Sunset Thunder (24 page)

He immediately looked embarrassed and she thought he might leave.

He said, “And then I snapped vulgarly at you.”

Violet touched Ryder’s biceps and they flexed beneath her. “Ryder, I am falling in love with you. There’s a connection with you that I’ve never felt with another person. And, trust me, I don’t spill all my feelings to just anyone. Please don’t leave.”

If he had to, at least she hoped he took her truth and would return. She couldn’t leave it like this, with him looking so conflicted.

There is no conflict. It is so easy. Ryder you are the one.
 

“Joel might have lived here but it was never his home. This is my house, but I understand if you’re not comfortable here.” Her fingers moved up his arms. When they reached his shoulder, he bent down and kissed her, squeezing her arms between them. It was a short, quick kiss and when he pulled away, guilt laced his eyes.

“I’m sorry I doubted you.”

“It’s okay. Maybe we didn’t put enough of our past out on the table.”

He ran his hands over his face, and then rubbed the back of his neck. That was when Violet saw the dark circles under her eyes, and the weight of his eyelids. He was exhausted.

“Let’s get out of here,” she suggested. He looked like he would fall asleep if his head hit the pillow, but she didn’t want to part from him yet.

“Where?” 

“Anywhere. Your house. Your boat. Anywhere.” 

Ryder kissed her. “Let’s finish supper with your family.”

Her family? How were they even a thought in his head with everything going on between them?

Because he was a family man and family was important to him, whether it be his own or hers. Family, also being important to Violet, fell a little more in love with him at that very moment. She knew the trip to saying,
I love you
, was going to be a short and sweet one.

“No more running. No more jealousy. And by the way, I can handle a hand full of measly Caliendos.”

Measly.

Violet laughed. 

Fine, they would finish supper, but afterwards she wanted him all to herself.

“I DIDN’T EXPECT this is what you meant by somewhere special,” Ryder said sending Violet a smirk. “Are you trying to get in my pants?” he teased. 

Violet laughed and it echoed through the darkness of the silver ballroom. He loved her laughter.

She sent him a half-serious glare. “No. We are not having sex here.”

He couldn’t deny the thought had been crossing his mind since the very day he’d suggested hiking her up onto the very table they sat on.

“There is a wedding in here tomorrow,” she told him, as if the idea was so appalling.

Silk linen covered the tables, dressed with place settings and tall vases that would surely be filled with fresh flowers in the morning. Violet had moved the place settings carefully, before they had settled on top of the head table.

Ryder sighed like he was disappointed, but sent her a wink before turning away. Leaning back on his hands, he stared out the enormous window that looked out over the woods that touched the lake, which reflected the moonlight above. It was as beautiful as he knew it would be.

“I thought maybe you would want to go somewhere I’ve never been with Joel,” she said and he heard the reservation in her voice at the mention of his name. “Somewhere that’s our own.” 

Ryder grimaced inside. What a childish ass he’d acted like. He wasn’t sure what had come over him. It was the stress of his dad no doubt. He knew Violet wasn’t in love with Joel. He didn’t think he needed to hear it from her lips, until that was what he was demanding. Then in the next sentence, probing her honesty, which deserved a slap across the face, not the soft stroke she pressed against his skin.

Why had he doubted her? Why had he doubted them?
He needed a good night’s sleep. 

Ryder ran his hand across his face, embarrassed about his behavior in her suite.

He conjured up enough courage to slant a look at her. “Listen, Violet, I’m sorry about what I said in your suite, about us repeating your life with him. That was uncalled for. Please don’t go out of your way to try to relieve my thoughts about you and Joel.” 

She covered his hand with hers. “I don’t want you to be uncomfortable,” she said.

“I’m not.” He was never more comfortable with another person.

“But you were.” 

He groaned and sat up straight, taking his hand away from under hers.

“Hey.” Violet moved the wine they’d been sipping and sat on her knees beside him. She touched his face and tilted his head to look at her. “For someone who claims I hide things, you are pretty good at hiding yourself,” she accused. “And I am not just talking about Donald. Although I give you credit for Willow Valley’s best kept secret.”

He chuckled.

Ryder wrapped his arms around her and lifted her onto his lap. She straddled him, her knees against the table, and sent him a mischievous look. “I said we are not having sex on this table,” she told him, but it lacked conviction.

He kissed her. “You are such a tease.”

She smiled against his lips.

