Romance: Unlikely Love Boxed Set - A Billionaire Romance Series (Romance, Contemporary Romance, Billionaire Romance, Unlikely Love Book 4)

by Nancy Adams

  Chapter Six

  Two days later and things had returned to normal around the resort, which also meant that I was going to get my first view of my cottage. I hadn’t seen Ezra around much. When I asked Gail about him, she told me that he was around, but holed up in the office taking care of business. I wasn’t sure what that business was, but I was again curious about his past. I felt there was a lot he wasn’t telling me, but that didn’t make me less intrigued. I didn’t think he was a criminal like my ex-fiancé had been, but there clearly was something about his past that he didn’t want me to know.

  I was lost in thought, deliriously happy that the airport had recovered my luggage, so I was too busy humming to myself to notice the first knock at the door. When it came again, it startled me out of my reverie and I rushed to answer it.

  Ezra stood there. He had a picnic basket in hand and gave me a slow, lazy smile. He had on a cowboy hat and I couldn’t help but smile back up at him. I knew a lot of women entertained the thought of a rendezvous with a cowboy, though I hadn’t ever been one of them, until now. I finally saw the attraction. Standing there in cowboy boots, jeans that fit him perfectly and a plain white t-shirt, Ezra was truly a sexy sight.

  I had to force myself to drag my eyes back up from his chest and actually make eye contact with him. His eyes seemed to gleam wickedly, and I had to pretend that Ezra standing there looking like an insanely hot cowboy wasn’t the epitome of many women’s fantasies, mine (suddenly) included.

  I raised a brow and refused to smile as I looked at the picnic basket curiously, bending over and trying to see what was inside of it. He swiftly batted at my hand.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked in amusement.

  “What does it look like?”

  “Delivering gifts to everyone in a cottage?” I said, folding my arms over my chest and giving him an innocent look.

  “Ha ha,” he said with a straight face. “I was trying to do the gentlemanly thing and officially thank you for your help. I meant to a few days ago, but I had other business to take care of.”

  “Hmmm…That’s what Gail mentioned.”

  “You asked Gail about me?” he said, looking surprised and also amused.

  I blushed. “Not exactly about you. I just noticed that you were nowhere to be found.”

  “Well, I’m here now.”

  “Yep, you most definitely are,” I said, staring at his body again before I could catch myself.

  He gave a laugh. “Caught you.”

  I felt my cheeks turn red as I said, “I was just checking out your boots.”

  “Among other things…” He let his voice trail off and I found myself tongue-tied. Ezra definitely made me feel like a teenager trying to deal with her first crush.

  “Give me a second to get appropriately dressed and I’ll meet you up at the main house,” I said, needing my space so that I could think without my attraction to Ezra clouding my mind.

  “You look fine, but if you want to change, that’s fine. I’ll wait for you outside.”

  With that, he tipped his hat towards me and let himself out.

  “Real smooth, Marie,” I muttered to myself while throwing on a pair of jeans and a cotton blouse. It was the most casual outfit I’d brought with me. I looked at my shoe options and decided to go with strappy flat sandals, and then I brushed my hair until it looked halfway decent. The humidity was doing a number on it; my wavy hair seemed even bigger in this climate. I guess everything is bigger in Texas, I thought to myself as I grabbed my key and then locked the door behind me.

  I blinked uncomprehendingly for a second as I stared at Ezra, who was standing next to a horse.

  “What’s a horse doing out here?” I asked in genuine confusion.

  “I figured since I was going for the whole cowboy look that I might as well bring a horse. You ride, right?”

  I nodded and then said, “But not in a really, really long time. I’ve been busy.”

  “Well you’re not busy now.” He easily settled into the saddle and then held a hand out to me. I hesitated for a moment and grabbed the picnic basket, and as if I weighed nothing at all, he helped me into the saddle directly behind him. I clutched the basket with the crook of my arm and wrapped my other arm around Ezra’s waist.

  His body was warm and he smelled like the outdoors. Just as I had thought, he was all solid muscle, and as I slid my hands around his torso, I could tell that Ezra did more than just help out around the compound to stay in shape. I surreptitiously let my hands slip down, pretending to try to rearrange my grip, but I secretly was letting my fingers trace the outline of his abs before our trip came to an end. I felt a little off-balance both physically and emotionally as I pressed my chest against his back. I tried not to hold on to him too tight, but I found myself unable to stay upright without wrapping my arms tightly around his waist.

  “Are we almost there?” I said, enjoying the ride but knowing that I needed to put distance in between us. I was enjoying the feel of his body against mine way too much. Ezra’s physical presence was overwhelming enough without me hugging him tightly in order to keep my balance. I was afraid the basket was poking him in the ribs and tried to fix it, but gave up.

  “We’re close,” he answered. We had been riding for at least ten minutes. Finally, we arrived to a point where I could no longer see the compound, and instead we disappeared into a green, wooded area.

  We’d ridden no less than ten feet into the woods when before us suddenly was a small lake that seemed to disappear into the trees. “This is beautiful,” I said as he lowered himself to the ground and then took the basket from me.

