Ricochet (20 page)

“Why aren’t you with him?” he asked, unable to keep the question he’d been wondering about since last night tucked away any longer.

Her gaze swung to his, that cute little crease between her smooth brows. “What?”

“Marx,” he said. “Why aren’t you with him? I mean
only
him.”

Her eyes narrowed and the skin beneath her right eye quivered. “
Only
...him?”

“He’s everything most women want,” Ryker pushed. “And he clearly wants you.”

The muscle of her jaw jumped and she turned away. “I’m not trying to be a bitch, but it’s none of your business.”

“You’re right, it’s not,” he said. “But I still want an answer.”

“Wow. This is going to be a long few weeks if...” She pressed her lips together and curled her fingers into the sofa cushion at her thighs. “Look, Josh is great, but he’s looking for a wife. He wants the whole picket-fence, meet-the-parents-with-a-ring-on-your-finger type of forever, and that’s just not me. At least not now. And as I told him, not anytime in the near future.”

He narrowed his eyes as if that would help him see deeper inside her. “Why is that?”

“Because I don’t want permanent,” she said, her annoyance leaking into her voice. Her gaze turned on him. “I don’t want complicated. I don’t want forever. I just want simple. No strings. I certainly don’t owe you an explanation.” She refocused on her laptop. “So, back to Charlie. He’s a retired marine, so you two will have the military jargon in common—“

“What about the other guy?” he asked. Staffing was the last thing he gave a shit about right now. “Does he know you’re picking up men on the side?”

Her expression darkened with impatience. “
What
other guy?”

“The one on the phone last night. The one you were making excuses not to see.”

Her lips remained parted, her eyes searching his. “You were...eavesdropping?”

“No, I overheard.”

She rolled her eyes toward her computer again. “You ‘overheard’ me talking to my
father
. I can understand how you would assume I’m sleeping around, considering how we met.” The skin of her cheek and neck darkened to a bright pink. “But I’m not. And I don’t...usually. You were...a fluke.”

Like a tick, his frustration burrowed deeper. “Nice. Maybe I’ll tattoo that on my ass.”

“Nathan, you don’t want anymore from me than I want from you, so stop this...this...whatever the hell this is. Focus. I think you’ll like Charlie.” She slanted him a disgusted look. “I’m sure he’ll understand your
Ranger
tattoo immediately.”

“Just hold the fuck on,” he said, voice growing louder as all the information gelled. “If you’re not with Marx, because you don’t want serious, and you don’t have a guy in the wings, and you’ve already fucked me twenty ways to Sunday, why the
hell
do you keep pushing me away? Because you’re right, we both want the same thing, and you know I’m going to be on the other side of the world in a few weeks. Is there any
less
of a commitment than
that
?

“I said
simple
.” Her voice rasped as she tried to keep it down. Her eyes shone dark and bright with anger. “There is nothing
simple
about this. If I’d known who you were I would never have slept with you, because fucking guys at work causes these kinds of problems.”

“The only problems here are the ones you’re creating in your head.”

“You know that’s not true,” she said, her expression incredulous. “There’s Troy and Josh and Renegades. There’s a lot at stake here. Relationships with people we
both
care about, the success of a business that means everything to those people.”

He leaned away, and rubbed a hand down his face, his jaw tight. On one hand, he understood what she was trying to do, on the other...

He gathered his patience and met her gaze purposefully. “Loyalty is important, Rachel, but so is living your life. And I know people say it all the time, but life really is short. I’ve seen it first hand...way too many times. One second you’re here.
Poof
. Then you’re gone. And all those things you wished you’d done...you never get the chance.”

Distress dragged at her expression as she pressed her lips together and looked away. Ryker remembered the concern in her gaze the night before when Marx had made a point of mentioning the inherent danger in his job and softened his voice.

“What I’m trying to say is...” He scraped a hand through his hair and muttered, “what the fuck
am
I trying to say?” His troubled gaze found hers again. “I love Troy. I’d die for him. But what I won’t do for him is change the way I live my life just to make him happy. I won’t trade his happiness for mine. That’s his responsibility. And I would never expect him—or anyone else—to do that for me either.

“Marx...” he paused, forcing himself to take the high road here, “...he’s a grown man. He may not like dealing with rejection or competition, but he will, because he’s a professional, and if he doesn’t it will reflect badly on him. I can promise you, he doesn’t want that.”

“You’re probably right,” she agreed. “and I’m sure I’m nothing but a blip on his radar—yours too, for that matter—but we’re in too much of a time crunch to take the risk. Because the reality is, he could kill or stall this last stunt with a few words to the right people, and I wouldn’t have enough time to straighten it out in a way that would save this company.”

With a heavy sigh of frustration, he pulled the laptop from her thighs, and set it on the floor.

“What are you—“ she started.

Twisting toward her, he gripped her waist and pulled her over his lap. She parted her legs easily, straddling him like it was the most natural thing to do...because it was. And she knew it, no matter how often she denied it.

He held her hips tight and met her gaze. “I’ll give you room to get your head on straight,” he said, “but I’m not giving up, because if you were an ordinary blip on my radar, I’d have let go of the idea yesterday morning. And because we
do
want the same thing.”

He cupped her neck with one hand and pulled her in for a kiss. A surprised little murmur sounded in the back of her throat.

She pushed against his arm, pulling back, but didn’t put any effort behind it, so Ryker held her, his fingers swallowed by the soft strands of her hair. He slid his lips over hers, suckling, releasing, suckling again. Another sound floated from her throat, this one softer, sexier. He chanced releasing her from the kiss to try another part of her mouth. So full. So kissable. So lickable. So...fuckable.

When she didn’t jump to her feet, Ryker sank in, tilting his head and exploring.

