Then I saw Ryder.
He was sandwiched between two beautiful women inches away from me. They pressed up on him as he tipped the beer bottle to his mouth. He looked me in the eye and winked.
Game on.
He was challenging me to see who would push the limits further, but I didn’t want to play. I wanted to be the one up against him, capturing everything that was Ryder Hayes in my arms.
I excused myself from Jacob and went back to the bar. I needed a drink in a hurry. I ordered a rum and Coke and hoped it would dim the burn of jealousy in my gut. Ryder slipped into the empty seat next to me, but I pretended to ignore his presence. A hand landed on the exposed skin at the small of my back, and I knew it was Jacob. I didn’t get the same fluttery feeling from when Ryder touched me.
The bartender put my drink down, and before I could pay, Ryder dropped a twenty on the bar. I glared at him. He shrugged.
“Ryder, I didn’t know you were down here tonight.” He totally ignored Jacob’s comment. He didn’t even look at him. I took a sip of my drink and hoped the tension from the awkward moment would disappear.
As soon as I put my glass down, Ryder picked it up. I couldn’t look away as he stared at me and raised the glass to his lips. When he put it down, he licked them, like touching his mouth to my glass was some sort of intimate kiss. A deep, claiming type of kiss that left no doubt who I belonged to.
He looked down to where Jacob’s hand rested on my back and curled his lip in disgust, his face a tight grimace. “Stop touching her.”
Uh-oh
. I had a bad feeling Ryder was itching to put his fist in direct contact with Jacob’s face. Jacob looked confused for a few seconds, then he thought he’d figured it out.
“Come on, Ryder, you’re taking the big brother role too seriously. I’ll take good care of Lexi.” His hand slid over my waist and rested on my midriff. His body was more closely pressed against mine than it had been seconds ago.
I was uncomfortable, and the rage seeping off Ryder was a palpable force that shifted the energy in the room. I tried to wiggle forward in my seat, but Jacob tightened his hold and whispered in my ear, “You look amazing tonight.”
He flicked his tongue against my skin, and I was shocked by how bold he was. Before I reacted, Jacob was yanked away. I spun around in time to catch Ryder’s fist connecting with Jacob’s face. Jacob stumbled backward but maintained his footing. Anyone else would’ve been knocked out cold, but Jacob’s training must’ve come in handy.
Jacob touched his lip and came away with blood on his fingers. He was angry, and he looked like he wanted to strike back, but for some reason he held off.
“Fuck this,” he grumbled. “I didn’t know she was off-limits.”
Jacob shoved his way through the crowd toward the exit. Ryder’s accusatory gaze landed on me.
Oh no.
He wasn’t going to make me feel guilty for something that wasn’t my fault.
Fuck him
, I thought as I turned and swallowed the rest of my drink.
“Let’s go.” His commanding tone didn’t sit well with me. It only made me angry. This was why I stayed the fuck away from guys like Ryder. They thought they could control every aspect of my life, and before I knew it, I was so lost in lust I’d let him.
“Can I have another?” I shouted to the bartender. I could feel Ryder, unmoving behind me, like a statue. My drink came, and my hand shook as I picked it up.
I really hoped he wasn’t going to stand behind me much longer. He was making me nervous, anxious, angry, and horny. It was a weird combination of emotions, but Ryder always made me feel. And feel fiercely.
He stepped in closer, much like Jacob had, but this time my body heated up instantly. My pulse quickened as his chest pressed against my back. My pussy throbbed when I felt his breath at my neck. He placed his hands on the bar top, caging me in the warm cocoon of his body. His lips brushed against my ear. My body melted into his, encouraging him to make another move.
“Get your ass out of the chair and let’s go home before you make me do something else I’ll regret.”
I tensed. He was trying to intimidate me, and I wasn’t giving in. “Or what?” I challenged.
“I’ll drag you out of here.”
I glanced over my shoulder, and his face was less than an inch from mine. If either of us moved a hairsbreadth, our lips would touch. “I dare you,” I whispered my challenge.
His incredulous expression was almost funny. He had to know I wouldn’t just give him his way. He nodded his head in acceptance and took a step back.
