by Soraya Lane
“What? You weren’t expecting me to be naked?” She was lucky he wasn’t still hard after thinking about having her in the shower with him.
He tucked the towel around his waist, not bothering to dry his body. The look on her face was priceless, and it had cured his headache better than any pills could.
“You called me in here on purpose,” she said, all shock gone from her face as she folded her arms and stared at him.
“No, I was in the shower and called back to you.”
She made a noise that he couldn’t decipher, but he got that she was pissed off. Although he hadn’t missed the way her eyes had roamed quickly down his body then all the way back up again.
Chloe walked through the bedroom, heading straight for the almost-empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s on his nightstand. She held it up.
“So you kept drinking last night?” she asked.
He shrugged, following her.
“Did it make you feel better?”
“Yeah. I guess,” he replied, turning his back to her and putting on deodorant and aftershave. His reflection was looking a whole lot more human again, compared to the half-dead corpse look he’d been sporting when he’d dragged himself out of bed.
When he turned around this time, Chloe was bent over, looking at a framed photo on the other side of his bed. Ryder stopped midstride, admired the pert ass tipped up in the air, jeans like a second skin. He tucked his towel more snugly at his waist—if she kept her butt pointed in his direction for too much longer … He cleared his throat, getting hard all over again just looking at her. Maybe it was the fact she was bending over next to his bed, or then again it could be the fact that she was sexy as hell and he’d wanted her from the second he’d glanced at her across the ring before his ride the other day.
She turned and he crossed the room to get some underwear. He dropped his towel and pulled on a pair of boxer shorts, before going back to locate his jeans.
“Seriously, Ryder, put some goddamn clothes on,” Chloe said, eyes narrowed. “I’m not just going to jump into bed with you because you’re half-naked if that’s your plan.”
He laughed. She was even sexier when she was all hot under the collar and angry. “I didn’t think you were that easy.”
Her smile gave her away even though he could see she was fighting it, the slight curve on one side of her mouth telling him she’d been thinking about him in exactly the same way.
“Well, at least my reputation is intact. Now get some clothes on and let’s eat breakfast.”
“Breakfast?” Now she had his attention.
“Bacon-and-egg breakfast sandwiches and really strong coffee,” she said over her shoulder. “I figured you’d need something as a kick start.”
Damn. She looked smoking hot and she came bearing gifts. If he hadn’t screwed up royally in front of her, right about now he’d be bending over backward to talk her pants off. Instead he had to try to prove that he wasn’t a spoiled rich kid with complete disregard for his family and his inheritance. Hell, his grandfather wasn’t even dead yet and he’d managed to screw up, so he got that he looked like a brat. Reckless younger brother, definitely; reformed bad boy, sure; but colossal screw-up? No. One bad decision wasn’t going to ruin his life, he’d make sure of it, and if Little Miss Sexy could help him, then he sure as hell wasn’t going to turn her away.
* * *
Chloe grinned when she was in the kitchen on her own. Seeing Ryder with his shirt off the night before had been bad enough, but naked? Damn. She guessed riding rodeo kept him super buff, all muscle and … She reached for her coffee and took a sip, licking away the foam that caught on her lower lip. What she needed to do was focus on the plan. Ryder might be gorgeous, and she might have laid awake thinking about what it would be like to walk into his house this morning, yank off his shirt, and run her mouth over his abs, to explore every delicious inch of him, but that wasn’t why she was here. If she was going to stay playing cards again, she needed to get her groove back, and that meant keeping all her focus on cards, not men.
She froze when Ryder came up behind her, feeling him before she heard him. His big body was too close to hers, in her space, and his mouth was way too close when he spoke directly into her ear.
“The way to a man’s heart,” he murmured, reaching past her so that his arm brushed hers before he took one of the paper bags.
“I wasn’t trying to find my way to your heart,” she quipped.
Ryder turned and leaned against the counter, taking a big bite of the breakfast sandwich.
