The Billionaire Cowboy: A Billionaire's Club Story (9 page)

A shrill alarm pierced the peaceful quiet and Lara started beneath him. “What is that?”

“Aw, shit. It’s the fire alarm,” Ryder said with a laugh. “I think we burned dinner.”

Ryder strolled through the door of his bedroom looking almost more confident naked than he did with his clothes on. And why wouldn’t he? The man was built like a god, all taut muscles, defined lines, and solid strength. Lara doubted he’d spent a day in the gym, which was all the more appealing to her. It meant that Ryder achieved the body he had through manual labor and hard work.

Total turn-on.

“We could have burned your house down,” she remarked as he slid into bed beside her. It was probably a little too early to turn in but she was exhausted and needed at least a catnap. The problem was, she was wide awake. Her body still thrummed with pleasure and all she really wanted to do was lie here and listen to the sound of Ryder’s voice.

“Lucky for us we didn’t put the steaks on the grill.” He laughed as he gathered her up in his arms. She enjoyed the feeling of security she felt with him, so unlike her previous relationship that had run her out of Houston and back home in the first place. “The rice is toast, though. And I’m pretty sure I’ll have to toss the pot.”

“I’m so sorry,” Lara said with a groan. “I’ll buy you a new one if you want.”

“Please,” Ryder scoffed. “We could’ve burned the place to the ground and I wouldn’t have noticed.”

“Me neither.” The admission wasn’t hard to make. Nothing, not even a burning house could have stopped them. “It was definitely worth a scalded pot. Your kitchen island is another story, though.” She laughed. “No way can anyone ever prepare food on that surface ever again. You’re going to have to tear it out and replace it.”

Ryder flashed her a wicked grin that did wonderful things to Lara’s body. “Oh, no. I’m fencing it off and preserving it for posterity. That counter isn’t going anywhere.”

His words ignited something deep inside of her. A resurgence of lust, but something else too. A depth of emotion she hadn’t let herself feel in a very long time. “I hadn’t planned on moving back here, you know.” For some reason, the words tumbled from Lara’s mouth as though she had no choice but to lay herself bare. “Do you remember when I told you that someone tarnished my granddaddy’s name by forging records and selling bad stock?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, it was my dad that did it. He was basically selling the good horses on the sly and pocketing the money while he duped others into buying useless stock for top dollar. Double-dipping, I guess you’d say. We left town because my grandfather ran him out of town.”

“So why’d you come back?”

“You asked why I turned you down every time you asked me out? Well, it wasn’t only because I was trying to keep my reputation untarnished. I left Houston because my previous boyfriend was a little …” There really wasn’t a nice way to put it. “Insane. Possessive, abusive, you name it. I filed a restraining order against him but he pushed the boundaries too many times. He wasn’t going to move, so I did. I had to get away from him.”

Ryder’s brows drew sharply down and his jaw clenched. “He hit you?”

Lara averted her gaze. Admitting that she’d stayed with someone for so long who’d physically and mentally put her through the wringer was tough to admit. “Tom was okay in the beginning, but I guess most assholes are. By the time things got really bad I didn’t know if I’d have the strength to leave. Thank god I did, though.”

He stared at her for a quiet moment, the emotion present in his expression almost too intense for her to acknowledge. “Jesus Christ, Lara. I had no idea.”

She gave a rueful laugh. “How could you? It’s not something I’m proud of and I don’t go around talking about it. If I went out with you and you found out I had all of this baggage, I figured you wouldn’t be able to run fast enough and I’d be left to explain our one-night stand as I fought to rebuild my reputation in the community.”

“You think you’re the only one with baggage?” His understanding tone tore through her, causing a deep aching cavern to open up in her chest.

“What sorts of skeletons could the perfect Ryder Blackwell possibly have in his closet?”

He stroked his fingertips along her jaw, his gaze wistful. “You’d be surprised.”

“I’m the daughter of a son who cheated his own father and destroyed him, the ex of an abusive stalker, and the crazy woman who thought she could work a cattle ranch single-handedly in order to win a horse. A horse that probably won’t rebuild her reputation no matter what the pedigree. I doubt there’s anything you can say that would surprise me.”

