by T. S. Joyce
“Last sample,” Ryder declared.
“I want it!” Alana called from her tent. She jogged over, pulling off her plastic gloves as she approached. “I’ve been smelling these all day, and I’m starving. Gimme, gimme, gimme,” she said as Ryder pretended he was going to eat it. Lexi chuckled at Alana’s happy moaning sounds as she chewed.
Lexi had started packing everything up after cooking the last batch of samples and was already halfway done with Ryder’s help. “This is the first time I’ve ever worked with a sous-chef,” Lexi said.
Alana gulped her food down, and her dark eyes went round. “Ryder was helpful?”
Ryder shook his head and looked utterly disappointed. “You’re about to get demoted, second best friend.”
“Watch out, Alana,” Lexi teased. “I’m coming for your spot.”
“You can have it,” Alana grumbled. “Last week Ryder asked me to check a lump in his balls.”
Lexi gasped at Ryder. “Are you okay?”
Ryder was smirking, and Alana said, “He didn’t have a lump in his balls. He was just trying to see if he could get me to touch his nuts. Aaron bled him for trying.”
“Bled you?”
Proudly, Ryder pulled up the back of his shirt and showed off four long, silver claw marks that looked years healed. “I almost got out of his way, but Aaron had rage on his side.”
“But you’re in the same crew. You’re friends…right?”
“Crews fight, especially the men. It’s ingrained in them to brawl and usually fixes what ails them.” Alana bullied the lid to the old cooler closed and carried it to the back of Lexi’s jeep parked right behind the tent. Over her shoulder, Alana winked and said, “They’re monsters, all of them.”
But when Lexi looked at Ryder, he was squatted down in front of Sprinkles’s bed, refilling her bowl with water from his half-empty plastic bottle. As he shuffled closer, Ryder reached out gently and scratched her dog behind the ears. He was a giant compared to her dog, but he was being so tender. Soothingly, Ryder murmured something too low for Lexi to hear.
That man was no monster at all.
Chapter Five
“Sooo,” Lexi drawled as Ryder shoved the last of her supplies into the back of her Jeep. “Thanks for helping me out today.”
He sat on the bumper and stretched his legs out. “I actually had fun.”
“Yeah?” She sat next to him and watched the hustle and bustle of vendors packing up tents on Main Street. “No thoughts of Serena?” She shouldn’t have asked that, she knew, but it was hard to get Ryder’s ex out of her head completely. He’d been obviously working very hard to keep in contact with her.
Ryder crossed his arms over his chest and huffed a laugh. “You jealous?”
“No.”
“Liar. How many times did you stare at my sexy picture?”
Oh! Heat flooded her cheeks for the tenth time in an hour so she looked anywhere but at him. “In my defense, it was a really interesting picture.”
“It was the abs right? Or my perfect nipples?” He looked down at his chest where indeed they were puckered up against the thin material. “I was blessed with perfect nipple symmetry.”
She hid her smile and leaned back against the Jeep. “I couldn’t see your abs very well because of the angle, but I could definitely make out the head of your dick peeking out of those tiny shorts.”
“You’re welcome.”
She snorted and rubbed her eyes.
“Tired?”
“I got up at four this morning to prep for the event. I’m whooped.”
Ryder rested his elbows on his knees and ran his hands over the back of his head. “Can I ask you a question?” he asked without looking up.
“Is it another weird one?”
“When you told me not to call Serena back…”
Oh, this was serious. “Yeah?”
“Why?”
The soft murmurs of the packing vendors bounced this way and that, and the evening shadows stretched across Main Street. The night air chilled her skin, and she rubbed her arms to bring warmth back into them. “I guess because I heard the way she spoke to you, and I hated it. I wanted you to show her. I imagined her sitting at her computer with an evil smile, waiting for you to come crawling back, and I wanted you to be stronger than that. Stronger than her. Or maybe that’s what I wish I would’ve done.”
“What do you mean?”
“I dated someone who pulled all the strings, and I let him for a long time. I was convinced he was it for me. If I just overlooked this and overlooked that, I was compromising like I was supposed to. I was being a good girlfriend, and he would appreciate it.”
