Ryan Hunter

by Piper Shelly

  Oh, okay. That I could understand. “Suit yourself. Want my sunglasses?” I added as I walked her to the door.

  “Why would I want your sunglasses?” She pulled the door open, and with the first sunray streaming in, she flinched back and knocked straight into my chest.

  Ah hell, I could do that all day. And unless I was totally mistaken, she enjoyed the brief body contact, too. “I know you so want it,” I purred into her ear with every intention of seducing her back into my room. But if she didn’t trust me enough to drink what I served her, she’d never come upstairs with me sober. I just had to work a little harder to make her trust me. And tomorrow I’d get the first real chance during our personal training.

  I gave her my shades which I had left on the shelf next to the coat rack yesterday when I’d come in after training, and Liza put them on before she left my house without saying goodbye.

  “Matthews,” I called after her. She didn’t really think she’d get away that easily, did she? “We’ll start your training tomorrow morning. Be up and ready at five. I’ll pick you up.”

  And just so she didn’t get a chance to change her mind or talk herself out of our date, I cast her a last smile then closed the door on her stunned face.

  Hell no, I wouldn’t let her get off and go back on her word.

  With a silly smile on my lips, I walked back into the hall, where I made Chris help me clean up what my mom hadn’t already done this morning. We moved the furniture back into place and rolled out the carpets. As we carried the boxes of empty beer bottles into the garage, he seemed to finally have woken up fully.

  “So that was it?” he said with the edge of surprise in his voice. “You already had the chick in your bed?”

  “What? Now you doubt me? Yesterday you sounded way different, dude.” Stacking the boxes in the far corner, I let loose a brilliant smirk. “But it’s not really what it looks like. I didn’t touch her at all.” I reconsidered. “Or if I did, I don’t remember.”

  “Ah, I never thought I would say that, but it’s those girls that make you wait who are totally worth their salt.”

  Wait, whine, beg on my knees—Liza could have all of that from me. She only had to snap her fingers. Of course, I would never let her know that. She’d only get introduced to the art of subtle seduction. And then I liked how one thing had led to another these past few days.

  Later that day, Alex sent me a text message saying that a few guys from the team were meeting at the beach. It was mid-August, the perfect season to go surfing. I met up with them at three in the afternoon, and when I saw Mitchell pulling up in his parents’ car, a brief flicker of hope that he might have brought Liza struck me motionless. Unfortunately, it was a blonde and not a brunette climbing out with him.

  Alex and I took a few rides on cool waves, seeing who was the better surfer today, and when the girls tip-toed into the sea, I made an exit, shook out my wet hair, and slumped down next to Mitchell, who pretended to be sunbathing, when in fact he watched Cloey in the water through his opaque sunglasses.

  “Things are cool between you and Summers?” I asked.

  “Absolutely.”

  “I’m a surprised you didn’t bring Liza. The girls could be playing in the water together,” I mocked him and put my cap on over the wet hair. “Does she know that we’re hanging out here?”

  “She knows,” he replied and looked at me for the first time, taking off his glasses.

  Wow, he didn’t look happy all of a sudden. That made me abandon my taunting grin. “What’s up?”

  “I asked her to come, but she can’t. Her mom grounded her for the rest of the week. And then Liz was pissed because one, she thinks I forgot her at your place, and two, because Cloey is here with us, and she’s not.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Yeah, it sucks major.” Tony put the glasses on again to watch some more of a nearly naked Cloey, and it brightened his mood in an instant. “Liz also said you weren’t your usual self this morning.”

  “What?”

  A shit-eating grin appeared on his lips again. “She said you behaved like a perfect gentleman. I didn’t think you’d be able to keep it together if a girl sleeps in your bed and you’re drunk to boot.”

  I laughed about that. “So my usual self is a horny dickhead who’d grab any chance he gets at making out with a girl?”

  “Sounds about right.”

  I mirrored Mitchell’s smirk. “Guilty.” Even if that self of me was left in the past. But it was nice to know Liza thought of me as a gentleman. Meant I did something right last night. “What are you going to do about her being pissed at you?”

  Tony shrugged. “Dunno. Make it up to her somehow. Maybe drop in and watch some movies with her since she can’t go out.”

  “Are you going to tell her about Cloey?”

  “Eventually. I won’t have a choice.” He grabbed a handful of sand and let it run through his fingers. “But not as long as she’s angry with me. She’ll never ever speak to me again if I screw this up.”

  I rolled onto my stomach, enjoying the warm sun on my back. “Dude, you better tell her fast. I think she will hate you more if she hears it from someone else.” That Mitchell brought Cloey here today made things a little more obvious. The guys on the team would be talking, even if they didn’t mean to hurt anyone.

  “I’ll get it sorted out with her in the next few days,” Tony said, but the sigh he heaved sounded like he dreaded nothing more than that little chat with his best friend.

  I smoothed out the bath-towel beneath me, folded my arms, and rested my chin in the crook, intending to catch up with some missed sleep. Tony had different plan. He rolled around to his front too, stared at me until I opened my eyes again.

  “Do you think Liza already suspects something?” he asked me.

