“Have you met this friend of his?” Ryker asks as another cab pulls up and I watch Bridget get into the backseat. Ryker hands the driver some money and waves at Bridget as she leaves.
“I thought you were taking her home with you,” I say as a black BMW pulls up and Ryker opens the back door.
“Get in and I’ll explain why I lied to Damien,” he says as he pulls my hand to make me move.
“But I don’t understand and I don’t think being alone with you is a good idea, either.”
He slides in beside me and closes the door. “We aren’t alone. The diver is here.”
“Where to, sir?” the driver asks.
“The four seasons,” he answers and leans back, laying his arm along the back of the seat. “I took a room there for the night. The long drive back to Sebastian isn’t a thing I’m up for tonight.”
“Sebastien?” I ask. “You don’t live in Orlando?”
“No, my estate is on the coast. You should come for a visit. Oh, and Damien too, of course.” He smiles at me and I find it to be sexy with a side of contriving.
“And you lied to Damien, why?” I ask him as I move over a bit.
It does no good as he moves too. “So, he’d let me take you home.”
His hand moves over my knee and I shiver with how it fills me with heat. “And you wanted to because?”
“Because I want to be with you for a while longer. I enjoy your company, Gia. And I’d like to pick your brain some more. I bet you’re full of ideas. I need ideas and you have them. Get it?” He chuckles. “You have other things I need too but you seem not to be interested in that. Yet, anyway.”
“I really don’t have any more ideas. I’m afraid to disappoint you.”
His hand moves off my knee to stroke my cheek. “You can’t disappoint me.”
“Ryker, you need to keep your hands to yourself.” I take his hand away from my face and place it on his leg. “You seem to forget your place.”
With a groan, he looks away from me. “Why couldn’t I have met you first?”
“It doesn’t even matter.” I turn a bit to lean more on the door, so his leg isn’t touching mine. It’s making little zaps of lightning go through me and is very unnerving. I don’t know why that’s happening.
“I don’t know why you’re saying that. If I would’ve met you first, then I know I’d have you talked into going to Mars with me by now. You and I would make some nice looking kids, Gia.”
Heat fills my cheeks at his words. “Ryker, stop!”
“No,” he touches my cheek and I look at him. “We would. You should think about that. You and I, populating a new world.”
In his dark eyes, I see excitement. I never see that in Damien’s. I only see determination in his icy eyes. And Damien’s touch has never stirred me the way Ryker’s does.
“Well, I’m not going.” I turn away from him and look out the window.
The hotel is just ahead and the driver slows to turn into the parking area. I feel Ryker, staring at me. When we stop, he takes my hand and pulls me with him, out of the car. “Come with me to check in. I want a room near yours.”
“That’s not going to matter. I’m not coming to it,” I let him know.
“Oh, but you will. You see, I have things to offer you that Damien won’t.”
My body goes electric as my mind flies to what he could offer me that Damien won’t. But my mouth flies open, “I don’t care for anything you have to offer.”
“You will,” he says as he tugs me along.
The desk clerk looks at me with a grin. “Miss Flynn. Is your evening going well?”
“Sure,” I say as Ryker won’t let my hand go.
“I want a room near hers. I have a reservation,” Ryker tells him.
The clerk looks at me and grins even more. “Okay, and the reservation is under?”
“Ryker Crawford.” He gives my hand a squeeze.
He’s more than excited and I hate the fact I’m going to ruin his little party idea. I really do hate it. I’d love to see what he has to offer me. I would. But I can’t do that. I can’t cheat on Damien.
Just as he finishes signing the paper, his phone rings and he takes it out as he accepts the keycard the clerk gives him. Pulling me along, he smiles as he answers the call, “Hello, what do you have for me?”
I hear nothing as he pulls me onto the elevator. “You can let my hand go, Ryker,” I whisper, after we’re on the thing and I’m trapped with him and couldn’t go anywhere if I wanted to.”
He shakes his head as he talks on the phone, “Fantastic. Take them to my place. My staff knows what to do. And thanks for doing that so quickly, Stella.” He looks at me with a huge smile. “Don’t you want to know who I’m talking about, Gia?”
“It’s not my business.” I look away from him.
He takes my chin and pulls my face back. “Don’t you care at all?”
“No,” I say and watch the elevator doors open. “Come on.”
We walk out of the elevator and he pulls me to his door. “Well, I wouldn’t tell you, even if you did ask me. It’s a secret. Just make plans to spend tomorrow night at my place in Sebastien. And Damien too.”
“Of course,” I say as he opens his door and pulls me inside his room.
“This is a nice suite,” he says as he pulls me along and I stop him.
“I’m going to go to my room. The one I share with Damien.”
“Why are you so faithful to that man? He isn’t to you.” He looks me dead in the eyes, testing me, I’m sure.
“You don’t know that.” I twist my hand until he lets it go.
He’s in front of me, getting between me and the door before I can make it out. “Wait, I’m going to order us a bottle of wine. I really do want to talk to you.”
“I can’t have anything else to drink,” I say as I huff.