“And did he?”
“No. He worked out of town, so I only saw him on the weekends, and apparently he met someone out on a job.” She shrugged her shoulders up to her ears to try and stifle the shame Blake still made her feel. “He broke it off with me because he’d proposed to her.”
Ryder shook his head and watched Sprinkles zooming around in front of them in her little cart with wheels.
“Blake knew he wanted to be with her for the rest of his life after cheating with her for three months. We’d been together for four years, and I hadn’t managed to lock him down. I’d put in the work, put up with more than I should’ve, lost myself along the way, and he picked someone else behind my back. I guess when I saw Serena talking to you like that, it reminded me of how Blake used to treat me and how I’d settled for this awful existence because I’d convinced myself it was better than being alone.” She nudged Ryder’s shoulder with her own. “But it’s not.”
Sprinkles tried to climb up on the curb and got stuck, and before Lexi could move, Ryder got up and righted her in the grass, then sauntered back. And this time, when he sat on the bumper beside her, he held her hand with shocking familiarity.
Lexi stared down at their arms. Her skin was tanned from her time in the sun, and his was fair and covered with freckles. His hand was massive compared to hers, and calloused, but so warm, so strong. Steady.
He dragged a troubled gaze to hers and murmured, “Blake’s an asshole, so is Serena, and tonight we both move on. You don’t have to ask me about her anymore.”
“What about Dottie?”
Ryder scratched his red facial scruff with the back of his thumbnail and sighed. “She ain’t mine to worry about anymore. I gave her to Serena when she was a puppy. Little mangy mutt I found at the shelter, but I thought maybe Dottie would open up Serena’s maternal instincts. She was terrible with kids, and I wanted them somethin’ fierce. But Serena didn’t open up. She looked at Dottie as a burden, so she became my baby, you know? I was gonna hire a lawyer to fight for the dog, but because I gave her as a gift, my chances were slim to none at keeping her. Serena emptied our joint account, bought herself a sixty-thousand-dollar SUV right before we broke up, and since we shared the damn account, she got away with it. I didn’t have any money to spend on a lawyer that probably wouldn’t get me my dog back.”
“Oh Ryder, I’m so sorry. So her talking about you not having a job?”
“Is bullshit. I grew up as a logger by trade with the crew I was born into. Moved away from the Boarlanders and went to welding school and made good money at it. I hated the hours, though. It was two weeks on, one off on a rig, and I was miserable, but Serena liked the income. So yeah, when I would come home, and she was bitching at me for this and that, I would go off with my buddies and drink just to get a few minutes where I felt normal. Where I could feel like not everyone hated me. The worst part,” he said, squeezing her hand. “The absolute worst was when I came here for the first time. Wyatt was in deep with vamps and wolves, fighting to buy some land to try and help Harper out.”
“Your alpha?”
“Yeah, but at the time she was just one of my good friends. She was real sick, and her days were numbered unless her dragon could choose a treasure. Wyatt was trying to do that for her, give her the mountains. He needed money, and I could’ve helped
if he’d come to me a few months before that, before Serena emptied me out. I think that was my breaking point when I didn’t want to consider chasing her anymore. I was in it for Dottie after that.”
“How long were you with Serena?”
“Three years.”
“Why didn’t you propose?”
He gave a single, dark laugh. “I did. She wouldn’t have me. Not like that. I did what you did, waited around for her to be ready, but I wasn’t it for her, you know? I wasn’t the one.”
“We make quite the pathetic pair,” Lexi murmured.
“Ha!” Ryder’s laugh echoed down the street as he draped his arm over her shoulders, still clasping her hand in his. “Speak for yourself. I’m awesome.”
Lexi giggled and shook her head for the tenth time today. She liked his sense of humor more than she wanted to admit out loud.
“How did a professional chef land in small-town North Carolina?” Ryder asked.
“Well the small-town part wasn’t in my plans. I went to school around here, grew up with Alana, actually. And I couldn’t wait to get out of here after graduation. I thought the people who were staying here after high school were settling, you know? Like they would never see the world and always be small town.”
