9. Mila #2
“Hold on, Parker is calling me,” Ryker said.
He pulled out his ringing phone. “Hello? Okay.” He nodded as he spoke, and I watched as his tongue darted out of his mouth to moisten his lips.
I looked away from his lips and up to his eyes.
“Yeah, I can tell Barbie.” He paused as he waited for Parker to say something else.
“Yeah, I’ll keep an eye out.” He winked at me then and laughed.
“I’ll talk to Mila.” He nodded at something else that Parker was saying, and I wondered what he was agreeing to talk to me about.
“Yeah, okay. See you soon,” he said, and he hung up.
“So, Parker and Lara are going to walk to the store.”
“The store?” I frowned, though I was happy for Lara as she was getting some alone time with him.
“Not in town, the one on the lake,” he said with a smile. “Let’s go inside and tell our better halves.”
“Yeah,” I said weakly and followed him into the house.
“I’m going to go to my room. Tell Lara to come and get me when she gets back,” I said as I hurried down the corridor.
I didn’t want Ryker to convince me to go to the kitchen with him.
I knew that only a hot mess could result from me being in the kitchen with just Troy, Barbie, and Ryker.
And I was not ready to lose it. Not yet, anyway.
There was plenty of time left in the weekend for that to happen.
I walked inside my room and sat on the bed, waiting.
I was hoping that Lara would come and find me in the bedroom as soon as she got back so that she could tell me what the hell was going on.
I had a feeling Parker would bring Troy up and the fact that he’d arrived already.
I knew she was most probably feeling bad that she’d caught me unawares.
I was feeling pretty pissed off, but I knew I’d forgive her.
I just had to figure out exactly what was going on first. Lara wasn’t a malicious person, and I knew that, under other circumstances, I might have quite enjoyed the fact that she was trying to help me out.
Only these circumstances were not the best. Imagine if my fake boyfriend ran off with my nemesis? Ugh, how embarrassing would that be?
I could hear the sounds of laughing from outside the room: deep male laughter, and Barbie’s high-pitched squeaking.
I wondered if it was Troy or Ryker who was amusing her.
I felt that they were both betraying me in some way that was completely obvious to me, but would have been hard to explain to anyone else.
I lay back on the bed, grabbed my phone, and texted Lara.
“What’s the deal with Troy? Why didn’t you tell me?
” I hit send and waited for Lara to respond.
I saw the dots showing that she was typing and waited for her answer.
But then the dots disappeared, and no response came.
Why wasn’t she responding? Ugh! I just wanted to know exactly what she’d told Troy.
What was his plan? I swiped my phone to my Kindle app and opened it, to try to distract myself from my annoyance.
I opened it to the book I was currently reading, a romantic suspense called Sloth by Ella James.
It was a real page turner, so I knew it would keep my mind occupied while I waited for Lara to return.
A bang on the door about an hour later woke me up, and I realized that I’d fallen asleep.
“Come in,” I said groggily as I sat up. I hated taking afternoon naps because they always left me feeling even more tired than before.
“It’s Ryker,” he said as he opened the door, his eyes roaming over me in the bed as I stretched my arms. “Late night?” He winked at me.
“Ha ha,” I said and rolled my eyes at him. “You were with me when I went to bed, so obviously you know it wasn’t that late.”
“I wasn’t quite with you.” He licked his lips and walked toward me. “If I’d been with you, it would have been a much later night. And you would have been a lot more tired.” He paused. “From all the working out.”
“Really? You like to play charades at night?” I said, deliberately misunderstanding him. “I know you have to move your arms around a lot, but I don’t consider that a workout.”
“That’s not the sort of workout I was talking about,” he said as he sat on the bed next to me. “I was talking about the sort of workout that had you on top of me, bouncing?—”
“Ryker Walker,” I whisper-shouted as my face turned bright red. “What the hell do you think you’re saying? You’re so inappropriate.”
“I was going to say that you were on top of me, bouncing around as we wrestled on the floor, like we used to do when we were younger.”
“We wrestled twice in our lives.” I shook my head, my face still red as I remembered the last time we’d wrestled.
