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Another beat of silence.
“Do you think we can hide in here forever?” I ask hopefully.
“No. Eventually somebody’s gonna pry you out of here so they can rave about how amazing your father is.”
“I hate this, you know.” I tip my head to look at him. “Whatever you think about me and my last name, I don’t use it to get ahead. I never have. Hell, I would legally change it if I knew it wouldn’t break my dad’s heart. But it would kill him. And, really, it’s not his fault he’s the greatest hockey player of all time. He deserves all the love and accolades.”
“But…you hate this,” he prompts.
I bite my bottom lip. “Yes. I hate these events with a passion. I’ve never enjoyed myself at a single one. Like, I’d literally rather be anywhere else.”
“You used to go out with Colson, yeah?”
“Yes…?”
The query comes out of left field, but he’s quick to connect it to the topic at hand.
“Did he ever come with you to these things?”
“Sometimes.” I shift awkwardly. It feels weird to discuss Case with Luke Ryder.
“And he didn’t get creative? Find ways to make these shindigs more fun for you?”
“What do you know about fun?” I can’t help but tease.
He offers his trademark shrug.
“No, tell me,” I push. “What would you be doing right now if you were Case? How would you make it fun?”
“If I was Colson.”
“Yes.”
“And you were my girl.”
“Yes.”
Ryder leans in, his warm breath on my ear, sending a tiny shiver through my body. “We would have been behind this curtain five minutes after we got here.”
“Doing what?”
I regret the question the moment I voice it.
“Getting you primed.”
My throat closes up with arousal. I struggle to swallow.
“Primed,” I echo weakly. “Primed for what?”
“For me.”
Oh my God.
His voice deepens. Just a hint of gravel. “I’d use my fingers probably. Yeah. I’d press my fingers inside you. Get you close. But I wouldn’t let you come. Just close enough that your entire body hurts, and then I’d force you to go back out there. Watch you squirm while you talk to all those irrelevant people, until finally you’re begging me to leave so I can take you home and make you come.”
It’s the most animated he’s sounded since I met him.
I can scarcely breathe. And the lack of oxygen gets worse when his hand finds my cheek. Rough fingertips scrape along my feverish skin.
Ryder dips his head and brings his mouth close to mine. Our lips are a whisper away. My eyelids flutter closed as for one heart-stopping moment I think he’s going to kiss me.
“But…I’m not Colson,” he finishes, wearing the merest hint of a smile as he straightens up.
To my dismay—and disappointment I don’t expect to feel—he inches the curtain aside to check if the coast is clear. Then he slides out and leaves me there feeling the exact way he just threatened to make me feel.
Squirming with need.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
GIGI
There’s always one slutty boy in every crew
RYDER:
We still on for later?
ME:
Yup. Does it still work for you guys?
RYDER:
We’re good.
ME:
Thanks again for doing this.
RYDER:
Sure.
ME:
It must kill you that there isn’t a decent shrugging emoji. The current one has too much emotion in it for you. It’s the hand motions. Far too dramatic to accurately depict your shrugs.
RYDER:
Is it too late to cancel?
ME:
I love your quirky sense of humor! Kills me every time.
Ryder’s last message is the middle finger emoji.
Yeah. That one suits him best.
It’s taken us a few days to reschedule our session. Classes started on Monday, along with my official hockey practice schedule, so it was difficult to get on the same page and find a time that worked for both of us. And Beckett, I guess. He’s tagging along tonight to help with Ryder’s drills.
Until then, I still have some errands to run, including one that’s more treat than errand: meeting my uncles at Della’s Diner.
I grew up with a lot of uncles. Luckily not the creepy kind who say inappropriate things at weddings and hit on all the teenage girls.
“I hear you’re single again.”
Or maybe they do say inappropriate things.
“That’s old news,” I inform Dean Di Laurentis. “Did it arrive to you by carrier pigeon?”
“No, smart-ass. I’ve known for a while. We just haven’t had any alone time since it happened.”
I reach for my coffee. We’re in a corner booth, the tabletop littered with half a dozen slices of pie because my gluttonous uncles couldn’t settle on one flavor so they ordered one of each.
Uncle Logan stepped outside to take a phone call from my aunt Grace, one of my three godmothers. I’ve also got three godfathers, because my parents didn’t want to choose between all their best friends but still had to make a decision. Although my family isn’t religious, my grandparents on Mom’s side insisted on a christening when Wyatt and I were born. The pictures from that day are literally ridiculous. An entire sports team of godparents standing up on that altar holding Wyatt and me as infants in our filmy white gowns.