“My pants?” he asked.
This time she couldn’t help but laugh, partially unwrapping her sandwich and holding the paper bag in both hands before she took a bite to keep it together.
“Not your pants, either,” she muttered before eating.
He grinned through his mouthful, his wink like a burst of electricity between them. It didn’t seem to matter how many times she reminded herself why she wasn’t to go near him—there was something magnetic about the guy that made not thinking about him like that impossible.
“So tell me, Chloe,” Ryder said, drawing his brows together and putting down his food to reach for his coffee, “how exactly do we convince a group of seasoned poker players to let a girl join in?”
“Short skirt, low cut blouse, high heels…” She shrugged. “Do you need me to keep going?”
He laughed, but she knew he wasn’t buying it.
“Not gonna work,” he said. “They might want to look at you, but they’re not going to let you join the table. Not without asking questions or outright telling you to piss off.”
She ate the rest of her sandwich, still working through the plan. She’d been awake most of the night thinking about it, but there were gray areas that she still didn’t have a handle on. Chloe looked up, saw that Ryder had set his coffee down, a smile showing off a sexy-as-hell dimple on his left cheek.
“I think I know what we need to do. And it involves both of us,” Ryder said.
Her last mouthful was suddenly like cobwebs resting on her tongue, hard to chew and impossible to swallow. She forced it down.
“So what exactly are you proposing?” Chloe’s body was on fire, the sound of her pulse beating so loud she could hardly hear herself think.
“I’m saying that for this to work, you’ll need to be my girlfriend.”
Ryder looked completely at ease, his big body tipped forward so he was almost eye level with her now. She refused to look away but every part of her screamed that she should, that it was time to walk out that door instead of staying so close to him. She was playing way out of her league. Poker was easy compared to dealing with Ryder King, especially now that he was sober and firing on all cylinders.
“So what do you say?” he asked, voice barely a murmur as he ran a hand down her arm, fingers light against her skin.
“No,” she managed.
“We tell them we met the night I lost, hit it off, and now I’m letting you have some fun gambling with me. They all saw us flirting,” he continued, undeterred and still touching her. “You can say I’ve given you a decent amount of cash to play with for fun and they’ll know I’m good for it.”
She shrugged off his touch and took a step back. If she didn’t need his money so bad, she’d have just gone with it, thought to hell with it, and had some fun in his bed. But they had a deal and she wasn’t going to let her desire to let Ryder strip her naked and drag her to his bed veer her off course.
“And you expect them to believe it?” she asked. “Just like that?”
His laugh annoyed her. “Me turning up with a beautiful blonde at a bar isn’t exactly going to raise any eyebrows. But yeah, if it looks real, they’ll believe it.”
She swallowed hard, still staring straight back into Ryder’s eyes. “I’m not the kind of girl to just fall at your feet.”
His smile was slow, deliberate. “Sweetheart, you’ve made that beyond clear from the moment I met you.”
Ch
loe sighed. Maybe she should have invited him to her place. At least there she wouldn’t feel like she’d been trapped in the lion’s own den.
“So, boyfriend,” she said, squaring her shoulders and deciding it wasn’t the most stupid plan she’d ever heard. “What do you say to a trip to Vegas?”
“Vegas?”
“If I’m gonna win your ranch back, I need to get some practice in. Which means I need your cash. A lot of your cash.”
If Ryder was surprised, he didn’t show it. He dropped down onto the sofa, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, and smiled. “Does this mean we’re dating?”
She ignored his question. “I want to start with some small games, we can both play, then I want you to hang back and watch, keep an eye on things for me,” Chloe told him. “There are some people I don’t want to run into and I need you to keep track of all my plays, which means I need your help.”
Ryder nodded but didn’t say anything.
“Any questions?” she asked.
“Yeah.” He chuckled. “When do we leave?”
“Depends on whether we’re taking a road trip or flying.”
