He felt like King Kong stomping along the sandy beach with a beautiful struggling captive bouncing on his shoulder.
She quietly cursed him, questioning his manhood and parentage, and all he did was grin. When they were finally at the end of the walkway that led from the beach to the assemblage of thatched huts above the unique Koi pond, where Andi and Kyle waited, he gently placed her on her feet and flashed a brilliant smile.
She was getting ready to rip into him when Ryan casually knelt and picked up one of her feet. Throwing her off balance, Samantha immediately reached out and rested her hand on his shoulder as he cleaned off all the sand before sliding her foot into the strappy shoe.
There was a lot of heavy breathing from both of them when he was finished, and she was shifting restlessly in her sexy-as-fuck heels.
Pushing her hair behind an ear, he saw her chewing on a lip and found the lines between her brows as she scowled adorable as hell.
Surprising them both, he tapped a finger on the frown lines and then ran it down the side of her face.
“I’m extremely glad we met, Ms. Evers.”
Her look was excited. Confused. Worried.
He wasn’t sure who was more shocked when she blurted a reply.
“I don’t do wedding guest sex.”
His reaction was instant.
“Good. Neither do I.”
They returned to their table to find Kyle looking like the cat peed in his best golf shoes as three pareo-clad Polynesian pin-ups dudes gathered around Andi and serenaded her with some cheesy song Ryan didn’t recognize.
“Oh, jeez.” Samantha chuckled. “Poor Kyle.”
Ryan chuckled too. “Think I should go rescue him?”
“Rescue?” she hooted with genuine amusement. “Darlin’,” she quipped in a heavy Southern gal twang, “that man needs an intervention before he goes ballistic and someone gets castrated.”
Her dazzling smile and obvious delight with the comedy playing out in front of them acted like a lubricant as the unexpected pleasure that was Ms. Samantha Evers slid with ease into his heart.
The memory faded, and Ryan came back to the present moment as the sound of a thundering wave jolted him.
Still holding his cock, he grimaced when the damn thing throbbed.
Ordinarily, he didn’t go around having conversations with his dick. Or his balls. Mostly, the pair stayed silent. But not this morning.
“Don’t even think about it, man. We’re not interested in your tired-ass hand. We want Sam. Understood?”
Fuck.
Shit.
Goddammit.
When he stood up, his groin was so heavy and inflamed that he replayed the whole King Kong scenario during his lumbering walk to the shower. No joke—he felt like a huge movie-imagined ape with an erection so fearsome he doubled over.
Great way to start the morning.
Sam was cleverly hidden behind a grouping of potted palms as she secretly scanned the walkways by the pool waiting for Ryan to meet her for breakfast. The pounding of her heart gave away the giddy excitement she was trying to disguise.
True, the guy was incredibly good-looking, and that might have been enough to pique her interest, but what threw her into a free-falling swoon for real, was the man on the inside. The man who stood when she came back from the restroom. The man who adorably teased her until she was left speechless. The man who knelt at her feet and did the most amazing Prince Charming thing ever when he deftly slid her shoes on after their interlude on the beach.
That guy was unraveling Sam in ways she didn’t know were possible. And it spooked her.
It also led to what Julie called a lady boner. Weird descriptive but oh my goodness! She’d never been someone who thought much of or cared a lot for sex. The teenage fumblings every girl dealt with eventually led to uninspiring encounters leaving her wondering what the big deal was all about. Even during the few years she spent with Rich, it just seemed to her as though the whole thing was more about him.
Secure in her belief that the wild, sexy times she imagined in her head were nothing but a fantasy, she was completely unprepared for Mr. Charming and his resume of underwear photographs. One look at the indecently tiny man-thong he sported in one picture and Samantha felt tingles of excitement in places she thought impervious to such stuff. Seriously! Who knew your ears could get goose bumps?
Nervously checking to be sure her ass cheeks weren’t hanging out, she plucked at the loose-fitting gauzy shorts of the twinset Andi had delivered to her room and tried to calm the nervous energy she couldn’t contain.
