My Thoughts
Ben and Liz were friends and coworkers, but when a kiss almost took it further they stopped being anything to each other. Ben went on to lead a very successful company while Liz runs her own small company. They both end up at a convention to raise money and end up competing for the same contract. At the same time they realize they still have feelings for each other and share some very carnal moments in paradise.
I totally got where Liz had trouble giving in completely to Ben with him being so completely absorbed in his business. She too loves her work, but longs to have a life outside of it. I wanted to tear her brother up. Such a jerk. My heart just hurt for her when she found out what he did. The chemistry that was so obvious between Liz and Ben both in and out of the bedroom. When they were working together you could tell they just clicked.
I give In Bed with the Competition 3 hearts!
Giveaway
About the Book
This rivalry is too hot for
the tropics…
Elizabeth Carlson and Ben
Harrison used to be friends, coworkers... and almost lovers.
But that was before Ben proposed mixing business with pleasure. Elizabeth
refuses to lose her heart to a hotshot tycoon with a cutthroat,
take-no-prisoners attitude. Not with the prospect of starting her own company
at stake.
Driven to succeed in all areas
of his life, Ben couldn’t resist the temptation to make Liz his.
But then she walked away, igniting a bitter rivalry. Competing for the same
contract at a Caribbean conference ignites sparks too hot to ignore, and Ben’s
determined to finish what they started, even if it’ll only last a few steamy,
tropical nights.
Elizabeth’s resolve begins to
crumble under Ben’s blatant seduction. Can she walk away from a hot island
fling with the sexiest man she’s ever known with her heart intact, or will
losing herself in Ben destroy everything she’s fought to achieve?
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Excerpt
Chapter One
Ben Harrison had
seen his fair share of women in bikinis, but this one seemed different. For
one, she wasn’t model thin with toothpicks for limbs, but had killer curves and
legs that went for miles. His mouth went dry as he took it all in. A wide straw
hat. The thin ribbon ties of her top coming together in the middle of her back.
The ends trailing down a few inches, drawing the eye to the curve of her waist
and then lower, to bright red bottoms.
He felt guilty
for staring and averted his gaze, but Nolan’s low whistle of appreciation
reflected Ben’s sentiments exactly.
He turned to his
friend with a raised brow. “What are you looking at?”
Nolan leaned up
on one elbow and tilted his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose. “The same
thing as you, I’m thinking.”
“Well, you can
just lie back down and forget about it. We might be here a couple of days
early, but there’s still a lot to do to get ready for the convention.” Ben
enjoyed the occasional break, which is why he and his business partner Steve
Nolan had come to Antigua two days before this convention was scheduled to
begin. But no matter where he went, he never left the work entirely behind,
because he still hadn’t achieved his goals.
“Not for me,”
Nolan protested with a grin. “And not for you, either. We got this nailed,
Harrison. Everyone will be lining up to hand over their money. And you have to
admit, if you look at any more reports, you’re going to go blind. Trust me,
nobody likes a squinting playboy without a tan, no matter how innovative he
is.”
Ben frowned. A
year ago he’d been a nobody, fighting tooth and nail to make his mark along
with all the rest, but after appearing at a few gala events with heiress and
model-turned-CEO Meredith Stone, someone had decided to run a story on him, and
suddenly he was considered a playboy. “It’s bad enough I get that shit from the
media. I don’t need to hear it from you, too.”
“What? You don’t
appreciate the attention?” Nolan smirked.
It was
disconcerting and inconvenient, but Nolan was of the opinion that a little
media attention of any kind was a good thing. It had the potential to translate
into the kind of corporate interest they desperately needed, and that made it
worth putting up with for a while. Both of them had sunk everything they had
into their cutting-edge software development company, but it just wasn’t
enough. They needed more capital, and they needed it now.
That’s what had
brought them to Antigua. The Artificial Intelligence world was a small one, all
the industry players would be at this convention, and they would all be looking
for the next big Internet money-maker—that’s where Optimus Inc. came in.
Nolan grinned.
“If you ask me, the fact that the media hounds have locked onto someone else’s
scent for a while is fucking fantastic.”
“Yeah, I’m sure
you’re ecstatic,” Ben answered with a shake of his head.
The reporters
might suddenly consider Ben Harrison’s life fodder for their pages, but they
practically wet themselves over any chance to photograph brilliant mathematician
and bad boy Steve Nolan, whose family had been the stuff of society legend
until it all fell apart in a public scandal a few years ago…and who was now
having too damn much fun at Ben’s expense.
Ben’s attention
shifted back to the woman on the pool deck. She faced away from them, having
arranged herself on an available deck chair in front of the sparkling pool. She
was applying lotion to her legs and thighs. Her motions were slow and smooth,
the sun bouncing off her perfect, slick skin. It didn’t take much for him to
start imagining those legs wrapped around him…
Maybe he had been
staring at reports too long. After all, he’d left New York early to scratch his
itch for adventure…and a reckless island fling could be exactly the thing he
needed.
