Ricochet (Renegades #3)(19)
Author: Skye Jordan

She licked her lips, sighed, lifted her arm, and stared at the ceiling.

A knock on the door startled them both, and they jackknifed into sitting positions at the same time, then looked at each other and laughed.

“Room service,” a male voice called through the door.

Rachel glanced down his body, then her own, and grinned so big, her dimple curved deep into her cheek.

“One minute,” he called to the guy, then fisted his hand and held it in the space between them. “Rock, paper, scissors?””

Her brows shot up. “Seriously?” She gestured down the shirt that had fallen to cover her body. “You want me to answer the door like this?”

“Chicken,” he teased, pulling her hand into the space between them, closing his own fingers around hers so she made a fist. “Come on. One, two, three.”

He held the fist. She flattened her hand. She laughed, covered his hand with hers, wrapping the paper around his rock, and drew out the word, “Loser.”

“Wait, wait,” he said, grinning. “Best two out of three.”

“You’re ridiculous. You know I’m not answering the door.” She shoved his hand away and flopped back on the sofa. “And hurry up. Now I’m hungry for more than a few pieces of bread and cheese, too, and I’ve got some great ideas for that chocolate dessert.”

6

Led Zeppelin’s “Black Dog” blasted through the eight-speaker premium Bose surround-sound system in the Chevy Avalanche Ryker was using today, courtesy of his buddy Dune, still stationed in Afghanistan.

After Rachel had abandoned him during peak Twilight Zone hours that morning, Ryker had called his buddy back in Kandahar, who returned to Los Angeles every six months on leave, and Dune had given him the combination to his garage, where his nearly new fifty-thousand-dollar truck awaited, and a key to his apartment was stashed in the glove compartment.

Now, as Ryker skidded around another switchback along the fire road winding up Topanga Canyon, headed toward the ocean, he told himself Rachel’s early departure was a good thing. He hadn’t had to worry about the nightmares that often woke him and was able to catch a couple hours of sleep. The fact that she refused to take his cell phone number before she left was also for the best. He’d tried once more to tell her who he really was, but she hadn’t wanted to hear that either.

Just as well.

Even if it didn’t feel that way.

The truck’s rear wheels slid on gravelly dirt and fishtailed. Ryker corrected. The tires grabbed, and the truck shot forward, driving Ryker up the grade.

“Hoo-ah!” he hooted as a fresh surge of adrenaline filled his veins. Damn that woman had given him one hell of a ride last night. Surprise after sexy surprise that still made him hard with nothing more than a split-second memory.

He’d get the dirt on her from Troy—in a roundabout, subversive way, of course. And if what she’d told Ryker was true—no involvement with his buddy, no involvement with another guy—he’d give her a call at Renegades’ main office, probably somewhere downtown, or maybe get the office address from Troy and stop by to see her in a few days. Ask her out to lunch. Or dinner. Or…something.

He didn’t date, per se, so he didn’t know how to go about it, exactly. He picked up women, took them back to their place or a hotel, and fucked. And, yeah, he wanted that with Rachel again, but the tables were oddly turned on him this time—the woman being the one hitting the door before the sun rose. And he was pretty sure simply calling for another hookup wasn’t going to work with her.

He’d take a few days to figure it out.

Warm wind poured through the open windows. His hair, now shaggy after a month of leave, blew over the top of his Ray Bans. And the California sun beamed through the moon roof, heating his skin. His teammate’s “If you break it, you buy it” over the phone this morning barely whispered in his head now. What his buddy didn’t know eight thousand miles away wouldn’t hurt him. Hell, Dune would be doing this himself if he were here.

And, damn. Ryker wished his teammate were here.

Or, better yet, he wished he were back there, with his unit.

Guiding the truck into another turn and over another grade, growing closer to his final destination, Ryker forced the melancholy streak out of his head. He wouldn’t get another chance like this for at least a year after he signed away another four to the army. Not exactly a hardship, in his opinion, but since his cocksucking CO had made this leave mandatory prior to extending his commitment, Ryker had decided to use it—to release, to let go, to forget.

As if the mere possibility of forgetting pissed off his psyche, memories crawled in from the corners of his mind.

“No way.” He gritted his teeth and gunned the truck. He wasn’t going to have a mental backslide now, dammit.

The Avalanche rocketed up and over the grade—to what, he didn’t know, he couldn’t see the other side. But he had another five miles until he reached the job site, and with his chest as tight as a grenade ready to explode, he’d drive the hell out of this rig until he reached it.

The front wheels cleared a small rise, and the truck launched into the air. A moment of all-encompassing quiet flooded the interior, all road noise gone, and Ryker’s head filled with nothing but Robert Plant’s shrill, “I gotta roll, can’t stand still, got a flaming heart, can’t get my fill…”

The tires slammed the ground with Zeppelin’s wild chorus guitar riff rolling through Ryker’s veins like cocaine.

Only the high didn’t last near as long.

Instead of his gaze focusing on the deserted mountain terrain of scrub oak and rolling sandstone, a virtual city opened up before him—a mobile city with people and equipment everywhere.

“Shit.” Ryker’s belly flooded with fire. He pounded the brake and skidded again. His hands clenched the steering wheel, and the truck veered sideways. A group of men scattered, leaving behind whatever machinery they’d been clustered around. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

The equipment came at Ryker fast. He hit the gas. The tires slipped on the sand, but the truck drifted far enough forward to clear it, continuing in a two-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn. He finally came to a jerky stop six inches short of slamming his buddy’s fifty-thousand-dollar truck into a massive sandstone formation.

Ryker rocked with the vehicle for long moments. His breath finally broke from his chest in shaky pants, and he couldn’t tear his gaze from the pinkish-tan hue of the rough rock through the driver’s open window.