AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“But why did you use it?” she persisted.
He paused, and she noticed his body tense. Somebody didn’t like the personal questions.
“It’s a name I use when I want to go incognito,” he admitted.
“Ah,” she said. She never gave her name to hook-ups. If they specifically asked, she distracted them from the question by stroking their cock and suggesting they ask about something else.
He slowed the cart at a fork in the path, a sign on the left markedTesting Facility.
“Take a right?” he guessed.
“Yes,” she said, and pointed toward an outcropping of rock in the distance. “We’re going up there.”
“To a rock?” he asked, cranking the wheel and taking the cart up a gentle slope.
As much of an asshole as he was, she couldn’t stop from staring at the rough fingers on the steering wheel. She could see part of a tattoo on the back of his hands, the patterns disappearing up a sleeve. She remembered how his arms were covered with ink, one in vibrant colors and the other in classic black.
“To a rock,” she confirmed in a tight voice when he took the next curve sharply and rocked her body against his. She cringed away from his hard warmth.
“So what kind of lawyer do you want to be?” he asked, his mocking tone forcing all sexy thoughts to flee her mind.
“A great one,” she muttered, letting go of her briefcase with one hand so she could hold on to the roof of the cart. There would be no more touching if she could avoid it.
“I’m sure you think so. I meant what kind of law,” he said, leaning toward her and letting the words purr out. She inched away.
“I know what you meant,” she replied. “Family law.”
“Ah, the kind of lawyer that breaks up families against their will,” he replied, and she heard a steely undertone to his words.
“The kind of lawyer that champions struggling mothers over deadbeat fathers,” she corrected. “Families are only as healthy as their weakest link, and too often it’s an asshole man in that position.”
“Wow, you’re not prejudiced, are you?” he asked in that same hard voice. “Just a generalizing do-gooder.”
“I’ve seen too many police reports to generalize,” she said, and gave him a stony look. “If you want to hear some stats on battered women in the state of Washington, I could recite them for you. Battered women, battered children, asshole men.”
She watched his hard expression loosen, and he gave her a quick glance.
“I’m sure you could,” he allowed, and ran a hand through his hair. “They’re probably similar in a lot of states.”
She stared at him for a moment longer, then grudgingly nodded and looked back at the path.
“For the record, I’m not one of those statistics,” he said, his body tensing. “I mean, I’m not a guy that hits a woman. I’ve had my run-ins with the law, but abusing people weaker than me isn’t in my DNA.”
She thought about his possible criminal background. She didn’t know if the security team had run any background checks on him for the last engagement he worked on, but Becca had told her Stone vouched for him. Stone seemed like a pretty smart guy the few times Nita had been in a meeting with him.
None of that really mattered to her, though. She trusted her gut. And if her radar had gone off last night, she would have stayed right in her chair and let Max finish inking her tat in.
“What were some of those run-ins?” she asked, genuinely interested.
“Nah,” he said with a teasing laugh as he pulled the cart up to the wide pavement in front of a steel door set into the rock. “I’m sure you can run a background check on your computer if you really want to know. For now, let’s just focus on this job and how the fuck I’m going to get comfortable working with a lawyer.”
He looked at her as he said lawyer with mock disgust.
“You’re such an asshole,” she said, trying to hold back a laugh.
Ryder laughed.
“I'm just teasing you, Sugar. You don't have to take everything so seriously,” he said, turning in the seat. He lay one arm on the wheel and slid the other already on the back of the seat closer to her shoulders.
