“It’s five past five,” he says as we take our seats. “We’re making good time. Luckily there weren’t any roadworks.”
“Yeah, we shouldn’t have any trouble catching the plane at this rate.” I open the cardboard box and tuck into my burger. “Mmm. I missed lunch; I’m so hungry.”
He watches me eat with amusement.
“Don’t tell me,” I say, “Samantha didn’t like burgers.”
“She’s vegetarian,” he says.
“Of course she is. I bet she loves quinoa.”
He snorts and takes a bite out of his own burger and groans. “I can’t tell you how nice it is to be with someone who enjoys meat.”
“I’m a big fan of meat and two veg,” I say with a straight face, not sure if he’ll pick up the Britishism that refers to a man’s genitals.
He coughs into his soda, then wipes his mouth and laughs. “Jesus.”
“Oh come on. If you’re going to spend any amount of time with me, you have to get used to my sense of humor.”
“I’m beginning to understand that.” He meets my gaze for a moment, his eyes twinkling, before having another bite of his burger.
I chew a couple of fries, noticing with amusement that, throughout the big food mall, girls from several tables are glancing across at him. I’m not surprised. The All Blacks top he’s wearing clings to his body, showing muscles I didn’t realize he had. His biceps look like Popeye’s. And a tattoo curls from underneath the sleeve. I didn’t know he had a tattoo.
He runs his tongue across his teeth and his lips curve up. “What are you thinking?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.”
“I don’t want to embarrass you.”
“I’m not easily embarrassed,” he says. “Is this a follow-up to the meat and two veg comment?”
“Sort of. Jules overheard you and Samantha arguing one day. Samantha called you insatiable.”
He gives a wry laugh, leans back, and brushes his hand across his face. “Right.”
“Apparently she said she was fed up with you trying to wear her out. Do you remember the conversation?”
“It could have been one of many. It was a recurring topic.”
I take a pickle out of my burger and crunch it thoughtfully. “She didn’t like sex?”
“Not much, no. Far too messy and undignified.”
“Only if it’s done right.”
He laughs. “Yeah.”
“I can’t imagine anyone not liking sex. What’s not to like?”
“Quite a lot, apparently. Although maybe she’s changed her mind now she has a new boyfriend.” He studies his burger for a moment. Oh, that discovery stung him quite badly.
“Are you still in love with her?” I ask softly.
“No,” he says, and takes a bite of the burger.
“You want to think about it?”
“No need.”
“So if she turned up on your doorstep and begged you to have her back, and said ‘take me to bed right now, big boy,’ you’d say no?”
“Well, A, it would never happen, and B, I’d say no anyway because I’d know she didn’t mean it. I was with her long enough to understand she has a deep-rooted dislike of losing control. Which is what sex is about, ultimately.”
“If it’s done right,” I say again, and he gives a short laugh.
“Yeah.” He glances at me with amusement, and something else—interest, I think.
“I can’t imagine being married to someone who wasn’t enthusiastic about sex,” I say. “Didn’t you figure that out beforehand?”
“She was more… enthusiastic in the first few years,” he replies. “Sometimes I’ve wondered whether it’s my fault. In bed, I mean. But I never had any complaints before. She enjoyed it—I think, although a guy never truly knows.”
“I think you get an inkling.”
“I like to think so. To be honest, I think it was simply that her sex drive wasn’t as high as mine.”
And now I’m definitely getting the tingles. “I can see how that would be a problem.”
“It sounds amusing, I’m sure, but when your partner makes you feel… I don’t know… dirty, I guess, and not in a good way, for wanting sex more than once a fortnight, it becomes a problem.”
“Once a fortnight?”
“Yeah.”
“Fuck me.”
He laughs. “Yeah. And even then I could tell she was only doing it to keep me quiet. Quite a passion killer.”
“You’re well rid of her,” I tell him. “You need to find a girl who’ll screw your socks off.”
He helps himself to my fries. “You’re probably right.”
“Once again, I’d like to offer my services.”
