Ricochet (3 page)

“A couple of snakebites to start off,” he said, “with Jameson, please. Then a beer. What local IPAs do you have on tap?”

She turned and grabbed a bottle of Jameson whiskey from a row lining the wall. “Frog’s Breath from Corona Brewery out of San Diego, brand-new this month. Blind Pig from Russian River out of Sonoma. And Opal from—”

“Firestone Walker,” he finished for her. “Out of Paso Robles. I didn’t know they’d released it. That must be brand new.”

“Yep.” She grinned. “And it’s good.”

“I’ll take it.”

She set two shot glasses in front of him and moved to the tap. “Nice choice.”

Ryker picked up the first shot, released a breath of relief in anticipation, and threw it back. The rich burn of quality whiskey filled his mouth and sizzled down his throat.

Damn, that felt good.

His shoulders relaxed, and he opened his eyes to reach for the second. When he set that shot glass on the bar, the woman slid a beer toward him.

“Thank you,” he said with overt appreciation.

A couple took seats at the end of the bar, filling every stool but the one on his right, and called for service.

“Enjoy,” the bartender said before moving toward her new customers.

With the shots warming his chest, Ryker savored Opal’s light gold color and tried to empty his mind. After the Jameson’s relief had faded, he took his first taste of this new beer from one of his favorite breweries. The light ale coated his mouth with a crisp, spicy start, as fresh as it was surprising. The sharp bitter beginning rounded out with a light white wine finish, and Ryker hummed in pleasure.

This had to be the second best thing about being stateside—access to such amazing craft beers. The very best thing, of course, was his access to so many women. But after his spree in New Orleans with the wild, off-beat, occasionally unstable type that always gravitated to him, Ryker wouldn’t mind spending a little more time with beers like this one.

Only, he had to drink a hell of a lot of alcohol to get the same level of distraction a few hours of sex provided. Besides, sex always left him feeling better the next day. Alcohol, not so much.

He let his gaze blur over the hockey game playing on the screen above the bar, but his mind drifted back to the confrontation at the pickup area, and he grew uneasy again. Over four full weeks away from weapons and war, and his brain still triggered at the strangest times.

His thoughts veered toward his team… Which was no longer a team but a row of caskets as he’d last seen them being loaded onto the aircraft carrier bound for the states and their grieving families.

“Fuck.” That split-second image drove a fiery spike through his chest. Ryker closed his eyes and drained his beer. But he’d been drinking so much the last four weeks, it would take him half a dozen shots and a six-pack to get buzzed. A woman really was the way to go.

He glanced down the bar. The seats were filled with businessmen, the middle-aged couple that had just come in, and a pair of young women who looked like they couldn’t decide between going grunge or punk. Pretty, with full lips, nice cheekbones, and that unflawed look of vibrant youth even the heavy makeup couldn’t hide. They met his gaze with interest, one raising her pierced brow as if silently asking if he were going to make a move.

But his body didn’t react, and the game just felt like too much effort tonight—even for a threesome.

“Another?” the bartender asked.

Ryker nodded and drank half the glass as soon as she set it down. Then glanced back at the hockey game again, even though he wasn’t following. And by the time he’d finished the beer, he was just starting to relax. Maybe he’d actually get some good sleep tonight. God, he missed good sleep. He craved sleep as much as he craved food. But he still needed alcohol and women to get through the night.

“That must be good.” A woman slid onto the only free stool beside him, but he kept his gaze on the game. “I’ll have what he’s having.”

Nice voice
, was his first thought, even though the rich, sultry tone was tweaked with irritation. One corner of his mouth twitched up in an ironic grin. What rational American
didn’t
get peeved working their way through LAX?

Ryker stared at the foam sliding down the side of his glass. “And I’ll have another.”

“You look about as good as I feel.” She tossed a credit card on the bar. “This one’s on me.”

He watched her in his peripheral vision, not quite ready to make idle conversation. Yeah, he wanted the release of sex, but sometimes—in fact, more and more often over the past two weeks—the whole lead-up had grown tedious. Maybe he should just have a taxi drop him in the prostitution district.