Good
. With a little distance between us, my brain began to function again. I turned back to the bar and picked up my drink.
Fuck Ryder Hayes and his macho bullshit.
As the glass touched my lips, I was yanked from behind, and my drink spilled all over my shirt. As I dropped the glass, Ryder threw me over his shoulder in one quick move and made his way to the exit.
I was pissed.
No—I was enraged.
I thrashed my legs and beat at his back, but he continued toward the door. The crowd parted, people stared, but no one dared challenge the two-hundred-twenty-pound bully carrying me out of the bar—Tarzan style.
I attempted to bite him, but he smacked my ass so hard it stung then left behind a tingling sensation. He put me down on the sidewalk, and I attacked him. I punched him in the gut. That backfired because he didn’t even flinch, but my hand was in serious pain. It was like hitting a brick wall of solid muscle.
“Who the fuck do you think you are? Don’t ever embarrass me like that again.” I pointed my finger in his face as if it would intimidate him. “And what the fuck was that? He’s just a kid.”
Something changed in his angry expression, and he sighed. He ran a hand over his face, then said, “You know what? You’re right. Do whatever you want to do. I don’t know why I even care. You want to fuck Jacob… fuck it.”
He brushed past me on his way back into the bar. I stared at him through the glass as my wet shirt made me feel even more chilled in the night air.
He was a big, dominatingly sexy bully. But a bully nonetheless. I needed to distance myself from him for the sake of my sanity. He made me feel like never before, and I guessed that was better than the three years I spent not feeling anything at all. I was alive around him, and I liked it—no, I liked
him
.
I realized too late I’d walked back to the gym with no way to get in. I stood there trying to figure out what to do next. It was dark, the street was quiet, and I had a creepy feeling I was being watched. I was probably being paranoid because I watched too many horror movies, and the action scene usually started with a stupid girl standing in the dark in a little dress.
I was forced to walk the block back to the bar. I really didn’t want to go back in after the way Ryder dragged me out, but waiting outside the gym at one a.m. was not an option.
Ryder was at the far corner of the bar, same spot he watched me from earlier. He picked up a shot glass, drank from it, and then leaned into the woman next to him as she spoke. As if sensing me watching him, he glanced up and our gazes locked for a few heart-pounding seconds.
The dark-haired woman reached over and touched his face, and he turned to her. He looked back at me, and I knew his next move before he made it. It was payback time. But knowing what he was up to didn’t make it any less painful when he put his hand at the back of her head and pulled her in for a kiss.
The stabbing feeling in my chest was familiar. It was a similar feeling from the night Logan confessed to being with Paige. My brain told me to run away, but my heart said to go over and tear them apart.
In the midst of my raging emotions, I got a moment of clarity. As much as I’d like to compare this moment to what Logan did to me, it was not the same. Ryder wasn’t mine, and he was free to do whatever he wanted. He hadn’t made me any promises. He hadn’t even taken me in the way I wanted him to.
I walked over to them, channeling an inner calmness. “I need the keys to your place.” Shit, I sounded a little whiny and maybe jealous. She broke their kiss, and they both looked up at me.
“You’re Alexis.” It wasn’t a question. She seemed to know exactly who I was, and she didn’t like me. I looked at her and hated that she was so beautiful.
“I saw Ryder carry you out earlier. He said he was looking out for you.”
“Leah’s a family friend,” Ryder said, wiping her lipstick off his lips.
Ugh…
“Come on, Ryder, we’re a little more than friends.” She leaned in to kiss him again, but he deflected. He pulled out his keys and handed them to me.
“How will you get in?” I asked.
“Don’t worry, I’ll get in.”
I wanted to tell him to come with me, but after making a big deal about staying before, I was not going to beg him to leave. I wished I would’ve taken him up on the movie. Going to the bar had been a disaster.
Chapter
Fourteen
Alexis
Two a.m.
I was frantically pacing across Ryder’s living room. Why did I care what he was doing with Leah? I didn’t need a man like Ryder, though I wanted him. I was driven by my desire to be with him. Maybe I’d spent too many years centering myself on his memories. I thought Ryder Hayes could be more than a fantasy and become an actual part of my life again. My heart twisted as I felt my chance with him slipping away.
