The look Ryder shoots my way could cut glass and for a moment, I think he might actually be pissed at me for requesting that he not stick his dick in every athlete over the age of twenty in Milan. Well, that’sjust too damn bad. I open my mouth, ready to start the first of what I’m sure will be many fights in this sham of a marriage, but Ryder beats me to it.
“Mabel. There is no one else. I don’t care what pretenses this marriage falls under. You are my wife, and as long as you remain my wife, I will be faithful to you. I hope you’ll extend the same courtesy to me.”
Oh.
Oh.
That…does not sound like someone who is upset about not sleeping around.
“I will. Trust me Ryder, one fake husband is enough for me to handle. I don’t need any more complications in my life.”
“I have one rule, too. Well, it’s more of a request than a rule, but it’s a request I really don’t want you to turn down.” Ryder says quietly.
“Lay it on me,” I echo. The look of concern on his face morphs into something else. His signature, shit-eating grin he only gets when he’s really about to tease me.
“We need to spend time together. Real time, not just existing in the same space time. We need to, you know, date. Each other.”
I throw my head back and bark out a laugh, feeling lighter than I have all day. I laugh until tearsbrim my eyelids and my abs start to ache, and when I catch my breath, Ryder is still looking at me with that damn grin that makes his green eyes sparkle.
“Laugh all you want, Marshmallow. But I’m serious.”
“You’re so full of shit,” I say, wiping a stray tear from my eye.
“Hear me out. We’ve got a few weeks until Milan, where we’re going to have to sell this marriage to the whole world in real time. We’re going to have to get to know each other, get comfortable together.”
“Ryder, we’ve known each other since I was born. I think we’re good.”
“If I leave it up to you, we’ll be ignoring each other unless there’s a camera pointed at us, and then when there is, it’s going to be blatantly obvious that we’re lying about being married on purpose.”
“I think you’re being a little bit dramatic, Rye Bread.”
He reaches out, his fingers skimming the skin by ear as he brushes away a strand of hair, and my stomach knits up. Instinctively, I slap his hand away.
“Thanks for making my point, Mabel. Trina is going to kill us if we don’t sell this thing, and we’re never going to sell it if you swat me away every time I reach for you.”
Fuck. He has a good point.
I hate that.
The acrobats performing their tricks in my chest hate it, too.
“Okay, fine. We’ll spend time together, get deep, share our favorite colors and deepest secrets, and we can practice holding hands and all that dumb shit. But only until Milan. Once the Games are over, we’re focusing on ending this thing and going back to normal, okay?”
“And normal is…”
“We’re reluctantly stuck together by fate and if you lay a hand on me, I get to bite you.”
His head rolls back in mock ecstasy.
“I love it when you talk dirty to me, baby.”
I scoff and shove at his chest.
“Ryder Atticus Finch, I swear to god, if you pull some stupid shit at the Games and embarrass me, motherfucker…” I trail off, letting my unspoken, half-hearted threat hang between us.
Ryder tilts his head, green eyes trailing up my body, lingering on my breasts and then my lips. My breathing stutters, my body betraying me. My mind wants to tell him to fuck off, but the repressed part of me that has always been a little wanton for Ryder’s attention wants him to keep drinking me in. When Ryder reaches out and brushes a thumb over mylower lip, I swallow back a whimper, and he huffs out a small laugh.
“You are so going to fall in love with me, Marshmallow.”
