Ricochet (Renegades #3)(51)
Author: Skye Jordan

“I’m just making sure,” Kelly snapped back. “Because I don’t steal guys.”

“Don’t start with that again,” Katie said, annoyance deepening her voice. “Take a freaking minute to look up threesome in the dictionary, Miss Valedictorian. It’s a game played or performed by three people. So how could one person be stolen when all three—”

“There’s nothing between me and Ryker.” Rachel cut into the sisters’ argument to halt images of these two bombshells getting into a threesome with Nathan. “Kelly?” she said, sure she’d heard wrong. “You were valedictorian?”

“Oh my God,” Katie started, her voice dripping with an eye-roll, “don’t get her started, Rachel.”

The truck’s engine cut off, car doors slammed, and men’s voices filled the air. Excitement saturated their tone, and Rachel smiled at the familiarity. She loved working with men, always had, but really enjoyed the Renegades. They were intelligent, clever, real out-of-the-box thinkers. They were funny and fun loving, living life to the fullest every damned day. She admired that. Thought she’d been doing that too—until Nathan.

Nathan made her realize she’d only been fooling herself into believing she’d been living. She might have stepped outside her family’s realm, but she hadn’t changed. Not really.

Then she heard Nathan’s voice, and the sound of it shivered through her. She couldn’t hear his words, just the timbre, the pitch, the tone. And even from here, beneath the desk with her eyes closed, she could hear the difference. He was serious, more subdued. And maybe a little…

“Get your arrogant head out of your ass,” Nathan said.

Yeah, pissed.

The building’s front door opened, and their voices grew louder.

“I’m arrogant just because I disagree with your methods?” Josh asked, his voice also tight with stress. “That’s mature.”

“No,” Nathan bit back. “You’re arrogant because you disagree with my methods for the sake of disagreement, not for any sound reason.”

“Safety is a sound reason.”

“Just because my plan also happens to be the most cost effective doesn’t mean it’s not the safest too.”

Rachel dropped her forehead against her knees. “Oh God.”

“Okay, okay,” Jax cut in, his smooth voice a welcome contrast. “Let’s drop it for now. We’ll all be in a better mood once we eat.”

She needed to get up and get in the shower. And she was thinking about it. She really was. But her body just didn’t want to move. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so tired.

Katie’s and Kelly’s voices joined the men’s, all sugary and congenial. No one would guess they’d just been bitching at each other over a threesome gone wrong.

Wait. Could a threesome go wrong?

She shook her head. Whatever. All her frustration and worry was moot. Katie and Kelly would easily distract Nathan. He’d be secretly thanking God she hadn’t taken him up on his offer when he heard they were interested.

Footsteps sounded hollow on the old floors, and Rachel tensed out of her exhausted fog. She straightened her legs, and pain shot through her knees.

Josh crouched in the desk’s opening, one hand on the desktop, frowning at her in concern. “Are you okay? What are you doing under here?”

“Plugging in a monitor.” She tried to roll to the side and get to her knees again to gain her feet. “Ow…ow, ow, ow…”

“Easy,” he said, grasping her forearms and helping her out from under the desk. “I’m sure you’re an awesome little scout, but you can’t expect to just go out one day and hike a ten-mile incline.”

“I figured that out all on my own, thanks.” She pulled out of his hold, and he let her go. He’d been better about the touching and pet names since she’d had another talk with him after the pool party, but he sure as shit wasn’t backing off.

More footsteps stopped in the doorway. Rachel looked up and found Nathan, both hands pressed to either side of the frame and filling the space.

His gaze held on her an intense second, and she realized that even though Josh didn’t have his hands on her, Ryker still noticed how close they stood.

His expression visibly shifted into something lighter, more…cavalier…was the only way she could describe it. He scanned her scraped legs with a grimace and made a sucking sound through his teeth. “Long pants would have taken the brunt of all that on the hike. You shoulda listened to me.”

Rachel narrowed her eyes. The only comments he’d made on her shorts were about the great view they’d given him. Katie and Kelly stepped up to the door, flanking him, their physical gifts well displayed in short skirts and tank tops. And they looked up at him with those big blue eyes, each sliding a hand around one of his arms.

Nathan looked at one, then the other. He tsked, lowered his arms around their shoulders, and smiled. “I bet you girls can take direction well, can’t you?”

“Yes, sir,” they said at the same time, in fucking stereo, grinning at him as if they’d already secured his bed for the night.

Rachel’s stomach compressed into a ball of lava.

She had no idea whether this was his attempt at showing her how well he could ignore her in the company of others or not. If it was, he was damn convincing. If it wasn’t…

Just as well.

Ryker chuckled and sauntered out of the room wrapped up with the girls. When he reached the door, he extricated himself from Katie and Kelly, glanced at Jax and Charlie where they’d dropped into side chairs in the other room, and said, “I’m hitting the shower. Be back in ten.”

When the door shut, Katie and Kelly were grinning like kids with a secret chocolate stash. And Rachel felt sick to her stomach.

“Rach,” Jax called from the living room. “You should do the same. What time is the food coming?”

She grabbed Josh’s wrist and looked at his watch. “It’ll be here in twenty minutes.” She passed into the other room. “I lost track of time,” she told Jax. “The dining room is all set. Just round everyone up, and I’ll be back soon.”

Rachel stepped out into the cool night air and closed the door behind her. The brisk darkness and supreme quiet of the property seemed to wash away some of the fatigue, and she breathed easier. But only until the sound of running water pulled her gaze to a single light in the bunkhouse near the back fence, closest to the trail leading up to the bridge—Nathan’s room. And Nathan’s shower.