Who knew if they had enough honor to make a deal. Natalia’s presence didn’t help right this second. Not when I had an almost constant boner the entire time she was around. I’d woken up this morning with the ghost of her warm lips pressed against my skin and her hands trailing across my ass. The memory of it made me swallow hard, so much that Tanner turned to look over at me.
I needed an address to pick her up for our meetup. Even against my better judgment I couldn’t deny my base urge to see her, touch her, and make sure she was real. If I was thinking with any kind of logic, I should be canceling. Instead, less than ten minutes later, I had an address where I could pick her up around one in the afternoon before my two forty-five meeting. It’d be a small time together, but enough to soak her up. Another hit for my cravings.
“Hey, get out of your head, Romeo. We’ve been sitting in the fucking parking lot for like ten minutes now. Get a move on or do I have to carry you into the office? Part of my duties moving around your encumbered, spoiled ass?” Tanner waggled his eyebrows at me and threw my Range Rover keys into my lap where I neatly caught them.
“What’s your growing obsession with my ass, Tanner?”
The big man smiled, and got out of the car with all the grace of a linebacker. I followed suit knowing I’d shut him up for at least a good fifteen minutes. I sent off another email to Sandy letting her know my plans with Natalia, except I didn’t mention Natalia, and that I wanted to have a driver ready at a quarter of noon for Tanner and I. He’d be tickled when he found out he was accompanying me on a…was it a date? A skeptical part of my brain argued severely with that terminology. Truthfully, I didn’t know what else to call it.
As the elevator doors opened up to my office and Tanner followed me out I knew that the idea of a date would be stuck in the back of my mind until we actually went on the damn thing. Whatever it was to either of us. As if she knew where my line of thought was going I got another text from the woman in question.
I can’t wait to see you. It’ll be nice.
I grimaced at her sweetness knowing I didn’t deserve it. If I worked hard enough, perhaps I could quietly convince myself that meeting her again was all a private ploy to relax me. Though the bastard should have been sleeping like a baby after the workout I’d put him through at the gym. At the thought of Natalia, I looked around, half-expecting her to be there. I’d been hanging out with Kick3 Sports too long, soon my speech would be peppered with crassness. I’m sure my clients would love it.
Chapter 12 - Natalia
“Are you sure you want to go through with this, Natalia? He doesn’t have a red room of pain…does he?” My best friend Jill was practically shaking in her Kmart boots at the prospect of me meeting a billionaire for lunch. I’d come over to her house after a nice spa day because I’d given Liam her address to pick me up. I’d asked Jill first, of course, and she agreed that it was a safe course of action.
Now nothing else about the current situation was safe.
“Sweetie, not every billionaire is a sadist, and this isn’t a book. I’ll be fine. Otherwise I wouldn’t go, you know that.” I swept by her to get to the mirror on the wall to adjust my dangly earrings in the mirror. “I’ll be careful. I promise.”
Jill scowled, sweeping her curly red hair into a ponytail as a small curl twisted back over her forehead. She blew at it idly before rolling her eyes and crossing her arms leaning against her wall. A small huff echoed from the baby monitor in her hand. We both leaned closer toward the sound as the house went silent. False alarm.
“You’ll text me every second?”
“Every half hour on the dot.”
“You look really pretty,” she said almost begrudgingly with a smile that made me want to give her a big hug.
I’d figured it was in my best interest to get myself dolled up for my meeting with Liam. Men were more willing to divulge information with the addition of a pushup bra. Besides, it was kind of nice having the excuse to get pretty. With my family’s strict rules, I hadn’t been on a date in several years, much to their dismay.
“A woman of marriageable breeding who wants to be single. Oh, well, whatever shall we do!” I mocked them to myself putting a hand on my forehead as if I was going to faint away.
“They can’t argue over a billionaire. Now that’s a catch!”
My best friend didn’t know how right on the money she was in a lot of ways. She was also way off in a lot of other ones. Nothing was ever simple where my family was concerned. My phone buzzed with a little harp sound and I fumbled to reach it inside my tiny clutch. A girl knew it was an important date when there was a clutch.
I’ll be there in less than ten. That okay?
My tense fingers typed out an affirmative answer as I blew out a long exhale and smudged my lipstick together again.
“You look great. Seriously, Natalia. He doesn’t know what he’s in for today.”
“That’s the idea.” I turned and gave her that hug she was more than owed, cherishing her smell—daisies and sweet baby milk. “Thanks so much for being such a good friend.”
“Of course! Who the hell else am I going to live vicariously through?”
We both laughed. Deep down I could pounce on him. I was that impatient. What did she want me to do, speed up time? We both needed to get laid, but this was another thought altogether.
“He’s here!” Jill squealed as she looked at her front window before covering a hand over her mouth and glancing upstairs with a guilty expression. “God, please tell me I didn’t wake them up.”
“I’m sure the twins are fine,” I squeezed her shoulder. “I’ll text you.”
She nodded, squaring her shoulders, clearly ready to let me go into dating battle without a wing woman.
“Oh! Take a selfie with him! I want to see if you’re cute compatible.”
