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“It was you, not me, who made the whole speech about the merits of outdoor sex.” He breaks into a grin. “Come on, Ven. You have to admit the idea has merit. We’ll get it out of our system. It’ll be out of the way.”
Shit. I am actually considering it. Just a tiny bit. Okay, maybe more than a tiny bit. But there’s no way I’m telling Ryder. “So, one and done? You’re purely a one-night stand guy?”
He nods. “I told you before, I’m not into relationships. I promise the unbearable tension will break if we just, as Maranda so delicately put it, bone. Plus, it could break the orb.”
“It’s hardly unbearable.” Another eye roll.
Ryder’s grin just widens.
“You drive a hard bargain,” I say. Then I add, quite firmly, “But no.”
“I can wait.” He leans his head back into the seat as if he’s got all the time in the world. “You’ll come around.”
He’s so confident. The butterflies in my stomach are telling me to pull the Jeep over right now and fuck Ryder in the backseat. Stupid hormones. I suppress a groan. “Just shut up and tell me where I’m headed exactly?”
Ryder smiles as if he knows. “Just head towards Jaco.” He makes a gesture in the general direction of the city. “I’ll provide directions once we get there. It’s hard to find.”
We drive in silence for a while and before too long I pull out onto the main highway and see Jaco down the coast in the distance. I’ve finally gotten my lust back under control when Ryder speaks again.
“So, you’re all aboard for this Raven Society thing?”
I dart my gaze over to him. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. The supe community isn’t really known for being all warm and fuzzy with each other.”
“Well, that’s exactly what we’re trying to change.”
“I have to say, when I heard Xander had fallen for a witch, I didn’t believe it at first.” Ryder lets out a low whistle. “That dude used to carry a serious grudge.”
“Oh, I know.” The Jeep bumps over a rock in the road and I jerk the wheel to straighten back out. “But if he can put away his prejudice, anyone can.”
“Anyone?” He raises his brows and shoots me a pointed looked. “You seem to have a serious thing against demons.”
“For good reason,” I say with a roll of my eyes. I change the subject quickly. “How do you know Xander, anyway?” It really is an odd pairing—a dragon shifter who’s a former knight and Revolutionary soldier, all about honor and ethics, and a tropical playboy lust demon who runs around making everyone have spontaneous orgasms.
Ryder is silent a moment, staring across me at the coastline. “We met many decades ago. I was up in Boston following a business lead, and I got myself into a bit of a pickle—or rather, I got my pickle in a place it didn’t belong—”
He grins, and I roll my eyes.
“Anyway, I got thrown into a demon-proof jail cell. Xander showed up, completely by coincidence, took pity on me, and helped me escape. We’ve worked together on a few jobs since then.”
I shake my head. I still can’t picture it.
As if sensing my thoughts, Ryder adds, “Yeah, it’s pretty hard to get Xander to leave Raven’s Roost. Maybe now that he has his witch, he’ll venture out in the world more. Since he doesn’t have to punish himself anymore with his vow.”
“I would imagine so, since he and Rowan want to work on expanding the Raven Society into the other supernatural communities.” I feel a bubble of anxiety. I really don’t want to fail both Luciana and Rowan if things go south. They’ve both helped me through really tough times in my life.
“That’s not going to go over so well in a lot of places,” Ryder says with a chuckle.
I’m about to respond when he points to a road on the right. “Take that.”
I turn the Jeep onto it, and we wind through the forest and back up into the hills for a ways. We’re on the outskirts of Jaco, and I catch glimpses of it in the distance. After another five minutes, he tells me to slow down. Then he points again.
At first I don’t see what he’s gesturing at. We’re high above the city now, on the south side of it. There’s a steep drop-off on the left side of the road, so I can’t exactly go anywhere. But then I see the shimmer of magic and my eyes look beyond. It’s a glamour, concealing a road that branches off this one, hugging the cliffside.
“Clever,” I say, and turn down it.
As the Jeep bumps along the new road, a stunning vista of the city and the Pacific Ocean appears before us. I see a plateau ahead with a large building perched on the overhang. It looks like a giant tiki hut with wooden timbers, a palm thatch roof, and a huge deck. Cars fill the parking lot.
