Chapter Eighteen Ryder
Chapter Eighteen
Ryder
I wasn’t ready to move yet. To back away. To stop breathing her in. For it to no longer just be us in the kitchen. Even if it’d been, in a way, my idea to get us back to the mission.
But it needed to be done.
I needed to back away.
Sever the connection.
I set my hands at her waist to help her down from the counter, as if she couldn’t hop down herself, which was ridiculous, but I didn’t care.
What I didn’t expect was for her to extend her legs and hook her ankles behind my back, locking me in place instead.
I didn’t exactly resist, and how could I? I went with the flow, because being close to her felt like the most natural thing in the world.
My hands went from her waist to the counter to brace myself so I wouldn’t fall right into her in this position.
There went that V of space. It was gone. My crotch pressed against her, and she went so far as to scooch to the edge of the counter to ensure we were touching even more.
“Well then,” I rasped, which was the best I could come up with since she’d done a one-eighty on me.
She knocked my hat off and ran her fingers through my hair.
I closed my eyes, hanging my head forward, and I was about to become her Doberman all over again. She could scratch my head, and I’d roll over and let her rub my stomach next.
So much for space, for ensuring she really wanted me and her desire wasn’t misplaced because of X, Y, or Z.
Because fuck the alphabet. All the letters.
Right now, if she wanted me, she could have me.
She owned me. In this moment, she owned all my decisions.
I was no longer a Tier One operator, just a man.
A man who hadn’t felt this kind of connection in maybe ever.
“Have a thing against hats?” I’d meant that as a joke, but my desire had the words coming out as if they’d traveled across sandpaper to get to her.
“I’m sorry, I ... couldn’t help myself. I guess I’m still not ready to face reality,” she murmured, continuing to slide her fingers through my hair. “I’ve been wanting to do this since we met.” Her soft, sexy-husky voice had me about ready to lift her off the counter and take her to my room.
What are we supposed to be doing again? Hell if I could remember, when she rotated her hips—and was that moan from her? Or had it come from my mouth?
I opened my eyes and located where my hands were now. They were no longer on the counter but back on her waist. A tight, firm grip. I told myself it was to keep her from falling, not so I could pin her tight to my body. Plausible enough.
“I’m not normally like this with anyone. I—I don’t ... I’m sorry.”
“I, for one, am glad you’re not like this with anyone else.” I let go of a deep breath, trying to secure hold of my control, which kept vanishing around her. “Also, another apology you don’t owe me.”
Her hands left my hair and found a new home on my chest.
Finally remembering why we were in Mexico and in this kitchen, I forced myself to make a polite request that part of me (a really big part) wanted her to reject.
“Would you like me to call the guys back up? Is it safer for us to talk with them here?” I want you all to myself, is what I wanted to say.
“Safer for our control, you mean?”
I wasn’t a great liar, so I conceded with a nod.
“I’d honestly rather only tell you the rest of my story, and then you can share everything with them. Is that okay?”
Another nod from me. I was doing a bang-up job of being Delta One. “Maybe not in this position?” I suggested, my voice gravelly again.
She sent her beautiful brown eyes to my chest, where her hands remained fixed in place. Then she pushed out her elbows to create space between, and I realized it was so she could look down.
I followed her line of sight, and, God, how I wished I hadn’t. Because all that separated my dick from feeling her were my jeans and her thin shorts, and the image of our bodies in this position had me drumming up a new one in my head. One where we were naked, and we were fucking.
“Space,” she sputtered. “Right. Good idea if we want to focus.”
Did I want to focus? Yes, focus on dropping to my knees, taking her shorts with me, and licking her clit as she screamed out my name.
I closed my eyes, breathing through my nose to salvage what was left of my restraint and try to build it back up brick by brick before I looked at her again.
“You okay?” That was the voice of the angel, not the sexy little devil I wanted to come out and play with me right now.
But no, she needed to be good so I could behave. Yes, do that. Be my good girl. Fuck, I was still painfully hard.
“Give me another second.” Did I just growl? What the —
I let go of my thoughts when she teased, “I’d apologize for whatever discomfort I think I’ve caused you, but you’ll just tell me I don’t owe you one.”
And there you are. My bad girl. Dammit. Keeping my eyes closed, I brought my hands around to her thighs and died on the inside as I resisted my basest of impulses to fuck the ever-loving hell out of this woman. Unentangling our bodies instead, I helped her stand.
Once my hands were to myself, and so were hers, only then did I open my eyes.
Face off with the head of terrorist groups, no problem. Barely a spike in my blood pressure. But having to look this woman in the eyes and keep it together had me cooked.
It was time to control-override and switch to operator mode.
A few steps back coupled with some awkward throat clears, and I focused up.
