“Oh, yeah?” he deadpans, completely unfazed. “Try it, and I’ll just say there’s a crazy lady poking around my property, acting like a weirdo.” He gives my ass a few light smacks. “Spoiler alert: the police officers are all friends of the family.”
I continue to pound his back and add my feet kicking into the mix simply for the hell of it. “Just put me down, will you?”
“Sweetheart, you couldn’t fight your way out of a wet paper bag. So, cut the shit.”
He continues to walk toward his truck, and I think my fingers may actually be icicles now, and all I want is to be back inside my rental house, eating the doughnuts I bought earlier and watching crime documentaries.
Keeping my body slung over his shoulder like a damn toy, he uses one hand to open the passenger door of his truck before plopping me in the seat. Once I’m in, he reaches around and buckles my seat belt.
“I can buckle myself, you know,” I growl up at him. “I’m not a child.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” he mutters, hovering just inches above my head with his. “If you sit here like a good girl, I’ll take you back to your place. If you try to run again, I’ll chase you down, and next time, I’ll handcuff you to something.”
Why are my thighs attempting to clench together?Good God. I need to get the sudden image of being handcuffed to Ridge’s boat while he does dirty things to my body out of my mind.Seriously. What. Is. Going. On. With. Me?
I inhale sharply, keeping a firm glare on his face. “Fine,” I hiss through gritted teeth, even though inside, my body is tingling, still thinking about the damn handcuffs.
“Good girl,” he whispers, making the images in my head get even dirtier.
Thankfully, before I have to wipe the drool from the corner of my mouth, he steps back and closes my door. I consider running again, but what’s the use? He’ll just keep catching me.
And here I thought, I was a fast runner.
Once he’s in the truck, he slams it into drive, and within seconds, we’re speeding down the driveway. When we reach the end, he turns left, but instead of pulling down into my rental’s driveway, he drives right by it.
“What the hell are you doing?” I bark out, whipping my head around to watch as the sign for my road gets further away. “You said you were going to take me home!”
“Yeah, I had to do that so you’d stop being a crazy person,” he drawls. “Your running bullshit took up too much time, and it’s going to start snowing soon. So, I’m taking your ass to the store after I get my stupid fucking tree.”
Panic arises in my gut when I realize this means I’ll have to go to the tree farm too. I hate tree farms. I hate looking at all the families and people who love each other and their stupid, happy faces while they choose a tree that they are going to throw outside weeks later.
“I live in New York, not Florida,” I grumble. “I can drive in the snow.”
“Driving in the middle of a city when it snows is different from here, where people are driving fifty to sixty miles an hour.” He glances over at me, winking. “Besides, you can help pick out a tree. Maybe it’ll make you more cheerful.”
“I … no.” I shake my head. “I don’t want to go to the tree farm. Can you just … can I—just drop me off at the store, and then go get your tree and you can pick me up after.” I pause. “Or I can hitchhike. That sounds more fun.”
He’s quiet, looking from me and back to the road. “Why don’t you want to go get a Christmas tree?” he asks, only this time, his voice holds a certain softness in it. “Are you a tree-hugging hippie who can’t stand the sight of all the chopped-down trees?” He narrows his eyes and grins. “Although tree huggers don’t typically have diets that consist of Toaster Strudels and crunchy Cheetos. So, I’m going to go ahead and guess that isn’t it.”
I blush, remembering he saw—and paid for—my whole basket of crap I bought the first night we met and knowing that when we stop at the store on the way home, I need to stock up on Toaster Strudels once again.
“I just don’t like Christmas.” I shrug, playing it off like it’s no big deal because I don’t want him to dig further into it. “And places like tree farms just aren’t my cup of tea.”
There’s that look I knew I’d get. It’s the same one I get from every single person when they find out I don’t love the holiday that everyone else thinks is so damn magical.
“You don’t celebrate Christmas?”
“No,” I say, probably a little too snappy. I’m not going to tell him that I don’t celebrate Thanksgiving either. I don’t have time to go over that with him too.
“Is it, like, a religious thing?” he asks, continuing to look back and forth from the road to me.
“Nope,” I say bluntly. “It’s a me thing.”
“Oh, okay.” He nods his head subtly, like he doesn’t know what to say. He’s quiet for a moment before he shrugs. “Look, I don’t love the tree farm either. It just means a lot to my mother if I put a stupid tree up in my house. Don’t ask me why.” When we come to a Stop sign, he looks over at me. “What if we call this hatred we have for each other a truce—just for today—and you come with me anyway?” He gives me the tiniest smile. “I’ll be fast, I promise.”
I inhale sharply, blowing it out. This is the first time since the banana incident that I’ve seen Ridge be soft. Maybe I can use this to my advantage to get him to hear me out on Ironbound’s proposal. I need to think about my career here, so finally, I shrug.
“Fine. But I still hate you.”
