‘The beach. The cliff. Anywhere.’ Even round the ruddy garden would be better than standing in the kitchen knowing anyone could walk in. It wasn’t just that he wanted her to himself. Not just that he wanted the chance to put into action all the thoughts he’d had every time his eyes had drifted to her sexy, wide mouth. Or her curvy backside.
He actually wanted to talk to her, too. Becky had been right; he’d been shit in the meeting today. Not because he hadn’t tried, but because his mind didn’t work like that. It was logical, not creative. Still, he thought he might be able to help her, if she’d let him.
Sam knew she was stalling. Truthfully, she was scared to go walking with Ryan, in the dark. Scared it might lead to a repeat of yesterday. At the memory of what had happened on the beach, a sharp thrill ran through her, perfectly highlighting the problem. His touch was addictive, and addiction was rarely a good thing.
‘Just to talk.’ His jaw tightened. ‘You don’t have to worry.’
‘I’m not worried about spending time alone with you.’
‘No?’
She looked him straight in the eye. ‘No.’
He gave her a crooked smile. ‘Maybe you should be.’
Her insides flip-flopped, and she could no more refuse him than she could look away. To hell with it. She could do with a tall, dark, devastatingly attractive distraction right now. ‘Okay, let’s head to the cliffs.’
She received another of those small, resolve-melting smiles. ‘As long as you promise not to shove me over.’
Laughter burst out of her. ‘Now who’s scared?’
‘You scare me all right, Sam Huxton.’ His dark eyes rested on hers, brimming with emotion she couldn’t define, but which caused an answering flutter in her stomach.
They walked to the footpath in an amicable silence, her hyperaware of him: his scent, his long stride, the occasional brush of his arm against hers.
When they were out of sight of the house his hand reached for hers, clasping it in his warm grip. As her fingers settled around it, her heart bounced against her ribs.
Wordlessly he led her to the bench overlooking the beach, and with a light tug he settled her down next to him. The sea looked almost black, the moon glinting off the water like a thousand tea lights. What with that, the warm evening, the quiet, it felt romantic. She wondered if Ryan felt it too. He had a raw, sexual energy, a rugged bluntness that seemed at odds with the idea of romance.
Yet here he was, holding her hand in the moonlight.
Taking a breath, she tried to calm her racing pulse. ‘What did you want to talk about?’
A half-smile played on his lips. ‘And they call me blunt.’
She laughed quietly, her body acutely aware of him as he rested their clasped hands on his thigh. ‘Sorry, I can do small talk if you like. How did you find the barbecue? Cremated enough to your liking?’
His smile broadened. ‘Let’s stick with blunt. Did you get anything from today you can work with?’
Okay then. She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but it hadn’t been that. ‘Bluntly, no.’
He nodded, glancing down at their hands, his thumb tracing distracting circles across her knuckles. ‘Whose idea was the Privacy app in the first place?’
She tried to focus on his question, and not on the gentle caress. ‘Does it matter?’
He glanced sharply at her. ‘Yes.’
So much for the romantic setting. It looked like she was going to spend this moonlit night talking about painful memories. ‘I can’t remember exactly what happened. Damien wanted to create an app that would make us millionaires. We bounced lots of ideas around one evening. The drunker we got, the crazier they became.’ Her throat tightened as the memories flooded back. It was the night they’d both found out they’d passed their first year at uni. They were young, in love, the world at their feet.
‘But who had the idea first?’ Ryan insisted.
She wanted him to make her forget everything, not hash it over. She wanted him to kiss her. ‘What’s the point of this?’
‘Just answer me.’
She wriggled her hand free. ‘Not if you speak to me like that.’
He heaved out a sigh, raking a hand through his hair. ‘Please, for the love of God, just tell me who came up with idea of designing an app that could let the user know which websites held personal data on them.’
Not angry, she realised belatedly, but frustrated. ‘It was my idea,’ she answered quietly. ‘Damien thought we should devise an app; I came up with the Privacy app.’
