Chapter 4
Ryder
On the forty-ninth floor of the high-rise, I enter the glass-encased condo offering a bird’s-eye view of the San Francisco Bay and city skyline. I frown at the floor-to-ceiling windows in her living room. I would never have picked this condo for her. She’s too exposed.
“Are you planning on telling me why you’re here bright and early on a Saturday morning?” Hadley asks, closing the front door. “Don’t you ever take a day off?”
I glance over my shoulder, finding her giving me a puzzled look. Believe me, this is the last place I want to be is what I want to say to her. Being alone with Hadley spells danger of all types. But instead of telling her that, I raise a finger to my lips, silencing her questions. I scan her living room to find some way to communicate with her other than verbally and spot a notepad and pen by the telephone. Feeling tense and not particularly thrilled at the moment, I grab it and quickly jot down Checking for bugs on the piece of paper before handing her the note.
She reads my scribble before her worried eyes return to mine. Of course I want to reassure her, but at the moment I have a job to do, and that job isn’t comforting her, it’s ensuring she’s safe.
Although I’m determined to do exactly that, my focus is drawn to her…how fresh her face looks without makeup and how her loose bun shows off the gorgeous lines of her neck. The way her yoga pants accentuate her curves, and how her tight T-shirt emphasizes her breasts. It’s easy to imagine how she’d feel pressed against me. How she’d taste. Even how she’d sound when she comes. I clench my fists, fighting off the desire to grab her and make her mine once and for all.
You’re not here to fuck her, dipshit.
I focus on the task at hand and take the bug detection device out
from my back pocket. Not looking at her again, because that’s where danger lives, I begin scanning over the mahogany hardwood floors, up to the smooth ceilings, then comb through all of Hadley’s things, until I end up in the one room I don’t want to be anywhere near: her bedroom.
There’s nothing special about this room but my heart is racing. A queen-size bed rests against the wall with a lavender-colored duvet and fluffy decorative pillows on top. There’s a night table beside the bed with a reading lamp, a chair in the corner, and a dresser on the far wall, and that’s about it. Regardless, sweat is forming on my upper lip at the way her sheets are crumpled. I don’t think I can endure the punishment of thinking of her in her bed.
My mind begins to wonder. Surely, she’s touched herself in that bed. Maybe even climaxed there…Fuck, Blackwood, get it together.
I force the carnal thoughts and images in my mind aside and move swiftly through her room, examining everything from the lamp on her end table to the chandelier hanging from the ceiling to the pictures on her walls to her closet and under her bed. I find nothing, which is good and bad as I’m sure there’s something in her place. Last, I am forced to comb through her drawers and save the best for last: her panty drawer.
It’s when I sift through the lacy garments I realize what hell this really is—the girl has every thong, really more like butt floss, imaginable and as I get tangled in a red pair she makes a smartass comment, “Like what you see, Blackwood?”
I don’t dare look over my shoulder. I’ll be fucked if I do. I hear the heat in her voice. I don’t need to see it in her eyes, too. My cock is already hard, throbbing for release, and I’ve been tortured enough.
“That black thong happens to be my favorite,” she remarks in a raspy tone that I’m sure she knows has an effect on me.
I shift the particular thong she’s discussing to the side, cursing my damn cock as it hardens to steel in my pants. That lace has touched her in places I want to touch her…no, where I want to taste her. I’ve never been so jealous of a pair of panties in my life, so I refocus my thoughts. I ignore how incredible the garter belts, bras, and every other damn lacy thing feels against my fingers as I ensure there’s not a damned recording device in her drawer.
But then my fingers brush against a silky red ribbon, clearly some piece of lingerie, and my mind leaves this room…
“We’re going to get married.”
That’s when I feel a tug on my hand and I glance down at the little girl with the big green eyes smiling up at me, instead of looking at the hot blonde across the room. The girl is wearing a white sundress with a big red bow in her hair.
Mom laughs beside me. “Is that so, Miss Hadley?”
“Yes,” she says, staring doe-eyed at me.
I roll my eyes, gently pulling my hand away from hers. Like I need an eight-year-old girl flirting with me. Especially considering she’s the daughter of my father’s law partner. I glance back across the room and see the pretty blonde is gone now. Tomorrow I leave to join the Army. I wanted a well-deserved send-off and that blonde had been smiling at me all night. Annoyance clenches my jaw when I feel another tug on my suit jacket, which I can’t wait to get out of. It’s too tight and too hot.
“Oh, Ryder,” Mom says, garnering my attention. “Isn’t she just so sweet?”
I look into the little girl’s eyes. She looks like trouble. A handful for her mother for sure. “Mm-hmm.”
“Just absolutely the cutest,” says Mom, and then I ignore the rest of the conversation, as the little girl holds on to her dress, swaying from side to side.
But that’s Mom, gushing over kids until you possibly can’t gush any more. As a kindergarten teacher, she loves children and they love her. Even Dad turns into a softer version of himself around children. By day, he’s a corporate lawyer. Around kids, he’s a giant baby. Too bad for them—I doubt they’ll ever get grandchildren out of me. And seeing as I’m an only child since Mom had trouble even conceiving me, I’m their only hope.
As much as I want to live up to the standards that make my parents proud, kids aren’t part of my ten-year plan. My sights are on the Army Rangers.
“Hey, stop ignoring me!”
I sigh and look down at the girl again; she isn’t going away. “What do you want?”