“I guess the thought had crossed my mind, obviously, that you may still be in love Joel. Honestly, I didn’t really believe you were. Or at least I couldn’t understand how a woman would be with a man who has treated you as disrespectfully as Joel has. And for what? For...” Ryder stopped and Violet gasped.

“You know?” she accused and he didn’t have to ask what she was talking about.

“You know?” he asked, more surprised.

Violet frowned. “Of course I know. I’m Violet Caliendo. You don’t give me enough credit. First you think I’m still in love with that selfish ass and then you think I didn’t know he married me because he was bankrupt?”

“Why did you marry him, if you knew?”

Violet’s face fell, along with her eyes. She stared for a long time at her fidgeting hands between them. Fidgeting hands. Violet Caliendo. He didn’t like how much this topic upset her.

Ryder covered her hands. “You don’t have to answer that,” he said.

“I pride myself on being strong.” He knew her strength. Violet inhaled deeply. “Says the woman cowering away and wrenching hands.” She smiled at him shyly and pressed her flat palms against his chest. He felt them tremble.

Ryder pushed the hair that had fallen across her face behind her ears.

“You don’t have to put a disguise on with me and you don’t have to tell me things if you’re not ready.”

“It’s embarrassing Ryder. I might never be ready.”

He shrugged. “I can think of other things to pass our time.” He kissed her, slipping his tongue inside her mouth and searching out her warmth.

Violet pulled away. “Is sex your solution to everything?”‘

He shrugged again. “With you, it always seems to go that direction.” But Ryder saw that Violet was still battling his question. He pulled her closer against him, but not in a sexual way, even if the pressure warmed his groin. He waited in silence until she was ready to talk.

“I was pregnant with Sophia and my dad wouldn’t...he threatened to cut me off and fire me if I didn’t marry Joel.”

He stroked the side of her cheek with the pad of his thumb. “That’s not your fault, Violet. That’s nothing you should be embarrassed about.”

“It’s bigger than that. My dad was punishing me for not moving to one of the new resorts he had bought to manage it. So I rebelled and it was so unlike me.” She let out a startled laugh, shaking her head and looking away. “I was always more cool-headed than the rest of my siblings, so when I decided to make my dad angry, it figures I would get pregnant with the man I didn’t love...or even really liked. Joel was obnoxious, rude and crude and my dad hated that.
Joel is like his dead father
, my dad would say.”

Ryder didn’t like speaking ill of the dead, but it was true that Joel was hot-headed like his dad.

“The eve of my wedding, I had finished school and was working as wedding coordinator, my dream job, but I was engaged to a man who didn’t love me. I found my dad in his office and begged him to call off the wedding. When he refused, I did the only thing I could and threatened to leave...”

Violet’s eyes dropped.

Ryder knew this would be hard for her, trusting him enough with the parts of her life she didn’t tell anyone.

He stroked her skin, silently giving her the time she needed to work up her courage to continue. He could wait all night if that’s what it took for her to talk to him.

“But it was an empty threat and my dad knew it. He was in charge of my trust fund.” She sent him a half smile with a shake of her head. “And the threat only gained a sneer sneer-like snicker and warning of his own, to cut me off if I gave birth to...” Violet bit her lower lip and stared at him for a long second. “...a bastard child,” she finally said.

A bastard child? A bastard child!

What kind of father was Robert? Donald would never have spoken so ill-mannered and disrespectfully to Ryder. Never.

“Violet, that breaks my heart,” he told her, running his thumb along her jaw.

“I was leaving my dad’s office thinking,
Joel is a good guy. We are having a baby together, and he seems excited and he did propose. A life with Joel I can make work and be happy.
But then, as if marrying Joel hadn’t been punishment enough, on my way out the door my dad casually mentioned that I hadn’t been the only one with shady intentions. Joel had been hiding his true agenda from me. Marrying me for my bank account.”

Ryder could relate. He’d been on his way down that path with Courtney. He hated to think what might have happened had he not caught her in bed with another man.

“I can’t imagine a father who would treat his own blood like that, his own daughter. I can’t imagine a person who would treat
you
like that,” he said. It made Ryder want to Robert to the ground. If he wasn’t already deceased, the thought may have become a reality.

Her hand covered his and she closed her eyes. “I can’t imagine it either, but I lived it.” She brought his hand to her lips and kissed the inside of his palm.

Ryder reached up and kissed her lips. “No one will ever treat you like that again. Not while I’m around.”