‘Exactly.’ He straightened, turning to look at her, amusement dancing in his eyes. ‘That wasn’t hard, was it?’
‘It would be easier if you’d tell me what you’re trying to achieve.’
‘Damien was just like me. A monkey.’ His eyes flickered over her face, landing directly on hers. ‘You’re the organ grinder.’
‘Is that supposed to mean something to me?’
He gave his head a light shake. ‘Do you really not see where this is leading?’
‘If I did, I wouldn’t be asking you the flipping question, would I?’
Laughter rolled out of him. ‘You’re hot when you’re riled, you know that?’
‘I’m about to get even hotter then, because you’re really starting to piss me off.’
‘Okay, okay, let me tell you what I thought was plainly obvious.’ He waved his hand behind him, indicating her parents’ house. ‘All this off-site stuff is very nice, but you didn’t need it.’
‘Now wait a minute—’
‘You’re so intent on getting the team involved,’ he continued, speaking right over her, ‘you’ve forgotten that you’re the brains behind this operation.’
His last few words brought her up short. And then his hands cupped her face and the anger drained from her.
‘The idea for the next app is in you, Sam,’ he said softly, sincerity ringing through his voice. ‘You just have to trust yourself enough, believe in yourself enough, to pull it out.’
She couldn’t think, couldn’t process what he was saying, couldn’t even breathe. His eyes were so fierce, yet his expression, his voice, so gentle. As what he was saying began to sink in, her heart lodged in her throat and a muddle of emotions battered her senses. Shock, because she’d assumed he’d wanted to talk about them. Not to discuss work. Fear, both that he was right and that he was wrong. Gratitude, great swathes of it, because even if he was wrong, his faith in her was almost overwhelming.
Threading through them all was an emotion that pulled at her heart. He cared, she realised. And that, more than anything else, made the tears start to fall.
‘Hey.’ He used his thumbs to wipe her wet cheeks. ‘Don’t frigging cry on me.’
She let out a strangled laugh. ‘It’s not like I can control it. Would you do me a favour?’
‘Anything.’ He looked over at the cliff edge. ‘As long as it doesn’t involve me walking closer to that.’
‘Ryan Black is scared of heights?’
‘Nah. Scared of falling from a height.’ When she started to laugh, he gave her a mock glare. ‘There’s a difference. What’s the favour?’
She shifted, leaning in to him. ‘Hold me for a while?’
Within seconds he’d lifted her onto his lap. As his arms wrapped around her shoulders, she rested her head against his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart.
‘That do you?’
She smiled against his T-shirt. ‘Perfect.’ And so, quite possibly, are you, she thought with a start.
Maybe perfect was pushing it, considering his more annoying habits. Yet right now, there was no denying, he was exactly what she needed.
Chapter 22
When he’d dragged Sam away from the house, Ryan hadn’t imagined their talk ending with her sitting on his lap. It was clear she needed support right now, not sex, so he willed his crotch not to react to the soft curve of her buttocks by thinking through the coding issues waiting for him when he go
t back to the office. When that failed, he guessed he could always imagine he was standing on the cliff edge, looking down on the waves as they crashed against the rocks.
‘How long is a while?’
She shifted, burrowing further into him. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You said you wanted holding for a while.’
‘Umm.’
She was gazing out to sea, a thoughtful expression on her face. He’d like to bet she was already starting to click through all the possibilities for her app. A good thing, he told himself, as it meant she’d listened to him for a change. Still, it was a dent to his ego to think she was sitting on his lap, in the moonlight, and the only thing on her mind was business.
‘Talk to me,’ she said after a while.
And now she seemed to have forgotten whose lap she was sitting across. ‘Err, hello. It’s me, Ryan Black. Talking’s not really my thing.’
Her body shook with silent laughter. ‘I know, but can you give it a go, just this once?’ Those big eyes, almost violet in this light, looked pleadingly up at him. ‘It might spark something.’
‘What’s the subject?’
‘Anything you want. But no coding mumbo jumbo.’ She wriggled, and he caught a whiff her shampoo. ‘How about you describe your typical day to me?’
