One Night With the Billionaire (Men of the Zodiac) (2 page)

Chapter Two

F
or a lawyer, Zoe Davenport had a lousy poker face.

Ryder probably wasn’t doing much better. When he agreed to accept an early guest at the request of an old friend, he never dreamed it would be
her
. The situation unnerved him. There was no way Zoe’s appearance in Ryder’s life—on his private and very much closed-to-the-public island—was a coincidence. And that made him nervous as hell.

Fortunately, she seemed every bit as shocked to see him as he had been when Moose had given him her name.

“Close your mouth, sweetheart,” he said. “You’re going to catch a fly.”

Zoe’s jaw snapped shut, but it didn’t stay that way. No surprise there. “
You
own this place?”

“You flatter me.” Actually, she didn’t, but he wasn’t above sarcasm. He figured he owed her one. Or a hundred. She had judging him down to a science, and that she managed to do so as she glared down at him ten years ago from her tower window made it all the more impressive.

“I just…you’re rich?
Private island
rich?”

He stared her up and down. The slacks were a little stuffy, but they could only disguise so much. He could still see her legs, all long and lean and bronzed. Still remembered how much he wanted to own the space between them while she begged for
harder, faster, more
. She’d grown up since those days. Filled out. Had curves for days. He cleared his throat. “I see you inherited your father’s opinion of me.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What does that mean?”

“He never thought I’d be worth a damn. Didn’t mind wasting his breath to say it every chance he got, though.” Memories closed in. Back then, her father had had a point. Ryder was on a one-way road to nowhere. It was because of that inevitable dead end that he’d been able to jump the tracks and get a job as a bodyguard, which then led to an abbreviated, albeit successful career in personal security. Though that part of his life was now over, he hadn’t entirely given it up. After selling his security firm, he’d hit it big in real estate. As a merger between the career paths, the resort he developed promised exclusivity. His guests were more likely to arrive in search of privacy than protection, but the end result was the same: a world-class destination with guaranteed anonymity. No one stepped foot on the island under his employ without an extensive background check, and that included Zoe, though he’d trusted his old friend Moose’s opinion of her. His employees had been well-vetted, and anyone who acted less than professionally would be escorted immediately to the tarmac for departure. He paid well enough to ensure the threat had clout.

One of her eyebrows crept upward. “Clearly you’ve proved him wrong.”

“I don’t have anything to prove to anyone.”

“I guess you don’t,” she said softly. “What business are you in?”

“I’m a former security specialist. My firm dealt with high-profile clients, and I made myself personally responsible for the high-stakes cases. Celebrities, dignitaries, you name it. When they wanted the best, they asked for me.”

“So why
former
?”

He pressed his lips together. “Sold the company.”

“Why?”

An ache crawled up his leg. The pain was a constant companion, a reminder of a dumb mistake that had cost him the job he loved, and none of her damn business. “It’s not relevant,” he said.

She pressed her lips together, not entirely hiding the beginnings of a frown.

They hadn’t dated, he and Zoe. He wasn’t sure they’d ever spoken. He’d wanted her in the worst way, but there had been a lot more between them than the picket fence straddling the property line they shared. Her side boasted neatly trimmed grass and new landscaping perfectly coordinated for every season. His was adorned with his father’s discarded beer cans and weeds. Though they were neighbors, the only real exchange they ever had was her glaring at him while he worked on his car. As if he’d stop because of a dour look from the princess. That car kept him out of the house. Away from his father, who thought a hell of a lot more about his addictions than he had his son.

The car was Ryder’s escape.

It wasn’t something he expected her to understand. She’d been handed the perfect life on a silver platter…she probably hadn’t needed to escape anything in her life.

Until now
. What the hell had happened back home? Had some of that silver tarnished? Ryder hadn’t watched a television or logged onto a news site in weeks, since he’d been scrambling to get Latitude 13 ready in time for opening day. He knew she was there to sidestep a personal scandal—one not of her own making—but beyond that, details were sparse. Now he wished he knew more, but it wasn’t in his nature to ask questions. He’d worked a number of times with the cop who’d arranged her visit, and they’d only ever exchanged pertinent details. But with Zoe,
everything
was pertinent.

His gaze fell to the coffee cup he’d left on the table. She probably thought he was a slob.
Like father, like son
. He’d been impetuous. Blind. He’d had dreams of getting out of the house that sat dimly in the shadows of life where nothing would ever flourish.

