Harts of Arizona Series

by Yahrah St. John

  Amar raised the bet from one hundred thousand to two hundred thousand. The dealer turned to Jeremy to see if he would raise or fold.

  Rylee couldn’t help herself and coughed loudly. Everyone instantly looked up at her, annoyed by the interference. The game was intense and exciting, and everyone wanted to see what Jeremy would do next.

  Camryn merely held her head low, but it was Jeremy who turned around and gave her a “knock it off” look.

  With her eyes, Rylee tried pleading to Jeremy one final time to stop the madness, but he quickly turned back to the game.

  “So what’s it going to be?” Amar stared at Jeremy, trying to figure him out. Players had already folded with Three of a Kind and a Full House, so Jeremy had to have something good. Amar had to hand it to him — he was going down swinging. But in the end, Amar would be victorious because he had the best hand of all.

  Jeremy stared at Amar. He knew Amar Bishop wanted to win and usually he would have folded, but Rylee was here. How would she feel seeing him cop out like a punk? He had to go the distance. “I don’t have any more chips.”

  Amar looked at the empty spot on the table in front of him. “I can see that. So you’re folding?”

  Jeremy stared down at his hand. It wasn’t the best hand he’d ever had, but he’d won on a bluff on far less.

  Amar motioned Sharif over to his side and whispered something in his ear. Sharif nodded his consent. “You need collateral to raise your bet.”

  Jeremy stared back, dumbfounded. “Collateral. Like what?”

  “I’m willing to accept Dreamer as collateral against your bet,” Amar said. He would make Jeremy put up his prized possession and make his father proud by following through on his request to destroy their Derby competition.

  This time the crowd began talking in loud yet hushed tones. Most of them knew why Jeremy was at the Derby — so Dreamer could take a run at the title.

  Rylee rushed to Jeremy’s side. “Stop this lunacy now, Jeremy. You can’t bet Dreamer away. Please don’t do this.”

  “Back off, Rylee,” Jeremy warned, glaring at her. He didn’t appreciate her interference in front of Amar of all people. It was disrespectful. She needed to let him handle this, handle Amar.

  “What’s it going to be?” Amar asked. “Make a bet or fold.”

  Jeremy paused for several beats as everyone in the room, including Rylee, waited for his answer. She couldn’t believe he was willing to gamble away his horse — a horse he’d been training for years — to prove a point to Amar that he was worthy of her. She shook her head in frustration. “What’s he doing, Camryn?”

  “I don’t know,” Camryn whispered. “Stop him.”

  “He won’t listen to me. It’s like he’s in some old world duel with Amar in which neither of them will blink.”

  “Oh, Lord!” Camryn rolled her eyes. “Then he’ll have to lie in the bed he makes.”

  And lie in it he did, because when it was time to reveal their hands, Jeremy had a Four of a Kind, but Amar had a Royal Flush.

  Rylee watched agony cross Jeremy’s face when Amar said, “So, I’ll have my attorney draw up the papers for Dreamer and have them delivered to your suite in the morning.” Amar held out his hand to Jeremy.

  Jeremy looked at it for several moments and Rylee thought he was going to slug Amar, but he shook his hand instead. Amar had won the hand fair and square. It wasn’t his fault that Jeremy had gambled carelessly with his most prized possession.

  Amar walked over to where Rylee stood in stunned disbelief behind Jeremy while Camryn walked out of the room in disgust.

  Rylee didn’t want to look at Amar, but his commanding presence made it impossible for her to ignore him.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” she said tersely, glancing up at him. “It was cruel.”

  “No, I didn’t, but perhaps someone should tell him not to gamble away something so priceless,” Amar said. “As I told you before, I always get what I want. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.” He grasped her hand, brushed his lips across it and then sauntered out of the cellar.

  Rylee stared at his retreating figure.

  If he was this ruthless when it came to winning at poker, what was he capable of when it came to going after her?