Feeling a bit like a dress-up Barbie, Sam marveled at her friend’s impeccable taste. After a late-night texting session when Sam admitted she and Ryan had made plans to meet for breakfast, the fabulously fabulous Andrea Frank, who knew all about making the whole world fabulously fabulous too, turned into a fashion-forward drill sergeant.
She was to wear her hair down. Loose. Minimal makeup but lots of shiny lip gloss. Flip-flops were okay because it would still be early. And no bitching allowed over the outfit she saw in one of the resort’s boutiques. The outfit she’d have delivered to Sami’s room first thing.
Her mouth made a smirky moue. Dammit if the whole thing wasn’t perfect, right down to the casual jewelry and the strapless handkerchief-style crop top. Thank god, she’d had a week to do some careful sun-worshipping because the end result—in her mind anyway—was that she looked young, tan, healthy, and yeah, pretty.
From the corner of her eye, she caught a slight motion that made her head turn. It was him. Mr. Charming. The thrill from a jolt of chemical electricity rocking through her middle when she saw him made Sam giggle aloud. Quickly chomping down on her lip, she hid deeper in her palm tree camouflaged vantage point and studied the sexy Adonis.
Oh, my god. He was just as gorgeous in the bright light of day as he’d been last night. In fact, good looks like his were almost criminal. Ryan Sommerfield wasn’t posing or trolling for attention. He was just a man on his way to a breakfast meeting, and if she didn’t pull it together, said meeting was going to be an embarrassing failure.
Squinting through her little hip sunglasses, she saw him stop, pivot slightly, and stare out at the ocean. In the flickering torchlight of last night, he’d seemed big. Impressive. Today, even from a slight distance, she could see he hadn’t turned back into a pumpkin or anything.
The man also gave fresh perspective to the term casual attire. And she knew right away it was directed at her. He was wearing board shorts. For real. Just like the caricature she had sketched in her mind. And they were tacky as hell too. Laughing was not optional.
His t-shirt had a distinctive Grateful Dead quality to it, and she wondered what hoops he had to jump through to find something so tongue-in-cheek amazing.
Sam glanced down at her boutique-inspired outfit. Maybe she should pay more attention to what was on the sale hangars because it occurred to her that both of them were in dress-up doll mode. The thought was deliciously hilarious and made her ears tickle more.
He picked up his wrist and glanced at the watch strapped to it. She’d noticed it last night too. For some reason, the watch seemed awfully manly. Perhaps, it was the leather strap. Ryan and leather paired perfectly in her mind.
Wow. Newsflash. She had a thing, possibly a wicked thing, for this man and leather. Like the belt she’d found so fascinating the night before and had a hard time looking away from. A shiver of awareness shook her.
She made her move when he ended his ocean reverie and continued along the path. Stepping from the cover of her hiding place, she zigged when he zagged and wandered into his path in a stroke perfect timing.
“Ryan,” she called out with a fingertip wave. “Hi!”
His smile when he found her turned Sam’s insides to mush. There was no way his pleasure at seeing her was faked. Striding quickly forward, he surprised the piss out of her when both of his big, strong hands grabbed her upper arms and he came in for a two-cheek kiss
.
She was rendered stupid—immediately. The embarrassing child-like giggle shooting from her mouth made her blush like a teenager.
“Samantha,” he murmured in a husky growl. “You’re just what I want for breakfast.”
Huh? She blinked. Twice. Did he say he wanted her for breakfast? Nah. That couldn’t be right. Ryan was a breed of man she thought was an urban legend. Until last night. Sure, she was salivating over him, but for his part, Mr. Charming had been nothing but a total gentleman.
Not that she knew what that was like. Sheesh. The last guy she went out with made a good show of playing like he had manners. But manners took a hike at her front door when he grabbed her ass and slithered his sharp tongue into her mouth. Ew. Just thinking about it made her wince.