But he’d made it. So why did he suddenly feel so uneasy?

His fists tightened, and he realized he still held her bag. Wordlessly, he walked it to her bedroom and set it on a table inside.

When he turned, he nearly walked straight into her. Soft, sensual, and woefully hidden under the business-casual attire. But he knew better. He’d studied every curve enough to know that when eighteen-year-old Zoe felt his eyes on her, her nipples tightened, and her breathing grew shallow. Now, her lightweight silk shirt gave him enough of a glimpse to see that much hadn’t changed.

His body went into lockdown. Only his gaze moved, drifting to her lips. They were natural. Nothing painted on…just soft and moist, if soft and moist had a look. He’d lost count of the times he’d caught her staring down at him from her bedroom window over there on the right side of the tracks.

He’d stared right back.

This time, she wasn’t looking down. Though her thick lashes threatened his view, he felt as much as saw her attention. It raked over him with a physical force, reigniting old urges that had no place in his life. However much he wanted her now, he couldn’t touch her. Because as much as he enjoyed riling her, if he actually gave in to that decade-old need to taste her, he’d lose more than his heart.

He’d lose every penny he had.

Chapter Three

Z
oe couldn’t move. What had been a somewhat awkward exchange shifted into treacherous territory, and the look in his eyes suggested
dangerous
was an understatement. A memory of the old Ryder flashed through her mind. Even then, he was built. Brooding. Rebellious. Sexy. Forbidden.

If she had the first instinct for survival, she’d kick off her sensible heels and make a run for the tarmac. But apparently, she wasn’t so interested in her own well-being, and she didn’t have the urge to run. What she had was a parched throat and an utter lack of oxygen. She swallowed. Hard. “Are you planning to always share a suite with your…guests?”

His eyes darkened, and a corner of his mouth tipped in defiance. “Why don’t you ask me what you really want to know?”

He shifted, and every cell in her body realigned to him. Her nerve endings tingled. So did the apex of her thighs. “What are you so sure I want to know?”

“Whether I plan to take my
guests
to bed.”

“You are an arrogant jerk if you think I care,” she lied. Because in reality, she was breathless and on fire, and the tilt of his mouth suggested he knew it. “And I’m not a real guest.”

The rebellious declaration escaped before she had time to consider the suggestion therein.
This isn’t real. Fuck me hard.

Bemusement slanted his lips. “I’ve been called worse. And the answer is no.”

She jerked her attention from his mouth and begged the universe to put six more inches between them. Or eight. She glanced in the direction of his package, which had the well-worn denim all out of sorts.
Definitely eight.
Maybe more. Like she’d know. The last time she’d had sex had been months before her pseudo-fiancé came into the picture. At the time, she’d been more interested in the infomercial playing in the background than she had Mr. Missionary, and the smoothie maker the show suckered her into ordering had come before she had.

He still stared, studying her. Waiting.

She turned, taking a step away from him in the process. “Why would a man who owned his own island be content to share a suite?”

“Should I be locked in a tower somewhere?” His tone suggested she had her fairy tales all wrong.

“I just find it hard to believe you would…not value your privacy.”

“I
had
privacy until you got here.”

“So why did you say yes?”

“I didn’t know it was you until I had to send your flight information.”

“What if you had known right away?”

When he didn’t answer, she forced herself to look at him. He stared at her intently. “I would have said fuck yes.”

She blinked. Reconsidered.
Danger
might be an understatement. It would also be a risk worth taking. “Why?” The forced word came in a breathy staccato that would have been over the top even in a porn flick, not that she’d know.

“Because I wanted you.”

Shock skated through her veins. She hadn’t forgotten him over the years. To the contrary, the eighteen-year-old version of Ryder Nash was the yardstick by which she’d subconsciously measured every man since. The situation was less than convenient, especially considering she had never known his touch. He was a fantasy—a standard to which no mortal man could compare.

Not until now.

Now the fantasy was within reach. He’d wanted her then. The confession twisted her insides, thoroughly wrecking any possibility that she’d gotten over him. Maybe it was just a case of wanting what she couldn’t have. Was that why she’d carried a torch so long?
Of course it was
. Because if he’d added her to the Friday-night lineup years ago, she wouldn’t be standing there wondering how those rough hands would feel on her skin or just how perfectly he’d fit between her thighs.