“Because the master told you not to?” he asks as he picks up the phone in the room. “One bottle of red wine and two glasses please. Make it the best you have.”
I’m angry he’s said such a thing and glare at him. “No, not because Damien told me not to. Because I don’t want to get tipsy around you.”
“Don’t trust yourself, huh?” he asks as he takes off his jacket then his tie. I watch him unbutton the top few buttons and stop breathing. “I have to ask this, as it’s been biting at my mind since you walked into the bar tonight. Do you have on any panties?”
“Ryker!”
“What? I have to know. It’s killing me not to know.” He kicks off his shoes then sits on the bed and takes off his black socks. “So, do you think people on Mars will feel the same thing when they have sex that we do on Earth? I’m dying to feel that. The gravity is different, so the sex has to feel different too.”
“Is your mind always in the gutter?” I ask with a laugh.
A knock at the door signals the wine is here and I should be going. But I sit on the edge of the bed, instead. Not really knowing why, but I just don’t get up.
Ryker answers the door and thanks the man for the things then closes the door and locks it. I watch the way he moves with fluid motions, taking the wine and glasses to the small table. He opens the wine then I see him taking his shirt off.
Averting my eyes, I find my body burning. “I should leave. You want to get comfortable. I’ll leave you to that.”
“I do want to get comfortable. I’ve been in monkey-suits all day.” His pants drop, leaving him in loose boxers and I can’t breathe any more.
His body is tan and toned and hot as hell. “You know, Ryker. You won’t have any trouble finding yourself a woman on Mars. You’ll be fine.”
Walking into the bathroom, he comes back with a fluffy white robe on and tosses another one to me. “Get comfortable with me, Gia.”
Shaking my head, I get up and go sit on the small sofa in the corner of the room. “I don’t think so, Ryker.”
He laughs as he goes to pour the wine into the glasses and comes to sit right next to
me, instead of across from me on the other sofa. “Here you go, Gia. I was talking to some of my food engineers today and they told me it would be great to get to work with you.”
“I’m going back to Russia with Damien.”
“I know that. I’m only asking you to brainstorm with them about some ideas they have. Damien will be at the office too. You can come with him, get a consulting fee from my company and help out the space program. Please.” He looks at me like a little kid, asking for a lollipop.
“If Damien says, I can then I will.”
His cute face turns hard in an instant. “I hate that, Gia. I fucking hate that!”
“What?”
“You can make your own decisions. You just don’t. Do you want to do this or not? It’s as simple as that. Don’t tell me a fucking thing about Damien. Tell me if you want to do it or not!”
His face is red and I can’t believe how mad he is over what I’ve said. “I want to. You don’t seem to understand. Damien doesn’t like me in his business.”
“This doesn’t have a thing to do with him. This is a consulting deal between you and Apollo Engineering. You want it or not?” He gets up and when he does, his robe opens and he takes it off, tossing it on the other sofa. “That thing’s too hot.”
“I think your temper has made it that way, not the robe. I can’t answer you right now about if I’ll do that or not. I have to talk to Damien about it.”
“Then take out your phone and call him.” He goes to get my clutch purse off the bed and brings it to me.
“Pushy much?” I take my purse and pull out my cell.
“Pushed around much?” he counters. “And, for the record, you calling him is even pissing me off. You shouldn’t have to ask him if you can use your fucking brain.”
I stop trying to get my phone out as what he’s saying resonates in my head. “I shouldn’t, should I? I’ll do it, Ryker. And thanks.”
His sigh is over the top and the next thing I know, he has me in his arms and is hugging me. “Finally!”
RYKER
After breaking through to her, I find her eyes are beginning to open to what she’s allowed to happen to her, so I dig in and forge ahead. “Go to your room, change out of that tight dress, get comfortable in whatever you want and come back, so we can talk.”
She looks at me for the longest time before she says, “Promise me you won’t make any moves on me.”
“Not unless you ask me to,” I say as I raise my two fingers. “Scouts honor.”
She gets up and walks to the door then turns back to me. “Were you even a scout?”
Shaking my head, I laugh and watch her leave my room. Gia is beautiful inside and out. Her mind is being wasted and I find that the worst kind of negligence. She was given a gift for the world, and it’s being squashed because of one man and her willingness to do whatever he says to.
After fifteen minutes, I get worried that she’s not coming back and get up to go bang on her door. As I open the door, I find her with her little fist raised to knock. “Oh, there you are. I was about to come get you.”
She rolls her eyes as she comes in. “I had to use the bathroom.”
“Okay, too much information,” I say with a chuckle.
I put the robe back on, so she doesn’t have to be distracted by my body while we talk. But she’s distracting the shit out of me with a cute pajama set with teddy bears all over it. It’s silky and looks soft and I want to run my hands all over her body but I won’t.
Sitting down across from her on the opposite sofa, I lean up and push her glass of wine to her. “Here you go, Gia. Now tell me how you came up with this nutrient packed capsule of yours.”
She picks up the glass and takes a sip. “It’s not mine anymore.” I watch her go into another place in her head and want to stop her from doing that.
