Learning Curves
Authors: Cathryn Fox
It was just a simple bet…until things went sexy.
When he wins a sexy bet, billionaire Linc Blair can’t wait to get Lauren Neill naked. He’s never gone for her type in the past, and he’s pretty certain it has more to do with her buttoned-up hotness than the nagging sense that something is missing from his life. But when he gets a glimpse of the vulnerable woman beneath the conservative, yet oh-so-sexy clothes, it’s a game changer.
Lauren can’t believe she’s spending a few days with one of sexiest, and most annoying men she’s ever met. But she can’t deny the chemistry between them, and for once in her life she’s letting down her guard so she can explore a different side of herself. The side only Linc brings out in her.
Taking it slow, he unleashes her sexuality and it quickly occurs to him that what started out as a bet for him has become something more. With their weekend nearly over, and her ex showing interest in this new confident version of Lauren, Linc will have to risk it all if he wants to win the game of love.
Table of Contents
Slow Ride
Wild Ride
Sweet Ride
Hold Me Down Hard
Tie Me Down Tight
Betting on the Wrong Brother
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Shameless
Desiring Red
Only for a Night
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Cathryn Fox. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.
Entangled Publishing, LLC
2614 South Timberline Road
Suite 109
Fort Collins, CO 80525
Visit our website at
www.entangledpublishing.com
.
Scorched is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.
Edited by Candace Havens
Cover design by Perfect Pear Creative Covers and Liz Pelletier
Cover art from iStock
ISBN 978-1-63375-640-3
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Edition May 2015
To the Entangled team for all the opportunities. Thank You.
Chapter One
Why did
he
always have to be here?
Lauren Neill stepped into the spacious skybox at the Miami Rays hockey stadium and glared at the man who managed to dig his way under her skin without even trying. Sports Source CEO Lincoln Blair
. Linc.
Kill. Me. Now
.
He stood there, sexier than should be legal, chatting it up with some pretty blonde. With his attention half on the girl and half on the hockey game between the Rays and the New York Storms, he pushed his hands into his pockets, a slow sexy smile spreading across his far too perfect lips. Normally he dressed conservatively in designer suits that fit his tall, athletic frame to perfection, but for today’s game he wore jeans and a black sweater, which fit tight against those wicked abs of his.
A soft, involuntary moan slipped out of her throat. Linc in a suit was one thing, but this…well, this laid-back version of the hot as sin, richer than royalty Linc was something else entirely. Talk about raw, orgasmic sex appeal.
What the hell am I doing? Stop staring at him
. It had become a habit whenever he was around, which was a lot, since he was best friends with her boss and provided all of the team equipment.
She shouldn’t be drooling over a man who barely spared her a glance. Not that she wanted him to. Because she didn’t, and it irritated the crap out of her that she couldn’t seem to stop herself from looking. Her dislike for Linc grew, even though she honestly had no basis for it. On the few occasions when business had put them together, he’d never been anything but nice, but even when he ignored her he was a distraction. One she didn’t want or need, especially at work, but oh, the naughty thoughts he inspired…
No. Do not go there.
Did she have no self-control at all? Gritting her teeth, Lauren pulled her gaze from Linc and turned it toward the crowd, focusing her attention on the activity going on around her.
As an accountant for the Rays, one of the perks was a seat in the skybox. While she seldom took advantage of that little extra, today the Rays were playing against her favorite team, the New York Storms. Unethical to root for the other team? Maybe, but as long as no one caught her, where was the harm?
She glanced around, and as usual, no one seemed to even notice she was there. People chatted and milled about the room, others gathered in small, more intimate groups, their heads bent, deep in conversation. Some watched the game from the floor to ceiling windows as it played out on the ice below, while a few hovered at the bar, preferring the zoom of camera lens and the play by play of commentators as they sipped from a longneck or a glass of something more substantial.
Perched on a barstool amid the sports enthusiasts, with her back to the game, a pretty brunette waved Linc over, trying to steal him away from the blonde who was toying with the sleeve of his sweater. Lauren shook her head. Dim witted moths to a lightbulb—every last one of them. Mr. Sex turned his head toward the brunette and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. The movement drew Lauren’s attention to the jeans that hugged the thick muscles of his thighs and curved around his perfect ass like the fitted baseball gloves his company sold by the millions.
The blonde moved away, and he turned Lauren’s way, giving her an eyeful of crotch, but she was far too slow to react. Her gaze flew to his and held for a moment too long. The muscles along his jaw rippled, and those kissable lips of his quirked into a smile. Crap. He’d caught her staring. Again.
He scrubbed his hand over his chin, watching her, then turned and walked to the bar, making his way to the stool the pretty brunette had pushed out for him.
Heat suffused Lauren’s cheeks. Would she never learn? And what had he been waiting for? To see if she’d simper up to him like every other woman in the room? Arrogant asshole. And even as she swore under her breath, tagging him as every kind of womanizing lowlife, her gaze settled on wide shoulders that any linebacker would kill for, then languidly slid down his back, stopping just below his belt.
Stop staring at his ass already!
And there it was. It hit Lauren like a bolt of lightning right between the eyes. She was no better than the other women who panted after Linc, but for one exception…when it came to her, he walked away. Straight to another woman.
Just like her ex. Her lower lip trembled. Was that why she had formed such a dislike for Linc? Had she been projecting her failure to attract and hold the attention of a man onto an innocent bystander? Well, Linc was hardly an innocent in any respect, but still…
Stricken, she tore her gaze away and smoothed her palms over her navy pencil skirt, wiping away the perspiration that had gathered. This couldn’t be. She wasn’t a mean person. She should apologize.
Resolved to make amends, Lauren searched the patrons of the bar until she found Linc, looking over his shoulder at her, a smirk on his lickable lips as he ran his knuckles along the side of the brunette’s arm.
Asshole!
Fueled by her own gullibility, Lauren swung around and searched for somewhere, anywhere to hide until he left. Her glance landed on her best friend Kelli, who, as luck would have it, worked for the owner of the perfect ass. As Linc’s top regional sales manager, Kelli always accompanied Linc to the stadium for his merchandizing meetings, or to catch a hockey game.
Kelli motioned Lauren over to the table she’d commandeered, and when she hesitated, her friend pinched her lips tight and gave her a look that suggested she’d better pick up her damn feet and get over there—pronto—otherwise there’d be hell to pay. Kelli might be a pixie of a thing, but she’d grown up on the streets of Brooklyn and could drop a man to his knees with a single look. Lauren had seen it first hand. The two might have come from different worlds, but after rooming together in college, they were now closer than sisters and always had each other’s backs.
A strand of hair fell from the bun piled on top of Lauren’s head. She tried to shove it back in place but the damn thing wouldn’t stay. Giving up, she jammed it behind her ear and stomped to the table Kelli had grabbed, her new Jimmy Choos clicking on the polished floor as she made her way to her friend.