At first, as we’d rolled around on the floor, he’d pinned my arms up above my head and straddled my waist. Everything had been innocent enough until I’d started wiggling around on the floor against him, and then I’d felt something hard against my belly.
We’d both froze, and his legs had clenched around me, pushing his hardness against me for a few seconds too long.
I stared up at him, not understanding the feelings that had been passing through me, and I’d grabbed his back and pulled him closer to me.
That had seemed to frighten him, and then he jumped up off me and pulled me off the ground roughly, keeping me at arm’s length.
“I know. That’s a pity, isn’t it?” he said, his voice purring at me. “I’d love to have you pinned down right now, begging me for your release.”
“Begging you for my release?” I laughed. “I could get away from you quite easily.” I scoffed at him. “You’re not that strong.” I looked at his muscles and tried not to imagine how easily he could keep me on the ground.
“That wasn’t the sort of release I was talking about,” he said softly, running a finger down my cheek and brushing my lips.
“Oh,” I gasped as I connected the dots.
“Though I suppose your new man is doing that job now.”
“What job?” I asked. He was sitting too close to me. I couldn’t concentrate. I wanted to grab him and pull him to me. I wanted to touch his chest, squeeze his biceps, suck on his finger—and other things.
“The job of keeping you satisfied.”
“Oh,” I said, blushing again. I threw the blanket off me and hurriedly got out of bed.
Ryker jumped up as well, and I took a few steps back.
Why was he winding me up? I didn’t understand why he was flirting with me if he had Barbie.
I wondered what he would do if I took him up on his offer and went a step further.
What if I took charge? Would he be surprised?
I knew he saw me as little, innocent Mila.
How would he feel if I pushed him down on the bed and got on top of him?
Would he let me take control, or would he roll me over and hold me down and take control?
“So does he?” Ryker asked, his voice gruff as he took another step toward me. I took another step back, feeling like my body was about to explode.
“Does he what?” I asked, staring at his chest as it moved his shirt back and forth.
“Does he satisfy you in bed?”
“Ryker,” I gasped, shaking my head as he grabbed my waist and pulled me toward him.
“Mila,” he said, mocking me, his eyes darkening as he looked down at me. “I can, you know.”
“You can what?” I said, swallowing hard.
“I can satisfy all of your needs.” His hands grabbed my ass, and he squeezed gently.
“Oh, yeah?” I purred, finally finding my voice in my shock.
“Yeah.” He nodded again and lowered his face toward mine.
“I can satisfy needs you didn’t even know you had.
” He blew in my right ear and slid one of his fingers between my legs, rubbing me lightly.
My whole body thrummed and stilled when he removed his finger.
I was shocked that he’d touched me in such an intimate way, but that shock didn’t prevent bikini bottoms from growing wet.
I waited to see what he was going to do next, but there was a knock at the door.
“Mila, you in there?” Lara came bounding into the room, and I jumped away from Ryker.
“We’re back.” She grinned at me, looking happy.
“Oh, hi, Ryker,” she said and then smiled at me.
“I got us some wine. Let’s have some with lunch,” she said and walked back to the door, seemingly oblivious to the fact that she had just interrupted something that could have been very hot.
“Saved by the bell,” Ryker whispered behind me as we followed Lara out of the bedroom, and he tapped my ass. I didn’t respond, but all I could think about was the heaviness between my legs from where he’d touched me, and the wonder of what would have happened next if we hadn’t been interrupted.
“It’s funny how much you love this place,” Lara said to me as we grabbed some glasses of wine in the kitchen.
“Why do you say that?” I asked her curiously, looking out the window at the lush green grass and tall trees, wanting to tell her what had just happened with Ryker and ask her what the hell was going on with Troy, but not knowing which one to start with.
“Because you’re a city girl, but you love the country.” She smiled at me as she took a sip of the red wine she’d just gotten at the grocery store. “Most people either love the city or the country. Not both.”
“You know how much I love the city.” I grinned at her.
“But this is my home. This is the place I come to for tranquility and nature. When I come here, I really feel close to God and humanity. I look out at the blue sky, and I listen to the birds, and I think, wow, this is so amazing. So beautiful. So perfect. This is what I imagine Heaven is like.”
“And that has nothing to do with Ryker being here as well?” She grinned and raised an eyebrow at me.