Chapter Twenty-Four
Elliot
M y eyes burn.
“Asshole. Asshat. Bastard.”
A litany of insults tumble from me as I stalk out of the restaurant and basically hijack a cab from a rich asshole man who just hailed it.
I don’t know if he’s an asshole, but he’s definitely rich from the cut of his suit, and he’s a man, so he’s probably an asshole.
When I get back to SoHo, I bypass my office and head straight to my apartment, stripping down and donning pajamas.
As coping mechanisms go, it’s that or down a bottle of booze and I don’t really think the repercussions of the latter will make me feel good the next day. I try to do some work, but honestly, right now? I can’t.
I feel used and that’s not fair or right. I’m not being used. That isn’t Ryder. And what I overheard wasn’t anything I didn’t expect, wasn’t anything I don’t expect.
I’m not his type, I know that. He’s not going to change his ways, either, and if he were, not for me. I work for him, just like he said and he’s promised me not a damn thing… Yet it all burns. Right down deep where I can’t get at it.
“Fuck.”
Having sex with him was stupid, I know this. But try as I might, I can’t regret it. For a brief, shining moment he wanted me and I want him. I’d have to be an idiot not to want a sample of Ryder Sinclair. After all, everyone else has gotten a piece of him, why not me?
I’m aware how horrible that sounds, what it makes him sound like and that’s what I thought he was—a hot piece of man ass to admire and to indulge in if it ever happened. The crush…this is more than a crush, and I don’t know what it is except thinking he’s a man whore who’s good in bed and attached to the prettiest face I’ve seen on a man is completely wrong and unfair.
Ryder’s more than that. Not just in there’s a real boy down in the mix. But he’s more than what he might seem on the surface, more than the twenty-first century great lover, more than rich and wild and carefree.
He’s complex and as much as he frustrates me and gets me riled up at times, I like who he is when he lets himself shine. I like his humor and intelligence and the way he can sound as awkward as a teen. And yeah, I also like that smooth as butter side, too, because it’s got substance.
I sigh and flop down on the sofa. Damn him, anyway. “Asshole.”
“Elliot?” Ryder. My heart lurches. He’s outside my door. I sit completely still. “Perry? I know you’re in there.”
I don’t answer and he starts to knock steadily. It gets louder as he goes. I don’t think he’s going to go away.
Slowly, I rise from the couch and cross to the door, the floorboards smooth and cool under my bare feet. “In case you didn’t notice,” I say when I pull the door open by way of greeting, “I left for a reason.”
He scowls at me. “It’s a little early for a pity pajama party, Perry.”
“That’s a lot of alliteration.”
“Oh you’re funny.” Beneath the scowl and the anger there’s concern and hurt. He pushes past me into my apartment. Then Ryder turns and points. “You ran away.”
“You said some shitty things.”
He blows out a breath. “To my mother? She’s being an interfering busybody. What I do shouldn’t be her business. And that goes for who I sleep with, don’t sleep with and who I like.”
“It’s not my business either.” I snap the words and go to turn, but he catches my arm. “Let me go.”
“So you can run away again? No.”
“We’re in my apartment. Where am I about to run to, Ryder?” Our gazes clash and the fire in his burns low in my belly.
“Knowing you, you’ll think of something.”
“I work for you, end of story.”
He frowns. “That’s not the story, and you know it.”
“What is it? Unless you’re some kind of out and out liar, what you said comes from truth, just like what I’m saying. I work for you. Nothing more. We had a glitch or whatever you want to call it. So we get through the next two weeks and then off you go, being you.”
Ryder doesn’t speak. He lets me go and rubs a hand over his face. “That’s what it is, huh?”
“Yes.”
“I call bullshit.”
I raise my hands. “You don’t get to call bullshit on unfettered truth.”
“Well, apart from the glitch as you call it, that isn’t the truth. We don’t have a working relationship. At least, not for me. It’s something else. And because it’s something else, it’s personal.”
I don’t want to do this. I take a step back and he follows. “Client and make over queen, right here.”
“No, Elliot. This is you and me. We’re more than client and make over magic queen. Apart from anything else, I thought we were friends.”
“You don’t do friendship with women.”
“Not fair, Perry. I’ve told you I see you as a friend. You might be my only female friend—I don’t count my brothers’ significant others because that’s a different beast—but I know a friend. And if our friendship is way more complicated than others, so be it. But I see you as a friend.”
