His head fell back, and he barked a laugh at the ceiling. “These really are the worst.”
I made a show of perusing him, letting my gaze brazenlywander from his head to his toes and back up again. “I beg to differ.”
He tracked my progress with keen interest, his maple syrup eyes slowly darkening to molasses. “Pervert.”
I unfurled a lascivious smirk like,Guilty as charged.“Who wears short shorts,” I hummed under my breath.
He leveled me with one of his signature icy stares, but it no longer intimidated me the way it once did. Not now that I knew he was more sensitive softie than scheming villain. Ryder was all bark and no bite.
“Listen, can we call a truce? If we’re going to nail this movietogether,” I emphasized, “we need to trust each other completely, not spend our days coming up with creative forms of sabotage. I need to focus on my performance, not worry about whether you’re poisoning my coffee when my back is turned.”
He nodded thoughtfully, like he was considering the dastardliness of that deed and finding it appropriately devious.
I turned stern. “I wasn’t trying to give you ideas.”
He grinned, and it was the closest I’d felt to getting that happy-go-lucky guy from the lobster shack back. “Can you at leasttryto be a little less good?”
“Ryder.”
“I’m kidding. So co-conspirators instead of competitors,” he mused.
“Yeah, you know, what we should have been the whole time,” I said pointedly. “Partners.”
“In crime?” he suggested hopefully, a fizzy sparkle in his eye.
I considered it. “As long as the foul play is targeted at others, I’m game.”
We locked eyes and said in unison: “Jason.”
Ryder rose from his chair abruptly—and there was suddenly a whole lot of manhood flooding my field of vision. I forced my eyes due north, fixing them on his (vast, tan, mouthwatering) pectorals, which probably wasn’t much better but was less likely to get me reported to HR, at least.
I stood as well, but slower, savoring the view on my way up, taking some mental snapshots of his stacked-stone abs and bookmarking them for later fixation. It was a lot of skin to take in.A lot of skin, and a lot of man.
He lifted his chin. “Change your ringtone and we have a deal.”
I coughed a laugh. “That was the straw that broke the camel’s back, huh?”
“Savage. Just a Machiavellian level of torture.”
I preened and dropped a little curtsy. “Thank you.”
“It wasn’t a compliment.”
“Oh, but it was.” I grinned up at him, and everything about him was suddenly so much less threatening than it was a few minutes ago.
His mouth curved as he stuck his hand out to shake, and when I clasped it, I was zapped by that electric shock again. This pesky attraction was always showing up at the most inopportune times, like now, when I’d more than earned the right to hold a grudge.So damn inconvenient. He smirked, and I realized I’d been staring at his mouth too long. I needed to say something.
“We should tell each other something embarrassing,” I blurted without thinking, and he spiked an eyebrow. “You know, to seal this blood pact,” I blundered on, the spontaneousidea gaining traction. “Something I can threaten to expose if you start acting out again.”
He was amused. “Straight to blackmail, huh?”
“Think of it as insurance.”
“Or penance?” he said, a twinkle in his eye. “Fine, I’ll play along.” He pursed his lips and squinted skyward, as if mentally riffling through his closetful of skeletons. “On set, I’m always carrying a rubber ball in the pocket of my costumes. You’d find one in my robe right now.”
I wrinkled my nose. This “secret” had the distinct whiff of some strange sexual fetish, and I immediately regretted going down this road. “Okay…”
“It’s an old trick I learned on the set of…knock it off.” I’d already started snickering, knowing he was referring toKids Only Club. “It’s something I picked up on apreviousset.” He sliced me a look, as though daring me to keep it up, and I flashed my palms in surrender. “For shirtless scenes, if you squeeze a rubber ball, it sort of…naturally flexes your biceps and makes the veins stand out.”