I ignored it, and walked down her driveway to the waiting town car as a driver got out and opened the back door for me.
“Thanks,” I replied demurely sliding into the freezing backseat.
“My pleasure, Ma’am.”
When I jerked back as the door closed I saw that I was going to be squished into the backseat of the exquisite luxury car, not by myself as I’d anticipated, but with two other men. Liam caught the back of my head, so it didn’t slam against the window. I swallowed at the intimate touch as his thumb slid down the nape of my neck. Meanwhile, my eyes rested on the man next to him. The huge man sporting a lot of leather, long hair in a ponytail, and he reeked of bike grease.
“Who’s our new friend?”
“Tanner. The bodyguard,” he answered, and stood emotionless.
Friendly, wasn’t he?
Liam smiled ducking his head as a way of a silently apologizing before his soft hand slid off my flesh. The loss of his touch echoed like a physical ache down my spine. He must have seen something change in my expression, because his hand sought out mine in my lap. Either that or he had similar feelings. I thought the odds of that were wishful thinking and silly on my part.
Tanner kept silent during the ride, and there wasn’t really a great atmosphere for small talk. Not much of a date, really, with a bodyguard along for the ride. At least the ride was quick enough. We were parked an airstrip before I could so much as blink. I marveled at all the planes as they maneuvered on the runway and taxied out. Were we leaving on one of those things? I’d never been on a plane, and I really had no need to start now. A roll of panic made my breath squeeze in my chest until I was sure Liam had noticed my trembling hand still held tightly between his two hands.
As a gentleman, he said nothing.
As Tanner slid out of the car on his own without the aid of the driver, Liam put a stop to the driver opening our side of the door by grabbing the door handle from inside.
“Is this not really your thing?” he prodded gently, leaning tentatively toward me as if trying not to be intimidating. “I didn’t think to ask if you were okay with flying. That’s completely my fault, I’m sorry.”<
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To his credit, he looked genuinely pissed at himself. Which of course made me feel even worse for not somehow magically knowing we’d be taking a plane—when I’d expected lunch at a nice restaurant.
“Do we…need…the plane?” I squeaked out, damning my fear as it narrowed my windpipe.
“It’s not a plane. Helicopter.”
The world spun and blurred. I closed my eyes, focusing on my breathing. I’d always hated flying. I liked solid ground, and having my feet firmly planted on it. Swallowing hard, I did my best to shove my fear down deep.
“We don’t have— “
“No. No, we do, Liam. Whatever you have planned, I’m sure it’s amazing. I’d be stupid to let my fear control me and now’s as good as time as any to conquer it. Don’t you agree?” My speech was brave even if I spoke through clenched teeth with sweat dripping down my spine beneath my slinky strapless red dress.
“I won’t make you do anything you’re not comfortable with, Natalia. That’s not my style.” He coughed removing one of his warm hands from mine. “We can go anywhere else you like, just say the word.”
“What would you say if I said Wendy’s?” I laughed uncertainly with a weak smile.
“Then I’d order two Frosties and a huge pile of nuggets. Is that what you want?”
Liam leaned closer to me trying to decipher my facial expression, but I turned my face away. Yeah, it was pretty much what I wanted. None of that mattered though in the face of what he’d endured at the hands of my extended family. If Liam Smith could survive being held against his will, mentally tortured, I could get on a fucking helicopter.
There was a knock on the other window, probably Tanner getting impatient. Liam frowned and told him just a second as his other hand slipped over mine again. The added pressure was comforting. I craved more of this intimate contact.
“Take me. We’re going. Now.”
Something in my tone must have tipped him off to the fact that I wasn’t changing my mind because he nodded, fidgeted in the seat, and reached over me to open the door again. The slight brush of his arm across my breasts made my breath hitch, and I licked my lips nervously. I could almost think he didn’t know he did it, except when I looked back into the car after getting out I caught him carefully adjusting himself in his slacks.
Good to know I wasn’t the only one feeling our connection.
He eased out of the car as if nothing was wrong, took my hand, and led me to the waiting chopper pad.
“Up, up, up and away!” Tanner shoved himself into one of the bucket seats. I guess there was no going back now.
“You’re sure?” Liam looked at me one more time, gray eyes earnest and sweet. “You let me know the second you can’t handle it and we’ll land.”
“You heard the man,” I pointed toward the sky and cocked my head. “Take me to Neverland, Peter.”
Chapter 13 - Natalia
We landed with a muted thump, I couldn’t stop myself from the last jumpy movement. Liam caught it, his free hand wrapping around my waist in a tight, suggestive squeeze. For a bright moment of relief, I focused on something else other than our helicopter ride. Instead, I wondered how he avoided the prick of interest that pulled low in my stomach every single time he brushed even a finger against me. I was pretty sure his reaction might by different. Still, I could purr with contentment. Awareness of his physical body molded to my flesh and inside my head until there was almost nothing else.
