by Lynne, Donya
“So you were the baby of the bunch?”
“Sure, I guess.”
He grinned and raised one eyebrow. “Man, would I have liked to have seen that. I bet you were a little firecracker.”
She mirrored his expression, feeling even more flirtatious than before. “I was, thank you very much.”
He held her gaze for a few seconds, then chuckled, lifting his beer for a drink.
“So,” she continued, facing the fire again, “after eating lunch, and while they discussed the sermon and what good little Christians they were, I would get up and wander around the restaurant. I always seemed to end up at the hostess stand, where the servers—especially the women—were actually nice to me. It was like they knew I hated the people at that table as much as they did, and that bonded us somehow. They would give me lollipops and sneak me a bowl of cobbler or a scoop of ice cream, and I would stay out of their way and watch them work.
“I loved watching them weave around tables, race past one another in perfect sync, and dodge diners who weren’t paying attention to their surroundings. They were dancers in a show where the choreography changed second by second. It was mesmerizing. Like a moving meditation. It was very relaxing to watch. I can’t tell you why. I have no idea. It just was.
“But all of them at one point or another complained about their aching feet. They would swing by the hostess stand and bitch about how uncomfortable their shoes were, or how ugly, and how all they wanted was to go home and kick their feet up.
“I don’t know, something about that stuck with me, and when I was seventeen, I was goofing around and ended up designing this shoe, with the idea being that it would be comfortable yet stylish. The kind of shoe everyone would want to wear.” She raised her arms in a modified shrug. “The idea took off, the banks loaned me the money to start manufacturing, I picked up a couple of key consultants and a few investors who had knowledge in the shoe business, and by the time I turned nineteen, I’d made over a million dollars.”
“No shit,” he said, lifting his bottle toward her for a toast.
“No shit.” She tapped her bottle against his, then brought it back down for a drink. “That was it. I was gone. I hated leaving my little sister behind, but I had to get out of there. She was too young to come with me, anyway, and I was too young to take care of her.”
Silence stretched between them for a long moment, then Ryker said, “I’ve got a little sister too.”
Taylor glanced over at him. “You do?” Not that it should have been surprising. A lot of people had younger siblings.
He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, elbows on his knees, beer held between them. “Yeah, she’s sick.”
Taylor sucked in her breath. “Is she going to be okay?” He came off so happy-go-lucky and rugged that it was a little unnerving to see him so vulnerable. His sister obviously meant the world to him.
He gave her a quick glance and shrugged. “I sure hope so.”
“What’s wrong with her?” She hoped to God it wasn’t some form of rare cancer, which seemed to follow professional football players around as if it were a requirement to get drafted.
“They say she has Crohn’s, but I don’t know if I believe them.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. Not that Crohn’s was a good thing, but at least it wasn’t cancer. “Why not?”
“Because a few years ago, they said she just had food allergies. Then the doctors said, nah, it’s IBS. Then they said it was colitis. Now it’s Crohn’s.” He let out an exasperated huff. “I’m just waiting for the next diagnosis and hoping it’s not something even worse, you know?”
She sat up and placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “I’m sure it will be fine.” When he only nodded and didn’t say anything further, she asked, “How old is she?”
“Fifteen.”
“My sister’s fifteen too,” she said, adding a bit of brightness to her tone to break through the heavy mood.
He smiled up at her. He had a nice smile. Really nice.
“Do you keep in touch with her?” he asked.
She pulled back to her own chair again, but stayed sitting forward, mirroring his posture. “We video chat and text each other at least once a week.”
“I’m the same with my sister. Video chat every week . . . text every day . . .” His voice trailed off, and they both turned their faces up to the sky. “It sure is clear tonight,” he added, changing the subject as if he knew things were getting too serious.
She swept her gaze over all the constellations. “You can see so many more stars when it’s clear like this.” Living so close to a big city meant the light pollution kept her from seeing more than just the brightest stars and planets. When it was hazy from humidity, stargazing was even harder.
“Yeah, it’s nice.” He took a drink of his beer. “Too bad Scorpio is too far south to see.”
“Why?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “It’s my constellation.”
“You’re a Scorpio?”
“Yep.” He took another sip and smirked. “Watch out for my stinger.”
“I’ll be careful,” she said, her tone saucy.
Silence stretched for several seconds, then he said, “So, what sign are you?”
She laughed.
“What?” he asked, shooting her a perplexed glance.
“You.” She giggled, then swigged a quick swallow from her bottle. “You and your pickup lines.”
“That wasn’t a pickup line,” he said with playful defiance. “I was being serious. I told you mine, I figured I’d ask for yours.”
Had he meant that to sound like the even cheesier line I’ll show you mine if you show me yours?
She crinkled her nose like she’d gotten a whiff of the sewer. “Sure, right.”
“Are you always this guarded?”
She sobered. Actually, she was always this guarded. Call it a leftover personality trait from her childhood.
“You seriously want to know my sign?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I’m just curious . . . making small talk.”
