jude’s accomplishments, of course: his master’s degree in Economics, his work at the Federal Reserve, and now his illustrious appointment in Washington. He reported directly to the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States. She’d read an article about him in the L.A. Times that called Jude’s economic models fresh, powerful, and even revolutionary. The same article predicted that Jude would one day be the chairman of the Federal Reserve. All of Esme’s knowledge about his job still didn’t mean she was any closer to having a clue what he did every day of his life. An old sadness twitched to life inside her.

  Jude had left her behind, that summer after he’d graduated from high school.

  The elevator door dinged open. He glanced up at the floor indicator. He placed his hand on the back of her arm and urged her forward. “This is your floor? Let’s go to your room and catch up.”

  “No, that’s not my floor,” she said too quickly, leaning her weight backward in an obstinate gesture.

  She’d given Thor a room key and told him she’d meet him in her suite at eight o’clock. Her uncharacteristic desire for drama and illicitness tonight (not to mention horniness) now struck her as immature and stupid. It was currently five after eight. She envisioned a ridiculous tableau of Jude following her into her suite only to find Thor Redfern stretched out on the bed, wearing only his bronzed skin, some biker boots and a rose lying on the six-pack, tight drum of his belly.

  Jude’s brow creased in confusion at her flat denial. He stopped the elevator door from closing and glanced at the button panel.

  “Hold on. You must have hit this floor. We’re the only two people on here, and I’m three floors up.” His blunt assessment and refusal to let go of the topic struck her as stubborn. Her hackles rose, an uncontrollable reaction honed from years of childhood squabbles.

  “Brilliant deduction, Sherlock. I’m on the same floor as you,” she lied.

  “Then why the hell did the elevator stop?” he groused under his breath, hitting his floor button again with an impatient stab. The doors closed. He turned toward her again. “Why are you staying at a hotel, anyway? You live in L.A.”

  “We have a photo shoot going on at a studio near here. We finished tonight, but it’s taken a couple days. It’s easier for me to stay close by instead of driving back and forth from Chinatown everyday.”

  “Why do you say we? I thought you were the sole owner of EsmeEs Designs,” he said, putting out his hand for her to exit in front of him when the doors opened. She exited the elevator, highly aware of his light touch at her back. When had he learned to escort a woman with such casual male grace?

  “I am. But I have seven employees now. I guess I just think of the company as all of ours, not just mine. They’ve been great. Every one of them has been as dedicated as I am in making EsmeEs fly. I owe them a lot,” Esme explained, keeping her head lowered as she dug in her purse. They walked down the hushed, luxurious hallway, she slightly in front of him. She tried to disguise her panic in regard to the fact that her room was three floors down, and she had no idea where she was leading him. Unfortunately, Jude had years of experience in recognizing her bluffs, so she kept her face hidden by a swath of long hair.

  It was bad enough, that she’d proposed a night of casual sex with a male model whom she barely knew. Despite what Jude—and most of her family—thought of her, Esme was not the love-’em-and-leave-’em type. It was hard to leave someone you never had. It was just easier for her if her family and friends didn’t expect much from her in the romance department. The best way to accomplish that was to let them imagine she was a cold-hearted man-eater.

  In truth, she was fairly lame when it came to sex and male companionship. Mostly, she was lonely, living alone in her huge Chinatown loft, bingeing on coffee, Honeynut Cheerios, wine or manic workout routines, and working incessantly on her designs all night long. Sometimes, she didn’t shower or change clothes for two days running.

  Pitiful. Not to mention disgusting. No wonder you came on to Thor. You’re starved for a man’s touch.

  Thor possessed the gorgeous male face and body that Esme had hand-selected to represent her male line. Most women would have killed for the opportunity to sleep with him. And Thor wasn’t stupid. Maybe he wasn’t smart, either, but he was far from the box of rocks category. He had a nice smile, and in addition to being a model and an actor, he was also a painter or sculptor…

  Or something.