He gives a proper laugh at that, from his belly, deep and husky, making the hairs rise on the back of my neck and causing the girls around the food mall to look over at him. “You’re incorrigible,” he states.
“Thank you.”
“And it’s fun to talk like this,” he continues. “But you know that’s never going to happen, right?”
I shrug and eat my burger. “Not if you’re going to be a goody two-shoes about it.”
“It’s not about being a goody two shoes. Leon’s a good friend, and it’s not the done thing to bang your best mate’s sister.”
Now it’s my turn to laugh. “Fair enough.”
“It’s not that I haven’t thought about it,” he admits.
I meet his eyes. He gives a little shrug. “Just being honest.”
“I like honesty,” I tell him.
“I can see that.”
I tingle all over at the look of lazy desire in his eyes. He seems to find me attractive. But obviously he’s determined to do nothing about it.
We’ll have to see what we can do about that.
He finishes his burger and starts gathering up the rubbish. “We should get going.”
“Jesus. I’m not done!”
“Well get a move on. What do you think Stefan will say if you miss this plane as well?”
It’s enough to get me moving, and I shove the rest of the burger in, drink the last bit of soda, then follow him out to the car.
“I don’t know why all the men in my life think they can boss me around,” I tell him good-naturedly as we buckle ourselves in. “I’m perfectly capable of sorting myself out.” I promptly trap my T-shirt in the clip, which gets stuck, and have to be rescued.
“I’m saying nothing,” he tells me as he wrestles the clip free whilst trying not to rip the T-shirt.
“Oh don’t be so smug.” I sit back in a huff. He just laughs and pulls out into the traffic, heading south for Auckland.
“I thought of something while we were eating,” he says. “Do you want to try to find us a hotel for the night while we’re en route?”
“Oh yeah, good thinking.” I pull out my phone. I bring up Google, choose a booking site, type in Queenstown, and scroll through. “Holy shit,” I say eventually, “everything’s booked.”
“Seriously?”
“Apparently there’s some kind of special jazz festival in Queenstown tomorrow. Everyone must be arriving early.” I curse again as I scroll through another site. “Literally everything is fully booked. There’s no room at the inn.”
“Any stables with an opening?”
I laugh. “Oh, wait! Here’s one. It’s a luxury suite. That’s not a problem is it? It has a gorgeous view across the lake. Oh, no, that’s no good, only one bedroom.” I continue scanning the list, bring up another site, and then another. “Oh, this is really bad, Ryan. There really is nothing left.”
“Go back to the suite.”
“With the one bedroom?” I raise an eyebrow at him.
“Don’t get any ideas. I was going to ask you to see if it has a sofa.”
I chuckle and look at the photos. “Actually, yes.”
“Then book it, quick. I can sleep anywhere.”
�
�Aw.” I tap in my details. “You’re such a gentleman.”
“Well, I’d rather kip on the couch than in the car.”
“Point taken.” I press send and sit back with relief. “Done.”
“Great. Well, that’s something positive.”
I blow out a breath. “I was worried for a minute. Okay, you want me to put the music back on?”
“In a minute. Tell me more about Theo.”
“What do you want to know?”
“I only met him once. What did he do?”
“He was a dairy farmer.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. He had huge hands.”
“I’m not sure I should ask why you’re smiling.”
“I could say something about milking cows and the size of my boobs…” I grin at him, and he laughs.
“So come on then,” he continues, “you obviously liked the guy. Was the only reason you broke up with him because you weren’t ready to settle down? Didn’t you love him?”
I shrug and look out of the window. “I don’t know. Sometimes I’m not quite sure what the word means. I liked him. I enjoyed being with him—when he wasn’t nagging me because I was working. We liked the same music and movies.”
“Did you think about him when you weren’t with him?”
“I guess. Like, I wonder where he wants to go for dinner or something. I don’t know. It wasn’t like you see in the movies. Being obsessed and all that. I’ve never felt like that about anyone.” I glance across at him. “You felt like that about Samantha?”