‘You’re not looking for excitement then?’
‘I don’t care what you say. I just want to take myself out of my head for a while.’
‘Fine.’ He looked down to find her watching him, a small smile on her lips. He had a sudden urge to bend and kiss her, to suck on that sexy bottom lip.
Sod it. Groaning with need, with want, he did just that, driving himself mad for a few crazy seconds before dragging his mouth away.
He took some satisfaction from seeing the dazed expression on her face, though a snatched kiss fell well short of what he really wanted.
‘Well.’ She coughed to clear the husk from her voice. ‘That’s another way to take me out of my head.’
‘It beats anything I have to say.’
She laughed softly. ‘Oh no, you’re not weaselling out of this that easily. Come on. Start with breakfast.’
‘You don’t want me in the shower?’
It was too dark to see if she was blushing, but he liked to think she was. Liked to think she was imagining him naked. ‘For the purposes of this exercise, pretend it’s a Saturday. You’ve been through the bathroom and now you’re in your kitchen. Fully dressed, before you ask. Now go.’
Feeling daft, he tried to think back to last weekend. ‘Okay. I grab myself some cereal.’
‘Muesli? No, somehow I can’t see you with anything too healthy. Chocolate hoops?’
‘Am I telling this, or you?’ He shot her a mock glare and she mimed zipping her mouth closed. ‘While eating my cornflakes, I slap on the TV and search for some sport. Not fussed what. Football, rugby, cricket, snooker.’ He paused. ‘Is this boring enough for you?’
‘Keep going.’
She looked genuinely interested, go figure, so he carried on. ‘It usually takes half a bowl before I realise the milk was out of date, so I head to the supermarket. Buy a load of crap that only needs taking out of a packet and nuking in a microwave. Not that I can’t cook,’ he added, stupidly wanting to impress her. ‘But this new boss is a tyrant so I don’t have the time.’ He grunted as her elbow found his ribs. ‘Bags full of milk and ready meals, I head back to the flat.’
‘The shithole.’
‘Yeah, the shithole.’ She meant it as a joke, he knew that, but it was hard to smile when he considered the thought of inviting this woman he fancied, he respected … damn it, he wanted to date, back to his grotty flat. Not that his salary was anything to be ashamed of – God willing it would continue to rise, and his considerable outgoings continue to fall. Still, the difference between her elegant apartment and his dump of a flat was an uncomfortable reminder of the gulf between them.
‘And?’
He shook himself. ‘And, guess what? I unpack the crap.’ His pause resulted in another prod, gentler this time. ‘Then I might grab the computer and check my personal emails. Don’t know why I bother as it’s usually full of spam.’
‘You’re the tech wizard, don’t you bother to—’ Suddenly she lunged to her feet, shrieking into the night. ‘Oh my God, that’s it.’ Face bursting with excitement, she turned to him and gave him a big, loud kiss before doing a jig in front of his eyes. ‘You and your boring Saturday have only gone and cracked it,’ she said breathlessly, half laughing, half crying.
He didn’t have a clue what she was banging on about, but he was happy if she was. ‘It has, huh?’
‘Yes!’ She dragged him to his feet and, keeping hold of his hands, proceeded to dance to a beat that only she could hear. ‘This could really be it. I mean it might not be possible, but you keep telling me you’re a genius, so if anyone can do it, you can.’
He stilled, fear slithering down his spine. Fuck. He didn’t want to be the one responsible for wiping the smile off her face. ‘Sam, hold on a minute. You’ve lost me. What’s the big idea?’
She gazed up at him, her face so alive, so beautiful, he felt a punch to his gut. ‘What do you do if you get a spam email?’
‘Delete it?’
‘No. Well, yes, of course you do, but what should you do first, if you don’t want another one? What should you look for at the bottom of the email?’
‘The unsubscribe link?’ He blinked, suddenly getting it. ‘You want the app to have an unsubscribe option.’