“I never cheated my dad out of anything, but I did almost kill the bastard.”

Okay, so maybe he could surprise her. Lara’s brow furrowed as she searched for the truth in Ryder’s words. His face bore the serious expression of a man making a confession and the leather-brown depths of his eyes echoed dark secrets of a past she couldn’t comprehend. “Oh my god, Ryder. How?”

He shifted as though the discomfort of revealing so much to her was almost painful. “He used to beat us. Mom the most. He was a nasty, drunk, worthless piece of shit who never did a damn thing for any of us. One night when I was sixteen, he came home half-crocked and went off on my mom because dinner wasn’t on the table. It was almost midnight. He dragged her out of bed and beat her within an inch of her life. So, I grabbed his rifle from the closet and leveled it on him. I gave him a choice: get the hell out and never come back or take the beating of his life. He lunged for the rifle and I smacked him right in the face with the stock. And then I hit him again. And again. And again. It took both Luke and Jase to pull me off of him and by the time I was done he had four broken ribs, a fractured jaw, and a concussion.”

Lara’s heart broke for him. She could only imagine what sort of daily torture they must have endured to push a boy to such lengths. But she’d seen firsthand the love he felt for his mother and she for him. And it wasn’t hard to picture Ryder stepping up to take on the role of head of the family. “Did he press charges?”

Ryder snorted. “No. When he got out of the hospital, he took off and never came back. After that, I finished high school and busted my ass to build this family and this ranch up and make a life for us that we could all be proud of.”

When it came right down to it, Lara supposed that she and Ryder weren’t all that different. They’d both lived through a family betrayal of a sort and they both were stronger—and maybe a little harder—for it. “Well, you certainly did that.” She reached out and traced a lazy pattern on his stomach with her fingertip and smiled as the muscles tensed beneath her touch. “You became the man your father refused to be. And I know your family loves you for it.”

Ryder tucked his finger under her chin and raised Lara’s gaze to his. “Is that what you’re trying to do? Be the man your father refused to be?”

His expression was dead serious but she couldn’t help her amusement. “Something like that,” Lara said with a laugh, “though I lack the equipment needed to be a proper man.”

“And thank god for that,” Ryder said solemnly.

***

They talked through the evening and into the night. Naked, limbs entwined, voices soft in the quiet darkness. Ryder held nothing back, answering every question and asking a few of his own until there wasn’t much they didn’t know about one another. He’d never shared himself with another person so completely before. But with Lara, he felt as though he could tell her anything and she would never pass judgment or think less of him because of it.

She was more than just a conquest to him. He’d thought of her as an itch he needed to scratch but with each passing hour he spent with her, Ryder realized that there was nothing, no amount of time spent, no number of trysts, not a thing in this world that would ever flush his want of this woman out of his system.

Wonders never cease.

When the conversation waned, a companionable silence settled. In the total darkness of his room, there were only their bodies and mingled breaths. He explored her body with slow precision, loving how her breath would hitch or tense when he passed a sensitive spot or did something she liked. Up one arm, across her collarbone, and down the other arm to the tips of her fingers. Across the ridges of her ribs and over the flat expanse of her stomach. He followed the curve of her hip, down the outside of her thigh to her knee. She tensed, ticklish there, and the sound of her throaty laughter warmed him from the inside out. Up the inside of her thigh, Ryder let his fingertips dance across her soft skin and Lara opened herself to him. So damned responsive, so unafraid to show him—and even tell him—what she wanted. He found her slick center and her breath hitched as he stroked her.

Lara reached up and cupped the back of Ryder’s neck, drawing him closer. Their mouths met and her lips were like rose petals against his own. He kissed her deeply, and as he circled her swollen nub with his fingers, his tongue entwined with hers in a sensual meeting that left them both trembling and breathless with need.

He was going to take his time with her. Savor every minute of it. And tonight was only the beginning.

***

The sounds of gravel crunching under tires stirred Lara from a contented sleep, the likes of which she hadn’t known in a long time. For a moment she lay still, listening to the sounds of Ryder’s even breaths beside her. A smile curved her lips as she relived the hours they’d spent together. Resisting Ryder’s charm had obviously been a wasted effort, but never had Lara been so thankful for a lack of willpower in her life.