She figured Andi and Kyle’s best man was just being nice. Maybe gentleman was his default setting. Guys like him didn’t growl sexy come-ons to regular girls like her.
But pretending there was a chance was so much fun!
He didn’t give her enough chance to come back with a reaction much less a comment. Nope. He simply took her hand and wove it through his arm—leaving his big palm resting on top of hers where it rested on his forearm.
“Hope I didn’t disappoint,” she heard him say through a fog of yearning that made her weak at the knees.
The guy was joking, right? “Did I miss something?”
Ryan chuckled and used the advantage of having control of her arm to pull her closer. “Dressed like a design nerd—just for you. This is what you imagined, isn’t it?”
Oh, my god. He was never going to let this one go. Didn’t help any that she had walked right into it.
“Eh,” she croaked. The face Sam made said, I don’t know. “Shouldn’t you be wearing a hemp bracelet or a leather cord around your neck with a Triskelion hanging from it?”
“A triskele? Seriously? That’s the impression I give off?”
“Uh.” Sam wasn’t sure in what universe that constituted a sentence, but it was all she had.
Ryan laughed at her discombobulated reaction.
“Golden girl, you are a delight. Since I look about as Celtic as that Hawaiian dude over there,” he drawled with a nod of his head, “one can only assume what you refer to is the triskele symbol used by the BDSM community.”
She nearly jumped out of her skin. “I didn’t, I mean it wasn’t. . .oh, never mind.”
He was guiding her into a chair at an outdoor table under an umbrella with a beautiful view of the Koi pond and the Pacific Ocean in the distance. Not exactly the setting one would envision for talk about such things.
“Relax,” he murmured gently. Helping her get situated before taking his seat, Ryan smiled at her each time she looked his way. “I shouldn’t joke around about stuff like that, but you set it up, sweetheart, and I couldn’t resist the grand slam potential.”
His tone was animated and amused. Sam smiled and ducked her head to hide her reaction. Either she was unbelievably gullible, or he was a champion teaser because he’d tripped her up half a dozen times last night and now this.
“It’s too early for whips and chains, Mr. Sommerfield.” She was using her I mean business tone. Only, he was grinning at her like an idiot. “Besides, I am here in my official capacity as M-O-H, and we have stuff to. . .”
“M-O-H? Does that mean I’m a BM?”
Her spontaneous screech of uncontrollable laughter at his outraged tone and calling himself a BM nearly put Sam on the floor. Ryan, for his part, picked up the menu and perused it as though his breakfast companion wasn’t in the middle of a giggling meltdown over bowel movements.
She managed to get it together and behave like an adult until the need to blow her nose from all the laughing made her honk like a duck into the tissues she pulled from her purse. The sound hit her like a starting gun, and the laughter started all over again.
Because why not—the waitress appeared and gave Sam the sort of side-shade that felt like a water cannon blast of icy slush. Good lord. She was laughing—not screaming. Stuck-up bitch.
She’d put up with far too many divas in her job to let this twit’s attitude slide. Sitting up straight, she crossed her long legs and swept both hands on either side of her face to push her tumbling hair away. The arched brow death glare she answered the waitress’s shade with was Sam’s best move.
She wasn’t dumb. The other woman wouldn’t have bothered with Sam if Ryan hadn’t been so yummy.
The waitress froze.
Ryan cleared his throat.
With her expression, Sam made absolutely certain the resort staffer who dared to cross the line understood who held all the cards.
As though none of that had happened, Mr. Charming rattled off an order of breakfast food that seemed to Sam like enough to feed a family of four. As he neared the end of a seemingly endless string of requests, it dawned on her that he was deliberately messing with the waitress.
And then he topped off this banging day with a big, red, shiny cherry.
With a satisfied smirk, he mumbled, “Not enough sleep.” Sighing heavily, he suddenly demanded. “I’d like a double shot espresso and my companion,” he drawled while reaching across the table to snatch up Sam’s hand, “would like a cup of chamomile tea. A bit too much energy last night, eh, my love?”
She nearly swallowed her tongue.
