by Barb Han
Thoughts of those perfectly-pink lips of hers had wound their way through every meeting he attended. Before that, he’d almost convinced himself he brought her to his villa solely for business reasons. So she could see firsthand the event site and not just to bed her. The sweet sleepy image of her had crept into his thoughts persistently. Her being vulnerable like that had him angry with himself. If something had happened to her because she fell asleep waiting for him...He muttered a curse.
This woman was nothing like the women in his past, women he enjoyed but could walk away from. Avery was different. Intriguing. Or was she?
All he really had to do was get to know her to break through the mystery.
Ryker needed to remind himself again and again that Avery wasn’t his usual type, and he seriously doubted a woman like her would instinctually know his dating rules. She’d want more. Have him wanting more.
And that wouldn’t cut it.
Even so, he couldn’t keep himself from thinking about those gorgeous lips of hers, and how they would feel moving against his.
He had to force himself to focus. Think clearly.
“Come down,” he said, raking a frustrated hand through his hair, and his voice was gruff.
Avery shook her head.
Ryker glanced around, and then quickly realized the reason for her hesitation. The paparazzi. Right. She hated press.
She couldn’t seem to force herself to step off the plane and into the spotlight. He had his driver open the trunk of his waiting limousine where he pulled out a raincoat. Then he took the steps leading up to the plane quickly, effortlessly. He wrapped her in his coat to protect her from the waiting photographers.
She mumbled a thank you, got in the car, and trained her gaze out the window.
There was a small smoldering silence.
“Do you own all of this?” she asked incredulous. Then mumbled, “Not even a rich man like you should have the right to own sand.”
Had she just insulted him?
Ryker slighted another glance toward her. Her eyes spoke pure wonder and appreciation.
“The landscape is beautiful. It’s why I bought the island.”
“Beautiful isn’t the word for this. There’s no way to describe the magnificence, the majesty of this place.” She leaned back against the leather seat.
Looking at her, seeing her reaction to the place he felt most at home pleased him.
Damn dangerous pride.
Chapter Four
As if riding in the private jet of a billionaire to his private island wasn’t enough to set Avery’s nerves to crackling embers, seeing his villa—if she could even call it that—would surely force her to combust.
The word villa was so deceiving when it came right down to it. The word implied something small and quaint. To say this was a villa was a lot like saying the pyramids in Egypt were a pile of rocks in the desert. She felt a similar sense of awe and reverence to this place. Like she’d trespassed on sacred soil and would need to step lightly so as not to anger some mythical god.
Eloquently positioned on a small cliff, the house took full advantage of the sea view where beaches sleepily collided with mountains and dense vegetation. The water, which stretched out to the left, was as clear as it was beautiful.
Avery barely heard Ryker dismiss the driver, along with a staff of half dozen who were standing at attention, flanking the front door. Distracted by the beauty of the island, the impressive structure before her, and from struggling against all the emotions that came with being near Ryker, it hadn’t occurred to Avery to think about work.
He moved to the back of the car and pulled out her old luggage. Her bags were vintage, the same couple of pieces she’d had since her trip to Europe for primary school graduation. Both had been gifts from her father.
She told herself she was waiting for the right time to discuss business, allowing Ryker to take the lead since he was the boss. And it meant nothing that she’d come to his private island to plan the event. It wasn’t for personal reasons. Besides, back in New York, most business was conducted from lounge chairs attached to private swimming pools, or from behind the wheels of golf carts. This was no different.
Damn Alexandria’s words for winding their way back into Avery’s thoughts. She straightened her shoulders. “I can carry my own bags.” In no way would she confuse this with a social visit.
Ryker’s brown eyes traveled over her face, pausing ever so slightly on the tight line of her mouth. Then his expression turned. “I’m offering social etiquette and nothing more.”
“Well, I don’t need it. I don’t need your charity.”
“I didn’t bring you here for charity.”
“That’s good,” she quickly countered, hating how self-confidence could be such a slippery slope. “Treat me just like any other businessman.”
He rolled his substantial shoulders as his gaze narrowed. His dark brow shadowed smoldering eyes. “Man? A man would know to hold his tongue in my presence,” he continued with a quirk to his perfect lips. “And he would know to show more respect.”
Her lips compressed. “I just want to be very clear here. I came to survey the venue of your event. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
“I have never questioned this point. Why are you?” His bold gaze was more of an accusation than his words could ever be.
“Me?”
“That’s precisely what I said.”
“Just forget it. I just want to be treated like—”
“A man.” He released his grip on her bag.
It tumbled hard enough to spill open.
Avery saw a twitch in his jaw. He stopped himself from picking up the contents, which littered the ground, and she was sure it was because of what she’d just said.
She couldn’t worry about that right then because out there for God and everyone to see were all her innermost belongings. Bras. Panties. Everything she held private in clothing was right there for the world to see.
Could embarrassment actually kill a person?
If it could, Avery was about to succumb.
