I took another small sip of my beer, using the moment to collect myself. The firelight caught in his hair, turning it to burnished copper, highlighting the sharp angles of his face. It wasn’t fair for someone to look like that, to be that beautiful and that infuriating at the same time.
“You’re staring,” he murmured, his voice dropping to a register that made my skin prickle.
“No, I’m not.” I looked away quickly, fixing my gaze on the dancing flames. “I don’t want anything to do with you either. I made that pretty clear I think.”
“It’s okay if you were.” He leaned in slightly, his shoulder pressing against mine. “I like it when you look at me.”
I shifted away, putting a few inches between us. “Go away, Ryder.”
“Fine,” he said, his cocky grin still plastered on his face. “I’ll just go find someone else to play with then.”
And with that, he stood up and sauntered away toward a group of ranch hands from Nelson who’d just arrived. My eyes followed him despite my best intentions, watching as he immediately inserted himself into their conversation, laughing and touching one guy’s arm in a way that was definitely more than friendly.
“That kid’s going to get himself in trouble one of these days,” Joey said, appearing at my side with a fresh beer. “You want another?”
I shook my head, still nursing my first one. “No thanks. And yeah, he probably will.”
Joey followed my gaze to where Ryder was now leaning in close to a tall, dark-haired guy who couldn’t have been much older than him. The man had his hand on the small of Ryder’s back, fingers dipping below his waistband.
“Damn,” Joey whistled low. “Pete would have a stroke if he saw that.”
“Not our problem,” I muttered, forcing myself to look away. But something hot and uncomfortable coiled in my gut as I watched Ryder flirt so openly with someone else. It felt like jealousy, which was ridiculous. I had no claim on him, wanted no claim on him.
Yet I couldn’t stop my eyes from drifting back to him every few minutes. The way he threw his head back when he laughed, exposing the long line of his throat. The way his hips swayed slightly to the music. The flash of skin where his shirt gaped open, revealing the defined muscles of his chest.
“You’re staring again,” Darius said as he dropped onto the log beside me. “Thought you weren’t interested.”
“I’m not,” I snapped, more harshly than I intended.
Darius held up his hands. “Hey, no judgment here. Just saying, if you want him, you might want to make a move before that guy does. He looks like he’s damn near a finger deep in him already.”
I watched as the dark-haired man whispered something in Ryder’s ear that made him grin wickedly. Then they were moving toward the makeshift dance floor, the stranger’s hands finding Ryder’s hips as they began to sway to the music.
“I don’t want him,” I insisted, though the words felt hollow even to my own ears.
Darius just shrugged and wandered off, leaving me alone with my thoughts and the increasingly uncomfortable sight of Ryder pressed against another man. Their bodies moved together with the music, too close for it to be anything but what it was. Foreplay in public.
I took a deeper pull from my beer, wishing it was something stronger. The rational part of my brain knew this was good. Ryder finding someone else to fixate on meant he’d leave me alone. It meant I could get through the rest of my time at McGrath Ranch without the constant temptation, the constant risk.
So why did watching them make me feel like I was being gutted?
Ryder turned in the man’s arms, his back to the stranger’s chest, an arrangement that gave Ryder a clear view of me across the fire. Our eyes locked, and despite the distance between us, I could see the challenge in his gaze. He began to move more provocatively, grinding his ass against the stranger’s groin while maintaining eye contact with me. The man’s hands slipped beneath Ryder’s half-unbuttoned shirt, caressing his abs, and Ryder made a show of enjoying it, his lips parting in exaggerated pleasure.
I gripped my beer bottle so tight I was surprised it didn’t shatter. The rational part of my brain was screaming at me to look away, to leave, to do anything but watch this deliberate performance. But I couldn’t tear my eyes away. Ryder knew exactly what he was doing. He was putting on a show for me, making sure I could see what I was missing out on.
When the stranger’s hand slid lower, fingers clearly tracing the waistband of Ryder’s jockstrap visible above his jeans, something in me snapped. I stood up abruptly, tossing my barely-touched beer into the fire where it hissed and sputtered.
I stalked over to the pair of them, Ryder’s grin growing wider as I approached. Before he could make any sort of snide remark, I grabbed him by the hand and jerked him into my arms.
“I don’t know what kind of game you think you’re luring me into,” I growled, turning him to the music. “But I’m not playing.”
“Game?” he said innocently, smiling from ear to ear. “What game?”
I dipped him low, his entire body supported in my arms. “You want something from me, you ask for it like agood boyshould.”
There was a flash of excitement in his eyes and then I dumped his ass on the ground without a second thought. There was a sudden hush from the others, the guy I’d stolen Ryder from rushing to his aid. But I didn’t stick around to see what happened. I simply stepped over him and walked into the darkness, following the curve of the creek.
Let that be a lesson to him.