Ryder grinned and turned around, grabbing a soda from the fridge and passing it to her. She took it, popping the top and taking a sip.
“So car or plane?” she asked again.
He spun back around, closing the fridge door. “I thought you were kidding.”
Now she paused, eyebrows raised as she watched him. “You’ve lost me.” She had no idea why he’d found her question so weird.
“Sweetheart, my family has a jet. We can be wheels up whenever you want to be.”
She stared at him, waiting for him to laugh and tell her he was joking. But he just opened his soda, checked his phone, then looked back up at her.
“What?”
“A plane? You’re telling me you have a freaking plane at your disposal?” Unbelievable. If she had that kind of money she’d be so damn grateful that she’d never waste a penny, and she sure as hell wouldn’t go out gambling.
“Well, I have to share it with my brothers,” he said, a smirk on his face that made him look so cocky she wanted to slap him just to bring him back to reality. “And my granddad.”
“I almost want to drive just to punish you.”
He moved closer to her again, leaning back against the counter and stretching his long jean-clad legs out in front of him. “Twenty-two hours in a car with you wouldn’t be half bad.”
Heat flushed through her entire body, warmth spreading through her belly. Ryder was pure sex appeal, and no matter how hard she tried to think otherwise, she wanted him. And no matter what happened, he didn’t seem able to turn it off.
“I think you’ll find it’s twenty-four hours.” It was the only thing she could think of to say.
He shook his head. “Darlin’, you obviously haven’t hit the road in a Lamborghini before.”
“And you’ve obviously forgotten that you might have a private plane and flash cars, but unless you do something damn fast you won’t have a garage to park them in.”
His smile died, mouth setting in a straight line. “I haven’t forgotten. Don’t mistake me having fun with you for me forgetting, not for a second.”
“Then start acting like it.” She was being snappy and she knew it, but the way he was so cavalier with his money, when he’d lost so much already, was starting to piss her off.
“Are you decent?”
A deep voice echoed down the hall and Chloe forgot all about how annoyed she was when Ryder jumped up, slamming down his soda can.
“Fuck. It’s Chase.” Ryder ran his hands through his hair, eyes darting to Chloe then toward the door. “In here,” he called back.
Ryder swung around to face her, all bravado long gone and replaced with what looked a lot like panic.
“Don’t say anything, Chloe. I meant it when I said they couldn’t find out. Not a word.”
And there was the real man again, the one behind the confident smile and lazy winks.
“He’s probably just coming over to say hi,” she said, placing a hand on Ryder’s arm to calm him. “I waved at both your brothers on my way in. Won’t they just be curious who you’re in here with?”
“Yeah,” he mumbled. “You’re right. We’ll just play it cool.”
Chloe let go of him and slid onto one of the bar stools at the counter, trying to look relaxed, seconds before Chase walked into the room.
“Hey,” Chase said, looking at her instead of his brother.
“Hey,” Chloe said back.
Unlike Ryder, Chase had dark eyes, like liquid pools of chocolate that warmed when he smiled. He was obviously older, but every bit as gorgeous as his little brother. It was insane how one family could have three boys so different yet all so … She held his gaze. Magnetic. Charming. Hell, she didn’t know what they were except damn fine.
“You going to introduce us, brother? Or are you keeping this beautiful woman hidden away from the rest of the world on purpose?”
Chloe bit down on her lower lip to stop herself from laughing. Ryder looked like he was about to rip his brother’s head off.
“Chase, this is Chloe. Chloe, Chase,” he said, pushing past his brother to come stand beside her. He placed a possessive hand on her thigh and she fought the urge to push it off. His big hand over her jeans sent a lick of anticipation through her.
“Pleased to meet you, Chloe,” Chase said, leaning on the doorjamb as he spoke, his smile friendly. “Ryder never lets anyone drive his Range Rover, so I figured I’d better come see who’d managed to get behind the wheel.”
