Trish Wylie – One Night with the Rebel Billionaire (страница 1)
Adam moved his hand, nudging her chin up with his fist. And then he kissed her.
He took advantage of her submission to part her lips with his tongue and sweep inside, taking her sharp gasp of cooler night air and replacing it with raw heat. In a mist of sensuality Roane was only vaguely aware of him wrapping his arm around her waist and tugging her closer to the edge of her chair. Her arms lifted, hands sliding around the column of his neck to hold him tight as their knees bumped together. Every doubt, every fear, every voice of reason in her head short-circuited except one.
Trish Wylie worked on a long career of careers to get to the one she’d wanted from her late teens. She flicked her blonde hair over her shoulder while playing the promotions game, patted her manicured hands on the backs of musicians in the music business, smiled sweetly at awkward customers during the retail nightmare known as the run-up to Christmas, and got completely lost in her car in every single town in Ireland while working as a sales rep. And it took all that character-building and a healthy sense of humour to get her dream job, she feels—where she spends her days in reindeer slippers, with her hair in whatever band she can find to keep it out of the way, make-up as vague and distant a memory as manicured nails, while she gets to create the kind of dream man she’d still like to believe is out there somewhere. If it turns out he is, she promises she’ll let you know…after she’s been out for a new wardrobe, a manicure and a make-over…
Recent books by the same author:
Mills & Boon® Modern Heat™ THE RETURN OF THE REBEL HIS MISTRESS, HIS TERMS CLAIMED BY THE BILLIONAIRE BAD BOY
Trish also writes for Mills & Boon® Romance! In February look out for her fabulous new book, MANHATTAN BOSS, DIAMOND PROPOSAL!
Mills & Boon® Romance THE BRIDE OF THE EMERALD ISLE HER ONE AND ONLY VALENTINE THE MILLIONAIRE’S PROPOSAL
Dear Reader
Is there anything sexier than an intelligent man? I don’t think so. If he’s drop-dead gorgeous and sexy as sin he’ll turn my head—absolutely he will—but make him as intelligent as he is drool-worthy and you’ve got my
When Adam Bryant started to take shape in my mind he was an intelligent man—don’t get me wrong. But I didn’t realise just how intelligent until I’d written the first chapter. I guess there should have been hints of it there but—call me shallow—I may have been a tad distracted by the image of an Adonis skinny-dipping on a beach in the moonlight. I’m only human! Then all of a sudden my motorcycle-riding, skinny-dipping, black sheep/prodigal son of a hero started quoting Voltaire and Kerouac at my heroine. Hang on, I thought. This one is
But a guy like this is a thinker, he’s an analyser. He was never gonna fall for a woman overnight, was he? So what happens when the story wants itself told inside a time frame of four days? Hmm…let’s just see, shall we?
Hs & Ks
ONE NIGHT WITH THE REBEL BILLIONAIRE
BY
TRISH WYLIE
For Sharon W—friend, reader, and fellow admirer of
hot men and gorgeous horses. Luv ya, babes!
CHAPTER ONE
‘EXCUSE ME. I’M SORRY. This is a private beach.’
Roane Elliott stepped tentatively closer. A full moon lit everything around her in shades of silver and grey, with black shadows that seemed to breathe with the ebb and flow of the tide. But her surroundings didn’t worry her as much as the presence of the stranger; she might have known every rock, every path, every place the sand sank deeper beneath her feet—but she also knew she was too far away from a 911 call for it to help if she got into trouble…
Her footsteps faltered. But it wasn’t the sudden 911 thought that had done it; it was because she was now standing close enough to see he was—
Her eyes widened. Oh, dear Lord.
More than that, he was an Adonis. In the silvery light every tight muscle was defined in shadowy dips and shimmering planes from wide shoulders to tapering waist to taut… Her mouth went dry.
He turned around, so Roane swiftly averted her gaze, and mumbled under her breath, ‘
When she glanced at him from the corner of her eye her errant gaze didn’t do what it was told. Well, who could blame her? He was sensational. She damped her lips as if she could taste him on the air before forcing her gaze sharply upwards, her palms itching with an almost primal urge to reach out and
‘This is a private beach,’ she repeated with a little more force, lifting her chin to make her point. ‘You shouldn’t be here.’
‘The ocean belongs to everyone.’ Even the tone of his voice was magical.
Well, he could take that deep, rumbling, deliciously masculine voice of his that was doing something completely undiscovered to her pulse rate and—
Her thought process stalled. Wow, he had the most amazing muscle definition on his chest and upper arms. Not pumped up, steroid induced definition, oh, no. He looked like the kind of man who worked at something very physical for a living. Or was a natural sportsman of some kind, a swimmer maybe—no, not lean enough for a swimmer. Not that he was fat anywhere she could see, which was pretty much everywhere if she chose to take a good long look. And she could have, because he wasn’t the least bit embarrassed about being naked—in fact, he placed his hands on his hips, almost daring her to go right ahead and look.
Thankfully the silent arrogance brought her gaze north to his shadowed face rather than travelling south, which, deep down, it
She cleared her throat. ‘You’re not in the ocean; you’re standing on the beach. And it’s
It was a lie. But he didn’t know that.
In the shadows the suggestion of a crooked smile appeared, ‘Your beach, is it?’
‘It belongs to the family I work for. I—’ She’d been about to tell him she had a place a few hundred yards away. No doubt she’d be casually discussing the weather with him next. ‘I have permission to be here.’
When he took a step forwards she instinctively stepped back. ‘I know self-defence, so don’t try anything. I’m a black belt in ju-kwando.’
A brief chuckle of deep laughter preceded the dropping of his hands and another forward step. ‘My clothes are behind you. And for future reference it’s ju-jitsu or tae kwon do. Nice try. But I won’t bite you.’
Roane moved to the side as he stepped closer, colour rising on her cheeks when he inclined his head and added a low, ‘Not unless you ask me to.’
She opened her mouth to say something cutting in return and couldn’t seem to get her brain to work well enough to form a sentence. But she liked to think any red-blooded female would have been the same when confronted with such temptation. He was one of those men that would take what he wanted when he wanted, wasn’t he? She could
The rasp of a zipper invited her to glance back at him. His elbows bent as his hands worked on the belt of his jeans, he asked, ‘You live here?’
‘Answering that would hardly be a good move on my part, now would it?’
‘I’d say you left the region of good moves when you approached a stranger to begin with, wouldn’t you?’
When he turned his face towards the ocean the moon lit his face. For a brief moment Roane was struck by how
His face had a symmetry to it that she’d never seen before—almost as if he’d been artificially created. Twinned dark pools that suggested large deep-set eyes, a perfectly straight nose, a mouth—dear heaven, that mouth; full lips practically calling out to be kissed. He even had a square jaw.
Roane was just the teensiest bit smitten.
He looked at her and smiled the most sinfully sexy smile. Because he knew, didn’t he? Looking the way he did, how could he fail to know women were smitten by him? Judging by the beast of a motorcycle she’d discovered parked at the top of the wooden walkway down to the beach she’d bet he drove all over the country leaving trails of smitten women behind him. There was an addictive sense of—freedom—to him too; as if he belonged where he stood and nowhere else. Nothing would stop him from going where he wanted when he wanted, from swimming naked on a private beach or seducing a woman in the moonlight…