Page 9 of Her Wild Warrior

“This old thing? I just found it in the back of my closet and threw it on.”

“If that’s what’s in the back of your closet, I can’t wait to see what’s in the front of your closet.”

“Sweatpants, t-shirts, and my managers' uniforms.”

“What is the uniform?”

“Black slacks and a white button-down blouse. Really boring.”

“I bet that on you, it looks great.”

She turned away from him to include Kostya and Lark in the conversation, and Ryker grinned. Kostya and Lark were so deeply engrossed in one another that they didn’t even remember that there were two other people at the table.

“So tell me about yourself,” Ryker pressed her.

“I’m boring, just like my restaurant manager uniform. I go to work, then I go home, eat dinner and go to bed. I do that six days a week.”

“What do you do in your downtime?”

“Laundry.” Her eyes dared him to question her further, so he did.

“Come on, you have to at least go to the grocery store, right?”

She nodded.

“TV?”

She shook her head.

“Sudoku?”

She shook her head.

“Reading?”

She nodded.

“Ah-ha! What a coincidence, I read too.”

“Congratulations. Most kids are reading books in about second grade, I’m glad to hear that you read, that’s exciting news.” She nipped a piece of calamari off the platter, dipped it in cocktail sauce, and took a bite. How in the hell did she make eating so sexy? “So what do you like?”

“Calamari,” he answered.

“Books, Ryker. What kind of books do you like, keep up with the conversation.” Her eyes were twinkling.

“Oh, I’m into biographies. Give me anybody in the past, and I eat it up. Man, woman, king, queen, doesn’t matter. The latest biography I read was Three Ordinary Girls about teenagers in WWII who were in the Dutch underground. They were amazing.”

“I’m going to have to look that up, it sounds like something I would like to read.”

“What are you two talking about?” Lark asked.

“Books,” Ryker answered, upset that he and Amy were now going to have to contend with Kostya and Lark entering the conversation.

When it was finally time for Ryker to meet the waitress, the three of them agreed where to meet when it was over so they could go over the information he’d acquired. Ryker sure hoped he’d be able to coax Amy into an after-after-after-dinner drink with him at that point.

“Hot damn! I’m up four hundred dollars! I don’t even care that I’m making this money for you, this is exciting!”

Ryker laughed at her exuberance. “Are you always this excited when you win at slots?”