Small talk had never been her forte.
She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Okay, fine. I’m a Capricorn.”
His eyebrows popped upward. “Ah, nice. I think I’m starting to get you now.”
She gave him a side-eyed glance. “Get what?”
“Why you are the way you are.”
“And how am I?”
“Capricorns are very driven. Compulsively so.” He ducked sharply to one side. “Get out of the way, a Capricorn is coming through.”
That did sound like her. She could be a bit of a bull in a china shop with tunnel vision. Once she had set her sights on a goal, she didn’t let up until she had achieved it.
The corners of Ryker’s mouth curled upward as he lifted his beer to his lips. Right before he drank, he added, “And Scorpios and Capricorns are sexually compatible.”
She gasped and smacked his arm. “See, I knew it was a line!”
He laughed and shielded himself against another swat. “I swear it wasn’t.”
“Bullshit.” But there was no bite to her bark. In fact, she was trying not to laugh.
What was it about Ryker that snapped at her funny bone like a yippy Chihuahua?
“You just made that up,” she said, settling back in her chair, pretending to be affronted . . . and not doing a very good job of it, because she couldn’t wipe the smile off her face to save her life.
“No, I didn’t. It’s true.”
“And how would you know something like that?” She finally gave up the fight and chuckled. Of all the crazy, out-of-left-field things to say! And he’d delivered the line superbly, baiting her into thinking he was going to say something novel or philosophical. Instead, he’d bombed her with a perfectly timed sex reference.
“My mom is into palm reading and astrology. She’s got a lot of astrology books.” He shrugged his broad shoulders. “I
might have skimmed through the sections on Scorpios a time or two.”
“Or ten,” she added with a laugh.
“Yeah, or ten.” He laughed with her.
A comfortable silence fell over them, interrupted by occasional banter about this constellation or that one. Ryker knew quite a bit about astrology and astronomy. Taylor found herself growing more fascinated as he pointed out the stars, telling her their names and filling in related stories from their mythology: Pollux and Castor, for example, of the constellation Gemini. They’d been twin half brothers in the time of Zeus. Then there was Arcturus, one of the brightest stars in the sky, and one of many in the constellation Boötes, the herdsman. Leo the lion looked down from almost directly above them.
After forty minutes of listening to him talk, she didn’t just see stars when she looked up. She saw stories. Stories complete with names, heroes, conflicts, and happy endings.
Ryker was helping to cast the night sky in a new light. One filled with even more mysticism and wonder than she had thought possible. It was nice to be with someone who could turn their eyes skyward and simply enjoy the stars and not make the heavens all about God and the hellfire He would rain down on all the sinners someday.
She liked Ryker, but she really liked this side of him. Friendly, funny, smart. Human. Quiet. He’d gone from being a professional football player to just a normal guy.
“So, what’s your story?” she said before she realized the path she was about to go down. “Why hasn’t some woman already gobbled you up?”
“Who says one hasn’t?”
She arched an eyebrow at him. “If you tell me you’re married and that you’re planning on creeping out on her with me, this evening is over.”
A soft, reticent chuckle rumbled from his throat. “No, it’s nothing like that.”
“What’s it like then?”
“I was engaged for four years. We went to LSU together and had dated for two years before I popped the question on the day I got picked in the first round of the draft. Two years later, I found out she’d cheated on me. I forgave her that time. Then four months ago, I found out she was cheating on me again.” He drained his bottle, set down the empty, dusted off his hands, and pretended to flick symbolic dirt off the tips of his fingers. “That was it. I was done. Engagement over.”
What was it about these people who couldn’t be happy with the grass on their side of the fence? Why did they have to trespass on someone else’s yard? Her dad, her mom, the pastor of the church, and now Ryker’s fiancée.
“I’m sorry,” she said, unable to hide the sympathy from her voice.
“Don’t be. I’m glad it happened. Saved me from marrying someone who obviously didn’t love me and was only using me as a golden ticket.” He gave her a quick look before turning back toward the fire. “She knew what she was doing. She knew I was going places and that I was going to get a fat contract and be set. She just wanted the money and the lifestyle.” He shook his head, making his long hair swing back and forth. “That’s what’s so hard about being a football player.”
“What’s that?”
“All the goddamn gold diggers.” He turned and looked her dead in the eye. “I bet you have to put up with the same thing.”
“Not really.” She raised her tattooed arms. “People don’t usually think ‘millionaire’ when they look at me. I think they’re more inclined to think I’m a panhandler or some kind of street artist.”
He chuckled, then sobered, eyeing her ink. “Well, I think you look nice.”
“Aawww, look at you, being all sweet and shit.” She finished her beer and set aside the bottle.
“No, seriously. I like you. You’re beautiful, smart, and don’t take shit from anybody, least of all me.” He held her gaze as if trying to figure out how she really felt about him underneath her prickly exterior. “I think we could have a lot of fun together.” He held up his hand before she could protest. “I’m not talking about a commitment or anything, because God knows I’m not ready for that, and I can tell you aren’t either”—he studied her a moment—“but we could make each other feel good. We could have a good time.”