He sighs. “In the beginning. She was very beautiful and intelligent, and I liked being seen with her. And I think it was the same for her. She enjoyed the fact that I had money, and connections in business. When we lived in Auckland, we went to a lot of functions, but they weren’t really my thing. I went to make contacts; she went to be seen.”
“So now you just sit on the beach like a hobo and you’re happy as a pig in you-know-what.”
He grins. “Yeah, that about sums it up.”
“I’m glad. Although you’re not going to meet the girl of your dreams like that.”
“Oh, I’m happy being single for a while.”
“Not missing the sex?”
“What do you think?”
“Your right hand getting lots of exercise?”
He gives me a wry look. “Put the music back on.”
I scold myself silently as I do as he says. I’m being provocative and flirty, because I like him, but not all men like women who are forward. It doesn’t matter that we’re both Kings; I need to tone it down a bit. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. My mouth just won’t stop moving sometimes.
We start singing to an old Abba song, and I purposefully don’t ask him any more questions as we enter the Auckland suburbs, and he begins to negotiate the heavier traffic. It makes the going slower, and I watch the clock tick by, starting to get nervous as we pass six o’clock and we’re still not over the Harbour Bridge. He was right—I’d never hear the end of it if I missed the next flight as well.
But Ryan just says, “Relax, we’ll make it,” and sure enough, once we’re over the bridge the traffic starts moving again, and we pull into the airport around 6:30 p.m.
We park and make our way to the automatic check-in counters, get our boarding passes and flight tags, and hand over our cases. Then we go through security and walk down to our gate.
“Did I upset you before?” Ryan says out of the blue.
I lift my eyebrows. “When?”
“In the car. You’ve been very quiet since. I think I might have sounded abrupt, and I didn’t mean to.”
We take a couple of seats as we wait for the boarding call. “It’s okay,” I tell him. “I know I can be a bit much. Theo used to say that. I’ve embarrassed him in public more than once. I tend to say what’s on my mind, and I don’t always think about whether it’s appropriate to other people.”
“I wasn’t embarrassed,” he says. “I’m just conscious of our situation, that’s all.”
“You’re talking about my brother again, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” he confirms. “I’m beginning to realize I could really get to like you, and that’s not good news.”
Chapter Six
Ryan
I probably shouldn’t have said that. Clio’s baby-blue eyes have widened, and her lips are curving up. I open my mouth to say it doesn’t mean anything is going to happen between us, but at that moment my phone rings. I take it out of my back pocket and answer it. “Hello?”
“Hey, it’s Hal.”
“Hey.” I glance at Clio and mouth my brother’s name. She rolls her eyes and mimes cutting her throat, and I stifle a laugh.
“Dude,” Hal says, “where are you? Stefan said you missed the plane.”
“Yeah. I got stuck in an accident on the road out of Kerikeri.”
“Jesus, are you okay?”
“Yeah, I wasn’t involved, but it blocked the road.”
“Stefan said Clio’s with you?”
“Yeah. We’re at Auckland airport. We’re catching a flight to Queenstown, and then we’ll drive down to Dunedin tomorrow morning.”
“I can’t believe she missed the plane, too. Honestly. Leon’s not best pleased. You’d think she would have made more of an effort for him.”
I glance at Clio. She takes out her phone and pretends to study it. She’s obviously gathered the tone of the conversation. I’m sure she’s cringing inside at the thought of what everyone’s saying about her.
“That’s unfair,” I tell Hal, frowning. “Her watch stopped. She genuinely didn’t know what time it was.”
“Oh, come on. She’s hopeless. Leon said if he had a dollar for every time she’s been late to something… I can’t believe she’s twenty-five and nearly qualified as a vet, and she’s still acting like a teenager.”
I get up and walk away from Clio, turning my back to her. “Hey,” I tell Hal, “enough already. She feels bad enough about it. She’s no more guilty than I am. Shit happens, Hal. She’s a nice girl, and she’s genuinely upset that she missed the flight.”