Nolan moved to
get out of his chair. “Well, since you’re not going over there, I think I’ll
introduce myself—”
“No way.” Ben
shoved him back. He stood and grabbed his shirt, flinging it over his shoulder.
“You’ve got your wish. I’ll clock out for the rest of the day, but that means
you have to check in with Clarissa in New York.”
Nolan groaned
good-naturedly. “Where are you going?”
“Don’t worry
about me.” He glanced over his shoulder. “With any luck, I’ll soon be
sufficiently distracted for the rest of the night.”
Ben walked away,
but having escaped Nolan, he quickly changed his mind, deciding he was going
back to his room after all. He didn’t want to intrude on the woman’s privacy.
There was going to be a preponderance of a certain type of person at the resort
this week: execs and programmers specializing in programming initiatives, and
the marketing bottom feeders who were just looking to capitalize on someone
else’s innovation. The facilities had been completely booked by the convention,
so while he couldn’t picture many software engineers who looked like her, it
stood to reason she was another early arrival taking advantage of an
opportunity for some time to relax before the hordes descended, and he didn’t
want to encroach on that.
As he passed her
chair, though, he couldn’t help but slow. A large beach bag rested on the
ground beside her, a colorful towel spilling out of it. He wondered if she
planned to take a dip in the pool later. That was something he didn’t think
he’d want to miss out on.
Right now, she
lounged back in the reclined deck chair. Her drop dead gorgeous body was
presented to the sun like an offering, and the front of her was equally as
stunning as the rest. The round globes of her breasts teased him from behind
smallish triangles of bright red Lycra. Her skin was smooth and creamy,
gleaming with the layer of sunscreen she’d just applied, but pale, as if she
took vacation about as often as he did. Then again, after a few days in that
tiny bikini, she’d be golden in no time.
She’d taken out
a book, presumably from the depths of the large bag, but it lay closed in her
lap. He raised his brows. That was some dense, technical subject matter. His
first instinct had been correct; she was obviously here for the convention.
That put a different spin on his interest, and he stopped walking altogether,
trying to decide if he recognized her. He thought he might, but oversize dark
glasses covered her eyes.
She wore a thick
gold band on her thumb that looked better suited to a man, but no rings on any
of her other fingers, including the third finger of her left hand. Not that
such an absence meant as much these days as it used to. The band gave him
pause, though. He used to know someone who wore a thumb ring like that.
Looking closer,
he tried to see past the floppy straw hat. It covered her face and hair, with a
red ribbon that matched her bikini. Thick curls escaped from beneath it and
fell to her shoulders. He used to know someone with tight curls like that, too.
“Um, excuse me.
You’re in my sun.”
He was startled
by her relaxed, husky voice, as if she’d just been through a long night of
steamy sex, and he was the man who’d awakened her with kisses to do it all over
again. That voice was familiar, too.
Very familiar.
He cleared his
throat and inclined his head with his most approachable smile. “My apologies.
You caught me daydreaming.”
“Oh, is that
what you were doing? Not staring at my…uh…hat?” Her lips were coated with some
kind of clear gloss that made them look wet and full. A cocked eyebrow rose
above the rim of her sunglasses. The way she did that, the tilt of her head as
she looked up at him…
He laughed, but
his gut tightened. “Ah, maybe you’re right, and that’s what got me daydreaming.
You have a very lovely…hat after all.”
The hair was
different. Her body was different…or maybe he’d just never seen so much of it
before. If only he could look into her eyes to know for sure.
He readjusted
the shirt he’d thrown over his shoulder and stepped closer. “Would you and your
hat care to meet me in the bar tonight for a drink?”
That eyebrow
went up again at his boldness, and her hand clenched on the book in her lap
like a shield.
“I don’t mean to
intrude on your holiday,” he added quickly. “But if you’re here alone and you’d
like some company…”
She pressed her
lips together, and he felt the weight of her assessing gaze travelling down the
length of him, even though he couldn’t see past the barrier of her dark
sunglasses.
After a long
moment, she reached up and slid the glasses down the bridge of her nose,
revealing deep green eyes. Green like the tropical water surrounding the
island.
Her gaze was the
same as a physical touch to his skin. Hot and unexpectedly jarring. Those eyes.
Yes. He knew those
eyes.
He knew her.
In the time it
took for him to verify his suspicion about her identity, her smile turned
brittle, and her expression hardened. “It’s only been a little over a year,
Harrison. Don’t tell me I was that forgettable.”
About the Author
J.K. Coi is a multi-published, award winning author of
contemporary and paranormal romance and urban fantasy. She makes her home in
Ontario, Canada, with her husband and son and a feisty black cat who is the
uncontested head of the household. While she spends her days immersed in the
litigious world of insurance law, she is very happy to spend her nights writing
dark and sexy characters who leap off the page and into readers’ hearts.
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