Chapter 16
16
JOSS
As the seasons changed and thawed, so did my relationship with Rylan. Or maybe it was just my feelings toward him, the breaking of some invisible barrier that crumbled away like his anger and my hurt. And it all started with Kentucky . Every so often, from that day forward, he left me little notes on my desk.
I like the taste of beer, but I had a bad experience once with vodka shots back in high school and refuse to drink it again.
My best friend growing up was my neighbor’s cat. I never knew his real name, but I called him George. Until I found out he was a she.
I like those little peppermints you can get at diners—the white ones with the red stripes.
All the details he told me were mundane or funny, and it made me feel like he was offering me something special. A small piece of himself I wouldn’t find anywhere else.
In response, I gave him a little piece of myself—little scraps of paper that I folded and tucked into the same space under my keyboard he’d been leaving his notes to me.
I love a good beer, but I’ve never shied away from a good, strong daiquiri.
We had more animals than we knew what to do with when I was growing up. Somehow, I always preferred the conversation of my best friend, Chey.
But have you ever had old people candy? Those hard, caramel-tasting ones are the best.
Rylan’s notes always popped up at the least expected times. Moments after I’d cleaned my desk. Moments after I’d just looked. Or sometimes, when I needed it—that little burst of happiness they always brought me—the most.
That’s why, with the music playing from an old stereo Kolton had set up in our brand-new office space, I was surprised once again to find a note under the keyboard I’d just plugged in. I peeked up as I slid it out from its hiding space, eyeing Rylan.
He stood at the base of a ladder, holding it in place as Kolton finished installing the security camera that covered one-half of our much larger lobby. He didn’t look over at me. In fact, I didn’t understand how he could have slid it into place under my keyboard without me or Kolton or Van noticing. Neither of them seemed aware, though perhaps it was because both were too focused on their projects.
Adventure has always been my favorite. Sometimes I ache with the need to do something wild and crazy.
I bit my lip. Peeked up again. This confession felt oddly personal. Less like the usual notes he left me and more like the kinds of things he told me when we first met.
“What brings you to Vegas?” I grazed my finger along his jaw, unable to stop from touching him. Rylan hummed and it rumbled through every inch of me that was pressed to him.
“Adventure.”
I squealed as he nearly dropped me to the floor. For one flash of a second, my mind played tricks on me. It ran away with the thought of him lowering me down. Climbing atop me. Showing me the hard body that had my skin heating and my own body aching in ways I’d never felt before.
Rylan held me in his strong arms like this was a promise between us. He stared down at me like he was expecting me to speak. It took a moment for my mind to refocus, away from my fantasies and back on the handsome man. I parroted his answer back to him, asking for more. “Adventure?”
“My favorite thing in the world.” Slowly, as if he didn’t want to, he lifted me until I was nearly standing on my own. “There’s nothing better than chasing a thrill.”
“Like jumping out of a building?” There was laughter in my voice, and I worried. Worried that he’d react the way Peter did if ever he thought anyone was making fun of him. But he didn’t.
“It’s wild,” Rylan said before his tongue slipped out of his mouth and licked along his bottom lip. My body reacted like it was me he was licking, me he was wetting with one long slide of his tongue. His words rumbled through me as he tightened his grip around me. “Came here for some gambling and some fun. Then I found you.”
“You know…” Kolton’s voice shook me out of my head. I blinked. Looked up and found him glancing down the ladder to where Rylan still stood. “I think I need to celebrate.”
On the other side of the room, Van lifted his head from the pile of wires in his lap. “What do you mean?”
Kolton shrugged, turning back around and fitting the cover over all his electrical work. “You know, since we’ve been working our asses off and are nearly done with this entire office move.”
Van chuffed. “I know what we’re celebrating. What are you thinking of doing ?”
Kolton leaned against the rungs, body twisted slightly as he peered back at Van. “My sisters were talking about this ax throwing place that opened up a few months back.”
“Ax throwing?” I let out a laugh. “That sounds like something Rylan would love. Adventure’s his favorite.”
The minute the words left my mouth, I wanted to shove them back in. I wanted to curse myself for opening my big mouth.
These moments—these little snippets of Rylan that he gifted to me on tiny slips of paper—weren’t meant to be shared. They were mine and his. They weren’t…
All my cursing and fretting evaporated as Rylan turned his face in my direction, one of his eyebrows lifting on his forehead.
“Fucking yeah!” Van tossed his pile of wires into the box at his feet and pushed off from the floor. “We should go. All of us.”