It’s the fucking story of my life. Friend zone. And I know that’s not exactly what he’s saying to me. But what am I meant to think? That he’s gone and lost his mind and fallen in love with me? Because that’s a dangerous and fantasy-riddled path that has nothing to do with reality.
“But we’re not friends. You slept with me, that’s all.”
“I think there were two people involved, Elliot,” he says, tapping his foot on the floor. “And I’m not talking friends with benefits or fuck buddy bullshit. I’m talking you and me and how I feel and what it is I want.”
“Yeah?” I ask. “And what’s that?”
“You.”
His quiet word knifes through me.
“Only because there’s no one else.” I glare at him.
Ryder glares back. “You don’t think I know my own mind, Elliot?”
“I’m here. There’s no one else accessible.”
“Bullshit. If I wanted, I’d find a way. I’m trying to clean up my act to the world but you don’t think, if I wanted to get down and dirty and didn’t want you, that I’d find a way with some other babe?” He stalks up, closing the gap I made and this time I stand my ground.
“Do you hear yourself?”
“I do, actually. I don’t get you. You’re this powerhouse. You’re beyond intelligent and competent and you have class that can’t be bought.” He pokes me with a finger. “You’re confident, and then when it comes to me you think I just want you for no other reason than there’s a fucking vulva available?”
“I didn’t say that!” I poke him right back.
He’s even closer now and I shiver from the heat of him. “You didn’t have to. It’s in your actions and words.”
“What do you expect from me, Ryder? Look at you and look at me.”
“I’m looking,” he says, sliding his hands down my arms. “And usually I like what I see. What’s so hard to believe about that?”
Everything. Nothing. A bolt of fury, of fear, shoots through me. “You want me because you’ve been without, that’s what the you and me thing is.”
“You know fuck all. I want you for you. I’ll show you.”
And he kisses me. Hard. Carnal. It’s an angry kiss and I want that. Because I’m angry, too. At myself for being everything he said. At him for being Ryder. And I need him right now.
I go to break the kiss, and I push him, but somehow my hands slide up his chest and neck, and I grab his hair, tangling my fingers in the thick, soft locks and pull him harder into me.
“I should wring your neck,” he mutters, kissing and sucking a path down my throat as one of his hands delve down into my pajama bottoms. He grabs my ass and hauls me against his hard on.
I grind against him. My hand is still in his, and I rake the nails of my other over his shirt, under his overcoat and suit jacket. “I should punch you.”
“Fuck, you’re violent, Perry. I like it.”
“You’re an asshole.” And he slips a finger down between the cheeks of my ass and up along my slit from behind, and my body explodes into a cascade of pleasure and need.
He claims my mouth again. The kiss is hard. Tongue, teeth, lips. It’s sex.
And he takes me, turns me so I’m against him, my back pressed into him, and now his fingers play my pussy from the front, teasing, down over the outer lips, each side, and this man knows his female anatomy. He knows where the clitoris reaches beneath the skin and even as he plays the nub, he works those sensitive lips, the indent each side that’s full so many pleasure receptors I’d be boneless and on the ground if he wasn’t holding me up.
“You’re so fucking stubborn, Perry,” Ryder says against my ear, over the pants and gasps and moans coming from me as my heart jack rabbits and I’m completely burning for more of him. He bites and licks my earlobe. “You shine, and I want you. Do you want me?”
“Yes.”
He kisses lower, over my nape, and bites me there, making me squeal as he pushes a finger in me. “You want me to push you on the sofa and fuck your brains out?”
“Yes, damn you, yes.”
I want anything he’ll do to me.
He lets me go and gives me a shove and I land on the sofa, grabbing the back with my hands as I try to get my balance.
But Ryder isn’t going to let me. He’s there. Hands on me, over me. And as he kisses my neck, there’s a soft shift of material, the hiss of a zipper and I try to turn, but he stops me with his mouth against my cheek. “No.”
Ryder moves back a little and then pulls my bottoms down, and the cool air touches and teases my wetness. He’s left my underwear on. He hooks a finger against the gusset and pulls it to one side.
“Ryder?”
“I’m admiring the work of art you are, Elliot. Gorgeous. Pink and beckoning. Made for me, I think.”
And the head of his cock is there, pressing at me. It isn’t a pretty lovemaking, or seduction. It’s raw and angry and full of jagged erotic pleasure. And I want it all. I beg for it. I meet him thrust for thrust and it’s wild.
The deep singing pressure inside builds and I come and then he starts to hammer into me, hard, deep, relentless and then finally he sets me off once more, right as he comes and we tumble down into dark ecstasy together.