The woman beside him hung the strap of her purse on the back of the fancy barstool and pulled off a sweater, throwing it carelessly over the arm. A whisper of feminine spice touched his nose, and he breathed deep. The hollowness in his chest eased a little. Then she planted her elbows on the bar, dropped her head into her hands, and raked her fingers through her hair with a long exhale.

Ryker really had enough of his own damn problems. He didn’t need to take on anyone else’s. But the bartender set down the drinks and snagged the woman’s card before he decided whether or not to decline the offer, so he sent her a sidelong glance and a quiet, “Thanks.”

Instead of responding or drumming up conversation, the woman lifted her glass and guzzled.

“Mmmm.” The throaty sound shot heat through Ryker’s groin and drew his gaze to the generous stranger. She wore small, dark-rimmed glasses, and wisps of her hair, a pretty deep reddish-brown, fell in wavy strands from a messy knot on the back of her head.

“Oh my God,” she murmured still staring at the drink. “Is this…? No. It hasn’t been released yet.”

She seemed to be almost talking to herself as she lifted the glass to the light, inspecting the beer.

“Opal?” he asked.

Her gaze darted to his, a quick gasp pulling through her lips. “No. Really?”

She returned her gaze to the beer. That was a first. Ryker didn’t think of himself as a god or anything, but women had given him more than his fair share of attention since he’d hit puberty. This one, however, seemed more interested in the beer. Ironically, that earned her a few points.

“Really,” he said. “Brand-new on tap. You like Firestone?”

“
Love
Firestone. I’ve been dying to try this since I heard about it two months ago.” She caressed the glass in both hands and smiled. Her teeth were small and straight, and a dimple poked into her cheek at the corner of her mouth. “My day is finally looking up.”

The fact that she was referring to the beer and not to him made him grin. “That’s refreshing.”

“I know, right?” She took another sip and considered the color again. “Almost tropical, but dry.” Another sip, more consideration, a shake of her head, a musing hum.

Ryker laughed. “I meant you, but, yeah, the beer is exceptional.”

She finally looked at him, just a sidelong glance through her glasses. He caught a glimpse of brown eyes before her lips quirked up at the corner again, drawing his gaze to her mouth. A really nice mouth, with full pink lips.

The thought started his blood flowing south, surprising him a little. She wasn’t a woman he would normally give a second look—not a tattoo or a piercing in sight. But he was looking now, and noticing her slim build beneath a deep blue dress, the curve of her bare tanned shoulder, the way of the loose strands of hair coiled into soft waves to her chin.

She huffed a laugh, looked away, and drained her beer. “Oh, yeah,” she said on a sigh. “I’m at my most refreshing after a nonstop day of work with men who communicate as well as fish, have to be cared for like two-year-olds, and then send me to the airport to pick up some stranger at freaking rush hour on Friday.”

“Another?” the bartender asked.

“Actually, as great as that was, I really need something stronger after ninety minutes on the 405.”

“Hell yes, you do,” she agreed. “I heard there was an accident—”

“Barely a damn fender bender, but you’d think there were zombies lying all over the road the way traffic crawled. Brutal, I tell you. Can I try a Mandarin and soda with lime? A friend of mine has been ordering them lately.”

“You got it.”

When the other woman moved on to another customer Ryker said, “After that beer?”

She shrugged. “I’ve got a lead stomach.” To the bartender, she called, “Can you make it a double?”

Ryker chuckled, saluted her with his beer, and took another drink, becoming way too fascinated with the renewed frown tugging at those lips.

“And then to have the guy I’m supposed to pick up go MIA?” she muttered with a shake of her head. “This is so screwed.” She fished in her purse, pulled out an iPhone, and pressed one number as the bartender set down the orange thing she’d ordered. “I should try getting them again. Maybe their reception has improved.”

She put the cell to her ear and took a sip of her new drink. Another moan of pleasure, and her eyes closed, head tipped back. Ryker’s gaze roamed down her neck, her chest, her tits. Not the rack on the bartender, but high and tight, and his mouth watered for something other than another beer.