  “Seriously, Mitchell, if she doesn’t, she must be blind. But you know, when you’re in love, there’s this denial button you just switch on, and everything is good for a while.”

  “You saying, she doesn’t want to believe it?”

  “I believe she could see you fool around with Summers in the water and kiss, and it only takes one word from you to convince her you had to give Cloey mouth to mouth reanimation.” As my own words sank in and made total sense, even I started to dread their little chat. Liza hurting was the last thing I wanted. “Anyway, how do you think this will work out? I mean once you dump the bomb on her? You can’t have a triangle relationship. The girls hate each other. They will always be jealous.”

  “I’ll make it work. Somehow.” Now he sounded like a sullen child that didn’t get the toy he’s seen in a shop window.

  “Tony, listen to me, because I’m your friend. And right now you don’t even start to understand how much of a good friend I am for telling you this. You can’t have the two of them. And in the long run, Liza Matthews is the better choice for you. One with a future.”

  Resting on his elbows, Tony laced his fingers in the sand and let his head hang. “I told you that it’ll never be like that between Liz and me.”

  Fucking damn, I hated myself for saying this. “If you don’t want to lose her, you have to think about taking her as your girlfriend. Because—She. Loves. You. And I’ve known you long enough to see that you do, too.” I growled, clamping my teeth together. “And now go away. I want to sleep.” And not totally destroy my flickering chance with Liza.

  But then I probably did the right thing. If there would ever be an us for Liza and me, I wanted to be the only one in her thoughts and not fight against something that wouldn’t happen for her, anyway. They needed to get this thing straight between them or else I’d be the one hurting in the end when they both realized later they were meant for each other. I didn’t think I would survive getting myself lost in Liza and then losing her to someone else. So however things would develop between us, I wouldn’t kiss her until she knew the truth about Mitchell and Summers.

  Chapter 7

  BEFORE I WENT to bed that night, I set the al
arm on my cell phone to four thirty. That gave me enough time to dress and get over to Liza’s house before five. Then I stripped down to my boxers, turned off the light, and climbed into my bed. The window was wide open, and I could hear the crickets in our garden. It wasn’t their noise that kept me from sleeping, it was thinking about who had slept next to me in this bed last night.

  I had never thought it possible that a couple of days could make such a damn difference. Suddenly, this bed felt way too big to sleep in it alone.

  Scooting back to lean against the headrest, I switched my nightstand light on and hugged a pillow to my chest. With my chin pressed into the feathers, I scanned the familiar room around me. Though nothing in here had changed in the previous two years, it now felt empty. Something was missing. A pair of apple green eyes staring at me. A smile. The sound of Liza’s even breaths in the dark.

  I wanted her back with me. I wanted to be the first thing she thought of in the morning and be the last to tell her goodnight. I wanted all of her. And goddammit, I was so tired of waiting.

  With the light turned off again, I remained sitting in my bed for a long while. In fact, I must have fallen asleep that way, because when the alarm went off in the early morning hours, I found myself curled in a strange position against the headboard, still hugging the pillow. I groaned and got up, rubbing the nasty kink in my neck.

  A few stretches and push-ups helped ease the stiffness. Slipping on a black tee and shorts, I felt the rush of excitement coming over me. While I had endured most of the summer without seeing Liza, the past twenty-four hours without her had been a torture.

  I washed my face, brushed my teeth, and slipped on my sneakers, then I headed downstairs and out to my car. From hanging out at Mitchell’s place for years, I knew where Liza lived.

  I didn’t know if she was ready to go or still asleep, and if I had to wake her, how I would go on about it, since it wasn’t really an option to ring the bell at five in the morning. Mitchell shouldn’t see my car in front of her house if he got out early, so I parked two houses down then walked back up.

  Everything was silent, the street as well as her house. No light shone from any room. In the dark, I walked around the house, wondering what to do. Maybe I should just throw a pebble to one of the upstairs windows. But if that was the bedroom of her parents, I might get into trouble. Brilliant.

  Above a small shed beside the house, the window to one room was open. The glass reflected not much, but a desk and a wardrobe. Could be the room of any teenager. Maybe she had left it open because she knew I was coming? It was the best chance I’d get, so I decided to try.

  “Matthews,” I called her in what happened to be a little more than a whisper—a suppressed shout. Nothing happened for a minute, so I tried again, just a little louder than before. This time it took about ten seconds until my very own Juliette appeared in the window. My heart knocked its approval when I saw her. First because I had really, really missed her. And second, because I’d picked the right window and not that of an angry father who’d come after me with a shotgun for seducing his daughter.

  She looked sleepy and surprised to see me here.

  “Hi,” I said. “You don’t look like you’re ready to go.”

  Liza leaned over the sill, her long hair slipping from her shoulders and hanging down. “How did you know this was my window?”

  “I didn’t. It was trial and error.”

  Her face paled in the dark. “How many windows have you tried?”

  I laughed and gave her the truth. “Yours.”

  Something went on inside her head. I couldn’t tell what, but some very interesting emotions played out in her eyes then. Shock, fascination, happiness, then shock again. All the time, she didn’t say anything.

  “Are you coming?” I demanded.

  “I can’t. I’m grounded,” she whispered back.

