She wrung out her suit and turned around to the pile of clothes she'd left on the ground. There was a delicate spray of stars running down her back and along her hip. A neatly drawn rose tattoo finished the piece of art on the smooth white cheek of her ass. She leaned down to pick up the clothes, giving me a first class view of everything.
"Fuck," the word rumbled up from my throat.
"Did you say something?" She pulled on her shorts and turned around, still topless and pretending that her nipples pointing at me was no big deal. Of course, it probably wasn't to her. But it was a plenty big deal to me. Suddenly, I was feeling like a horny teenager who just got his first glimpse of a naked woman.
I almost had to mentally leave my body not to feel the physical reaction I was having to her. I wasn't going to let her win this round.
"I didn't say a word." I walked casually back to the bike or at least I tried to look casual. My jaw was clenched like a steel trap, and my cock was throbbing like she had wrapped her lips around it.
No fucking wonder Carter had gray hair.
Chapter Five
Raini
I rode to catch up to Zane. I had no idea why I'd decided to tease him so badly. At first I'd considered that I was subconsciously doing it just to piss off Mindy, but now that he was riding ahead of me with his shoulders and jaw tense with anger, I was feeling bad.
"So what part do you play in the company?" I decided to make small talk and hopefully repair some of the damage I'd done.
"You mean other than sell sex toys?"
"No, I know that's not what you do. I'm sorry about being so flippant. My dad tells me I inherited my lack of tact from my mom. She was always a tell it like it is kind of person." My voice trailed off as I thought about riding the same bike path with my mom the summer before she died. We had been the best of friends. I was always much closer to her than to Mindy.
Zane stopped hyper concentrating on the road in front of him and finally looked my direction. I loved his face. It was the kind of face that just drew you in. "I guess you were pretty young when you lost her."
"She died just three days after my seventeenth birthday. It was like someone took my lifeline, the thing I always held onto when I was happy or sad or distraught, and just cut it in half. I was completely lost without her. Dad did the best he could, but it wasn't the same."
"That must have been hard. I lost my dad when I was just four."
"Wow, that's terrible."
"Not as bad as losing a parent at seventeen. I was just too young to understand what had happened. He was there one minute, helping me learn to ride a bike, and the next, he was gone. The concept of death was still so foreign to me, I couldn't quite figure out that it was forever. For a long time, I kept expecting him to just walk in one night and drop his metal lunch pail on the counter like he had every other night before that."
We turned to ride across the grassy knoll leading back to the ranch.
"Marketing. That's what I do for the company. I'm in charge of marketing. Your dad says you're studying art."
I laughed. "Let me guess, he said it with an eye roll."
Zane glanced over at me. "You know your dad pretty well."
"I do." We reached the storage shed and walked the bikes inside. I wasn't sure if I'd done permanent damage to our very short friendship with my earlier teasing but I hoped not. I wasn't sure why I felt that way.
"Well, thanks for inviting me along for the swim." Even though the earlier snarky conversation had turned to a more thoughtful dialogue on the ride home, Zane's voice was still a little distant. I'd managed to turn him off completely. And while my earlier invite might partly have been to piss off Mindy and partly an attempt to make this weekend less boring, now I was feeling disappointed that I'd blown it with him so quickly.
We walked back to the party that was still going full swing on the patio and in the pool area. The midday sun was pouring down on the ranch, and the guests probably wouldn't head inside for hours. As much as I always hated to give too much credit or compliments to my sister, she'd done a spectacular job setting up the weekend. Dad would remember it for a long time.
A nice looking couple was standing at the outer edges of the patio area with their plates of food. The man, a guy who fit the tall, dark and handsome cliché perfectly, lifted his sunglasses to reveal a nice pair of hazel eyes. "There you are. Where did you run off to?"
"We were on a bike ride," Zane explained. "Trey, Georgie, this is Carter's daughter Raini."
Trey's face shot toward me as if my name had triggered the sudden interest. My dad had, no doubt, told him stories about me.
"Raini, of course, your dad talks about you all the time."