“Ignore that fact. Just tell me how you went about making that. It’s a great idea, you know. I want to know what made you think it up.” I take a drink of my wine and see her face change with her thoughts.
She’s so delicate, mentally speaking. I would blame Damien for it all, only she has her part in it too. She allows it.
He’s not a mean man. He’s not threatening to her. He is overbearing but she could handle him if she wanted to. There’s not a doubt in my mind. She’s handling me and I’m hard to handle!
“It all started when I read a paper on nutrition and how our bodies need certain things. Supplements can keep us going when food can’t be ingested,” she says.
“And having enough food for the trip and when we first get there is going to be hard to do for such a high number of people,” I add.
“Yes, exactly.” She sips her wine and looks at me with wide eyes. “If a person consumes normal foods every fourth day, the supplement can be taken three times, every eight hours, for three days and no negative effects were found. I need to do more testing and where animals are concerned there’s all the testing to do. And we need this for animals too. If I could just work on the project, I know I could get it done.”
“Okay, so you sold the rights to that particular supplement to Markov Global. Are there slight changes you could make in a new product that would allow us to get another patent? We could make it in a pill form or even a powdered form that could be added to water. It’s not the exact same and we could leave your name out of the patent, to make sure you couldn’t get sued over it.”
Her chest rises and falls, rapidly as she looks excited. “We could do this in secret?”
“We could. No one needs to know that you and I are working together on this. And you would get the money paid to you under consulting, instead of engineering.”
Her eyes go back and forth as she thinks about what I’m offering her. “I could stay in Russia and work with you online.”
“If you wanted to.” I take a drink and think about how to word the next thing. “As a consultant, I could have you flown in once a month to consult with my company. Put you up in a nice hotel, you know, the usual we do for all of our consultants.”
Her cheeks go pink as she gets excited. “I could do that, couldn’t I? I have to leave Russia several times a year anyway. And Damien will never marry me to make me a citizen. I could come here to consult. And I could bring new ideas too.” Then her face falls. “He’d want my new ideas, Ryker. I know he would.”
“Our information has to be kept secret. You will be under a contract not to talk about anything we talk about in our consultations with you. Especially anyone in the space industry. Surely, he’d understand that.”
“And surely, he won’t want me to do this,” she says then takes a drink. “Thanks for the opportunity but I can’t.”
Getting up, I slam my glass on the table between us and go to her, taking her by the shoulders, pulling the glass out of her hand, and making her get up. “You need to see something.”
I take her to the bathroom and stand in front of the long mirror. “What are you doing?” she asks as she looks at me in the mirror.
“Don’t look at me. Watch yourself. Watch your reactions. Answer this question. Do you want to use your brain?”
“Of course,” she says but her eyes go to mine in the reflection of us.
“Look into your own eyes, Gia. Do you want to make a difference in this world, using the brain you were given to do such a thing?”
“I do,” she says as she looks into her eyes.
“Gia, do you think anyone has the right to ask you not to help others with your brain?”
I catch her eyes falling away. “No.”
“Look at yourself!”
Her eyes dart back to meet her reflection. “Why do I look like that?”
“I think it’s because you’ve made an idea in your head that you have to be weak where Damien is concerned. His hold on you, with the money he’s giving your family, is making you give into him. I don’t even think he wants you to give into every little thing he asks of you. You do it on your own.”
“D
o you really think so?” she asks me as she turns around.
“I do. And I think you need to practice doing what you want to.” My hand moves up her arm, over her shoulder, and I take the back of her neck, holding her still. Her eyes dart back and forth as I hold her steady and ease my lips toward hers. “Do you want this?”
She looks at me with wide eyes as our mouths are so close, we’re exchanging breaths. “Not while I’m still with him, I don’t. I’m not that type of person.”
I back away and let her go as she’s told me what I needed to hear. She does want me. She just has to make a decision. And I can help her make it.
GIA
His touch is amazing. He is amazing. And I am in a relationship that I know is going to end.
Yes, it’s going to end with me having a lot of money but it is going to end!
“Why are you bothering with me, Ryker?” I ask him as we stand toe to toe in his bathroom.
“Because I see inside of you. I see a scared woman who needs to stop being afraid. I know I have a lot of money and my family has always been wealthy, since before I was born. But money isn’t everything.”
“It brings security,” I say as I search his dark eyes for more.
He steps back, and I feel the absence of his energy. He takes my hand and leads me back to the sofa but he stops and leads me over to the bed. I hesitate as he sits down, pulling me to stand between his legs. Then I move in between them as he looks at me on my level.
“If your family saw you this way, would they still want you to continue what you’re doing?”
“You know I’ve stayed away from them, just so they wouldn’t see me like this, don’t you?” I ask him as he moves his hands up and down my arms.
He nods and I look down. “What would they say to you, if they knew?”
“They’d tell me to stop. They’d tell me they could handle things on their own. But I want to give them more. I have an opportunity most never get.”
He touches my chin and smiles at me. “Gia, you were given an opportunity most never get when you got that brilliant mind. I want to see you use it. I bet that’s a real thing of beauty.”
Rockstar Untamed: A Single Dad Virgin Romance Page 105
