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RYDER STOOD LESS than fifteen feet away from the ice queen as she started toward him, and he didn’t see a single shred of ice in those deep blue eyes. He saw a bottomless, malicious fire as she sauntered her seductive hips toward him and it was causing a sudden burning bulge in the front of his pants.
Seductive hips? Damn right this woman had seductive hips, and they were heading in his direction.
Why, in all the time that he’d known Violet Caliendo, had he never noticed she had a stunning body? It was like a revelation slapped him across the face and time froze, so he could fully take in her exterior in a whole new, much more, exciting perspective.
Violet was tall, equal to his height when she was wearing those sexy black heels. She was slim, with a delicate frame posed under the thin, but crisp material of her blazer, continuing down her silky throat to the ivory skin across her collarbone. Her white, silk blouse was tucked perfectly in the high-waist skirt hugging her lower body and showing off captivating curves in all the right places...and long legs. Violet Caliendo had long, lean legs that disappeared under the skirt just above her knees.
His fingers suddenly had a mind of their own, wanting to inch up that skirt, and follow her thighs to the warm area that...
Whoa! What? No. Back up!
What was he doing allowing his thoughts in that direction...a lusting direction...for Joel’s ex-wife?
Wasn’t there some sort of bro code he had to follow? Follow? It wasn’t like Violet was heading toward him to have sex with him, demanding that he dip into the bro code. Was she? No, that was ridiculous.
Ryder had seen Violet at least half a dozen times since her divorce from Joel, and she hadn’t given Ryder a second glance. He wasn’t sure that she’d given him a first glance, so there was no way she was heading his way for sex. But she was heading Ryder’s way and he was allowed to look...appreciate how attractive she was....wasn’t he?
Violet Caliendo was definitely not the grab-a-man-in-the-bathroom-for-sex type of woman...although at the moment, he wished she was.
No, you don’t. Yes, I do. Do you know who you are talking about? Ice Queen. Ring any bells?
Oh, Violet was ringing bells alright, but they weren’t warning Ryder of who she was, but rather what she could offer.
Why the hell was she sauntering right toward him? And why did her eyes look ready to dive into him? And why was the thought that maybe she would dive into him the most exciting feeling he’d had in years?
As he noticed the full, round mounds of her breasts pushing through the white button-up...move your eyes back to hers...he wondered why he hadn’t ever taken her beauty in. First, she was your best friend’s wife and then she was the ice queen...that was precisely the reason why he’d never recognized her body was a temple he wanted access to.
Donald Carlex didn’t raise a son to steal a woman out from under someone and he definitely taught Ryder to stay away from the loveless ones. That’s exactly what Joel told him Violet was. A cold-hearted, loveless woman. An ice queen.
But this ice queen could saunter. This ice queen could hold a solid stare and move in a solid sway and walk a steady pace in those spike heels that only added more to her sex appeal.
Violet walked all the way to him. Not inches away, not even centimeters away from his suddenly, very horny self. Her warm, not cold, body came in direct contact with his and he could feel her heat penetrate through his clothing. At the same time her fingers tightly wrapped around the front of his shirt.
And did she just pull him at her in a possessively, super hot, rough way?
As Violet’s lips crashed against Ryder’s lips, hard, hot and so far away from lovingly, he got his answer. She sure as hell had sauntered over to him with sex on her mind. At the very least, a make-out session that was starting off naughtily, exciting, and stirring something alive in him that had been absent for some time.
The instant Violet touched him, her kiss, her fingers, and her body erased the stress of redesigning the stores and the sadness of his dad’s decline. Ryder’s lips merely reacted to this incredible woman that was arousing every part of him. It had been years since his mind was this clear. Clear of the piling plateful that was his life.
In reality, Ryder should have paused to make sure the door was closed before he shoved the blazer off her shoulders to feel her tantalizing body through the thin material of her blouse. He should have pulled away from her plunging tongue that wasn’t shy on dipping into his mouth in search of his, and made sure this was what Violet wanted to do. But, as her hands yanked his shirt from where it had been neatly tucked, sliding sizzling hot fingers up his stomach and across his bare chest, he was taking that as his answer and there were no need for words.
Ryder cupped her face.
Violet unbuttoned his belt.
Hard, forceful kisses enveloped him away from his surroundings. He forgot he was at the Caliendo Resort. He forgot the reason he was there and the insanity of the circumstances. Everything, except this woman, was suddenly foreign to him.
All he could do was taste the wine in her warm mouth and feel her tongue flavoring every area possible inside his welcoming mouth.
Ryder hiked her skirt up and his fingers did exactly what they craved, moving up her thigh and damn the bare silkiness sent scorching pleasure through him.
Violet moaned in his mouth. Moaned! Violet Caliendo. Ice queen. This was no ice queen.
Ryder’s pants dropped around his ankles and he’d had nothing to do with it. It was all this fiery woman, but damn if he didn’t kick them off and pick her up all at the same time. Her arms snaked around his neck and she arched her full breasts against him as he carried her to the counter. He wanted to feel those breasts in his hands. They were still wearing too much clothing.
Their lips separated as he set her little rump down, only long enough for her to unbutton his shirt and him to unbutton hers. This woman was sizzling. Ryder was sizzling.
With her arms resting on his shoulders, Violet stopped to look at him. Her glazed, dazzling eyes held his. His hands stopped at the back of her bra, where they’d been ready to figure out if the clasp was there or in the front. Her eyes might be blue as ice, but he found no shards reflecting back at him. Their fixated look pulled him into a silent world that he found, surprisingly, enjoyable. A quiet, tranquil place with a woman that he didn’t know all that well and yet, here...there was something. Something he’d never felt and didn’t recognize.
His peripheral vision caught the deep panting breaths escaping her lips as her full chest was now exposed in her lace bra, heaving up and down to the pulse of his own breaths. He wondered if that was the moment she was going to change her mind. If she was going to send a pile of crashing icicles down on them.
Then her eyes fell to his lips and he watched her tongue slid across her lower lip before she sucked that full cushioning lower lip between her teeth. He wanted those lips.
But what if she was done? What if the reality hit her? What if−
Violet’s grabbed Ryder’s hardness and his eyes flew back up to hers. She was smirking at him in a devilish way before she claimed his mouth telling him they weren’t finished yet.