If she could have believed what he was offering was possible, she might have taken him up on it. And while his offer sounded—and looked, given his appearance—promising, her past experiences with men warned her against going down this road.
“Look, Ryker, what you call having a good time I call a waste of time.”
“Why?”
“Because of all the men I’ve dated, not a single one has been able to satisfy me.” She raised one eyebrow, expressing exactly what she meant by satisfy. “And, honestly, I’m over it.”
He blinked, and one side of his mouth lifted as if she’d just challenged him to an arm-wrestling match. “Not a single one, huh?”
“Nope.”
He shifted, angling his body more directly toward her. “Just so I’m clear on what you’re telling me, are you saying they couldn’t make you come?”
“Bingo.”
“I see.” He nodded, and she chewed impatiently on her bottom lip as the gears churned in his head. “How many men are we talking about? Ten? Fifteen?”
Ten? What kind of girl did he think she was?
“Four,” she said dryly.
His eyebrows shot up, his eyes opening wide. “Four?”
She crossed her arms. “Is there something wrong with that number?”
“Yeah”—he huffed out a laugh of disbelief—“you gave up too soon.”
“Are you suggesting that all I needed to do to find a good lay was sleep around?”
He cocked his head at her like she was taking his words out of context. “No, not sleep around. But at least not give up so quickly. You’ve slept with only four men, Taylor. Four lousy lays. And you’re done with men? Just like that?”
“Not just like that. It took eight years.”
He chuckled, looked away, then met her gaze again wearing a smile that said he thought she was adorably out of her mind. “Like I said, you gave up way too soon, Taylor. I think you need to try again.”
She cocked her head. “Is that so?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“And let me guess, you want to courageously sacrifice yourself and volunteer.”
The dry look of derision he gave her would have made a weaker woman wilt. “Why not? You obviously need a man who knows what he’s doing.”
“And you think that’s you?”
“Yes.”
“That’s such a man thing to say.” She didn’t know if he was simply confident in his skills or just that cocky.
He shrugged off her derision. “Maybe. Or maybe I just know what I’m capable of. One thing I do know is that you need a man who makes satisfying you his number one priority.”
“And, let me guess, you’re just such a man.”
He nodded only once, as if he considered the case closed. “I am.” He snuffed out a sardonic snort, then faced her like he wanted to make sure she got what he was about to say loud and clear. “Those other men let you down. They weren’t good enough or attentive enough to please a woman like you. I am. You won’t walk away disappointed with me.”
His self-confidence alone had her wet between the legs, but she wasn’t about to raise the white flag and give in just yet. “Do you really expect me to believe that making me come would be more important to you than making yourself come in the heat of the moment?”
“Try me.”
Tempting. So very tempting. Because what if he could deliver? What if he was right and those first four guys were just greedy, selfish, lousy lays . . . bad examples to measure the whole of mankind by? What if Ryker could make her see the kind of stars that didn’t shine in the sky? Then again, what if he was just full of talk and couldn’t deliver the goods? What if he ended up being just another lousy lay like all the rest?
“Look, Ry, what you’re offering sounds nice and all, but I’ve been there, done that, and made the T-shirt.”
Ryker chuckled, then squared his sultry brown eyes with hers. “Not all men fuck the same way, Taylor. We’re not a one size fits all. Some of us are better at it than others.”
“Says you.”
“Hell, yeah, says me. I’m a Scorpio, baby.” He said it like that was supposed to convince her.
“So?”
“You don’t know what they say about Scorpios?”
“No, should I?”
His gaze burned its way down her body. “Scorpios know how to fuck. We’re masters at it. To a Scorpio, sex isn’t just something to do to feel good, it’s an art.” His seductive stare held her gaze for a long, sultry moment. “And I never leave a woman unsatisfied. With me, she comes first. Always.”
She considered him, her arms still crossed, index finger tapping contemplatively on her elbow. Coming wasn’t the problem. Well, not always. The four men she’d slept with had all been able to get her off at some point, but they’d had to use their tongues to get her there, or while they jackhammered her body she’d had to masturbate in an effort to reach climax before they did, because once they came, the game was over.
Her eyes gave him a once-over, pausing briefly at the bulge between his legs. He was obviously aroused from all this talk about sex, but he wasn’t fully erect. But he was erect enough for her to know he had ample equipment to make a valiant effort if she gave him a chance.
And she wanted to. She really did. Because on a night like tonight, after a rough day at the office, it would have been nice to come home and have her mind taken off her problems by a hard cock that knew how to take her to places no hard cock ever had.
They were at a stalemate, staring each other down in a battle of wills. Except hers felt like it was beginning to crack.
“Just think about it,” he said.
She couldn’t answer him. Telling him she would think about it felt too much like a blow to her pride. Sort of like saying “mercy!” when someone had you in a choke hold.