  “You’re looking rather smug this morning,” Sharif commented. They’d had to rise early to take care of some overseas business that required their attention and were now in the hotel gym for a workout. Amar was lying on his back completing weight reps while Sharif spotted him.

  “If you’re commenting on my winning hand last night,” Amar replied, lifting the two-hundred-pound weight, “then you know I’m a master poker player and I don’t like to lose.”

  “You annihilated that poor man, and he didn’t even see it coming,” Sharif said, looking down at his boss. “Couldn’t you have left him some dignity without taking his horse?”

  “He wanted to play in a high-stakes game.” Amar lifted the weight again and sat up on the bench. “Casualties happen.”

  “I’ve seen you ruthless before,” Sharif said, taking the weight and placing it back on the holder. “But last night it was personal.”

  Amar turned around to face him and inclined his head, conceding the point. “I suppose you’re right, Sharif. This Jeremy fellow was acting as if he were above me, as if he were the better man for Rylee than me, and it stuck in my craw.”

  “Clearly,” Sharif said and handed Amar some free weights. “But how’s your father going to feel when he hears you have a horse running against his horse in the Derby. He won’t be pleased.”

  Amar shrugged and accepted the weights to begin his bicycle curls. It was a risk he was willing to take. “Won’t matter. The horse is a long shot at best. Plus, I had to show Rylee that any man willing to gamble away his horse shows a total lack of self-control and confidence. How could Rylee want a man like that?”

  “And you think she wants someone like you?” Sharif asked, lifting up the dumbbell to help Amar complete his shoulder presses. “If you ask me, she was sickened by both your behaviors.”

  “But it’s me that she craves,” Amar responded smugly, putting down the weight.

  “You’re that sure of yourself?”

  “I know when a woman is attracted to me, and the kiss Rylee and I shared at the Taste of the Derby was just the start. We’re not over, not by a long shot.”

  “Last night was a travesty,” Rylee heard Hank, the trainer, tell a stable hand the following morning as she gave Dreamer the once-over. “How could Jeremy gamble her away?”

  Rylee couldn’t understand it either. How could he have been so careless? It was upsetting to know that she might be the reason Jeremy hadn’t used good judgment. She supposed that’s why she’d come to the stables so early to check on his horse. Or she should say, his former horse. She’d tossed and turned all night long and finally, at four AM, had given up the pretense of sleep. She’d showered, dressed in her jeans and a plaid shirt and headed to the stables. She knew her job here was over now that Jeremy had signed Dreamer away, but she’d kind of had an affinity for the large animal.

  “Who knows how this Amar Bishop will take care of her,” she heard one of the men say. “He’s used to Arabians, not a gentle breed like Dreamer.”

  “I heard his father’s a sheikh,” Hank said.

  “How can that be? Isn’t he part black?” another asked.

  “Father must have had a thing for dark meat,” one of them said, laughing.

  Rylee didn’t like hearing the men and Amar’s potential employees talking ill of him, so she walked out of the stall with her hands on her hips and said, “Perhaps you shouldn’t gossip about a man you know nothing about until you’ve actually had the chance to meet him.”

  The men replied with an exaggerated “Humph!” and stalked away.

  Clapping sounded from
behind her, and Rylee rounded to find Amar standing within inches. “I should have you as my defender more often.”

  Amar was wearing a polo shirt, riding britches and boots. He looked freshly shaven, equestrian and super sexy, but Rylee was furious with him. She rolled her eyes and went back into the stall to finish her final check of Dreamer.

  Amar followed her. “Wow! I don’t think I’ve had an eye roll since I was in boarding school,” he said, watching her and laughing as he leaned against the stall door.

  “What do you want, Amar?” Rylee asked. “Did you come to gloat over your winnings?”

  Amar straightened at Rylee’s harsh tone. She was truly upset with him. “No, I came to check on the horse I won fair and square.”

  Rylee rolled her eyes again. “Gambling!” She said the word with such distaste that Amar hung his head low.