  “For sleeping with me?”

  That made her smile, even though she tried to hide it. Baby, you failed.

  “For not sleeping in my own bed,” was what she answered.

  “How long are you grounded?”

  “Until Sunday. But I can come to the training.”

  “At least there’s that.” I would have hated not to see her there when she was at long last on my team. But I wanted to train with her now, too. There must be a way to get her out of this room without her parents finding out. Scanning the garden, the tree, and the shed, I had an idea. “What time do you usually get up in the morning?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t know. Eight, nine, sometimes later.”

  “So we have at least three hours until someone will expect you downstairs.” That was enough time to get her out, do some running, and get her in again. And I wouldn’t waste one minute of that precious time with her. With a flick of my head, I motioned for her to get moving. “Come out.”

  “What?” she gasped.

  “Get dressed and climb to the roof of the shed. I’ll help you down.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  I smirked. “You are a coward.”

  “I’m not!”

  “Prove it.” If I judged her right, she wouldn’t let this pass and turn tail. She bit her bottom lip, looking a bit wary, but needed a little push. “So?” I prompted.

  “Fine. Give me a minute.”

  Hell, yeah! I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, keeping a leash on my delight. While Liza disappeared into her room again, I leaned against the tree and spied through the window glass, trying to see what was going on up there. Unfortunately, I saw nothing but a shadow.

  I stepped closer to the shed when she reappeared and started climbing out the window. She looked scared and clumsy, definitely not a fan of acrobatic moves. After a minute, she’d made it down to the roof of the shed.

  “Good,” I encouraged her. “Now hang onto that branch, and I’ll get you down.”

  Liza turned wide eyes to me, all but calling me insane for even suggesting it. “I’ll break my neck if I fall.”

  She would hurt her ass if she fell. Maybe. However, I didn’t intend to let her get hurt. “I won’t let you fall. Promise.”

  It amazed me how quickly she trusted me this time, because without further discussion, she grabbed the nearest branch and stepped off the wooden roof. She probably hated that I heard her frightened whimper, but I found it sexy as hell.

  As she hung on that tree like a sheet on the clothesline, my gaze ran up and down her body. What I did next would certainly be the highlight of my day, and I intended to savor it to the full. Stepping so close that I could touch her, I placed my hands at the back of her calves then moved them upward over her thighs, until I had a good grip right beneath her butt. All her muscles tightened at my touch.

  I had to unstick my tongue from the roof of my mouth before I could speak again. “I have you. Let go.”

  “What?”

  What did she think we were doing here? Did she want to hang from that tree for the rest of the day? “Let go of the branch, Matthews,” I said, laughing. “Now.”

  After some moaning and unintelligible cussing, she let go of the branch, and the weight of a kitten came down on me. Panicking, she clutched my shoulders, and I found myself trapped in her gorgeous green eyes. Finally, I eased my grip on her legs and let her slide down my body. Holy shit, that move turned me on like nothing ever had. When her feet touched the ground, I wasn’t ready to let her go. With my arms wrapped around her in a tight embrace, I inhaled her scent and soaked in the warmth of her body.

  A smile tugged at my lips. “Hi.”

  With her palms pressed against my chest, she shivered, and it made me feel good, because it wasn’t in the least cold this morning, so I must be the reason for her trembles. It was sweet how she struggled to hide that fact behind a calm expression and stepping out of my hug.

  “Can we go?” I asked, still smiling.

  “Where to?”

  “The beach.”

  She gulped, probably because it was quite a d
istance, but she nodded anyway like a brave kitten. We started off together, and I settled for a seriously slow pace, so she wouldn’t collapse after a couple hundred meters.

  I was used to running in the morning over weekends and usually enjoyed it because it was the only time of the day where everything was really quiet and peaceful. But with Liza by my side it was twice as nice.

  We jogged down a few streets with houses all looking alike as dawn broke. Liza did great—meaning she hadn’t resigned yet. But I didn’t like the silence between us and asked, “So, your parents got angry because you didn’t get home Saturday night?”

  “No,” she pushed out between erratic breaths. “My parents thought I crashed at Tony’s. Which is fine with them.”

  What the hell—she’d slept at Mitchell’s house? I almost tripped over my own feet. The bastard had never said a word about that. “You do that often?”

  Liza cut me a curious glance. “You sound like you disapprove.”

  Of course, I did! I scowled at her, but didn’t answer as long as I felt this invisible fist clenching my stomach. Only when we got closer to the ocean and the sound of crashing waves drifted to us, I managed to sound normal again. “So why the grounding?”

  She rubbed a forearm over her sweaty forehead. “My mom saw my red eyes and figured I’d been drinking.” Then she cussed, which made me arch a brow at her. “I forgot your sunglasses.”

  “No worries.” I had forgotten about them, too. “You can give me them tomorrow before training.”

  She nodded, and it was clear that the little distance we’d run so far had troubled her a lot more than me. She sounded like a pair of bellows. As soon as we reached the beach, Liza slumped to the sand as though she had no life left in her any more.

  That was not part of the plan. I stood over her, hands on my hips, and gazed at her reddened face. “What are you doing?”