Game Of Risk (Risqué #3) (8 page)

For the next week Layla settled in at the Warner family home. Prudence was a wonderful hostess who couldn’t do enough for her guest. The couple were so hospitable that Layla was trying to help out around the house as much as she could in an attempt to offset some of the guilt she felt at intruding in their home.

Ruger stayed true to his word and slept at his mother’s every night. Instead of sharing her room and her bed, as she had thought he would try to do, he stayed in the neighbouring room, which had apparently been Blaser’s bedroom.

Despite them not sharing a bedroom, Layla was convinced that Pru thought she and Ruger were an item. It didn’t help matters that he kept kissing the sense out of her, though so far he'd kept his hands to himself.

Sitting in front of the mirror in the bedroom she had been using in the Warner home, Layla ran a comb through her hair for a final time, checked her makeup, and then twisted around to look at the dress and underwear she had laid out on the bed.

Three days ago, Ruger had come to her with a wad of cash and told her to go shopping for what she needed. He was probably sick of hearing her moan about a lack of appropriate footwear. Layla had promised to pay him back and he’d given her a line about Drew having sent him the money. But the way he mumbled and quickly walked away told her that he’d probably made that up.

Just when she was about to untuck her towel so she could get dressed, the bedroom door opened and Ruger came in. Lowering her chin, Layla waited for an apology for his unannounced entry, but he sauntered into the room as though he had done nothing wrong.

‘Are you nervous?’ he asked, resting against the metal rail at the bottom of the double bed which was parallel to her present position.

‘Why would I be nervous?’ she asked. ‘It’s a family dinner. I’ve only been invited because I’ve been living here for a week. I’ve met everyone before.’

‘You haven’t met Bri yet, and you haven’t had everyone in a group like this. It’s ok to say you’re nervous.’

‘I’m not nervous,’ she said, holding on to her towel as she stood. Moving across to stand in front of him, she cupped her hands around his elbows. ‘Ruger, honey, are you nervous?’

‘They’re my family. Why would I be nervous about eating dinner with them when I’ve done it so many times before?’

‘When was the last time you had a woman at the dinner table who everyone assumed was your girlfriend?’

‘Blaser and Colt know that you’re not, and there’s no telling Mom. She won’t hear it. Lyssa keeps telling me that relationships are defined in different ways, which are not always immediately recognisable as a traditional union. I mean, what the hell is that supposed to mean?’

‘Maybe she knows you’ve got the hots for me,’ she teased, bowing a little closer.

‘Me? You’ve got the hots for me, Legs. Look at the way you strut around wearing almost nothing, desperately trying to get my attention.’

His assertive poise was lessened by his preoccupation with her cleavage, which she knew wasn’t much to look at compared to the women he saw in Risqué on a regular basis. ‘Did you just realise that I’m naked?’ she asked. The smile he’d worn when he started teasing had become something more intense and less playful.

‘I guess I should’ve knocked, huh?’

‘A few seconds later and you’d have gotten the full show.’

‘Can I go out and come back in again?’ he asked, returning to his grin.

‘You’re nervous because you can’t define this any better than I can,’ she said.

If one of them didn’t pull back on the teasing they would end up in a full-on sass-off and they would never decipher if there was anything serious or worth pursuing between them. More often than not, Ruger was the one to tell her to stop pushing him away with banter. Today it seemed to be her turn.

His hands landed on her shoulders and drifted down her arms then back up. With his fingertips he traced the width of her collarbone, and when they met in the middle they coasted up her throat, forcing her head to tip back, which was always his prelude to kissing her.

His first kiss had stunned her, she hadn’t expected such a full-on display of affection so early in their association. They had only known each other for a couple of days and yet there she’d been, pinned to a wall outside a strip club, desperately trying to remind herself of her no one-night stands oath.

Ruger was a powerful man to look at. He had a height of six foot five and a lithe muscular form, which gave him a striking presence in any room. With pale but warm hazel coloured eyes that lit when he was in an impish mood, yet smouldered when his thoughts turned brazen. Layla couldn’t deny that she had noticed he was attractive. But to have him kiss her, to shut her up and take liberties with her mouth, she hadn’t expected that.

Except she’d become accustomed to his mouth now; the way he teased her lips with his for a few seconds before his tongue requested entry to join with hers. Not that it asked politely, he always managed to catch her on an inhale and before she was finished breathing his tongue would meet hers and the greeting was like that of intimate friends.

His touches weren’t bold, and she sensed that he was holding himself back, though she didn’t know why or if she wanted him to. Other than his tongue-in-cheek squeeze of her breast in the alley, he’d always kept the touching to her arms, shoulders, and above. He avoided making contact with her chest and anything below the waist was a no-no.

Layla’s initial assumption was that he was easing her in, taking things slow so that he didn’t come off as a sleaze. But for a week now he’d been kissing her and she still didn’t have any idea about his package or how quickly he became aroused. Considering whether or not he was holding back because he was ashamed of the anatomy below his belt, Layla was surprised when he took hold of her shoulders and broke their kiss.

‘Colt will be here in ten minutes. He’s a stickler for time-keeping,’ Ruger said, moving her aside so he could pass her. ‘You should get dressed.’

Catching his wrist, she made him turn back to her. If she asked him straight out what was preventing him from moving things forward, she might come off as a slut and she didn’t want that. Of their own volition, her eyes moved south and she sought out some evidence that she had an effect on him.

‘What you looking for, Legs?’ he asked with swagger in his tone. ‘You looking for a show of your own?’

‘Maybe,’ she said. Having never been accused of being bashful, Layla folded her arms and leaned on the foot-rail perch Ruger had just vacated when his hands went to his belt.

‘If I drop my pants, you’ve got to drop the towel,’ he said, sliding the leather from the buckle and popping the tooth from its hole in his belt.