She murmured a breathless, “Nathan…”

His insides warmed. Every pain in his body disappeared. Every shadow vanished. She chased all his demons away, and for a moment, he found relief. He slid his tongue over her full bottom lip, growing more desperate by the moment. Unable to stop. Needing more. Warning flags waved in his head. This was going to be a problem. She was going to be his new drug—and he was already addicted.

Rachel’s fingers tightened on his arm, her nails stinging his skin. Her mouth softened, opened wider. Her tongue licked in, found his and stroked, adding gasoline to his fire. His groin swelled with heat, his cock rubbing against his pants. He groaned into her mouth, changed the angle of the kiss and released her head to grip her hips, pulling her fully against his erection.

She broke the kiss on a gasp, but he didn’t give her time to think, to fight. “Nath—“

“Just for a minute,” he murmured, sliding his hands up her sides, around her back, savoring the feel of her little frame. Filling his head with her scent. Memorizing this moment, wishing he could use it later, when things got bad again. “I just need...a minute.”

He drove his hands into her hair and pulled her head down again. The second their mouths fused, she melted. Her body bowed toward his on a sigh, her legs sliding wider until her softness pressed against his cock. Her arms wrapped around his neck, her belly and breasts molding to his torso. And, damn, they had rhythm. Their lips, their tongues, the way their bodies rocked without thought, giving and seeking pleasure without words. He felt the ribs along her back, the indentions of her spine, the flare of her hips. Gripped her ass, pulled her in, and she rode him like a champion cowgirl.

The crunch of gravel sounded in the distance, and regret swamped his belly.

He tasted her for the last time and broke the kiss on a groan of frustration, then lifted her off his lap, and set her on the floor with a nudge. “Go,” he muttered, “before I fuck this up for both of us.”

Leaning down, he picked up her computer and scanned Charlie’s resume. She stepped back and pressed her fingertips to the surface of her desk to steady herself. And the only think that kept him from reaching for her again was the footsteps on the trailer stairs.

Thank God her desk was only ten feet from the sofa, if it had been any farther, she might not have made it without swerving. Rachel covered her need to still the spin in her head by running her hand through her hair, then balanced herself with her hand on the corner of her desk just as the trailer door opened.

“How’s it going?”

Jax’s voice relieved her in some ways and unnerved her in others. She’d been so lost in Nathan’s kiss, in the feel of his erection between her legs, she would have missed the sound of her boss coming up the stairs until it was too late.

She didn’t turn toward Jax cause if she swiveled her head toward the door, she’d definitely end up on the floor.

“Good,” Nathan said, his voice completely normal. “I just started with the resumes. Rachel thinks Charlie is my foreman.”

“Charlie’s great,” Jax said. “We were lucky to get him for this job.”

While Jax and Nathan discussed the details of Charlie’s experience, Rachel returned to her desk and stared at her computer as if she were actually looking at the program on her screen. She couldn’t play this game, it was beyond her. The same way the idea of casually fucking a stranger was obviously beyond her.

“Sounds like I’ve got my foreman.” Nathan set the laptop aside and grinned at her when she looked up. “One down, a dozen to go.”

Rachel’s stomach dropped. This would be the longest three weeks of her ever-loving life.

“But first,” Nathan grabbed the plans he’d set on the floor and spread them on the opposite desk, speaking to Jax again. “Let me walk you through the changes in the action I made after we talked last night.”

Rachel pulled out her legal pad and tried to listen, occasionally adding notes to the ones she’d made last night as he, Jax and Josh had discussed the plan with the other guys popping in and out of the conversation to add their thoughts, their expertise.

“You’re looking for maximum reality with minimal risk,” Nathan started, repeating the agreement they’d come to last night. “So the best option to create a staggered, machinegun-like pattern to the gunfire is to work this in two filming shots. For the first, I’ll drill into the asphalt at an angle and place shallow charges. Each group can be configured to detonate in a precise pattern, and the holes can easily be covered to match the road for filming purposes.”

“Sounds great.” Jax’s brows drew together in concentration, one arm crossed over his chest, the other hand supporting his chin. “What have you got for the second sequence?”

“I thought a lot about it last night.” Nathan said. “We can’t start rigging the explosives for the second blast until the first one has been filmed. But if you figure they’re shooting the missiles at the speeding car, and missing because it’s swerving, I thought the best way to handle that would be to take the bridge out in sections.”

He leaned forward and pointed something out to Jax on the plans. “So we’ve got portions of the bridge exploding, one after the other, here, then here, then here, etc. Now, we need exploding concrete, but we also need fireballs, because missiles carry a shitload of fuel—”

“And this
is
Hollywood,” Jax added with a grin.

“That too. To get the concrete to explode, I’ll use C4, but to get the fireball I’ll use a handmade mixture of Tannerite and gasoline, and what you’ll get is—“

“A cinematographer’s orgasm,” Jax finished, a familiar excitement glowing on his face, but only for a moment before it vanished. “What about the fire hazard? This whole state is tinder.”

Tannerite? What the hell was Tannerite? Rachel noted the name and opened a browser on her computer, typing the word into Google.

“The ammonium nitrate in the Tannerite burns out almost instantly,” Nathan continued, “which is why we need the gasoline—to extend the fireball for filming. But there are no trees near the bridge, so the explosion will eat up the gasoline before it ever reaches anything flammable. And the powdered aluminum we add will give us that thick black smoke that makes the fireball ridiculously dramatic.”

“Where would we buy this Tannerite?” she asked, looking up from the computer. “Says here it’s a name brand explosive.”

“Hardly,” Nathan said. “I’ll make it. Way cheaper. It’s just ammonium nitrate and aluminum powder—“

“But it’s a patented formula,” she glanced back at the screen.