Something to Someone (Someone, Somewhere #2)

Chapter 14

FOURTEEN

JUST A LITTLE TASTE

Caroline

The room the restaurant had set up for the tasting was private and just off the main dining room. Separated by two sliding doors, I could still hear the faint sound of voices and the usual restaurant commotion.

The catering manager dropped off two waters at the table and smoothed the unwrinkled, white tablecloth.

“We’re so excited to have you here, Ms. Grant, and the menu we’ve put together is incredible. I think you’ll enjoy what we have planned.” The young woman, Kate, had just taken over the position, and I could tell she was nervous and eager to make a good impression. The previous catering manager had burned a bridge that couldn’t be mended, but the restaurant had some of the best food I’d found in the city. So, when I heard they hired someone new, I decided to give them another chance.

“I’m sure it will be. You’ve already gone above and beyond,” I said with a smile, motioning to the quiet, secluded room.

There was a quiet knock on the door before a waiter stuck his head between them. “Sorry to interrupt, but Mr. Calaway is here. ”

I snorted, trying to suppress my laughter which quickly died in the back of my throat when Mr. Calaway appeared from between the two doors. My mouth went dry, and my smile fell.

He politely thanked the waiter and greeted the caterer. Giving her his thousand-watt smile, I didn’t blame the girl for blushing slightly. But she quickly righted her expression and waved him toward the table I was seated at.

My breath caught in my throat. Those blue eyes turned on me, and I kept very still as they raked over my exposed legs peeking out from beneath the tablecloth. Until I felt his gaze, I hadn’t realized the slit in my skirt had ridden almost indecently high up on my thigh. But adjusting it when he was still watching meant showing I was affected by his intense stare, and I refused to do that.

His eyes traveled upward, over the subtle cleavage beneath my satin shirt and along the line of my exposed neck. It was too hot outside to have my hair down for any significant amount of time.

“Hey, Caroline,” he said with a smile, pulling out the chair closest to me. He sat, and Kate quickly confirmed that she was going to bring out the first few courses for us to try. She hurried through the door at the back of the room and into the kitchen, leaving Ryder and I completely alone.

Which was exactly what I’d been trying to avoid for the past week. Because I knew what would happen if we were alone again—it was the same reaction I’d had even when he’d texted me throughout the week. My body remembered the way his hands, his lips, his body felt, and it was screaming at me for more.

It wanted me to give in to everything I shouldn’t, and fuck, I was having a hell of a time remembering why I shouldn’t. Especially when he was sitting there in his chair, leaning back like he didn’t have a care in the world. One arm slung across the back of the chair next to him and the opposite leg stretched out toward me. The tip of his shoe grazed the bottom of my calf, and I silent ly pleaded that he wouldn’t see the goosebumps that appeared across my skin.

“You look good, Caroline,” he murmured in a low, raspy voice.

I glanced over to the door Kate had disappeared through then back to Ryder, whose smugness was written all over his face and found in the tilt of his lips.

“I know,” I countered. His eyebrows shot up, and I was pleased with his reaction.

“I’m pretty sure the correct response is ‘ you look good, too, Ryder ,’ but I’ll give you a pass.”

I huffed out a breath. “I’m not in the business of giving compliments for the sake of stroking your ego. You know you look good,” I muttered. Voicing my thoughts made his smile widen, but thankfully, Kate interrupted with perfect timing.

“Are we ready for the first few courses?” she exclaimed, pushing through the doors with plates in her hands and followed by servers holding more plates.

“We were born ready, Kate,” Ryder said. He sat up and scooted his chair closer to the table.

They arranged the food in front of us, and Kate took us through each dish. She explained the appetizers that would be passed on trays during cocktail hour, the pre-dinner salads, the main course options, and each side dish.

It all looked amazing, and I was glad I’d put off lunch in favor of the tasting.

“I’ll let you both get started and come check on you in a little while.”

She exited the way she came as I picked up my fork and surveyed the options.

“I think this is going to be my favorite part of wedding planning,” Ryder quipped.

Smiling, I stabbed a shrimp appetizer and popped it in my mouth quickly. The sweet and spicy flavors exploded on my tongue , and my eyes almost rolled back in my head. “It’s definitely one of my favorite parts.”

Ryder aimed directly for the buttery au gratin potatoes and regretted it immediately. His fork clattered to his plate as he fanned his mouth. He reached for his water glass, and I covered my mouth to keep from spewing shrimp all over the table and to suppress my laughter.

“I can see the steam rolling off those potatoes from over here,” I said when I finally managed to compose myself.