  “Rylee, I didn’t make Jeremy bet his horse away.”

  “But you sure as hell didn’t stop him, did you?” she said, spinning around to face him. “You were determined to one-up him. And why? Because he was spending the evening with me? It was juvenile!”

  Amar’s blood began to boil. He did not appreciate Rylee’s tone nor her condescending manner. “If you’re looking for an apology for my actions, you won’t get one.”

  “As arrogant as you are, I wasn’t expecting one,” Rylee returned. When she’d completed her check, she softly brushed Dreamer’s chestnut coat and whispered words of good luck to her as if the horse could understand.

  Rylee picked up her medical bag from the stall floor and tried to push past Amar, but he wouldn’t budge. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “To my hotel room to pack.”

  “Pack?” Panic started to set in Amar’s belly, but he tried his best to belie it by responding in a cool tone. “What do you mean?”

  “My job here is over,” Rylee said matter-of-factly. “The only reason I came to the Derby was to help Jeremy win. Now that he no longer has a horse, I’m sure he’ll be charting his jet back to Tucson with as much steam as humanly possible, and Camryn and I will be right there beside him.”

  She tried again to push past Amar, but all she did was connect with a solid expanse of his rock-hard chest and breathe in that spicy cologne he wore that was so masculine and intensely him.

  “You can’t leave,” Amar said quietly.

  “I can, and I will.”

  “But Dreamer is in the Derby tomorrow.”

  “And?”

  “And you’ve been taking care of her all of this time. You can’t just abandon her.” Amar knew it was a feeble attempt to get her to stay, but he was grasping at straws.

  “I came here to help a friend, and you’ve succeeded in making that no longer necessary. There’s no reason for me to stay.”

  “Isn’t there?” Amar said, tilting her chin upward to look into her piercing eyes. “The only reason you’re leaving is because you want to run away from what’s happening between us.”

  “I’m not running. I’m walking.”

  Amar smiled. “Semantics. You’re running scared and ready to bolt right when things are heating up between us.”

  “I told you before, Amar, I wasn’t going to be your weekend plaything.”

  “How do you know it couldn’t be more? You’re so quick to rush off. So why don’t you stay? Not just to take care of the horse, which I think is your ethical responsibility, but stay because you want to be with me. Because you want to explore the chemistry between us as much as I do.”

  Rylee shook her head. “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Jeremy’s my ride. He brought me here to Louisville.”

  “He’s not the only one with a private jet, Rylee,” Amar responded. “I’ll take you back home. Stay here with me. What other excuses do you have?”

  Rylee spun away from Amar and the powerful energy he exuded and began pacing the stall. She couldn’t think straight if she was standing that close to him, and he knew it, sensed it. “I just can’t,” she said with her back to him. She couldn’t face Amar because if she did, she knew her resolve would break.

  “I think you want to,” he said softly, spinning her around and forcing her to look at him. He lightly touched her cheek. “You just have to allow yourself to,” he said, leaning down, planting a kiss on her shoulder, neck and face, “enjoy the moment.”

  Rylee tried to lean backward and wiggle away from Amar, but he just pulled her more tightly against him until they were hip to hip and she could feel him. He pinned her with the weight of his body and that’s when he lowered his head and gave her a feather-light kiss.

  “Say yes,” he murmured as his mouth moved upward to graze her earlobe with tantalizing persuasion.

  “I-I …”

  Rylee felt her resolve weaken when his damp tongue circled her ear and then slid in. She clutched his biceps through his shirt to prevent herself from falling, but Amar had a tight hold on her. He left her ear long enough so his mouth could return to her lips and coax a response. She succumbed to the domination of his tongue and circled her arms around his neck, greedily kissing him back.

  Amar was an excellent kisser. He was confident, skillful and totally delicious. A rush of desire coursed through her right to the apex of her thighs. She wiggled herself against his growing erection, and he groaned a sigh of pleasure. She wanted to reach down and touch him, but she resisted the urge. Instead, she mated her tongue with his, and he answered by deepening the kiss and swirling his wicked tongue. He probed deeper and deeper until she met him stroke for beautiful stroke.