Dropping to her knees, she immediately fanned out her arms to rein in her personals. She couldn’t stuff the bag with her silky undergarments fast enough. Great that he wasn’t helping. Last thing she needed was for him to be touching her underwear. Embarrassment turned her pink cheeks to hot red. Angry red. “Now look what you’ve done.”
“In this case, I would normally help out a male colleague, but my polite gestures have the reverse affect on you, so I won’t,” he said, a muscle knotting in his jaw.
“Thanks a lot for mocking me.” She flicked her gaze up to him.
His jaw muscle tensed again. “I’ll be waiting inside.”
Did he? Seriously? Just walk away? Leave her here crouching on all fours and frantically stuffing underwear into her bag like she was some kind of squirrel hoarding nuts?
She forced her stare away from his broad shoulders and muscled back as he strolled away.
That was the last she saw of him for the next hour. Like hell he waited. She’d long ago put away her things. Apparently, it was a lot faster to stuff clothes in a drawer than to scoop them up off the driveway.
She decided to check the room for an Internet connection and set up her laptop on the desk near the bed. She peeked out the windows. Paced. Peeked out her door down the long marble-tiled floor.
Where had all his staff gone?
An hour later, boredom got the best of her, and she decided, Ryker be damned, she wasn’t about to sit around in this room all day. She’d give herself a tour of the place. She was bored. And tired. And by gosh, it was about time she sought Ryker out and demanded an explanation. Or food. Or something.
It didn’t take long to come face-to-face with the source of her frustration. In the front hall, she met Ryker head on.
She drew back before they collided.
His head down, his gym shorts on. She couldn’t help but notice how his expansive chest glistened from his work
out.
“The gym’s in back if you want to have a go,” he practically grunted at her. Switching gears, bemused, he looked at her with a tiny crack of a wry smile. “You’ll need to change out of that dress and boots first.”
“I’m fine.”
“Good. Then you brought something more appropriate with you?” His gaze followed a line from her eyes to her nose, down to her lips, where it lingered before moving down her dimpled chin.
Heat flushed her cheeks. “What’s wrong with what I have on?”
“Nothing. Unless you plan on lifting weights in it.”
“Never mind, that’s not why I’m here. Why did you really bring me here?”
“Because I want the best for my event. I thought we already covered this.” His brow quirked again.
A sexy brow, to Avery’s thinking. She couldn’t argue his point, so she forced herself to relax. Breathe. The effect he had on her was electric, intense. She fought it, forcing a smile by sheer determination and will power.
He put his arm around her shoulder and said into her mass of honey-golden hair, “You know something, when you’re not throwing a temper tantrum, you’re quite beautiful.”
“I didn’t come all the way here for false flattery.”
“And when you are throwing a temper tantrum, you’re incredibly beautiful, and you don’t want to know what I want to do...”
Avery whirled around, but his powerful arm stopped her. She stilled, eyeing him carefully as pulses of electricity fired inside her. A shudder of heat ricocheted through her. She blushed to the point of fire in her cheeks.
Looking up at him, she saw something in his eyes, something dark and smoldering, and she wasn’t sure what the hell to do with it because no one had ever looked at her that way...like pure sex. Her body reacted to him in ways she’d never experienced before. A sensation of warmth and heat circled low in her belly. And for a split second, she thought she should remind herself to be afraid, but she couldn’t. The feeling was far too nice to fear.
“I’m certain you say that to all the girls.”
And it probably works too.
Ryker’s tense body language said he’d just armored up. “There you go inviting other women into our conversation again. Not that I give a damn. You’ve made your mind up about me.”
“Either way, I didn’t invite any of this,” Avery said stubbornly. The shivers that the sound of his voice sent up and down her spine, and the ease with which compliments rolled off his tongue, did little more than prove that Ryker Li had done all this before. He was practiced and cool, whereas she was a total vulnerable wreck.
Alexandria was probably right.
Maybe he did want to bed Avery while she planned his event, and perhaps he brought her to the island to keep her away from the media spotlight. Or worse, so he wouldn’t be seen seducing her. But why?
Why would he need to go to this much trouble? His charms, when directed at her, would be impossible to rebuff for long. Avery figured she could wrack her brain for days trying to figure that one out.
Seriously, who could dissect rich men and their eccentricities?
She steeled her strength and pulled away from him.
Chapter Five
“Did I see a pool outside?” Avery asked.
It was bad enough he’d had to work through the image of her looking helpless there on the ground digging around for clothes, and he wasn’t supposed to help her. Now she’d gone and put the picture of her in a tiny little bikini in his head.
He’d already had to watch her struggle to look calm in what must be one of the most embarrassing moments of her life, and his heart stirred. A vein in Ryker’s neck pulsed.
Women, in his experience, had a way of playing a man who went soft on emotion. So he reminded himself not to. He wiped his brow with his hand towel and turned back the way he came. “Pool’s out back.”
