Page 15 of A Lot Like Love
“Breakfast?” Now she had his attention.
“Bacon-and-egg breakfast sandwiches and really strong coffee,” she said over her shoulder. “I figured you’d need something as a kick start.”
Damn. She looked smoking hotandshe came bearing gifts. If he hadn’t screwed up royally in front of her, right about now he’d be bending over backward to talk her pants off. Instead he had to try to prove that he wasn’t a spoiled rich kid with complete disregard for his family and his inheritance. Hell, his grandfather wasn’t even dead yet and he’d managed to screw up, so he got that he looked like a brat. Reckless younger brother, definitely; reformed bad boy, sure; but colossal screw-up?No. One bad decision wasn’t going to ruin his life, he’d make sure of it, and if Little Miss Sexy could help him, then he sure as hell wasn’t going to turn her away.
Chloe grinned when she was in the kitchen on her own. Seeing Ryder with his shirt off the night before had been bad enough, but naked? Damn. She guessed riding rodeo kept him super buff, all muscle and… She reached for her coffee and took a sip, licking away the foam that caught on her lower lip.What she needed to do was focus on the plan. Ryder might be gorgeous, and shemighthave laid awake thinking about what it would be like to walk into his house this morning, yank off his shirt, and run her mouth over his abs, to explore every delicious inch of him, but that wasn’t why she was here. If she was going to stay playing cards again, she needed to get her groove back, and that meant keeping all her focus on cards, not men.
She froze when Ryder came up behind her, feeling him before she heard him. His big body was too close to hers, in her space, and his mouth waswaytoo close when he spoke directly into her ear.
“The way to a man’s heart,” he murmured, reaching past her so that his arm brushed hers before he took one of the paper bags.
“I wasn’t trying to find my way to your heart,” she quipped.
Ryder turned and leaned against the counter, taking a big bite of the breakfast sandwich.
“My pants?” he asked.
This time she couldn’t help but laugh, partially unwrapping her sandwich and holding the paper bag in both hands before she took a bite to keep it together.
“Not your pants, either,” she muttered before eating.
He grinned through his mouthful, his wink like a burst of electricity between them. It didn’t seem to matter how many times she reminded herself why she wasn’t to go near him—there was something magnetic about the guy that madenotthinking about him like that impossible.
“So tell me, Chloe,” Ryder said, drawing his brows together and putting down his food to reach for his coffee. “How exactly do we convince a group of seasoned poker players to let a girl join in?”
“Short skirt, low cut blouse, high heels…” She shrugged. “Do you need me to keep going?”
He laughed, but she knew he wasn’t buying it.
“Not gonna work,” he said. “They might want to look at you, but they’re not going to let you join the table. Not without asking questions or outright telling you to piss off.”
She ate the rest of her sandwich, still working through the plan. She’d been awake most of the night thinking about it, but there were gray areas that she still didn’t have a handle on. Chloe looked up, saw that Ryder had set his coffee down, a smile showing off a sexy-as-hell dimple on his left cheek.
“I think I know what we need to do. And it involves both of us,” Ryder said.
Her last mouthful was suddenly like cobwebs resting on her tongue, hard to chew and impossible to swallow. She forced it down.
“So what exactly are you proposing?” Chloe’s body was on fire, the sound of her pulse beating so loud she could hardly hear herself think.
“I’m saying that for this to work, you’ll need to be my girlfriend.”
Ryder looked completely at ease, his big body tipped forward so he was almost eye level with her now. She refused to look away but every part of her screamed that she should, that it was time to walk out that door instead of staying so close to him. She was playing way out of her league. Poker was easy compared to dealing with Ryder King, especially now that he was sober and firing on all cylinders.
“So what do you say?” he asked, voice barely a murmur as he ran a hand down her arm, fingers light against her skin.
“No,” she managed.
“We tell them we met the night I lost, hit it off, and now I’m letting you have some fun gambling with me. They all saw us flirting,” he continued, undeterred and still touching her. “You can say I’ve given you a decent amount of cash to play with for fun and they’ll know I’m good for it.”
She shrugged off his touch and took a step back. If she didn’t need his money so bad, she’d have just gone with it, thought to hell with it, and had some fun in his bed. But they had a deal and she wasn’t going to let her desire to let Ryder strip her naked and drag her to his bed veer her off course.
“And you expect them to believe it?” she asked. “Just like that?”
His laugh annoyed her. “Me turning up with a beautiful blonde at a bar isn’t exactly going to raise any eyebrows. But yeah, if it looks real, they’ll believe it.”
She swallowed hard, still staring straight back into Ryder’s eyes. “I’m not the kind of girl to just fall at your feet.”
His smile was slow, deliberate. “Sweetheart, you’ve made that beyond clear from the moment I met you.”
