Ricochet (Renegades #3)(46)
Author: Skye Jordan

Her head came back, mouth dropped open, and a quiet, high-pitched sound of pleasure tumbled out. She couldn’t have responded any more perfectly. Ryker pressed his forehead against her jaw and collected the tendrils of dark desire that told him to take her, here, now, in the open. The thought lit a match in his blood. And she’d let him. In fact, she’d thrive on it the same way. He knew. But he also knew that afterward, when the passion ebbed and her mind cleared, they’d spiral into the same old standoff. And he was sick of having to fight her self-imposed limits.

So he pulled his hand from between her legs, slid it up her back, and clasped her neck gently. He turned his head to look down at the plans, resting his cheek against hers.

“Oh,” he said, his voice thick. “You meant the bridge.” When she opened her eyes, he tapped the base of the pillar on the paper. “I’ll give you the measurements starting at the bottom and move up.”

He kissed her hair, gritted his teeth, and forced himself to his feet with a rigid cock rubbing in all the wrong places.

Without looking back at her, he drew the laser level and measure from his backpack and clamped it to the tripod, then hiked another painful twenty feet with his cock rubbing against his pants, to the base of the column and set the tripod on solid ground.

“Ready?” he asked.

He called off three measurements before her phone rang—for at least the tenth time since they started up the mountain, and only four of those calls she’d answered.

“Hold on,” she said, her brow crunched in irritation as she pulled her phone from her pocket and silenced the call—which told Ryker it hadn’t been Renegades. She answered all those. “Goddammit,” she muttered. “Get the message already.”

She stuffed it back into her pocket and read the last measurement back to him, then said, “Go ahead.”

“I’m more interested in who you don’t want to talk to so badly? Is the ex trying to hunt you down?”

She laughed softly, but the sound was laced with bitter sarcasm. “That’s a twisted, convoluted way to look at it, I guess.”

“Really.” Hell, he’d only been kidding. Now he wanted to know about the ex. And why the fuck did he care? “Can’t wait to hear this.”

“And I can’t wait to get into the bath calling my name. Let’s get this finished.”

He moved to another location, repositioned the tripod, and called out another trio of measurements, trying to force his mind back to the stunt. But he’d thought this job through backward, forward, upside down, and sideways since it had been presented to him. His brain needed a break. And thinking about Rachel was always a vacation.

Before he moved to the other side of the pillar, he said, “It’s good to talk about stuff. Like I tell my team, if you keep it in, you’re gonna explode before an IED gets you.”

“It wasn’t a guy,” she said with an eye roll in her voice. “It was my sister.”

Ryker shuffled the tripod’s feet into the dirt until it was stable, then lined up the level, but his mind was on the call she’d had with her father the night before. “Don’t get along with her as well as you do your dad?”

“Nope.”

“One too many family backpacking trips?”

“Something like that.”

“Then why does she want to talk to you so badly?”

“Don’t know, don’t care, don’t want to talk about it. I’m getting cranky. Might want to finish this up before my bitch starts to show.”

“You have one?” he said, grinning behind the viewfinder as he noted measurements.

“You know I have one,” she said. “And she’s been getting way too much face time lately.”

He chuckled and called the numbers out. “So far it’s not half as bad as I’ve seen in the past. Does it get riled any worse than when Troy messes with your files or Jax changes your plans?”

She sat back on her heels and started rolling the blueprints. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said with a light sarcastic edge. “Lying, betrayal, secrets…that stuff pisses me off pretty good too.”

He thought about that as he slid the equipment into his pack. He’d crossed the line with lying and secrets. Betrayal, though… That one he’d bet belonged to the sister. He didn’t know anything about healthy family relationships but was pretty sure she knew exactly what her sister wanted to talk about. And he had a pretty good suspicion that her discord with her sister had something to do with that little quip about a twisted way to see the call as her ex trying to get ahold of her. Add the comment about betrayal and those protective prickles along his spine spiked again. Because he did know all about family betrayal.

“Is that why you told your dad you’re too busy to see him?”

“I am busy.” She bit out the overly defensive words, then cut herself off. But there was pain in her tone, in her expression. Pain that made his chest tight. “But yes,” she said, quieter, more in control. “I don’t want to spend my time with my parents when Nicole is there, because we all end up fighting, and it’s bad for everyone. It’s just better if I go when she’s not there.”

That wasn’t the whole truth. Ryker sensed a deep festering wound beneath the crusted scab that he was sure kept Rachel together. In fact, he’d bet keeping that scab intact accounted for about 95 percent of the decisions she made on a daily basis. Yet another protective action he knew all about.

“I get it,” he said. “My life has always been filled with people who thrive on conflict. You’re the smart one, avoiding it.”

She exhaled and her shoulders released some tension as she focused on closing her pack. He crouched beside her, organizing his own bag. She took another long drink of water, and a dribble slipped past her lips, dripping over her chin. His hand lifted, and his index finger followed the path\. She pulled the bottle away but didn’t stop him. He followed the drop all the way to her cleavage, where it absorbed into her cotton tank.

Her pretty eyes met his and said everything she wouldn’t. She wanted him. She was tired of fighting it. Yet she still held back.

“It’s exhausting,” he said. “Isn’t it?”

Her gaze slid to his mouth, and just that little spark of heat in her expression created fire low in his gut. “What?”

“Resisting.”

Her eyes met his again.