“Thank you. I don’t know how Joel got my dad to agree to the divorce, but he must have held something over my dad. Joel was always running around for him, so maybe he got wind of something Dad didn’t want out and traded.”

“Blackmailed?”

Violet shrugged. “I guess. Although, I can’t see my dad taking the bait. I don’t know.”

“Maybe it had nothing to do with Joel and Robert made the decision because of you. Because you’re his daughter and he realized all the wrongs he’d done.”

Violet snorted and rolled her eyes. Her hand flew to cover her lips and she laughed. Ryder enjoyed watching the light fill her eyes again. Violet laughed so hard and so long, he thought she might tumble over beside him.

“I snorted,” was all she said through her fingers when she could finally speak.

He grinned at her. He hadn’t seen this adorable side of her. There was a lot about her he didn’t know or hadn’t seen, and he was ready for all the shades of Violet. Ryder pulled her hands down. “You did and it was very unladylike.”

She laughed again and lightly slapped his chest. “You bring the unladylike out of me.”

“I’m okay with that,” he teased, then turned serious. “I’m sorry about Robert and Joel.”

Violet’s legs squeezed around him and her body tensed, while her eyes darkened. “I shouldn’t have said any of that. Joel is your friend.” She pulled out of his grasp, was lifting her leg over him but Ryder caught her and settled her back down on his lap.

Violet spoke first. “This is so hard. Is it always going to be this hard? I am so good at knowing when to speak and what not to say, but with you, everything just blurts out of my mouth, then I’m snorting and the next minute while insulting your friend.”

“Don’t hide your truths from me because Joel is my friend. Don’t hide them from me no matter who they are about. I don’t want a relationship with you where we hide things. I don’t want to hide from you and I don’t want you to hide from me. Joel’s actions are his own. They do not make you a bad person because you lived through them or because you tell me. Which by the way, makes me want to go beat the shit out of him.”

Violet gasped. “Don’t you dare.”

He shrugged. “I can’t promise anything.”

“Ryder!”

“Should he happen to make one of his snide, inappropriate comments about...anything...just the tiniest remark may set me off and my fist will probably land across his face.”

“Stop it. I don’t want to be the wedge between you two.”

“Did you not live with Joel for eight years? He makes the wedges all on his own.”

Joel had a lot of enemies. Ryder just happened to be the son of the people who had a soft spot for Joel. But Ryder was feeling his loyalty shifting from what his parents expected of him to what this woman in front of him needed. Violet was his now. Just like sharing his father’s illness with her family, he knew they would understand his commitment to her, and the wedge it might cause between him and Joel.

Not wanting secrets, Ryder was about to tell Violet the truth about Joel and his weaseling ways into his family, but she presented a much more curious conversation.

“Do you really want to know why I brought you here?”

He grinned as she pressed against his hips. “I am very curious.”

“I brought you here to jog your memory of the last time we were here.”

“My memory doesn’t need any memory jogging.” He pulled her against him and kissed her lips. “I remember stealing glances at you when the wedding posse wasn’t looking. Wanting to be exactly where we are, right now.” He paused. “Only naked. No more lies between us. I was envisioning you naked.”

Violet laughed. “Oh were you?”

“Yes. You have way too many articles of clothing on.”

In a quick movement, he pulled her dress over her head, leaving her reaching for it as he tossed it on the floor. He took the moment to look over her straddling him, with the moonlight casting a glow over her gorgeous body. Left in only her panties and bra and wiggling against his growing bulge as she moved, he could have devoured all of her right there. He was only teasing. A bathroom was one thing, head table of a wedding was...wrong. It was wrong. But it felt so good.

“Ryder...” His lips caught his name and he pulled her warm body against his, wanting his shirt off too. If she hadn’t been worried about his feelings in her suite, they likely would have been making love for the last hour.

Ryder had assumed Violet’s hands would push against his chest and she would scoot off him to retrieve her dress. He was ready to play hard to get, pulling her back and kissing her bare throat. But when her hands moved over his shoulders and around his neck, she pressed her body harder against his, moaning in his mouth, and he forgot where they were. Ryder’s hands slid up her warm back, unsnapping her bra, before continuing up the nape of her neck. He dug his fingers into her hair and pulled her back, exposing her long throat. He kissed her silky skin, licking, nibbling and loving her moans with every touch. By the time he reached her breasts, she’d already slipped out of the bra. Her fingers grasped the hem of his shirt and he broke the contact with her skin long enough to rip it off.