‘Says who?’ she asked, wearing a grin matched by his. ‘Are you gonna make me?’

‘When I show you what I’ve got, you’re going to be begging to get naked with me.’

‘You wouldn’t make me beg,’ she said. ‘You’ve been dying to get with me since the minute you saw me.’

‘Confident, aren’t you?’

‘You can’t prove me wrong, Ruger Warner, it’s why you’ve been grabbing me and kissing me all this week. You want me, just admit it.’

‘You admit it first,’ he said. ‘You’ve been kissing me back all week, showing off that sexy body, flaunting it around me, because you want me to kiss you.’

‘I know what I want, you’re the one with the jitters.’

‘Jitters?’ he said, prowling over to her and coming so close that she had to breathe in to accept his body as close as he insinuated it. Grasping the bar behind her, Layla used it to keep her steady since her toes were barely touching the floor. ‘The only thing I’m not sure about is if you can take it.’

‘Oh, I can take it,’ she said, enjoying their mischief.

Most men didn’t know how to respond to her gibes because they didn’t know if her wry words were sincere. Ruger got it. He got her. These provocative taunts kindled their attraction and the fuel burned hotter with every exchange.

‘Sure about that?’

‘Mm hmm,’ she said, taking her sweet time about moistening her lips, revelling in the fact that the action of her tongue transfixed him.

‘I think you’ll regret telling me that,’ he murmured, still watching her mouth.

Easing away, he finished unbuckling his belt and yanked open his fly. Presenting his hand to her, her butterflies reached her throat when she placed the back of her hand on his palm. Increasing his grip, he lowered it and enticed her hand into his underwear.

Guiding her fingers around his girth, a knowing smirk adorned his face when her own eyes widened. She had never felt a man so large before, never experienced it first-hand. She supposed that she shouldn’t be surprised because he was large in every other part of his stature and his attitude. A man this cocky had to have the goods to back it up.

‘Still sure?’ he asked as though he expected her to retract her hand, make her excuses, and never lay lips on him again.

‘That will never fit in my throat,’ she said, squeezing her fingers around him.

Now it was his turn to be surprised, his eyes rounded but his form loosened, like she’d just given him the greatest gift womankind could give.

‘But if he’ll be happy in my pussy…’ she whispered. Swinging an arm up to catch the back of his neck, she pulled his mouth to hers and took charge this time. Working her fist around his cock, which was still sheathed in his underwear, she dug her fingernails into the side of his neck and let a moan of curious pleasure escape into his mouth.

His hesitation was gone now. He snatched her waist and lifted her onto the bottom bar of the bed, and while she was still too low to welcome him into her body, she did part her legs to allow them to get closer than they’d ever been.

‘Ruger!’

‘Fuck.’

His sudden curse was accompanied by a glare that could probably have turned his mother to stone had she been in the room. Luckily, she wasn’t. His mother’s call had originated in the upstairs hallway, meaning there was no time for Layla to try and accommodate Ruger now. His angry frustration at this reality distracted him, and it was only when she squeezed him again and coiled her thumb over the head of his dick that she got his attention back.

‘Colt will be here in a few minutes,’ she said, pleased to know that his anticipation was now unleashed. ‘Is that all the time you need to satisfy yourself in my body?’

‘Right now? Probably, yeah,’ he said, but his anger melted away and he rested his forehead on hers. Keeping her head in place, he joined their mouths again. ‘We’ll get this dinner out the way, I’ll make our excuses and we can come up here—‘

‘Can we have sex here? Is that allowed?’ she asked.

In high school she’d been a bit of a prude, “a late bloomer” was what she told people. In truth, her mother’s cancer and her overprotective brother meant that her house wasn’t a place boys liked to come and spend time with her.

So having a tryst in Ruger’s mother’s house would be the first time she’d had sex whilst there was a parent of one of the participants under the same roof.

‘Do you want me to reserve a hotel room?’ he asked.

That would be just as bad as doing it in the same house as his parents; everyone would know that they were going there just to get it on. With a shrug, she exhaled and finally took her hand out of his underwear.

‘It doesn’t bother me to do it here if it doesn’t bother you,’ she said.

‘Really? ‘Cause I can just as easy—‘

‘No,’ she said. ‘That’s just a crazy waste of money. We’ll just be quiet. It would be rude to ask your mother to listen to us doing that.’

‘I think I’d like to hear you scream,’ he said. ‘Let’s just get down to dinner, I’ll figure something out.’

‘Problem solving is kind of your thing, isn’t it?’

She didn’t begin to understand what being a fence involved. From their brief conversations since he’d confessed the truth of what he did, Layla had figured out that people came to him with goods they wanted to sell. Often, Ruger had no idea about the purpose of said goods, or how to operate or utilise them himself. But if he wanted a reasonable cut of the sale then he had to figure it out and ensure that no one was short-changed.

‘We could always do it in my truck,’ he said, sinking lower to capture her mouth.

Urging him back, she laughed. ‘It would be a shame to dodge the cops for all these years just to be finally caught for public indecency, wouldn’t it?’

‘Lady has a point,’ he said.

‘Ruger! Your brothers are here!’

Again, his mother called for him and this time Ruger rolled his eyes like a teenager. Gripping his tee-shirt, Layla curled her legs around his thighs. ‘Your mom must know you’re in here,’ she whispered. ‘Every other day she’s come and knocked on the door to tell me that it’s time for dinner.’

‘You know I am a grown up and I’ve had plenty of sex before, plenty.’

‘I’m sure you have, honey.’

‘This is so frustrating. You’re right, I should just get a new place, shouldn’t I?’

‘Unless you’re willing to ask Suzette to vacate it might be your only choice. You said you were trying to change, didn’t you? That you weren’t going to do illegal things anymore.’