Three a.m.
I knew my doctor thought I’d displayed manic behavior, but I never believed I was crazy. At this moment, I felt like a lunatic. Ryder was back in my life for a few days, and I was already in too deep. Maybe I’d built him into a superhero in my head and worshipped the thought of him and what he represented in my life. Just because he saved me from myself, and I’d been insanely attracted to him for years, didn’t mean we were meant to be together.
Right?
Right. He was not mine. I needed to get it through my head that no matter what I’d conjured up in my insane daydreams—Ryder didn’t belong to me and he never would.
Four a.m.
I couldn’t sleep in his room.
I dragged myself out of Ryder’s bed, leaving behind all the images of him and Leah that plagued me. I lay down on his couch, pulling a throw blanket over my body. The delusional images followed me, but I managed to push them back far enough to accept whatever happened tonight. I pushed Ryder and he’d pushed back, so I’d lie there and stew in it.
Five a.m.
I felt a pair of hands slip under my body, waking me from a fitful sleep. Ryder scooped me up from the couch and carried me toward his room. I wanted to fight him, argue with him, but I didn’t.
He smelled like a cocktail of the body wash in his shower, mixed with a couple of shots of hard liquor. He placed me on the bed and pulled his shirt over his head. His dark jeans joined the shirt in a pile on the floor. He dropped down on the bed, reaching for me, but I pulled away.
He looked at me with pleading eyes. “I just want to hold you.”
No
. I didn’t say it out loud, but I should’ve. He grabbed me by the waist and pulled me to his body, my back against his front.
“I don’t want to hurt you. That’s why I need to stay away,” he said softly. My heart clenched in my chest.
Why does he have to make this so hard?
His words ate at my heart. I didn’t want him to feel like I was too good for him. If anything, I was too much trouble for him. I was so messed up at this point I didn’t know how to make him feel like the amazing man I knew he was.
We lay there in silence for over an hour, both restless and confused. He caressed my skin softly, paying extra attention to the scar on my arm. He was probably making up crazy stories of how I got each scrape. The silence stretched, but the question burning a hole in my chest broke free.
“Did you have sex tonight?” My question assaulted the silence, and I wanted to grab the words back, but it was too late.
He chuckled. “If we had sex, you’d remember.”
“You know what I’m asking. Did you sleep with her?”
His hand moved under my shirt to rest on my midriff. He pressed his arousal into my back, buried his face in my hair, and inhaled. “I don’t have a weakness, but you are quickly becoming mine. You’ve gotten into my veins, and I couldn’t be with another woman if I wanted to.”
He nipped my neck with his teeth and then soothed it with a swipe of his tongue before whispering, “I’m too obsessed with getting inside you.”
My body trembled. My pulse quickened. Whatever was brewing between Ryder and me was going to be explosive.
Ryder
This
is how it was always supposed to be.
My head was lying on Alexis’s chest. I listened to the rhythm of her heartbeat as her hands tangled in my hair. She was everything I wanted, but everything I knew I shouldn’t have.
The night before, I wanted to hurt her, shove Leah in her face the way she’d pushed Jacob into mine. I was good at pushing people away. I fought hard when I felt threatened, and I didn’t want Alexis to be a casualty of that.
She wasn’t like other women. She was Alexis, the girl who followed me around with wide eyes at thirteen. She was the girl I pulled out of the cold ocean. She was fragile. She broke easily. I didn’t want to be the one who hurt her or pushed her over the edge again. I’d never wanted anything more than for her to be happy and safe, but if she stuck around me, that might not be possible. My life was full of the kind of shit that made a woman run. I was gone for long stretches. Women flocked to my side, desperate for a piece of the champ. Alexis had trust issues, and I didn’t look very trustworthy on paper.
She smelled like forbidden fruit and felt like heaven. Saving her life didn’t buy me a ticket into her heaven; if anything, it made me want to protect her from guys like me. Logically, I knew I needed to stay away from her, but as she dragged her hand down my bare back and I heard her pulse quicken, logic flew out the door.