More of Me by Samantha Chase Page B

could face him. Reaching up, Casey cupped his face and kissed him on the lips. “Good morning.”
    Ryder smiled down at her in pure wonder. When he’d heard the knock on the door last night, he had thought he had been dreaming. As he’d made his way to the door and saw Casey standing in the moonlight, he was certain that he was dreaming. After their discussion earlier in the night, he had figured that she would need at least a day, if not several, to decide whether or not she wanted to be with him. Relief had swamped him when he realized that Casey didn’t need the time, that she was just as anxious for him as he was for her. There was so much about her life that he wanted to know, and as much as his body was screaming for him to make love to her again, he didn’t want her to think that what he was looking for was only physical.
    Putting a little distance between them, Ryder lay on his back and tucked Casey in at his side. “So tell me,” he began, “how is it that you’re still here in Wilmington, in your parents’ house? Are they still here?”
    She shook her head. “They retired to Arizona several years ago. I was just getting the business going and wanted to stay local, and so I offered to buy the house from them. They immediately declined and said that they wanted me to put my money into the business. I thought that the plan was for me to just live in the house and pay the utilities, since the mortgage was completely paid off. It wasn’t until after they moved that I received the papers saying they had deeded the house over to me.”
    â€œThat was very generous of them.”
    Casey nodded. “I was a little angry at first; I didn’t want them to give up on their dreams for their retirement because of me. My parents are pretty private people, but after weeks of me arguing with them, they showed me their financial statements and assured me that deeding me the house wasn’t hindering their lives at all. Apparently they had saved more than they spent throughout their marriage, so they are living quite comfortably in the desert right now.”
    â€œGood for them.”
    â€œThey’re the only people I know who willingly moved away from the beach,” she said with a laugh. “Most people work their whole lives so that they can live on the beach and mine wanted nothing more than to move far away from it.”
    â€œWell, in their defense, they lived with it their whole lives; it was time for something different.”
    â€œI suppose.” She was silent for a moment, simply enjoying listening to Ryder’s heartbeat while her fingers skimmed their way across his chest. “Tell me about California.”
    Ryder shrugged. “Not much to tell. I have a house similar to this one, and it’s right on the beach. My office is less than five miles away, and I moved there, went to school, got that branch of the company up and moving, and now…” His voice trailed off.
    Casey pulled herself up and looked at him. “Now…what?”
    He studied her face. Even without makeup, she was the most beautiful woman in the world to him. “Now…I want more.”
    There were at least a dozen ways that Casey could read into that statement, but decided to not jump to any conclusions and let Ryder explain himself. When he didn’t expand right away, she began to fish a bit. “You want to grow the company some more?”
    Ryder shook his head. “No. I’m a little burned out with the business. I’ve worked seventy to eighty hours a week since it started, and now I’m confident that someone else can take over and I’ll be okay with it.”
    â€œOne of your brothers?”
    Again he shook his head. “I don’t think that either of them are all that interested in putting in that kind of time. Actually, I know that James doesn’t want anything to do with it and Zach has his own agenda. He does