“Snooty snooty.”
“So snooty,” she said with a chuckle. “I went to culinary school in Chicago and landed a job right after I graduated, aaaand,” she drawled out.
“You hated it.”
“I hated it,” she agreed. “I missed small-town living and knowing everyone. I missed people asking about my day and waving to me when I drove by them on the street. I just got to this point where I felt like a number, and I couldn’t fix this void in my chest. And for some reason, every time I came back to visit for the holidays, I felt a million times better. It was like a soul-recharge every time I came back, and eventually, I just didn’t want to go back to my job at the fancy restaurant in a town I hadn’t connected to and feel empty anymore.” Lexi shrugged. “So I stayed.”
“And the void is gone now?” Ryder asked in a careful voice.
“It is. I feel like I belong here. Hell, maybe I always did belong, and I just needed to leave to see how good I had it. This place is home, and I love my job. I get to use my culinary skills in a small cabin setting where I actually get to talk to the clients I cook for. I like this much more than being in a hot kitchen ten hours a day getting verbally maimed by the head chef every two minutes. I get to set up my own clients and build rapport. I’m happier here than I was in Chicago. I don’t know. Maybe that means the big city defeated me.”
“Nah, you just figured out what you want. There’s no defeat in that.”
Sprinkles tried to get off the curb but got stuck. She looked right at Ryder for help.
Lexi made an offended sound in her throat. “Traitor.”
Ryder bit Lexi’s knuckles gently, then released her and jogged over to help Sprinkles. “You would’ve had a shot at fealty if your dog was a boy, but the ladies love me.”
Lexi frowned as she watched the giant, sexy, musclebound man right Sprinkles’s little wheels onto the concrete. And Lexi could see it. From the hundreds of thousands of followers online and the flirty comments girls put all over his posts, to the way he’d charmed the masses today with little effort, Ryder had no reason to settle with a single woman. He’d grown a massive following not only for the way he looked, and the animal he wielded, but also by the force of his personality.
Everyone knew his name—Air Ryder.
He could have whoever he wanted.
“What’s that look for?” Ryder asked, locking his arms on either side of her hips. He leaned in so close her breath froze in her chest.
Slowly, he lifted a finger and brushed it against her eyebrow, smoothing her frown away.
She’d done her research about shifters, and even flight shifters could hear a lie, so she didn’t even try. “You scare me.”
Ryder eased back by inches, studied her face. “I’m in control of my animal. I would never hurt you.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
His face went slack with realization. For a moment, he was right there, locked in her gaze, and she witnessed the change in his eyes firsthand. They morphed from blue to a bright gold that was almost hard to look at…almost. He dipped his gaze to her lips, and this was it. He was going to kiss her, and it would make him even more terrifying. She would fall in love without him, because that’s what she did. She picked men who were unavailable.
“Ryder,” she said on a breath. At some point, she had to learn her lesson and protect herself.
“I’m not what you think I am,” he whispered. Slowly, he leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers.
She’d imagined this moment in the build-up to today. Imagined what his lips would feel like on hers, but she’d come nowhere close to the real thing. The rasp of his beard prickled against her soft face, such a contrast. Rough man, soft woman. But his lips were easy against hers, forming perfectly to match hers. He angled his head and sipped at her, and she could feel it. The slight brush of his tongue on her closed lips.
This was the moment when she should ease away and tell him she wasn’t ready, but she couldn’t put space between them, no matter how hard she tried. There was this pull, like she was metal and he was a magnet. Fighting the attraction would do no good.
Weak.
No, some inner voice said. Not weak. Happy.
He did make her happy.
Parting her lips slightly, she allowed him in on the next pass, his tongue dipping into her mouth. He tasted divine, and she let off a soft noise deep in her throat. She rested her palm on his cheek to feel his jaw move as he kissed her and, holy moly, no kiss had ever felt like this. It wasn’t passionate lust or neediness that drove his tongue against hers, stroke after reverent stroke. He was building a slow fire in her middle so that she would burn longer and brighter.