For a good majority of the flight, I’d ignored the bodyguard snoring in a bucket seat behind us. In fact, Liam had requested that Tanner turn his helicopter microphone off and then had spent the majority of our flight amusing me—distracting me—with random stories from work, his travel, and I imagined anything else that popped into his head. Meanwhile, I nursed my fear and a subtle mix of anger tinged with shame that I couldn’t simply enjoy our growing closeness. Instead, I was forced to think of information for my kin.
When he saw my frown as the helicopter powered off, he must have mistaken it for something else.
“It wasn’t as bad as you thought, was it?” His voice reverberated in my ears from the large headphones we had to wear to ride in the death bird in the first place. “At least now it’s over, and I can show you what I really wanted.”
What else was there? For the first time in what felt like forever, I looked out the window.
“That’s where we’re going to have lunch?”
My eyes scanned the flatland below the helipad shot through with green dots of cactus and scrub root, but what was most impressive, other than the large reaching and evidently untouched desert, was the huge Spanish gabled house plunked in the middle of all of it. A sprawling estate in the middle of blue sky and land that took my breath away.
“It’s an old family secret. An estate passed down through the generations. I modernized a bit when it came into my hands.”
“I’ll say,” I breathed out as the pilot gave me his hand to help me out of the flying deathtrap and my heels landed on hot, pulsing tarmac. My legs wobbled a bit, but I managed to stay upright. Points for me.
Unable to take my eyes off the sprawling place—complete with huge pool—I was daunted at the idea of walking there when a town car pulled up as if summoned from my thoughts. I looked at Liam with a sidelong expression.
“How else did you expect to get there?” One of his eyebrows rose as if he was suppressing a smirk as he helped me into the backseat of the car and swiftly followed behind me. “You did good back there, you know, brave of you.”
While I didn’t need his approval, a small shot of pleasure ricocheted through my body. I’d tried my best not to be embarrassing. At one point I’d been close to asking for a paper bag. Liam had handled it wonderfully and been more than supportive, which probably shouldn’t have surprised me as much as it did, but given our history?
“Thanks,” I murmured and drew my knees up, so they pointed toward him in the back of the car.
His expression changed, a quick, subtle movement that I almost didn’t catch at all. As if he’d decided something, he nodded to himself. His hand eased onto my knee. Time seemed to stop as the warm prickle of his heat twisted up my thigh making me press them together by instinct as if to quell my need for him. I let out a small sigh, visibly relaxing beneath his touch, and he seemed to do the same as he leaned back into the fancy leather seat. That little voice in my head wouldn’t keep quiet, and kept pressing for me to make a move or tell him my deepest secrets. Crossing my arms, I resisted the temptation with everything I could muster to avoid being completely exposed.
When we weren’t touching, nothing felt right. It was nice that he was following his instincts and had the same needs stoking deep inside him. Our eyes locked as we both wore tentative, small smiles of not so secret pleasure. Despite our pasts, clearly our bodies had other ideas about our attraction. They were really bizarre matchmakers—insistent too. Inside, I told myself it was better to appease them. Really, it was excuse, pure and simple.
An excuse neither of us seemed to mind as we got to the house and I nearly fell over myself as Liam showed me every gorgeous inch. A few people were mingling around the place waiting for his instructions and we went out to the sprawling backyard with a large lattice trellis where beautiful climbing vine wrapped tightly around it. Lunch was waiting for us. A display that didn’t disappoint and it looked like he’d pulled out all the stops for us.
“This is…way more than expected…” I eased back into the chair he’d pulled out for me unable to take my eyes away from the plate of neatly cooked salmon on my plate along with a salad of mozzarella and tomato. “This looks amazing. Thank you.”
He looked down for a beat and picked up a fork, his face suffused with pleasure. It was a new and fleeting look on him, so I tried my best to commit it to memory in case it was a long time before I saw it again. We both tucked into lunch without another word. Occasionally we’d make a noise or grunt of ecstasy as we shoved food in our mouths. Neither o
f us felt the deep need to wreak the tentative peace that this place had brought to our interactions, so we kept quiet, and let everything settle. At least for a little while we could pretend to be normal—or as normal as a billionaire turned badass, meeting with his attacker could be, given the circumstances.
“We are friends, aren’t we?” I blurted out.
He’d made the wine in his vineyards in California, and had it shipped here by the case specifically for today’s lunch. A little buzz tickled my nose, making my tongue a little bit loose—one of the reasons I didn’t drink often. Under the term lightweight in the dictionary, there was a picture of me. Now I tried to gather my focus as I looked at him. It was near impossible to get a read on his expression or body language. He’d suddenly gone deathly still as if he’d became a wax statue of himself. All of my organs burned too hot. I longed to take back what I’d said, but there wasn’t a way to gloss over it.
So I waited for an answer.
“Yes, we’re friends,” he drained the rest of his glass putting it down so hard that the stem nearly snapped off as he blinked as if confused. “Of course, we’re friends.”
His tone of voice was far off, though, abstracted as if he was already considering something else. I made a small noise.
“This place reminds me of Spain. The architecture…what I remember of it…” I let the words float off my tongue as if they were easy to share and pretended I didn’t care if he picked up the little breadcrumbs of conversation I’d left behind for him.
Two Cowboys Next Door Page 20