Another hour of exercise, and maybe he could wipe that image clean too. He released a string of expletives as he strode down the hall. Exercise normally worked out his frustration when a ready blonde wasn’t available. There were numbers he could call, and one of several women could be on a ferry to his villa faster than he could snap his towel.
He heaved a sigh.
No use. His appetite was for the woman about to be lounging in his pool. Wasn’t his fault, exactly—didn’t the body have a mind of its own when it came to sensual appetite?
He reminded himself again of the dangers of renegade sexual thoughts. Blasting cool water on his face in the shower was his last line of defense. If this didn’t work, he couldn’t be held responsible for his actions. Because even though the water was frigid as hell, the image of her pouty-pink lips crowded his thoughts. How her tongue darted across them when she searched for the right answer.
And how incredible her silken mix of honey-gold locks would look splayed across his pillow.
Damn it to hell.
After a long, cold shower, Ryker strode into his adjacent bedroom. Even though his door was cracked, he made no real effort to cover himself up.
****
Avery, who had been standing outside his bedroom door waiting to apologize to him for her earlier outburst, quickly turned her face away as her cheeks heated about twelve shades past red when she saw him.
“Oh, my God. I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize—” It would be perfect if she could burrow through the tile floor and disappear about now.
“Surely you’ve seen a naked man before,” he said as he pulled a pair of boxers from the drawer.
She didn’t feel the need to tell him “a naked man” was far too general a term for the glorious male body standing before her. “That’s not the point. And you’re my boss.”
After pulling on boxer shorts, Ryker closed the distance between them in a couple of long strides. He was so near that she could see his broad chest glistening with tiny beads of water. His body smelled all male and musky, his breath like mint.
“But still a man,” he said.
His tongue grazed his bottom lip, and Avery couldn’t take her focus off the silky trail it left. Hers tingled and burned in ways she couldn’t begin to comprehend. Her entire body tensed as little fires lit everywhere inside her. Every cell, every proton and neutron inside those cells, craved direct and physical contact with Ryker.
Skin-to-bare-naked-skin.
She wanted to touch him. To lift her fingers to his sable hair. To run them through his thick mane. To run her fingertips along his strong male jaw line, curving around to reach the tenderness of his full lips.
“I, uh, just wanted to become familiar with the event site,” she croaked out lamely.
“It’s out back,” he said puzzled. “We can go right now. I’ll just grab my pants.”
Avery knew, without a doubt, she was in trouble. She could scarcely wrap her mind around the fact that she’d allowed this...this...attraction to go so far. Her resolve would have to be stronger than she’d ever imagined. She’d need strength like she’d never known to keep her feelings under control.
“Fine. I’ll just wait out here.”
She forced her gaze away from his strong back, reminding herself that she simply could not allow herself to end up as yet another plaything of the God-like beautiful rich and famous. A set of people she could scarcely imagine being part of, even though she’d come from money. She told herself that her life was about more than days spent sunning in Monaco and carrying expensive handbags…about more than the things Alexandria and Bits prized.
Oh, but she wasn’t being totally fair to Ryker by lumping him in the category she just had. He was a self-made man. Life had not always been easy for him. His deep-set dark eyes told the story.
Still, telling a little lie was easier than facing the fact that this powerful, sexy man might want anything to do with her.
Avery sighed sharply. Yesterday’s long day was morphing into what promised to be a very long week. Could she be so powerful a woman as to resist his charms? She was only hum
an after all.
Human maybe. But Avery had excellent reasons to stay rooted in reality. Not the least of which was that an affair with a man like Ryker would mean so much more to her than it ever would to him. And that’s precisely why she would keep her feet on the ground.
“I was thinking of something out here,” Ryker said after slipping on a dark shirt and jeans.
He’d look sexy in a paper sack, Avery decided as she followed him down the hall to the main living room, and then onto the terrace. Thank God he was ready to get down to business.
“Something small. Intimate,” he said as he strolled to the edge of the terrace.
Avery could envision a few tables scattered around; the setting sun would provide an outstanding backdrop. White tablecloths on every table. There’d be lights strung everywhere. And candles.
“I’ll need a definite number. But I can see where small would work perfectly out here,” she said while mentally running through and canceling out possible themes.
Ryker turned to her. “No. Not out here. Out there.” His hand swept over the terrace.
Avery moved to the edge and gripped the concrete barrier. “There’s enough space down there to service more than a few guests. How many did you plan to invite again?”
“About a hundred.”
She balked. “Of your closest friends?”
“That’s the idea.”
“You think a hundred is a small number?”
He didn’t respond.
“The location is beautiful, though. You were right. I needed to see it for myself. Pictures wouldn’t do it justice,” she said.
“I’m glad you agree.”
“So. A hundred people. Down there? Let’s see. I hear music streaming through the night air. And lights. Everywhere. Were you thinking day or night?” she asked to clarify before she got too far down one path.
He stepped aside, exposing her to the near-lethal view in total.
“Of course. With the sun setting over there. It would be stunning. Majestic. More than an ideal backdrop. The rest almost wouldn’t even matter,” she said.