"Well, believe everything he says," I quipped. "Unfortunately, it's all true. Now, if you'll excuse me I have to shower and make the rounds or my sister will have me sitting at the kid's table during the birthday dinner. It was nice meeting you, Georgie. Love the name."
"You too," she replied.
I meandered across the patio but stopped briefly to glance back at the man with the copper red hair. He seemed to sense I was looking his direction. Our eyes locked through the crowd for a long moment and then I headed inside.
Chapter Six
Zane
Trey and Georgie had decided to take a walk around the grounds and so they walked along with me as I headed toward the guest cottages.
"I was wondering if we'd ever get to meet the elusive Rainsford," Trey said. "She's cute."
I glanced his way. "I wonder why he told you about her but I didn't even know he had a fourth kid."
Trey shrugged. "I'm a better listener."
"No you're not."
"Yep. I am."
"If you were on a bike ride," Georgie interrupted our usual third grade banter, "why is your hair wet?"
I nodded at her. "Always the investigative journalist, Georgie. We stopped for a swim at a swimming hole."
"Did you?" Trey asked. It was only a two word question, but there was a whole lot of inquiry behind it.
"I did." I decided to counter his leading two word question with a 'let's end it right here' two word answer. But my buddy Trey wasn't into ending things abruptly.
"Carter has told me a few pretty wild stories about his youngest daughter," Trey went on. I decided to ignore the bait, but Georgie with her constantly inquiring mind grabbed right on.
"Really? What kind of wild stories could he possibly tell about her?" Georgie asked. "She looks like a sweet, savvy girl who knows her mind."
"Oh, she definitely knows her own mind. When she was eighteen, she disappeared for a few months, telling her dad she was going on a road trip before college. He eventually had to hire a private investigator to find her. She was shacked up with the president of a motorcycle club and working as a tattoo artist. Fucking hilarious. She has an eleven digit trust fund and she was drawing tattoos for MC club members. She refused to come home, so he hired the PI full-time just to make sure nothing happened to her. Eventually the shine of being part of an MC club wore off, and she came back home. But in between that time and now, she's been on some pretty wild rides. At least according to Carter."
"Sounds like she just wanted to have some fun," Georgie commented.
Trey laughed. "Guess we both have different ideas of fun then." He looked over at me. "You're awfully quiet considering—well, considering you're Zane, a man who has many opinions and is never afraid to blurt them out."
"Maybe I just have no opinion on this subject because it doesn't hold much interest."
"Right." The problem with having a business partner who you've known since elementary school is that they can see right through bullshit. But Trey wisely didn't continue with his questioning. He did, however, feel the need to add more about Raini, which was probably a subtle way of letting me know that he was on to me. "Last time Carter mentioned his daughter in a conversation, he said he doubted she would ever find the right man. He knew exactly the kind of person she needed too. Someone who could tame her without smothering that wild spirit that makes her so special. He is obviously crazy about her. Other dads might have already thrown up their hands in surrender." Trey turned his head my direction. "Which of course makes it extra difficult for any prospective suitor because they'd have to win over Daddy as well."
We reached the cottages. "Are you finished with your narrative because I need to take a shower so I can get back to the party and mingle."
Trey nodded sharply. "All done."
"Great, I'll see you guys later." I had pretended not to listen to the gritty details, working hard to convince both Trey and myself that they held no interest for me. I figured I just needed to get through the weekend and then I'd never see Raini again and she'd be out of my head for good. Or at least that was my plan.
I walked inside the cottage, only to discover that Aidan was having a royal make-out session with someone on his side of the room. "Get out," he yelled.
"Uh. We both packed neckties for dinner, you could have hung one on the door for warning."
"This isn't a fucking frat house." His grunt was followed by a feminine moan.
"I'm taking a shower," I said. "Just pretend I'm not here. That's what I'm pretending to do." I stepped into the bathroom and closed the door. Then I leaned back against the door and shut my eyes and tried to erase the image of Raini standing naked on the bank of the pond. But it was there, clear and concise, as if it had been etched there in permanent marker.