I leaned in a little closer, doing my best not to nuzzle as I eavesdropped. But the only thing I overheard was “safe.”
Ryder breathed a sigh of relief. “Thanks, Marty. That was a close call. I really thought…” He looked down at me like he’d suddenly forgotten I was in his arms. “I gotta go. Keep me updated.” He hung up and cleared his throat. “So you’ve really never had a gyro, huh?” he asked, like his phone conversation hadn’t even happened.
“No.”What was all that about a close call?
“Well that’s good news for me. Because you’re going to be so blown away by how delicious it is that you won’t even be mad when I tell you that the FBI wasn’t actually the…well…I just made up the whole thing.” He shrugged.
“What?! I’m going to kill you!” I hit his chest, but instead of repeating the action, my fingers splayed across his muscles. I’d never touched something so perfect before. I was pretty sure my jaw dropped.Oh, I should have been nuzzling this whole time.I needed those muscles against my face. God, I really was a pervert. The real FBI would be after me soon enough.
“You’ve threatened that a lot tonight. So much so that if you actually were planning on killing me it would be suspicious. So I don’t believe it for a second. Here, taste this.” He shoved a gyro in my open mouth.
I reluctantly took a big bite. Holy meaty goodness, he was right. “Well that’s amazing. But I’m still going to kill you.” I hit his arm and immediately squeezed his bicep.God, stop being a pervert!I let go of his arm. “I can’t believe you lied to me.” I’d been moments away from a heart attack all night. And it was all a lie for…what? Why was he a dirty liar?
“How else could I have convinced you to take a zipline across the street and get you to change into this sexy little dress?”
“So this was all a punishment for me not dressing up enough? Frankie was right to warn me about you.”
“She warned you, did she? What’d she say?”
“That your penis doesn’t work and your bones are made of asbestos. Or something like that.”
Ryder smiled. “I can prove she’s lying about one of those things very easily.” He force-fed me more gyro, like he was trying to distract me.
I took another bite to placate him. Only because it was so good.
His eyes locked with mine. “I like how receptive you are to me shoving things in your mouth.”
I almost choked on the gyro. “Only delicious things.”
He smiled down at me. “Thank you.”
“I didn’t mean your dick is delicious.”Cocky, arrogant…gorgeous jerk.He could put whatever he wanted in my mouth. I sighed as I looked up at his beautiful face.
“So youwerethinking about putting my dick in your mouth?”
“Ew, no.”Maybe. Yes. Yes, I 100% was.
“I don’t mind if you were. I just think we should get to know each other a little first. We have quite a bit we need to discuss. Want to come back to my place so we can talk?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. He just turned and carried me toward the Caldwell Hotel.
“I never said yes. This is kidnapping.” But I didn’t even bother to squirm in his arms. I never wanted him to let me go. Honestly, I’d known he was a stalker all along. Kidnapping made sense. And I was here for it.
“I’ll put you down any time you want. Just say the word.” He stared at me, daring me to ask for an uncurable foot fungus. I stayed silent, so he continued to carry me into the building and onto the elevator. Then he plopped me down on the ridiculous comfy sofa in his two-story great room.
“Is it okay to eat in here?” I asked. Eating on the couch in my apartment was my jam, but doing it on his super expensive couch felt like an accident waiting to happen.
“Why wouldn’t it be?” He sat down next to me.
“I dunno. Some people have rules against that sorta thing. When I was little my parents had a rule that I couldn’t eat in the family room. So I used to just ball up a slice of bread and put the whole thing in my mouth so that I could slowly eat it while I watched TV.”
“That’s actually the rule here too.”
I sized up the gyro. I had already eaten about half of it on the way over here, so there wasn’tthatmuch left. If I really balled it up good I could probably fit it. I unwrapped it and was about to roll it up when Ryder started laughing.
“I was kidding,” he said. “I do plan to see how much meat you can fit in your mouth, but it’s not going to be the gyro.” His eyes dropped to my lips.
I swallowed hard and my throat made a weird squeaking noise.Ah, stop it!Ashley Cooper got nervous around handsome men. Raven Black did not. “You are, are you? You know, I’m starting to think you’re all talk. First you said you’d punish me for the blueberry pie incident, and now you’re threatening to put your meat in my mouth. But when you were an inch away from my lips in that stairwell, you didn’t have the balls to kiss me.”Damn, Raven Black, you saucy mistress.
“Like I said, I wanted to get to know you first.” It was like his eyes were boring into mine. Like he could somehow read my mind.