“Fair enough. I apologize,” Hal says. “I think I’m getting caught up in the wedding stress here. Everything’s going like clockwork, but there’s obviously a hundred things that can go wrong, and Leon’s desperate to make sure it’s a great day for Nix, so he’s got me running around like a blue-arsed fly.”
“Well,” I tell him, “I hope all goes well. Clio and I will be there by lunchtime tomorrow. The wedding’s at two, right?”
“Yeah.”
“We’ll make sure we’re there by then.”
“Okay. I’ll let Leon know.”
“And ask him to go easy on Clio, okay? She’s doing her best.”
“Yeah, all right. Stay loose.” Hal hangs up.
I slide my phone back into my pocket and return to sit next to Clio. She turns off her phone but doesn’t look up at me.
I bump her shoulder with mine. Her lips curve up a little.
“Fuck ’em,” I say, and she laughs.
“Yeah.” She lifts her blue eyes to mine. “Thank you for standing up for me.”
“Well, I missed the plane as well.”
“Yeah, but your error was no fault of your own.” She examines her fingernails.
I’m beginning to realize that beneath her sassy humor, Clio actually has a sensitive side. Whether there’s any truth in it, it rankles that everyone thinks she’s unreliable.
Soon it’s time to board, so we gather our hand luggage and head to the plane. When we’re on the plane, the flight attendant directs us to our seats halfway down. Clio sits in the middle seat next to an older gentleman, and I take the aisle seat on her right.
I’m a big guy, and I’m conscious that my thigh is pressed against Clio’s, and my arm is flush with hers. “Sorry,” I apologize as we both struggle to buckle in our seat belts.
“Going to get a lot cozier than this tonight,” she says
. “As we’re sleeping in the same bed and all.”
I give her a wry look. “Keep dreaming.”
She laughs and pulls the in-flight magazine out of the pocket. “A girl can fantasize.”
I know she’s only teasing me, but as the final passengers take their seats and the flight attendants run through the safety briefing, I can’t help but think about what would happen if we did sleep together.
It would be a disaster. Wouldn’t it? Leon would be apoplectic.
If he found out.
No, I mustn’t even think about it. Clio is a friend, and it would only make things awkward at work.
Wouldn’t it?
I’ve never had a fling with someone I work with before. When I was younger, I’d date friends of friends, or occasionally hook up with girls I met when I went out in the evening with mates. Neither of us is interested in a relationship. I can’t help but think it would be weird to sleep with a friend and then act as if nothing had happened.
No, it’s definitely not a good idea.
But now it’s in my head, planted like a seed, the roots delving into my brain, the leaves starting to unfurl. It’s only now I realize how I’ve refused to let myself think about her in that way before. She’s Leon’s little sister, and a friend, and even though it’s impossible not to look at a woman and admire her physically—I am a man, when it comes down to it—I rarely let a perusal turn into something more sexual.
Now, however, I have sex on the brain. It doesn’t help that I haven’t had any for at least two years, and probably a lot longer than that, as my marriage was deteriorating a long time before we actually broke up. I’m sex-starved, and beside me is a hot girl who’s totally up for it, and now I think my brain is going to explode.
Jesus, get a grip, Ryan. It’s all right to have a fun fantasy, but let’s not try to get hot under the collar when you’re sitting next to her on a plane—she’s bound to notice. I take my iPad out of my flight bag and rest it on my lap, hoping it doesn’t start to rise into the air.
The flight attendant is gesturing down the plane to show us the exits. I inhale slowly, then blow out a long breath. The thing is, I’m convinced Clio would be amazing in bed. It’s been so long since I had really, really great sex. The kind where your partner is as desperate for you as you are for them. It wasn’t as if Samantha was always reluctant, but she rarely initiated sex. I would have to start the process, talk her into it, almost, and then she would normally be, like, okay, let’s do it then. Half the time I think it was to keep me quiet.
My Wicked Billionaire (The Billionaire Kings Book 6) Page 4