  He reached for me and I tried to gracefully get down, but found myself falling into him instead. He grunted a little when he caught me and I playfully rolled my eyes at his lame joke. I hadn’t been watching my carb intake lately, but I certainly wasn’t that heavy.

  “So this is a river or a lake?”

  “Honestly, I’m not quite sure. It’s higher than normal because of the storm, but I thought we could set up a picnic area and have a nice lunch and then we’ll head back.”

  “That’s sweet of you,” I said, meaning it.

  “I’m a sweet guy.”

  “Honestly? I wouldn’t have figured that much.”

  “Ouch. But I deserved that.”

  He withdrew a blanket that had been tightly folded up in the basket and placed it on the ground. It was your typical picnic blanket, I thought, until I sat down on it. It was plush and felt nice beneath my feet.

  “Great blanket,” I commented, wondering what it was made out of.

  He nodded as he busily took out the food and silverware. “Gail made it a few years back.”

  “You and Gail seem to be pretty close.”

  “She’s like a grandmother to me,” Ezra said, not hiding the emotion from his tone. “I just wish she would wear some clothes.” We both laughed, and I stretched my legs out in front of me.

  “Is your own mother still around?” I asked, not sure if that was too much of a personal question. I directed my eyes at the array of items he had pulled out of the basket: fruits, cheeses, meats and to my surprise, a tiny bottle of champagne.

  While I waited for him to answer, I picked up the miniature bottle.

  He sat down and took it from my hands. “It was a gift from a dentist.”

  “What?” I said, confused.

  “I know. Sounds crazy, but my dentist gives out these little bottles of wine to all her new clients.”

  “Is the wine supposed to help you forget about the pain and cost associated with going to the dentist?”

  “I asked her that same question. She laughed at me and explained that her dad owns a vineyard not too far from here, so she gives new patients wine as part of the ‘welcome to my practice’ gift.”

  “If I were her, I would give it to patients before they’re seen. You know, to build up their courage.”

  He laughed. “You’ve seen Little Shop of Horrors one to
o many times, I’m guessing.”

  I shrugged. “I watched a lot of TV as a kid.”

  “I wouldn’t have figured that. I would have figured you were too busy with one lesson after another. Piano. Violin. Fencing.” He popped a grape in his mouth, and I reached for a few as well.

  Between bites I said, “Yeah, I had music lessons and fencing lessons growing up, but my heart wasn’t really in it. Now television. I loved that. Especially mysteries. I was a huge fan of Angela Lansbury.”

  “Murder She Wrote? Aren’t you too young to have seen that growing up?”

  I laughed. “Yep, but my grandmother used to watch it and whenever I visited, which was pretty often when mom was traveling, we would sit together and watch it. She would even let me eat cookies.”

  “Sounds ideal.”

  “It was. I mean, I missed my mom, but there wasn’t much I could do about it besides get lost in another episode of a murder mystery.”

  “And this whole time I thought rich people just sat around and ate caviar. I didn’t know they actually did ordinary things like watch TV. I thought that was for us common folk.” He winked at me.

  “Yes, moneyed individuals like myself have been known to lower ourselves from time to time to identify with the masses,” I said sarcastically, in an affected rich person accent like I’d heard on British television.

  Ezra laughed and handed me a wine glass. “I’ll stop teasing you.”

  “You promise?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “So what about you? What was your childhood like?” The little bottle of wine had distracted me from pursuing an answer to my first question about his mother.

  He didn’t say anything for a long moment, but just helped himself to a piece of bread. He chewed thoughtfully, and just when I thought he wasn’t going to answer, he finally did.

  “Pretty busy. We moved around a lot.”

  “Military family?” I guessed.

  He surprised me, saying, “My mother was a professional gambler.”

  “Ha!” I assumed he was joking. When I realized he wasn’t, I quickly mumbled an apology.

  He shook his head and lowered himself into a half-sitting and half-lying-down position, keeping himself propped up by his elbows.

  “She made a pretty good living. She was an awesome poker player, but wasn’t interested in settling in one place. So we lived anywhere there was a tournament and wherever her money would take us.”

  “And yet you pick on me for coming from a wealthy family?”

  “Well, she didn’t make millions.”

  “My parents didn’t either!” I hissed.

  “Point taken,” he conceded, winking at me again. “She was different. Always chasing adventure. Living life on the edge. She never saved. Just bounced around from one game to the next.” He then grew quiet and I could feel that something was wrong. Softly, he confirmed my feeling. “She passed away from cancer early on. I was only about twenty at the time.”

  “I’m so sorry, Ezra,” I said, feeling my eyes tear up. Although my parents hadn’t been the most demonstrative people, I would have felt terrible if I lost them, even as an adult.

  “It’s okay. But after I lost her, I just felt so, well…lost. I bounced around from job to job. Picked up some skills. But pretty much just drifted through life for the first year after her death. And then I met my wife…”

  “Your wife?!” I said sharply, my stomach dropping.