“Shit,” she whispered. Her jaw tightened as she listened. Then, “Okay, the next time you guys send me on a freaking airport pickup, I’m getting all the information up front. I should have known you wouldn’t get reception up in those mountains. Just so you know, when he calls all pissed off that no one picked him up, tell him he wasn’t waiting outside terminal four. I even parked and walked inside, asked strangers at baggage claim. Do you know how stupid I looked wandering around asking, ‘Hi, is your name Ryker?’ I’m lucky no one called security.”

Shock tingled along Ryker’s ribs. He lowered his beer and darted another look at the woman.

“You can call me if you get this and he’s still somewhere around here,” she said, “which I highly doubt. But since I’m unable to face that traffic again, I’m at the bar on my second drink. So you know that suite at the Crowne in his name? I’m taking it if he doesn’t show. And remember, I have all weekend to think up payback.”

She disconnected and dropped her phone into her purse. “God, I just want to kill someone.” After another long drink from her glass, she shook her head, looking down at the liquid. “I knew I’d be homicidal by the time I got here. Probably better I didn’t find him.”

She sat back on her stool and pulled her glasses off her face. Then reached up and tugged a pencil from her hair, and the messy strands tumbled down to her shoulders.

Ryker angled a little more toward her, not quite sure what approach he wanted to take yet. It wasn’t all that strange that they’d met up. The international terminal was the only place in LAX to get a decent drink outside security, and this happened to be the closest bar to terminal four.

Good sense dictated he fess up to his identity, but all his good sense had been blown away four months ago, along with four of his best buddies, and getting closer to the sweet little distraction beside him trumped good sense any moment of any day.

“You always talk to your coworkers like that?” he asked.

“They’re all like brothers. Little bratty brothers. The kind who are always in trouble.” She drained the glass and lifted it toward the bartender again. “Good thing they’re too damn fun to stay pissed at for long.”

“Are they
all
like brothers?” he asked, thinking of Troy and his friend’s playboy ways. “No boyfriend in that mix?”

She laughed, the sound—and her sidelong glance—filled with
hell no
. “Commitment is seriously overrated.”

Oh man. Could his luck really have turned so drastically in mere moments?

“You may have a lead stomach,” he said, “but you’re a little tiny to be slamming down that much alcohol.”

“You ever have one of those days, weeks, months when you just don’t give a shit?”

“Plenty.”

“Sorry,” she said, sliding a loose smile toward him. One that stoked his rising body heat and redirected his thoughts to a strategy on getting her from that barstool into a bed. She saluted the air with her glass. “To the end of drama, probably the last thing you need.”

Usually, yeah, he stayed away from drama. But her lazy chattiness, wry humor, and slightly jaded outlook engaged him.

He leaned his forearm against the bar and turned fully toward her. Still, she didn’t give him her complete attention, which both fascinated and irked him. But all in all, hanging here with her was slowly becoming more interesting than watching a game with Troy and talking explosives with Jax.

“I’m not much for drama,” he said with a shrug, “but, hey, I got a beer out of listening, right?”

She smiled, and her gaze flicked to his right biceps, where his tattoo of an American flag stretched beyond the T-shirt’s sleeve. When her eyes lifted to his, she offered her hand. “Nice tat. I’m Rachel.”

Rachel. From Renegades.

Instant name recognition flashed in his brain. Followed by their first conversation on the phone over a week ago, when she’d called at Troy’s request to discuss the very reason he was here now. No fucking wonder she sparked him. She’d been sassy from the start, and Ryker’s irreverent attitude had set off fireworks between them, leading to a quick, fun, five-minute talk filled with nothing but snark and innuendo and heat.

He’d barely let her introduce herself over the phone when he’d said,
“I don’t want whatever you’re selling.”

She’d responded with,
“Are you always this rude, or did I just catch you on a bad day?”

And it had continued from there.

“Okay, I like spunk. You’ve got two minutes.”

“I was calling to make you an offer, but you’ve kinda dinged my mood.”

“Offer? I hope it’s an offer of phone sex. You’ve got a hot voice.”

“I should have expected this from a friend of Troy’s.”

“Troy’s been talking shit about me again? What’s that fucker up to now?”

“You’ve got his mouth too.”

“Oh no. Baby, my mouth is way better than Troy’s. All the women say so.”