“Tell me why Ezra knows your real name, and why he let you work for him as Anna even after knowing that.” Those words took about as much effort as the Q course back in the army.
Selection had nothing on what I was up against when it came to her.
“Right, okay.” She knelt, grabbed my hat, and handed it to me like a peace offering before placing even more distance between us, reading the room well—as in the fact my dick had yet to heed my mental command to go down.
If she continued to stare at my crotch, I was going to throw that control I’d just secured out the window. “Eyes up.”
The order had her gaze returning to my face. “Sorry.”
I shook my head, frustrated with myself, then put my hat back on, forward-facing this time. “I didn’t mean to be an asshole.”
“You weren’t.” She stepped forward, and I extended my arm, a quiet request not to come closer.
“Please don’t. I’m fighting with everything I have inside me not to fuck up right now.” Because this isn’t a rebound feeling for me. I wasn’t sure this was even of this world.
“Define ‘fuck up.’”
I wasn’t so great at lifting just one brow—in my opinion, that was actually not easy to do—so I raised both as my answer.
My You know exactly what I’m talking about look.
When she didn’t respond, I went ahead and said the first thing that came to mind.
“No longer nervous around me, I see. That didn’t last long. ”
She smiled. “Was it my legs wrapping around your waist that gave me away?”
Ohhh, this woman. Maybe she was confident in what she wanted after all, and I shouldn’t question her.
She could be vulnerable after everything that had happened but still know what she wanted.
Both could exist at the same time, just like she’d shown me she could flip back and forth between sweet and naughty depending on the situation.
People weren’t two-dimensional caricatures, I knew that damn well.
“I’m not going to win this fight, am I?” Not in the long-term, that was for sure. But I wasn’t sure how much resistance was left in me short-term-wise, either.
“I think we both lost it the moment we met, don’t you?” Her dose of honesty sent me a step forward.
She stared at my arm as it fell to my side, following the path of an exposed vein down to my wrist, which made me remember to check the time. We had two hours until this former cartel pal of hers was supposed to call. I could do a lot in two hours if I made up my mind.
“Just so you know, it’s clear to me now,” she began, officially erasing the space between us I’d worked hard to place there, “that math is no longer the only thing I find comforting, reliable, and safe.” She rested her hands on my forearms and dragged her palms up to my biceps and squeezed.
“Maybe we need to release some tension so we can focus? Maybe that’s the problem.
Get this out of our systems. I bet we’d think clearly after that. ”
Not a chance I’d be getting her out of my system today or any other day. “Oh really?” I reached between us and crooked my finger under her chin, urging those beautiful eyes on me. “How do you suppose we do that?”
“I mean ...” She looked over her shoulder in the direction of the front door. “... does this building have a gym?” Her lips spread into a sexy smile as she returned her attention to me.
“As much as I could use a good workout, I don’t think that’s the answer to our problems. But I can’t take you to my bed. As much as I want to.” I added quickly, “Not today , at least.”
“I think I get why. It’s one of the reasons I’m so drawn to you.
” Yet she frowned, and I hated being the cause of that reaction.
“You’re a good man. A sweet, honest, and kind man.
And just like you wouldn’t risk touching me because of tequila last night, you won’t now because you’re worried about my state of mind, especially after everything I shared this morning. ”
She still had more to share, and I didn’t know if that “more” would send me on a plane to Miami to kill Ezra today. Another reason I was tense.
As for me being “good,” I wasn’t so sure about that. If I was, I wouldn’t be having such an internal battle on what to do right now. I wouldn’t be visualizing all the different ways I’d make her come in the two hours we had until that phone call.
I reached for her wrists and held on, slowly lowering her arms to her sides without letting go.
“You haven’t touched yourself in over a year.
I think it should be by your own hand that you get off for the first time.
” Saying that without my dick saluting this woman was a challenge, but I somehow succeeded.
“Maybe it’ll help you take the control back that you had to give up because of .
..” I couldn’t say that fucker’s name without my rage slipping through, so I let her interpret the rest of my train of thought for herself.
She closed her eyes, her lashes fluttering. Her pouty lips beckoning me. Testing me. “What about you? Will you be doing the same in your room?”
“Do you want me to do the same?” Stroke my cock? Say the word, ma’am, and I’ll do it for you.
“For the sake of our focus, yes, I think you should.”
“For focus’s sake,” I said, doing my best not to smile, “I will, then.” The bulge returned in my jeans. Though it probably had never really left. “Come find me when you’re ready. I won’t need long, and then we can do the focus thing and talk about what we’ve left unsaid.”
There was quite a lot left unsaid, too.
She opened her eyes, then killed me by winking and tossed out a sexy, “Roger that.”