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“You know, I’ve never had a female friend. They usually want something from me, which is fine, I usually want something from them. But you…you don’t want anything from me, and I enjoy spending time with you. I’ve never met anyone like you before, Elliot. Not once in my life and I think I’d have seen you. And maybe there’s more to it.”
“Ryder.”
I ignore the warning because I want to see if the sweet, evocative taste of her is everywhere. I want to see where this goes. I want her.
I set my drink down and take hers, moving up over her and looking down. Her eyes are big and dilated and that need and want that flashes in them transforms her somehow.
“Sex,” I say, “can be all sorts of things.”
I lean down to kiss her, but her hand comes up on my chest and my heart’s beating hard and fast and uneven.
“It’s not a good idea, Ryder.”
“Why? I think there’s chemistry here, begging to be explored.”
But Elliot pushes me and I fall back. “No, it’s because you need a woman, Ryder, but I’m not willing to just be a notch or to fill in until something better comes along.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Who said life is? You have a hand. I have a bathroom. Make yourself at home.”
I stare at her and shake my head. “You want me to jerk off?”
“If that helps,” she says evenly as she gets to her feet. “I—you know where all the bedding is. Goodnight.”
And just like that, Elliot turns and walks away.
Chapter Sixteen
Elliot
Oh my God.
I just suggested he go rub one out in my bathroom.
What the actual fuck is wrong with me?
The man also was about to make a move and I pushed him away…
Okay, okay, I get that one, because it’s going to end in hurt, a world of it, for me if I kiss him again and it wouldn’t have been a kiss. It would have been a whole lot more and he makes me… He makes me feel alive.
Even though he never says the right thing. I don’t know why, and I don’t know what this is, except I want it from him. And I’m more than aware he wants me because he can’t have someone else. Anyone else. Hell, it might be built into his DNA to hit on a woman. I don’t know.
That hurts, but it also rocks my foundations a little.
Makes me unsure of myself. Which is ludicrous.
I’m confident. I know my place—I like my place. I like the shadows and staying there. I like quiet affairs of the heart with someone smart and level and who treats me with respect. I’m not unwanted, I’ve had partners, relationships. I’ve had men want me, and yes, I’ve turned men down.
But never one like Ryder.
I’m shaking, and I sink down to the floor, leaning my head back against the door.
Bottom line is it doesn’t matter if he wants me for me or because I’m a warm body whose mind he likes. If I let him, if he did it right, if he turned that Ryder on, the one who is so smooth and electrifying, I know he’d have me naked in moments.
No. I’d have me naked in moments. No matter what he meant, if anything at all.
And I hate that weakness.
