“Forget stuff,” she murmurs, breaking our staring contest as she bites down on her lip.
“Okay,” I say, even if it isn’t okay, even if I want to know every single thing about her.
“Anyway…”
She makes slowly for the door. It’s like she has to drag her legs toward the exit like her body won’t go that way without serious effort.
Maybe she doesn’t want this to end any more than I do.
I step to the side and watch her go, my eyes magnetized to the way her ass shifts from side to side. It would be so damn sweet to slip my shaft between those cheeks, to squeeze them together as I grind inside her.
“Wait,” I call, her hand on the door.
She pauses with a whimper, turning to face me.
That whimper.
She’s as on-edge like I am. I just know it.
“Yeah?”
I glance at the clock above the door. “It’s almost midday. What do you say we grab some lunch?”
She blinks several times, as though she’s trying to convince herself this isn’t real. Or like she thinks I’m going to disappear in a puff of smoke.
“Lunch?”
Shit.
Maybe she can sense some of my intensity. Maybe she thinks it’s too much.
I need to play this casual, try and hold back the surging tide of my possessive and total ownership of her.
“It’s good to refuel after a workout,” I say lamely. “I know a good deli around the corner. Let’s grab a couple of sandwiches.”
I stride across the room quickly, before she even has a chance to answer. Now that I’ve said it, there’s no damn way I’m allowing her to walk out of here and leave me for an entire week.
Just the thought hurts.
“Sound good?” I growl, looming over her, greedily breathing in the scent of her sweat.
I need to taste her, to inhale the sweet tanginess as I slide my tongue over her tasty sex.
She nods shortly. “Yeah, um. Okay.”
Chapter Eight
Rosie
I walk next to him down the street, my shoulder almost brushing against his arm. I still can’t freaking believe we’re doing this, and every time I sneak a look at him I expect him to be gone.
Telling myself I imagined his beast-like intensity back in the gym doesn’t do anything to calm down the mess of lust and nerves bouncing around inside of me.
When he asked me on the date – correction, this is not a date – it was like he was simply not going to take no for an answer.
He loomed over me, all six and a half feet of him, his eyes locked on me, his muscular body seeming to pulse in his gym gear. His arms are bare in the sports shirt, veins pushing against his corded arms, causing several women to cock their heads in our direction as we make our way to the deli.
I can’t let jealousy flare in me when they look at him. He’s nothing to me and I’m nothing to him.
We’re practically strangers.
Yeah, keep telling yourself that.
The primal voice deep inside of me knows I’m talking complete crap, knows there’s no way I can truly convince myself of that.
“After you,” I say, rushing toward the door when we arrive at the deli.
I hold it open and aim a wide grin at him, hoping he can’t sense how badly I want to throw myself at him, leap up and wrap my arms around his shoulders as I grind my body down against his manhood, rubbing my sex against his, feeling how hard he is through his sweatpants.
He smirks, nodding. “You’ve stolen my chance to be a gentleman.”
“Is that right?” I taunt, my cheeks blushing fiercely, feeling like they’re going to catch on fire. “Are you normally a gentleman, then?”
Normally, as in…
With his other women, all the beautiful gym honed women he must have. I bet his phone is full of numbers, countless booty calls dotted all over the East and West Coasts, maybe even some movie stars thrown into the mix.
“No,” he says with a gruff laugh. “But this is a good time to start.”
He moves forward and pushes his hand against the door, standing so close his musky scent envelopes me until I’m filled with his heat and closeness.
“Go on,” he growls.
I turn with a laugh, though in truth I don’t really want to laugh. I want to scream with all the intensity. My panties rub torturously against my sex each time I move, my lips swollen and needy.
He leads us to a table in the corner. The place is bustling, so many people their voices become near-deafening. I’m glad for the noise. It helps to blot out the rising torrent of my thoughts, an endless cascade of Ryker.
Sitting opposite me, Ryker looks over with that hard-to-read twist to his lips. Sometimes it’s like he’s secretly mocking me and other times it’s like he’s going to leap across the table and press his lips against mine.