My heart wanted to beat right out of my chest. That is, once it restarted itself. Being the subject of Rylan’s full attention always made me flustered, and now was no different. His gaze was intense. Every piece of me lit up like a Christmas tree, or like…anything that lights up in the world. I couldn’t even follow my train of thought long enough to figure out a way to describe it. All I knew is that every cell in my body felt like fireworks going off.
Without turning an inch from the foot of the ladder where he stood, Rylan tilted his head. “What do you think, gorgeous?”
What did I think?
I had tried so hard to stay away, to keep my distance after what I’d done. Though Rylan had been a steady presence since he came back into my life, the anger that had simmered under his skin when he accused me of lying and stealing was never far from my mind.
And with it, remnants of the fear Peter had beaten into me.
Could I do this? Put myself in a position where there was nothing between us to keep him away?
Nothing, but the other two men staring at me like I was the dumbest thing in the world.
Van’s lip quirked. “Don’t be scared, Joss. The axes get thrown at targets, and cages separate everyone so you can’t get hit. It’s perfectly safe.”
“I’m not scared,” I told him, though the way my voice wavered, I couldn’t blame him for thinking my fear was about that .
My fear was solely because of the man who hadn’t stopped staring at me, who had my entire body burning with the same desire that I’d felt for him in Vegas.
My fear was that I’d fall for him all over again.
Van leaned on the counter. “Come on, it’ll be fun.”
Kolton closed in too. “If it makes you feel any better, I’ve never done it either. We can learn together.”
The tilt of Rylan’s lips was all I could see. That, and the way he dragged his gaze up and down my body. He rubbed his hands together, approaching the front desk. When he reached it, he leaned over and snagged the little paper from my fingers.
I was torn between crying out and stealing it back, or just standing there and letting him take it. I’d kept every single one of the notes he left me. I had them all stashed in an old shoebox under my bed. I wanted that one back. I wanted to keep it with the others, this little piece of him that was different from the rest.
“Sure,” I said, eyes locked on Rylan’s blues, “I’d love to come.”
When he smiled, it felt like there was more to it than a simple tilting of his lips. That made me want to move toward him. Let him wrap me in his arms while I curled into his chest.
But I couldn’t. Not only was there a desk between us, but Kolton and Van were still standing right there.
“All the wiring for the security system is done,” Kolton said, going behind Rylan and Van and rounding the corner of my desk. I scooted out of his way as he squeezed in toward my computer. “The last bits are done on here. Once this is set up, I’m good to go.”
Van turned back toward his mess of wires. “I’m about done with this nonsense. I’m beginning to think we should have listened to you, Kolton. Would have been easier to run the sound system through the intercom rather than installing something separate.”
Kolton and Van had perfected bickering like an old couple, and they went right back to it as they continued their work. With my desk space in use, I was left with nothing to do to occupy my hands. I reached for my hair, pulling it over one shoulder and running my fingers through it until the cool I was searching for on the back of my neck turned molten.
Peeking over my shoulder, I found Rylan standing so close I could touch him if I so much as breathed too deep. His attention wasn’t on what Kolton was doing. It wasn’t on my face. Instead, it was directed right where that heat pooled at the crook of my neck.
Which only made me hotter.
Rylan reached for me, his big hands settling low on my waist. His eyes locked on mine and the tip of his tongue slipped out of his mouth as he licked the corner of his lips. Heat flooded me, flaring hotter at the points where we touched. I had to press my hand to his chest to steady myself, to ward off the wave of dizziness that hit.
For one brief moment, those little fantasies I harbored went rampant through my head. Rylan pulled me closer. He smoothed his hands down to my hips. He leaned in, and I wanted to meet him. To kiss him. To regain what I’d stolen from the both of us the day I walked away.
Before I could, Rylan was pushing me aside. “‘Scuse me, gorgeous. Gotta get through here.”
The loss of the heat of his body and hands was immediate, but no cold ravaged me. Instead, I burst into red hot flames of embarrassment.
He hadn’t been reaching for me. He hadn’t been moving in to kiss.
He’d been moving me out of his way.
As he turned his back on me and looked over Kolton’s shoulder at my computer screen, I felt like the biggest fool in the world.
I’d shared his secret.
That little slip of paper peeked out of his jeans pocket, taunting me with what I’d lost.
What an idiot I was, for thinking for one moment that I could keep him.
For thinking he could ever be mine again.