She beamed. ‘Imagine this. You’re looking at a list of websites holding personal information on you that you haven’t agreed to, or no longer want them to have. How cool would it be to just click on an unsubscribe button? Better still, a delete button? Bam.’ She clicked her fingers. ‘Just like that, no phoning companies up, no emailing them or spending precious time on their websites trying to find a page that allows it. In one click, it would be done.’ Clapping her hands together, she did another twirl. ‘Damien flaming Lynch, eat your heart out.’
Though he was thrilled she was excited, thrilled that, in some small way, he’d helped her come to this moment, two threads of dread coiled round his gut.
Did he really have the talent, the skill, to programme the app to do that?
And why the hell was she still thinking of that Damien creep?
Sam felt giddy, like her six-year-old self on Christmas Day when she’d seen all her presents laid out under the tree. This was it. The idea she’d been waiting all day for, and what do you know, Ryan had been the one to inspire it. Ryan, who’d held her when she’d asked him to, who’d talked to her even though she knew he’d been uncomfortable. Ryan, whose surprising faith in her might just have turned out to be justified.
A shadow crossed Ryan’s face and she halted her exuberant jigging. ‘Hey, are you still with me?’
He glanced down to his feet, then back up at her, his smile just a little too forced. ‘Looks like it.’
Nerves jangled in her stomach. ‘Please tell me you think you can programme a delete function into the app?’
He rubbed his chin. ‘I don’t know until we start drilling down into it.’ Unconsciously she held her breath, so much resting on his answer. ‘Possibly, yes.’
Her breath rushed out and she flung her arms around him. Right now, he was far more than a man she’d slept with a couple of times. More than an employee she’d developed this big, terrifying crush on. He was a friend. One who might, just might, help her save her company. ‘Can you change possibly to probably?’
His hands settled on her hips. ‘Possibly.’
Every instinct screamed at her to push him on it – she really needed to know whether there was a chance, or not – but she held her tongue. He wasn’t that guy, the one with flowery phrases and puffed-up promises. He’d give her his opinion only when he’d had time to consider it properly. Rising onto her tiptoes, she kissed him, very gently, on the mouth.
He gave
her a quizzical look. ‘Not complaining, but what was that for?’
‘Helping me. Believing in me.’
‘Hard not to.’ His mouth quirked upwards. ‘Seems you’re freakishly smart.’
Grinning foolishly, she rested her head against his chest. His hands were still holding lightly onto her hips, and what with their gentle pressure, and the solid feel of his chest against her cheek, a familiar sizzle began in her stomach. It was more than a sexual connection. More than gratitude. It was that emotional tug again. Was she at risk of losing part of her heart to him? She had an awful feeling she already had. Yet here, in the moonlight, with the sound of the sea below them, and the excitement pulsing though her, she didn’t care. ‘At the risk of sounding too forward,’ she whispered, ‘would you like to come back to my room?’
His answer was a deep, almost guttural groan as his arms tightened on her hips, drawing her core against his hardness.
‘Is that a yes?’
His eyes zeroed in on hers, twin lumps of molten lava. ‘It’s an I thought you’d never ask.’
In a flash she was lifted into the air and thrown over his shoulder, just as he had that first night. ‘Oh my God, you great hulking Neanderthal. Put me down.’
She felt his laughter rumble through him and it started her giggling. He didn’t show enough of this playful side, though maybe that was just was well. She was already alarmingly hooked on the dour Ryan Black.
‘How’s that fireman fantasy coming along?’ he asked.
Placing her hands on his delicious backside, she grinned. ‘Can’t wait to slide down his pole.’
He stumbled, almost choking with laughter, then slowly he slid her down his body and onto the ground. ‘Christ, if we weren’t so close to the house.’
‘What?’ But she didn’t need to ask what. The burning desire in his eyes was her answer.
They walked the rest of the way quickly, sexual tension sparking between them. The house was quiet and when Sam checked her watch she realised why. ‘They must have all gone to bed. We’ve been gone nearly two hours.’
‘Lucas will wonder where I am.’ He glanced sideways at her. ‘Just as he did yesterday.’
The New Guy Page 17