  Point being, she could have chosen a desperation booty call that was a hell of a lot worse. But with Jude Beckett unexpectedly standing by her side, it felt like she’d been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Revealing the secret about her impulsive propositioning of Thor to Jude wouldn’t just make her feel like a naughty girl, though. No, Jude’s sharp, knowing gaze would make her feel shallow and stupid.

  Not to mention ashamed.

  Jude Beckett always had been her Achilles heel.

  “Democratic to the last,” Jude was saying. “At least as democratic as a born monarch can be.”

  Esme blinked, forcing her brain back to the topic. She’d been telling him about her employees’ ownership and hard work for EsmeEs Designs. “Monarch? Cut that shit out, Jude.” He knew she hated his asinine jokes about her being a princess.

  The Becketts and the Esterbrooks had lived side by side for years at Tahoe Shores in an affluent neighborhood. Jude’s family had once been wealthy, but had been “brought low,” as they used to say in the olden days, not just by financial ruin, but by scandal, loss, and grief. Jude’s parents had died in a car crash when he was eight, and his brother Zev was ten. The boys had been moved to their retired grandfather’s Lake Tahoe lodge.

  Hearing Jude call her a “born monarch” pricked her. It smarted even more knowing that he still held the power to hurt with the most casual, off-the-cuff comment. She wished he wouldn’t say things like that, because deep down, Esme knew his distant, vague resentment wasn’t just about privilege or money. It was an old wound, a bitter sadness that Esme had an intact, loving family, while his had been snatched away from him without warning or reason. He might have been accepted like a brother in the Esterbrook household. But deep down, Jude felt his orphan status like an old war wound that had never quite healed.

  He laughed, and as usual, Esme had to question whether she was crazy for briefly sensing his pain.

  “Lower the sword, Es. You know I’m proud of everything you’ve done with the business. Not surprised in the least, either. I just meant you were born for brilliance. Is this your room?” he asked casually, pointing. She realized she’d come to a halt outside a door. Thinking fast, she nodded. She extricated her card key from her purse. Then she pretended to hesitate.

  “Let’s go to your room instead,” she suggested abruptly.

  Chapter Two

  “Why? Hiding something in there? Or someone?” Jude was clearly amused, but his glance was also sharply curious as it strayed toward the closed hotel room door.

  “No.” She stepped away from the door and resumed down the hallway. “I just left my room a real mess, that’s all.”

  “Are you forgetting I was witness to your messes since I was eight years old? Not only yours, Sadie’s as well,” he said, referring to her older sister. Esme forced herself not to frown upon hearing him say Sadie’s name. He made an amused, derisive sound as he came to a halt and dug for his card key in his trouser pocket. “And they say boys are pigs. You girls were downright filthy.”

  “We
ll now I’m a filthy woman.”

  She’d said it flippantly, but his stare flew to meet hers. They stood close. He’d always been tall for his age, but he’d really shot up his last year of high school and first year of college. Esme often forgot this, as they’d begun to drift apart by that time. She was reminded full force now. He was almost a foot taller than her five foot four. Jude’s muscles might not bulge and quiver like Thor’s, but he was as hard and strong as the lean, rangy teenage athlete he’d once been—more so. Age had broadened his shoulders and made the angles of his face sharper and more compelling.

  As a fashion designer, Esme hated traditional men’s business suits. She would never tell him this, but she loved Jude Beckett in one. Maybe it was because she knew he was far from traditional, and liked that his non-conformism blazed forth, even in a three-piece cage. Not that Jude could be trapped in anything. He mocked everything a suit meant. He didn’t even know he was doing it, which made it even sexier.

  If that was possible.

  His was a man’s face now, with more pronounced hollows and angles. He seemed harder. His long-lashed, electric blue eyes were the same, but…different somehow, too. His gaze on her was lambent, but there was something there, something new that cut into her. The moment seemed to halt and hang in some kind of suspended solution. His firm, well-shaped mouth spoke to her, even though his lips didn’t move.

  She stumbled in her heels. Jude caught her at her shoulders.

  “Es?”

  “Yeah?” she whispered, staring up at him, her lips parting expectantly.