Ricochet (Renegades #3)(17)
Author: Skye Jordan

He turned and met her expectant gaze. “If I’m eating fondue for dinner, you’re doing it without my shirt and without the underwear you’ve still got on underneath.”

Her lips parted in surprise, and she crossed her arms. “Hardly fair. You haven’t even been out of your pants.”

“The important parts have been.” He opened the menu, glanced down the selections, and chose the most offensive entree he could find, announcing it with a suggestive voice. “Oh, here we go—escargot and caviar.”

“Ew, gross,” she said, her voice half complaint, half order. “This is the deal: I either take off my shirt or my underwear, not both. You choose.”

“It’s my shirt,” he corrected, snapping the menu closed with a grin. “And you drive a hard bargain.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s me,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “The shark.”

She was so damn cute all curled into his big shirt like that, her dark hair spilling over the light blue fabric, the sleeves down to her elbows. “Counteroffer,” he said. “You keep the shirt, give up the bra and panties, but…” He held up his index finger and paused, then tapped his own chest, “I get to take them off.”

She smirked. “I think I know who the shark is around here.”

“Then it’s a deal.”

“Do-do, do-do,” she sang, imitating the Jaws theme song. “Do-do, do-do.”

An unexpected laugh bubbled out of him. “Escargot it is.”

She cried out in melodramatic distress. “Okay, okay.”

He picked up the phone and ordered fondue.

When he pulled out his wallet to put the charge on his card, Rachel said, “No, put it on the room.” Ryker hesitated, and Rachel dipped her chin and gave him a stern look. “They owe me.”

Actually, Ryker was beginning to think he owed them, but he couldn’t exactly explain that without blowing his chance at the rest of the night with her. So he charged dinner to the room and started back to the sofa, prepared for that always-awkward, between-sexual-acts time period where he and a woman attempted to talk. He’d gotten decent at the meaningless stuff over the years, but had discovered that even if he sucked at talking, women still wanted to fuck him.

“Okay, I get it,” she said, pointing at his Rangers tattoo as soon as he turned around. The classic emblem of the Army Rangers, a star with two rifles crossed in the background and a ribbon cutting across the image, took up most of his left flank. “Rangers. That’s, like, a football team, right? But what are the guns? Are they for, you know”—she lifted one arm and pretended to flex her biceps—“these guns?”

A split second passed before he realized she was completely serious. And he—completely unexpectedly—burst out laughing. The humor released his tension and became cathartic, which kept him laughing and sucked every ounce of stress from his body. Eyes watering, side burning, he bent and pressed a hand to the sofa arm as control returned.

“What did I say?” she asked, laughing at his laughter, those brown eyes sparkling.

He shook his head and wiped his eyes. “You’re just…priceless, that’s all. Most people don’t get that from this tattoo.”

To keep her from digging deeper about the tat, he crawled onto the sofa and lay out on his stomach. Propping his chin on one forearm, he reached out and slid his other palm down her smooth calf.

“We should take care of that underwear now.” He moved his hand back up her leg and under the hem of his shirt to her thigh. “Before the food gets here.”

She stretched her leg forward, giving him more skin to grope, and covered his hand with hers. It was so small, so perfect compared to his big, scarred one. Her nails were mid-length, manicured, and unpainted. Nothing like the long, blood red, fluorescent orange, or sparkling purple nails of the last three women he’d fucked in New Orleans.

“You’re not naked,” she said.

“First things first.” He pushed up onto his elbows, hooked a finger into her panties at each hip, and tugged. They slid low, showing the neat dark strip of hair down the middle of her pussy. “Jesus, you make my mouth go dry.”

She bit her lip with a sexy smile as her panties passed her silky thighs, her toned calves, her pretty little feet. Then she curled back into the shirt.

He pulled her foot out again by her toes, making her laugh, then stroked her leg until she relaxed. With his chin in his other hand, he met her eyes. “Tell me about Rachel. Your job is pretty, I don’t know, unusual. A beautiful woman, working around all those hunky guys, rich actors, powerful producers. You’ve got to have men after you all the time. What possessed you to pick up a nobody like me at a bar?”

Her smile disappeared, and a frown of disapproval created a crease between her slim brows. “Nobody is better than anyone else,” she said, voice soft. “Especially not based on fame or money or power or looks.”

Huh. Hit a nerve.

He massaged her instep with his thumb. “What about the guys you work with. You may think of them as brothers, but I can promise you, from a guy’s perspective, they don’t think of you as a sister. You’re way too sexy.”

Her frown eased into a smirk. “I don’t mix work and sex. Period. My job is hard enough as it is.”

His chest decompressed, but he had to be sure. “I don’t get how a hot little thing like you is unattached. Did you just get out of a relationship?”

“Not just. It’s been a while. And I like it this way. I’m busy, my life is complicated, full. I don’t have room for anything permanent or demanding.”

She almost couldn’t be any more perfect. One last clarification… “And the last relationship, it wasn’t with one of the guys you work with?”

“No.” She laughed and gave him a what-is-your-issue look. “I am very capable of drawing a hard friendship-only line. Of course”—she grinned—“my boss’s ‘Hands off Rachel’ policy is also helpful.”

Ryker chuckled and refrained from punching his fist in the air. “Smart boss. Nothing would get done if they were fantasizing about you all the time.”

“Oh, Nathan,” she sighed. “You haven’t been in LA long. After a few days, you’ll realize this part of the country is wall-to-wall glamour. And, honey, you will have those hotties flocking to you by noon tomorrow. I’m lucky I caught your eye before they did.”