Curiosity won out over sleepiness as she slipped out from under Ryder’s arm. She padded across his bedroom—the space was bigger than her entire living room—to the window. In the gray light of dawn, the car was difficult to make out, especially from the tall second-story window. Lara’s heart skipped a beat and then kicked into overdrive as she watched a man jump out of the car and head toward the house.

No
.

It couldn’t be him. Could it?

Tom was crazy, but was he that stupid? It wouldn’t be a far stretch to assume he’d been following her. Maybe he’d been at the auction yesterday and trailed her out to the Blackwell ranch. It was the only house for miles, it’s not like it would have been hard for him to discern where she was once he got out this way. Damn it. She’d gone months without hearing from him and had begun to hope that maybe the asshole had given up. But apparently, Tom was just getting his second wind.

Her cell was in her truck and the last thing she wanted to do was wake Ryder up to deal with her crazy ex. That’d send him running for the hills for sure. The house was equipped with a top-of-the-line security system, but it wouldn’t deter Tom for long. Lara needed to get him the hell out of here before the shit hit the fan. She looked around and realized that all of her clothes were downstairs in a heap on Ryder’s kitchen floor. Confronting an ex with a penchant for terrorizing and stalking would be a helluva lot easier if she had some damned clothes on.

Careful not to wake Ryder, Lara grabbed his boxer briefs and discarded shirt and slipped them on. The shirt smelled like him and it distracted her as she made her way down the stairs. She held the garment to her nose, breathing deeply of his intoxicating masculine scent. How she wished she was upstairs with him right now, curled up against his body and sound asleep.

Lara crossed through the kitchen, her gaze pausing on the kitchen island counter as a pleasant shiver passed the length of her body. Ryder Blackwell certainly was one of a kind. And now, what could have been a really good thing was about to be squashed because of Tom. Now that she knew more about Ryder’s history, his childhood, the last thing she wanted was to darken his door with her drama. Especially after he’d worked so hard to overcome so much.

If she had to call 911, she would. Lara wasn’t stupid and she’d experienced enough of Tom’s abuse to know that he didn’t mess around. But if she could get him to leave without involving the local cops, it would be better for everyone. Especially her. The gossips would eat her alive if they got wind that not only had she spent the weekend with Ryder, but the police had to come out to settle a domestic dispute with her ex. She might as well kiss her future here good-bye if that happened.

The sound of footsteps on the porch outside gave Lara a start and she clutched Ryder’s shirt tightly to her throat as though that simple part of him on her body would keep her safe. Her hands trembled and she found it difficult to catch her breath. Memories assaulted her of Tom’s fingers biting into her skin, his face looming over hers as he snarled his threats. The aftermath of his rages and physical violence that finally convinced her to file the restraining order. Screw her reputation, she was calling the cops.

Lara changed course in search of a phone when the sound of glass shattering sent her reeling backward. Her heart jumped up into her throat as an alarm began to wail, echoing throughout the house so loudly that she pressed the heels of her palms against her ears.

Adrenaline dumped into her bloodstream in a rush, muddling Lara’s thoughts as the fight-or-flight instinct overwhelmed her. She needed to get out of the kitchen and the hell back to Ryder. Now. With a quick turn to her left, Lara sprinted for the stairs when her body met a solid form that sent her sprawling backward on the floor. In the low morning light, she made out the sneer curving Tom’s cruel lips.

“No more games, Lara. It’s time for you to come home.”

Ryder sat bolt upright in bed, his heart hammering against his rib cage. In all of the years he’d lived in this house, he couldn’t remember a single time the alarm had been tripped. His first thought, after the near–heart attack was that Lara was probably scared shitless.

He looked over to tell her that everything was okay when he noticed he was alone in his bed. “Lara?” he called over the din of the alarm. Then again, louder, “Lara!”

A tidal wave of panic crested over Ryder as he shot out of bed. He threw on his jeans and didn’t bother to fasten them as he made a beeline for the gun safe in the far corner of his bedroom. His hand was steady as he entered the combination, though his heart was still racing. With no time to be picky, he grabbed the first thing his hand made contact with, a Ruger 270 rifle, a handful of shells, and rushed out the door and down the stairs.