Page 25 of Reckless Abandon
“No. After the scene with you last night, I don’t want to tell the owner that I'm going home early with a client,” Ryann said, completely frustrated.
Is that how she still thought of me? As a friend? As a client? I needed to take control of this situation. Now. “I'm more than a client, butterfly. The owner says you're leaving with him. Let’s go,” I said with more authority in my voice than I've used before. The look in her eye told me she wasn’t going to question what I told her to do.
We stood up, and I escorted her out of the room with my hand on her hip the entire time. I walked behind Ryann at all times making sure that I was the only one who could see her succulent ass. An ass which continued to tempt me in a way that I no longer wanted to control. We went straight to the back, grabbed her purse and left. On Friday nights, I knew Ryann drove with Rose to work so we wouldn’t have to work about her car. She stopped, looked around, and had no idea where to go next when she didn’t see my truck in the parking lot.
“I’m going to show you some real power this weekend, beautiful,” I said as I opened the door to the Mustang for her. Ryann just shook her head, laughed and crawled in. We drove to her condo first so that she could pack a bag for the weekend, and pack up Roxy to bring her to my place. I knew this made her a bit nervous at first, until she saw my oversized yard and dog run that I had custom built for Cheech.
“That’s quite a setup you have here, nuts. I'm assuming by the size of the run here your dog is quite active.”
“Come inside. You can meet him and the sitter, Molly.” When we walked through the door, Cheech didn’t even look up from Molly scratching his belly. The drool just continued to ruin my couch. I actually heard Ryann chuckle when she first saw my dog.
“Yeah, I don’t think he needs anything more than the couch,” she laughed. I introduced all the dogs and humans and everyone seemed to be comfortable with one another. Excellent, we were set to begin the two-hour drive to Laughlin. By driving, I hoped that we could talk and start getting to know each other more.
I gave Ryann some time to settle in and get comfortable on our drive before we started those conversations.
She broke the ice. “Okay, Mr. Owner. Want to explain that one please?”
“Yesterday, I said we all come with baggage. Let me tell you about mine,” I sighed. I started by telling her about Damon and Isabell and how I then became part owner of The Cave and how that led me to meet Jordyn. I explained how our relationship was rocky and that we moved to San Diego for her to go to nursing school and that we broke up because she cheated on me with another dancer from the club. I left out Ella. I never once thought of her as baggage and I figured it was a conversation for another time.
Ryann told me about her ex-husband, Lucas. They'd had a great relationship until they didn’t. Basically one day, he just changed his mind and left. I had a feeling there was more to the story but I didn’t want to push her, especially before our weekend together.
I was playing in a three-day quarter million dollar poker tournament. They could be boring twelve hour days, but the payoff could be big if I finished in the top twenty-five. The only payoff I truly cared about this weekend was with my butterfly.