“I looked him up.” His voice was low and gravelly.
“You did?” The hallway seemed to constrict around them, pushing them closer together. Her heart was about to pound out of her chest.
“The guy’s got a record, Em.” His brown eyes burned into hers.
“I know. I looked him up, too.”
He raked a hand through his hair. “And you’re still going on a date with him?”
“Who said anything about a date?” she asked, trying desperately to look nonchalant even though her body was totally short-circuiting from all the chemistry in the air between them.
Ryan’s expression was intense and unflinching. “Mandy said you were thinking of asking him out.”
Emma wasn’t sure if she’d moved or if he had, but she was standing way too close to him now. Close enough to see the gold flecks in his dark eyes and feel the warmth of his body on hers. “She was trying to get a rise out of you. Did it work?”
He scrubbed a hand across his jaw and shook his head with a smile. “Guess it did. Whatever is and isn’t between us, no way I’m going to stand back and watch you go out with a criminal. You’re too good for that.”
This time she knew she’d taken another step closer, going up on tiptoes to glare right into his eyes. “And in case you weren’t paying attention, I’m trying to belessgood. I’m tired of boring, clean-cut guys. I want excitement, and adventure, and”—she put a hand on his heavily inked biceps—“tattoos. I want a guy who pushes me out of my comfort zone and gives me the kind of mind-blowing sex I’ve only read about in romance novels.”
Ryan’s pupils had dilated until his eyes were black, and the look in them said he wanted to give her all those things and then some. Her hand was still on his arm, her breathing erratic as lust burned its way through her belly. They stood that way for several wild beats of her pounding heart.
“Dammit, Emma,” he rasped, sucking in a deep breath. He only used her full name when he was rattled. She’d noticed that over the course of the last month.
Dammit indeed. He wasn’t going to kiss her, and she was so frustrated she wanted to scream. Instead, she lifted her hand from his biceps and jabbed a finger against his chest. “You don’t get a say in who I do or don’t date.”
His big, warm hand closed over hers, flattening it against the firm expanse of his chest. “I damn well do. Your brother would turn over in his grave if I let you date a guy like Todd Pierce.”
There he went, playing the Derek card again. “If he were here, he wouldn’t be able to stop me any more than you can.”
* * *
“You can’t possibly—” Ryan heard voices a moment before Mark and Ethan turned the corner.
They stopped dead in their tracks and stared.
Ryan looked from the guys to Emma as the hallway sizzled with a heavy silence. He was acutely aware that Emma’s hand was on his chest, still engulfed in his. And they were standing way too close. For one long, awkward moment, they just stared at each other. Then she scooted backward, mumbled a hasty good-bye, and headed for the door.
“Whoa,” Ethan said once she’d gone. “You andEmma?Where the fuck did that come from?”
Ryan shook his head. “Not what you’re thinking.”
“I know what I saw.” A wide grin spread across his buddy’s face. “You two were looking at each other like you were about two beats from jumping in the sack together, and while I totally did not see this coming, I kind of dig the idea of you guys together.”
Mark nodded in agreement, looking suspiciously as if he was fighting a smile of his own.
“We are not together,” Ryan said, pushing past them to go get a drink from the water cooler in the lobby. “In fact, we were arguing about her choice of men on Tinder.”
“You hear this?” Ethan said to Mark.
Mark shook his head with a smile. “I hear it. Don’t believe a word of it.”
“I’ve got to go secure the equipment for the night, but this definitely calls for beers at Rowdy’s later,” Ethan said.
“Agreed.” Mark headed for the door.
Ryan, finding himself completely tongue-tied where Emma was concerned, followed them out, headed for the ropes course to see if Trent was still there getting rid of that downed branch. He found the kid seated on the rope bridge, feet dangling, cell phone in hand. He wore ear buds, his head bobbing to whatever music he had going. The hand saw lay discarded on the bridge beside him.
Ryan’s temper reared up like an angry beast. He wasn’t a stickler about work. He and the guys goofed around plenty, but they also worked their asses off out here. Maybe hiring his brother had been a mistake because now he was going to have to give the kid a lecture, and he’d rather Trent learn this lesson from an employer who wasn’t also the brother trying to find a way back into his life for good.