“Really?” She tilted her head back to look up at Ryder, noticed how tight his jaw was, body rigid. “He didn’t protest one bit when I took his keys off him last night.”
Chase crossed the room and helped himself to a drink. “You look familiar. Have we met?”
Ryder’s hand closed around her thigh a little too firmly and she gave him a nudge with her elbow. Talk about going all alpha with his brother around!
“I work at Joe’s,” she said. “I think I’ve served you a couple of times.”
“Ahh,” he said, hooking a thumb into his jeans and draining a can of cola. “It explains where I’ve met you, but not why you’d take pity on this drunken charmer.”
She put her hand over Ryder’s, trying to settle him like she would a dog itching for a fight.
“Easy boys,” she said, leaning back into Ryder, his chest to her back. “It just so happens we met at the rodeo the other day, and he just happened to swing past the bar last night.”
Ryder cleared his throat. “Chloe was watching my bull ride.”
“Please don’t tell me you find this idiot on the back of a bull sexy,” Chase said, not even bothering to glance at his brother. “We’ve been trying to tell him for years that he needs a new job.”
“And I keep telling you I’m perfectly happy with the one I’ve got,” Ryder growled out.
“Heroic and stupid at the same time,” she joked. “But to be honest, I feel more sorry for the bulls than the riders. And if you’d heard me tell this guy what I thought of his fall the other day?” Chloe laughed. “I think you’d have been impressed.”
Chase laughed and Ryder pushed his body in closer to her, his arms wrapping around her shoulders. Her shoulders went stiff until she forced them to relax, softening into him, knowing that they were supposed to look like lovers, like they’d just spent a night hot and heavy beneath the covers. His brothers probably thought she’d just slipped out to get breakfast early, that she’d spent the entire evening with him.
“So tell me, brother, how is it you have this gorgeous girl in your house this morning when she never spent the night? You must be losing your touch.”
Chloe hid her smile with her hand. No fooling this one.
“Too far, Chase. Way too fucking far,” Ryder mumbled, letting go of her and stalking toward his brother.
Chloe just shook her head, watching the t
wo of them behave like they were about to start sparring.
“Hey, just calling it how I saw it,” Chase said, dropping his drink on the counter and backing away, hands in the air. “I’ll leave you two lovebirds to it. You know, because some of us have real work to do today.”
“Fuck off, Chase,” Ryder said, arms folded across his chest as he waited for his brother to leave.
“Happy to. Now y’all go have a good day, you hear me,” he drawled, eyes shining as he grinned. “And if you get bored, Chloe, come find me. I’m a whole lot more exciting than this one.”
She hid her smile again as she watched Ryder escort him out. She had no idea what they were talking about, and she didn’t want to know. What she did know was that having Ryder act all possessive over her had been kind of nice, his touch strong, his body even stronger. She’d never had anyone in her corner like that before, and even if wasn’t real, it was amusing.
She just had to remember that for all his talk, he’d gambled away his ranch, and had complete disregard for how fortunate he was, which made him no different from her father. Kinder perhaps, and stronger in plenty of ways, but a gambler was a gambler, and those kind of leopards never changed their spots. So the last thing she needed was to get used to being his girl. Or anyone’s girl. If she was going to have some fun with him along the way, she needed to be careful; so careful that there was no risk of her heart or any other part of her getting broken.
“Sorry about that,” Ryder muttered when he appeared again.
“You’re pretty similar, you know,” she told him, rising and moving closer to him.
“What makes you say that?”
Ryder had looked pissed off before, but now his expression had changed. His face had softened, eyes like question marks as she stopped just in front of him.
“You’re both used to getting exactly what you want,” she said, sucking back a lungful of air as she placed her hands on his shoulders, running her fingertips down his tee and wishing she was touching skin instead. “And you like a challenge.”
“Are you’re saying that’s a good thing or a bad thing?” he asked.
“I’m saying that it’s about time someone took control of you.”