But he’d spoken of wanting her in the past tense, and though the heat in his eyes suggested otherwise, she wasn’t going to throw herself at any man. Not even the one who had filled her teenage dreams and rapidly ignited a grown woman’s fantasies.

He was watching her watch him. Self-conscious, she dragged her lower lip in her mouth with her teeth. The half grin that formed as he stared left her reeling.

“As for why I’m sharing my suite,” he said, all slow and dangerous-like, “the answer is twofold. One, my guests deserve only the best.”

“And two?” She asked with nonchalance, though her heart was in her throat.

“I suspect you’ll be safer with me than you would be with the other guys who were just ogling you.”

She wasn’t so sure about that. She wasn’t some helpless woman. She knew how to say no. She couldn’t deny that they were easy on the eyes, but not one of them had affected her the way Ryder had. Even before she’d known her bad-boy ex-neighbor was the billionaire proprietor, the sight of him had reawakened every sexual urge in her body. “Surely you can trust your employees.”

“Wrong kind of trust.” The possessive growl on which he delivered the words said what they didn’t. His darkening blue-green stare had hardened, but it was hot. And while he did a better-than-average job of actually looking at her face, his attention had taken more than one languid tour of her body.

“Not the kind with whom you would trust a guest?”

“I thought you weren’t one.” The low, husky overtone of his words lent the distinct impression she was in over her head, but if she had to drown, there was no better way to do it.

“I think the proper verbiage is that I’m not
just
a guest.” Her official cover story was that she was there to serve as an interior consultant.
What the staff didn’t know was that the idea that she, an attorney with a wardrobe full of drab blues and grays, could offer any real insight into the aesthetic pleasures of the rich and famous was laughable. But the fake job title gave her a reason to be there before the resort’s opening. The few employees on the premises wouldn’t blink over her presence, and arriving on a private tropical island under an assumed name was about as close to anonymous as a person could get. Hopefully, the press would never find her.

“You always had a reputation for being a smart ass,” he contended.

“And you always were…”

“What? The trash next door?” He asked lazily, as if it meant nothing to him, but it was a loaded question if she’d ever heard one.

Indignation flared. “I never once said that about you. I never once
thought
it.”

“Yeah, that’s why you and your cheerleader friends used to look down on me.”

“We looked down at you because we were next to the second-floor window, you ass. Looking up wouldn’t have afforded the same view, though I could have done without the carousel of skanks you paraded through your backseat.”

A grin only partially masked the flash of pain that tainted his features. “Were you jealous, princess?”

Yes
. But she couldn’t say it. She didn’t have to.

He leaned against the wall, his muscles flexing with the movement. The sweat had mostly dried under the air conditioning, but the damp waistband of his jeans left a powerful reminder of what that moisture had done to his body. “Did you wish it was you?”

She blinked. “What?”

He took a step closer, helping himself to her personal space and all the oxygen within. “Did you want to be the one I undressed?” he asked, his voice low. Threatening. “Did you want to lay there naked under the glow of the street light through that dirty glass and feel my hands on you? For my teeth to rake over your skin, to bite down on those tight little nipples and tug until the whole neighborhood heard you calling my name? To ride me so hard the car fell off the jacks, and then to keep going because we just didn’t care?”

She swallowed and wondered when the air conditioner had stopped working.

“Tell me, Zoe. Is that what you wanted? To get fucked until you couldn’t move? Until you couldn’t get the taste of me out of your mouth?”

She couldn’t breathe. She may have broken a sweat, and she just might be using her last breath on him, but so be it. “Are you always so quick to share the details of your conquests? Because frankly, I think all those details about you and the girls in your car are disgusting.” And hot.
So
hot, but he didn’t have to know that. Frankly, she wished
she
didn’t.

He grinned.
Grinned
. “That wasn’t a conquest, princess, and I’m not telling tales outside of the backseat. I’m too much of a gentleman for that.”

Sure he was. That was why she couldn’t breathe…because he was a
gentleman
. “Then what are you talking about?”

“That wasn’t real, and it never happened.” He leaned until his lips touched her ear, then grazed the tender skin when he spoke. “It was my own private fantasy, and the only woman I wanted in it was
you
.”