Ryder took several long sips and slumped back in his chair like he’d just run a marathon. “I obviously missed that. They’re really good, though, from what I could taste between the scalding heat and now second degree burns on my tongue.”

“Poor guy. I think you’ll be okay.”

“Hmm,” he hummed as he sat forward and leaned closer to me. On high alert, I straightened and kept my attention on the table and the chicken I spooned onto my plate. “A kiss would probably make it better.”

Reflexively, my eyes shot to his, and the smirk sitting on his lips made my scowl deepen. I dropped the spoon in my hand and let it bang loudly against the dish. Ryder didn’t even blink.

“I can’t help it, baby. It’s almost been a week, and I feel like I’m going to die if I don’t get another taste.”

My hands clenched, and my throat went tight. “We are in public, Ryder, and I’m working,” I said, then added, “And don’t call me baby.”

His lips twitched, and I took a deep breath, hoping the palpable energy between us would fizzle out long enough for me to focus on the food. I blinked and looked back down at my plate. But even when he was silent, all my attention was on him. Like my body was begging to feel his again.

I just needed to make it through the next half hour. Thirty minutes was manageable.

I hoped.

“Are you ready for finals?” My random question was my attemp t at changing the subject to anything that wasn’t sexually charged.

Ryder chuckled and ran a hand through his disheveled black hair, but there was no humor behind his laughter. He reached for a serving spoon and shook his head. I could see the exhaustion in his eyes and in the circles beneath them.

“Honestly, my brain hurts from studying so much. That’s pretty much all I’ve done this week. This was a good break. If I spent one more second in that damn library…” His voice was laced with weariness, too, and I fought the urge to reach out and take his hand in mine.

“Which finals do you have left?”

“Two of my engineering classes, one of which is my senior seminar, so that one is going to suck. And the other is a US History class.” He truly laughed the second time, and I narrowed my eyes. “Yeah, it is a class I should have taken freshman year but put off until the very, bitter end.”

I shrugged and popped a mushroom into my mouth. “I’m sure it helped lighten up your schedule, though. Broke up some of those more difficult classes, so they weren’t all in your final semester.”

He nodded and lifted his glass of water to his mouth. When he pulled it away, my eyes were fixed on the small droplets of water clinging to his lips and his tongue that peeked out to collect them.

Completely clueless to my gawking, Ryder set his glass back down and continued, “Yeah, it was nice to have a class that was simple and straightforward, especially with job hunting and interviewing, too.”

“Any news on the job front?”

When Ryder didn’t say anything, I looked up to see him shrug. “I…umm…I’ve had a few interviews. Several, actually, and I think there are a couple contenders. I have two offers so far, and they’ve been generous enough to let me wait until after graduation to decide. ”

“That’s really exciting,” I said, my enthusiasm completely genuine. Ryder had worked so hard, I knew he wouldn’t have a problem finding a company that would kill for his talent.

“It is,” he agreed, but his voice was quiet, and his tone was closer to somber. He stared down at his plate and nudged a green bean around with his fork. I lightly nudged his hand with my own fork and drew his attention to me. With a sigh, he sat back in his chair. “One of them is here. It’s at a local engineering firm, and honestly, it’s exactly the job I was hoping to find. But the other is…it’s not local. It’s across the country, and they’re willing to pay me more. They’ll even help me relocate and add a bonus on top of my salary for the first year to help cover any other transitional expenses.”

My reaction wasn’t what I expected it to be. I was supposed to be supportive and push him to take whichever would be the better opportunity for him, but instead, I wanted to do anything I could to make him stay.

I couldn’t remember life without Ryder.

“Wow,” I managed to say through thick emotion. “That sounds incredible.”

He was silent again for a beat, and I watched every emotion flit across his features in the span of a second. “It is incredible, but the idea of leaving doesn’t sound entirely appealing.”

“Why?” The question was out of my mouth without a second thought. Ryder’s stormy blue eyes flashed to mine. We held each other’s stare for several seconds before I finally found the power to look away, and Ryder cleared his throat, readjusting in his seat.

“How the hell did our conversation get to this? This was supposed to be a distraction,” he said, waving to the table still full of food. “I’d prefer to talk about anything but finals or work.”

The door at the other end of the room swung open, and Kate stepped into the dining room, wringing her hands in front of her as she strode to us. “How’s it going? Any thoughts? ”

“Everything is amazing,” I said, and she beamed with pride.

“That’s so good to hear. What about you, Mr. Calaway? What do you think your friends would like?”