He pulled her hand from his cheek, slowly drew it behind his neck, and stood, bringing her with him. His body was rock hard against hers, and his erection was stony between their hips, but he didn’t push for more. Ryder seemed content to just tether her to him completely with this kiss.
“Do you want cheese on your burgers?” someone shouted from across the street. Whoever it was probably wasn’t talking to her and Ryder.
Lexi slid her other arm around his neck and sighed a happy sound at his slow dips into her mouth.
A shrill whistle echoed. “Ryder, take a break from sucking face long enough to tell me cheese or no cheese, man. I’m about to burn this meat!”
Ryder growled and ended the kiss with a soft smack, then yelled behind him, “Fucking surprise me, man! I’m busy!”
Lexi giggled and hid her face against Ryder’s chest.
“Sooo,” Aaron called. “Yes to cheese on both? Lexi? Cheese?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Ryder muttered. With an irritated sigh, he cocked his head and asked her, “Lexi, would you like to eat with my crew?”
“I would love to, but maybe we should wait until that goes down?” She snickered and pointed to his massive boner.
“No,” Ryder said with a baffled head shake. “Come on, Sprinkles,” he muttered, pulling Lexi behind him. “Interrupting Aaron can deal with an eyeful of my happy wienice, and fuck him if he mentions it.”
Oh, dear goodness, he said wienice! Ryder seemed mad so she stifled her laughter. Lexi should be embarrassed, really she should, but Ryder had very little shame about bodily functions, so okay. She probably smelled like a vat of pheromones, and the shifters had heightened senses, but they would also have to get over that because Ryder was right. Interrupting Aaron would just have to deal with the consequences of his actions.
“Beer,” Aaron said, handing Lexi and Ryder a pair of cold cans as they approached.
“Are we allowed to be drinking out here?” Lexi asked, scanning the still blocked off street for Officer Darby. He was a stickler about public consumptio
n of alcohol.
“Drink it fast if you’re worried about getting caught,” a chestnut-haired man with bright blue eyes said. He held out a hand for a shake. “I’m Wyatt.”
“Lexi,” she said with a grin.
“That’s my mate Harper over there beside Alana.”
Wyatt gestured to a brunette with oddly colored eyes, one brown and one blue with a long pupil like Kane’s. There was the dragon-blooded alpha. A wave of fear washed through Lexi as she waved politely, but that eased the second Harper pulled an old bag chair closer to hers and patted the seat. “We saved you a spot.”
Okay then. Lexi moved to sit down, but Ryder pulled her back gently and hugged her close, lowered his lips to her ear and murmured, “I know you’re tired, but thank you for saying yes to hanging out with my people.”
She sighed out a shaky breath and clutched his shirt when she swayed slightly on her feet. His deep voice against her ear had her insides tingling.
“I’ll take care of everything,” Ryder promised. “Just relax tonight, okay?”
Unable to form a single word due to the wrecking ball he’d just sent sailing through her ovaries, she nodded dumbly and then squeaked in shock when he grabbed her ass hard and bit her neck with a chomping sound. “Sexy little Lexi,” he growled, and when she looked back up at him, his eyes were the color of the sun. Air Ryder was the sexy one.
She stumbled this way and that over to the chair and almost dropped her beer as she sank into the fabric seat. Sprinkles was running circles in the middle of everyone, tongue hanging out as she panted happily through her doggy smile. Sprinkles looked like Lexi felt.
“You okay?” Harper asked, her delicate, dark eyebrows arched high and a knowing grin on her lips.
Lexi inhaled deeply, and on the exhale said, “I think that man is gonna wreck me.”
Although the thought had frightened her when they’d been sitting on the bumper of her Jeep, now, as Ryder watched her with that inhuman, hungry gaze of his, Lexi suddenly felt like that prospect had never been more exciting.
****
True to his word, Ryder had taken care of her completely. He’d brought her food and a second beer. He’d pulled up a chair next to hers and settled her legs in his lap as if they’d been lovers for years. She adored this easy and instant comfort with another person, but a part of her was scared Ryder was this familiar with every woman he met. What if she wasn’t special to him? She’d watched him lock gazes with person after person today and convince them they were the person he wanted to talk to most in the world.