  He smiled sadly. “Jessie. She got into a car accident and passed away on the scene four years ago. The day you arrived was the fourth-year anniversary of her death.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, reaching out and squeezing his hand. I didn’t know what else to say. I hadn’t ever lost anyone important to me. And he had lost his mother and his wife. I couldn’t pretend to understand, but I felt for him, deeply.

  He sat up slowly, with my hand still in his, looking out over the water. He absently stroked the back of my hand and we sat there in silence. I listened to the wind blow through the trees and watched the water graze past the rocks, just enjoying that moment: not wanting to take it for granted, reflecting on how simply being alive was a gift. I hesitantly looked at Ezra, and his eyes were trained on the water too.

  I studied his face, memorizing his features. I liked the way the bridge of his nose was slightly crooked. I envied the length of his eyelashes and thought of how I missed the feel of his mouth, as I stared at his lips. Reaching out my hand, I pushed back the bangs that were falling forward on his face, and he looked down at me then, as if just remembering that I was there. He didn’t say a word as he let go of my hand and wrapped his arm around my waist, pulling me towards him so that I was pressed against his side.

  He then brought his lips to my hand and kissed it softly. I turned and watched his lips, and then he lowered my hand and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me into his lap.

  I didn’t believe in love at first sight. I wasn’t even sure if I believed in happily ever after. But the way Ezra kissed me made me want to believe. I wound my hands around his neck and pressed my chest against his. Then I ran my hands through his hair as he kissed me, accidentally knocking his cowboy hat to the ground. He didn’t seem to care as he rolled me to the ground, bracing himself up on his elbow as he broke our kiss and hovered above me.

  I brought up one of my knees and he traced his hand from my knee to my hip, not going any further, staring down at me.

  This close, I could see the little specks of copper in his otherwise dark brown eyes. I wound my arms back around his neck and rose up a little as I brought my lips against his, pulling him back down with me so that his chest pressed against mine. He let his hand slide up, passing my hip and wandering around my backside, lingering on my behind before going up my side. I gasped against his warm lips when his hand settled right under my breast. I wanted him to go further, but he didn’t. His hand just traveled back down and lingered on my hip.

  He then began to kiss my neck, trailing his lips up and down the sensitive crevice there before finding my ears, and I gasped when he gently nibbled on my earlobe.

  “You like that?” he breathed against my ear, and I might have mumbled assent; I wasn’t too sure given that I was completely caught up in the moment.

  “You smell wonderful. Like apple pie and”—he took a sniff of my hair—“strawberries.”

  “That’s my shampoo.”

  “Is it?” he said, tracing a hot path across my neck again with his lips just to the edge of my shirt where my cleavage began. “Not just your hair, but your body smells delectable too.”

  I didn’t dare look down as I felt him fiddling with the top button of my shirt. I felt it open and he muttered, “Now that’s better.”

  I expected, actually anticipated, his hands there too, but I was sorely disappointed when I looked down and saw him just staring down at the little lace of my bra that was exposed.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Just admiring the view.” I had to laugh as I sat up and rolled over on top of him, shoving him down into the blanket playfully.

  I noticed that our pelvises were touching so I shimmied up a little, away from the evidence of his desire, and he laughed gruffly. “I always felt a woman’s rightful place was on top.”

  I pinched his arm in response and he laughed again and easily rose up to his feet, locking his arms around me and taking me with him to a standing position. I had my legs wrapped around his hips in order to not fall and I was about to put them down when he said, “Can you swim?”

  I found myself nodding yes before I realized what he had planned.

  I narrowed my eyes at him and yelled, “Don’t you dare!” but it was too late as he went splashing into the water with me in his arms. I screamed as he dove in with me, submerging my body completely in the water. I broke the surface sputtering.

  “I’m going to kill you!” I screamed, looking around for him. He was nowhere to be found, and then I felt a tug on my a
nkle and dove for him. He came up half laughing, half sputtering as I attempted to hit at him under the water, but missed and went falling backwards.

  I began to laugh, harder than I remembered laughing in a long time as he gathered me in his arms and floated with me to the middle of the lake. My laugh seemed to echo across the lake and he just stared at me as we bobbed around in our clothes, soaking wet.

  “Was this your plan the whole time?” I said as he floated near me.

  “I figured we both needed to cool off,” he joked, flashing me his beautiful smile.

  I ignored his comment and pretended to be angry. “Did you happen to notice that we don’t exactly have a change of clothes?”

  “I noticed,” he said lasciviously, attempting to look down my shirt, which was now plastered indecently to my body, leaving nothing to the imagination.

  “You’re incorrigible.”

  “I love it when you use big words,” he said, splashing me. And I splashed him back.

  “Race you to shore,” he said playfully, already heading in that direction. I bit back a smile as he dashed off, thinking to myself before I followed quickly behind how this vacation was turning out to be a surprise in more ways than one.

  Chapter Seven

  I spent the next three weeks scampering off with Ezra whenever he had any free time. He disappeared certain days, and on those days I spent time reading and swimming as I originally had planned. Although guests in the cottages were delivered meals on a daily basis, I preferred to take my meals with the residents of the main house instead. I got to know Mark and Tony and definitely Gail better.