Their slack-jawed observer got the message loud and clear.
After another minute of requests, the waitress scurried away, and Sam extricated her hand from his warm grasp. Time to return fire with some teasing of her own.
“Double shot espresso, jeez.” Her head swung dismissively. “So I was too much for you last night, hmm? Sorry—not sorry.”
Ryan stared at her long and hard and then said, “I don’t care for deliberate rudeness.”
His tone was icy. She hung on his next words.
“When you’re with me, Ms. Evers, you will be treated accordingly.”
There was a message in his expression—she was sure of it—but since she lacked practical experience with such things, she was stumped by what it meant.
“And as for last night,” he murmured in a deep growl, “you have my mother to thank for not being pinned to the door of your room.”
“Say what?” Pinned to the door of her room? What did that mean?
His eyes had a warm glow. She fell deeper into his gaze as he effortlessly hypnotized her with his charismatic magnetism.
“Hannah Sommerfield on the subject of how to treat a lady is a four-alarm barn burner. And Ali only makes it worse.”
“Your sister. Has she arrived? For the wedding?”
Chuckling lightly, he nodded with a serious expression. “Oh god, yes. Her and Aunt Mel are probably raising hell in the spa at this very moment. So you can thank her for why you got away from me last night without being molested.”
Sam felt her brows bump together. She was looking at him like a bug under a microscope. Was he flirting? Was that what this was?
“You look like you don’t believe me.”
“Oh, oh, no,” she stammered. “I’m sorry; it’s just that I can’t figure out when you’re teasing.”
“Why would I tease about something like that?”
She startled at his gruff tone.
“Samantha.”
A shiver raced along her spine when he said her name.
“Um, Sam. Just Sam.”
His eyes flared.
“Samantha,” he repeated with pinpoint precision. “Before we were even introduced, I saw you.”
She was frozen, unmoving and barely able to breathe. What was he saying?
“That second when your hand slid into mine, I wanted to strip you naked and push you onto a lounger.”
Sam gasped and stammered at his provocative words. “You, you did?”
“Fuck, yeah.” His muttered answer sounded raw with frustration. “You made it off the beach in one piece despite the temptation to have my wicked way with you under the
moon—down by the water’s edge.”
“Me?” she squeaked.
His expression gentled. “Yes, Samantha. You.” He shifted in his seat and looked around. When his eyes met hers again, she couldn’t look away.
“At the door to your room? When I walked you back last night.”
She nodded, remembering the moment.
“I wanted to shove you against the wall, push my leg between your pretty thighs, and make you ride it while my tongue explored your sweet mouth.”
Her mouth was moving, but no words came out. She saw his hand, the one with the watch and leather band, move to the center of the table, palm up. His fingers moved twice. He was asking for her hand.
A warm morning breeze blew hair into Sam’s face and made a slender curl flutter across her neck. Out of habit, she reached for the long tangles, gathered them behind her head and twirled the mane into one long tendril. Usually, the trick worked to keep it all in one place, for a couple of minutes at least.
His hand waited. She looked at it after finishing with her hair. It felt. . .well, it felt like a command, and the thought made her heart pound.
Completely unsure of herself, she answered his call. Her arm extended in a jerky straight-line like a car running out of gas, and when her hand touched his palm, she could see her fingers shaking.
“You fascinate me, Samantha Evers.”
“Sam,” she croaked from sheer reflex.
How could this girl not know how interesting she was? Ryan found her complete lack of game to be refreshing and equally as beguiling. In his mind, the rules changed the minute he saw her for who she was. The golden stunner with the clueless style who flirted without design was a rare find. This time-out-of-place encounter was an once-in-a-lifetime blessing.
Turning her small hand over so his was in the dominant position, his eyes drifted the length of her arm, taking in the underside’s paler skin. Wanting to lick every centimeter of her creamy skin, his mouth and tongue tingled in anticipation. He knew without debate that she’d be soft and taste sweet.
The Wedding Affair (The Affair Series Book 2) Page 6