I suppressed my giggle with a hand over my mouth, and Ryder—excuse me, Mr. Calaway —nudged me with his leg under the table.

“I think we go with all the appetizers except the one with the avocado—Miles’s mom is allergic. We should probably avoid it for the entire night. Then I think they’ll want—” When Kate realized Ryder wasn’t going to stop, she took out her phone and started furiously taking notes. “Three choices for the entrée—beef, salmon, and the veggie. As for sides, I like the potatoes, although they get really freaking hot, and?—”

Kate’s eyes widened. “Oh no, were they too hot? I’m so sorry. I—I?—”

“No, he’s fine,” I said. “He burned his tongue a little, but it obviously didn’t impair his ability to speak.”

“Or do other things,” Ryder whispered suggestively and only loud enough that I could hear him. I made it a point not to look at him. Kate appeared flustered enough, I didn’t want to make things worse.

“She’s right. I’m fine,” Ryder continued, “The potatoes are great as are the green beans and whatever that one is—” he pointed to a dish that I also couldn’t identify, but it was amazing, nonetheless.

Kate nodded and typed furiously on her phone. “Yes, we can absolutely do that.” The waiters came in and cleared the plates while we confirmed all the details. Kate left with a promise to bring the cake and dessert options.

“I hope you’re in the mood for something sweet!” she said before scurrying off.

At least that time Ryder waited for her to be well out of earshot before making his suggestive remark. “I am in the mood for something sweet. And although it’s in this room, it’s nothing that Kate is going to set on this table. ”

Slowly I dragged my eyes up from my phone to Ryder. “You have an uncanny ability to make anything a sexual innuendo, you know that, right?”

He braced his hand against his chest and smiled. “Wow, thank you so much.”

I rolled my eyes and shook my head. Kate was back in less than a minute followed by waiters carrying more sweets than we could ever possibly consume. As she had before, Kate explained each dish. “Enjoy. I’ll be back in a few.”

“I’d enjoy it more if?—”

The cutting look I threw his direction was enough to cut his words off but not enough to curb his crooked smile.

“Be good,” I warned.

Ryder picked up a cookie and inspected it before taking a large bite. He chewed for a moment then said, “That goes against everything I believe in, Caroline. There’s a reason you call me Trouble, right?”

Narrowing my eyes, I tried to renew my depleted willpower. The longer I sat there in his space, remembering the way his stubble scratched my inner thighs and the ecstasy he drew from my body, the more likely I was to give in. He sat with his ankle crossed over his opposite knee, and the image made my brain short circuit.

“You are fucking trouble,” I said quietly, choosing a brownie that was covered in caramel and chocolate sauce. I took a bite and set it back on my plate.

He leaned forward and reached toward me. Before I could react, his hand was wrapped around the leg of my chair so he could tug me closer.

A very girly and uncharacteristic squeak left me but was concealed by the scrape of the chair across the hardwood floor. Inches away, I could smell the chocolate on his breath and feel the heat radiating off his body. The electricity arching between us was almost too much to bear. It was hard to ignore when we were so close .

“You know you like it—the trouble, the danger. I think you love the fact that it’s dirty and wrong. But it didn’t feel wrong when you were coming all over my tongue. Even though you want to avoid it, which I’m sure is why you’ve been ignoring me all week.”

The room disappeared around us the longer he held my stare. The melodic background music and the noise filtering in from the main dining room vanished. My world narrowed to the look in his eyes.

“Denying how much I like it seems meaningless at this point,” I admitted before I could consider the statement. My pulse quickened, and my heart collided with the inside of my chest. My willpower was fading fast, and lying to myself wasn’t doing me any good. My brain was losing the fight with my heart and the rest of my body.

And watching Ryder fight, witnessing how much he wanted it—wanted me— made it feel pointless and impossible to win.

“Which is exactly why we should do it again,” he said, reaching forward to brush his thumb over the exposed skin of my knee. The only sliver of skin peaking from between the slit in my skirt. My eyes dropped down to follow the movement, and I fought the need to shudder. “I’m not opposed to more begging or convincing. Even right here in the middle of the restaurant. Tell me to get on my knees, Caroline. Right here and now. Right where anyone could see.”

I simultaneously loved and hated how out of control I felt. And watching him get back on his knees and beg for anything I would give him would give me back that control. But I couldn’t risk it.

“Be on your best behavior while we’re here, and I’ll consider it.”

Ryder immediately straightened and sat back in his chair, trying and failing to hide his triumphant smile. “Anything for you, pretty girl. Literally, anything.”