Brenda Jackson - The Millionaire's Club - Jacob, Logan and Marc - Black-Tie Seduction / Less-than-Innocent Invitation / Strictly Confidential Attraction

“You can break my bank another night, buddy. I’ve got a mad woman waiting and it’s not going to do any of us any good if I keep her that way too long.”

Didn’t it just figure? Jake thought. These days there always seemed to be a woman complicating things for him. Nita was leaning on the club members for help, and his pair of queens hadn’t shown up until after he’d dropped a bundle and the game was over. Then there was Chrissie. Lord. She had materialized this afternoon as a different woman, then issued a challenge he couldn’t see his way clear to walk away from.

“My place. Tonight. Midnight. Wear jeans and boots.”

Christine’s heart knocked her a couple of good ones in her chest when she listened to the message on her answering machine.

That the message was from Jake was without question. She’d recognize his barbed-wire-and-velvet voice anywhere. That he’d answered her challenge so soon—the day after she’d lain her metaphorical cards on the table—was a big surprise.

“So, what are you going to do?”

Christine looked at Alison, who had dropped by after work to check out Chris’s sports car.

“I’m going to go. It’s what I want.”

Alison eyed her with appreciation. “You are serious about this personal alteration, aren’t you?”

“Like I said—” Christine made a concentrated attempt not to chew nervously on her lower lip “—I’m tired of playing it safe and dull. I know it sounds funny given our history, but I trust Jake not to hurt me.”

“Jake is it? He’s not the evil twin or the insensitive jerk anymore? My, my. That must have been some dinner date Saturday night.”

“Let’s just say the evening opened me up to new possibilities.”

“Well, I say, you go, girl. Just…well, be a little careful, okay? I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“I’ll be fine,” Christine assured Alison even though she wasn’t one hundred percent sure herself. “I know what I’m doing.”

Six hours later, however, as Christine pulled into the drive of Jake Thorne’s ranch south of Royal, one burning question kept surfacing like a stubborn cork in a choppy sea: What am I doing?

She eased her convertible around the circular drive, then stopped in front of a portico that flanked a pair of massive double doors framed in a stucco structure the color of sand.

Money. The place reeked of it with its understated elegance and style. The house was new—one of many in this area where land was sold in five-hundred-acre parcels of rolling hills and the occasional thicket of timber. Only the wealthy and privileged could afford the property here.

Lot of house for one man, she thought as her gaze roamed over the impressive facade. A light mounted under the portico came on and the front door swung open.

Make that, a lot of man for one woman.

Neither the businessman nor the tease strode out to meet her. A cowboy did. And Jake Thorne as an icon of the American west personified the cowboy mystic in resounding three-dimensional color.

His boots were a rusty-brown color. His Wranglers looked soft and worn and tight. On his head was a black, well-shaped Stetson—black for bad guy, she thought—and his shirt was as white as snow with mother-of-pearl snaps running down his torso and on the breast pockets. The blue bandanna he’d tied around his neck lay in stark contrast against his white shirt and tanned throat. Spurs jingled with every long, purposeful stride.

The only thing missing was a pair of six-shooters strapped on his lean hips. Still, she got the feeling that he was gunning for her.

“Nice wheels,” he said by way of greeting as he looked her car over.

“It’s new,” she said inanely.

One corner of his mouth turned up. Not a smile. Not a sneer. Small clue as to what he was thinking.

“Got your boots on?”

She got out of the car and showed him. And his nota-smile-not-a-sneer expression turned into a frown. Big clue as to what he was thinking.

“Let met guess—those would be new, too?”

She glanced away from his look of disgust at her pretty red boots. “What’s wrong with them?”

“I was thinking cowboy boots.”

“These are cowboy boots.”

“If you’re strutting down Rodeo Drive in California maybe. Not if you’re planning to ride a horse.”

She’d suspected he had a midnight ride in mind, even though she’d held out hope for something else. She didn’t ride. In fact, she’d never ridden—guess the choice of boots might have given that away. Somehow she figured he already knew that, too, but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of admitting it.

“These boots will do just fine,” she said.

He grunted and shook his head. “Come on.” Then he walked away from the house toward a mammoth, pristine white barn.

“This is Cletus,” he said opening a box stall.

Inside was what Christine considered to be a very big—strike that, an exceptionally huge—brown horse.

“Does he bite?” She could have kicked herself, but the question was out before she could stop it. Talk about sounding green.

“Only blondes,” Jake said, leveling her a look. “But since you’ll be on his back, you should be safe.”

Her stomach sank toward her knees as she looked up the broad length of him. But she smiled. “Oh. Well. Good.”

Jake studied her face. “You have ridden, right?”

“Sure. Lots of times.” Why was she playing this game? What did she think it was going to net her?

A broken neck, probably, but something about his smug attitude just wouldn’t allow her to let him see that she was scared senseless.

“You two get to know each other,” Jake said. “I’ll go get my mount.”

“Good. Great. I’ll be fine,” she said, lying through her teeth. “Nice…horse,” she whispered when Jake was out of her line of sight. “Be nice, okay? I brought you something.”

Again, because she’d figured a ride might be what Jake had in mind, she’d hedged her bets. She fished into her hip pocket and pulled out a sugar lump. She’d heard that horses like sugar.

She’d heard right. Cletus went for the sugar like a bear after honey. It was icky feeding it to him. He snuffled all over her palm before finally lipping the sweet treat into his mouth. When he was finished, he lowered his head and nudged her hip pocket where she’d tucked the rest of the sugar, evidently smelling it there.

“Okay, okay,” she said, laughing in spite of herself, and gave him another hit. “Now we’re friends, right?”

In answer, the horse nipped at her pocket.

“Hey,” she sputtered, stepping back. “Easy on the jeans.”

“They as new as your boots?” Jake asked, startling her as he walked down the aisle of the barn, a big buckskin in tow.

She manufactured a smile. “You’re right about the biting thing.”

His blue eyes pinned hers in the dimly lit barn. “Any guy is liable to bite if a woman has something in her pants that he wants.”

Oh. My. This must be where the walk on the wild side came in. He was letting her know. You came out here to learn, and I’m just the man to teach you.

“Busted,” she said, conceding that he’d caught her with the sugar but not going anywhere near the sexual innuendo. “Who knew he’d be such a glutton?”

“Offer me sugar. See what kind of a glutton I become.”

He gave her another one of those long, smoldering looks that held undertones of all kinds of gluttony, along with shades of warning. She actually thought about turning tail and running as fast and as far as her new red boots would take her.

The old Christine would have run. The new one followed him as he led the two horses out of the barn and into the moonlight.