  Rylee could feel her nipples pucker into pebbles. Before she could react, Amar began freeing the buttons on her shirt and sweeping his hands over her. He unfolded a bra cup and took a hardened nipple, rolling it between his fingers. He dipped his head, ready to take a nipple in his mouth, when they heard a loud crash and footsteps retreating.

  Startled, they jumped away, and Rylee noticed a rake had fallen to the floor. She was panting uncontrollably, her breasts heaving, but she recovered long enough to rush from the stall and see Jeremy striding down the stables. “Jeremy, wait!” she said from the doorway as she buttoned her shirt, but he kept walking.

  Rylee went to run to him, but Amar caught her arm. “What’s it going to be, Rylee?”

  She glanced down the hall at Jeremy’s retreating figure and then back up at Amar, with whom she’d shared the most amazing passionate kisses she’d ever had in her life. She’d been bold and brazen with the intimacies she’d allowed Amar after only knowing him for a short time. She hadn’t behaved this way with any other man. Should she stay with Amar to find out what passion truly meant? Or should she go with Jeremy?

  “I’ll stay,” Rylee replied, jerking her arm away, “but I have to talk to Jeremy, so you’re just going to have to trust that I’ll be back.”

  “Go!” Amar said. “I’ll be waiting.”

  Chapter 5

  Rylee caught up to Jeremy just as he was getting into the limousine waiting for him outside the stables.

  “Jeremy, wait!” She grabbed the door just as he was about to close it in her face. “Don’t leave like this.”

  “Like what? Humiliated,” he said, his lips a thin line of anger. “That, that bastard” — he pointed toward the stables — “made a fool of me, and I allowed myself to get caught up.”

  “Jeremy, calm down!”

  “Why should I, Rylee?” he asked, stepping out of the limo to face her. “You’ve known for years how I felt about you, yet you continued to lead me on. This weekend was my chance to show you that I could be the man for you, but clearly I failed.”

  “Jeremy, it was never a competition between you and Amar.”

  “No?”

  “No.” Rylee touched his arm. “I simply don’t feel that way about you.”

  “Like you f
eel about him?” Jeremy asked, his nostrils flaring. “I saw you back there.” He pointed to the stables. “You have never kissed me the way you kissed him.”

  Rylee lifted her chin and boldly met his gaze. “And I never will, because I just see you as a big brother. I always have and despite how much my father and your parents tried to push us together, it was never going to work. C’mon, you must have realized something wasn’t right when I wouldn’t sleep with you.”

  “And you think it’ll work with him?” Jeremy scoffed with cold sarcasm. “It won’t, Rylee. Amar’s a user and opportunist. Once he’s gotten what he wants, he’ll be on to the next woman. I don’t want to see you get hurt, Rylee. I love you.”

  “And I you.”

  “But like a brother?” he added.

  Rylee nodded, bleakly.

  “Then I wish you the best of luck, because I promise you that Amar will leave you when he’s had his fill of you.” He slid back into the limo.

  “Then I guess it’s my mistake to make, and if I get hurt, then it’s on me. It’s not on you to protect me.”

  “No, it’s not, not anymore,” Jeremy said. “Take care, Rylee. I’ll see you back in Tucson when Amar has returned to his playboy ways.” He closed the door behind him. Seconds later, the limo drove off leaving Rylee staring at its rear window. But she wasn’t alone for long.

  “Are you okay?” Amar asked as he came up beside her.

  Rylee glanced at him sideways. “What do you think? I just had to hurt a friend I care deeply about. I’ve been friends with him since childhood.”

  “Better you set him straight than allow him to continue to believe he has a chance with you.”

  Rylee frowned because Amar was right. She should have had that conversation with Jeremy long before now. Had she told him before, maybe none of this would have happened. But then again, would she have ever met Amar?