I yank the conditioner bottle open with a vengeance.
“And you think you can just waltz in here, shirtless, self-righteous, and entirely too sexy for someone Icreated, and try throwing me offmygame? Nope. Nuh-uh. Not gonna happen.”
Steam swirls around me as I slap a handful of conditioner into my hair, scowling at the wall of white subway tile.
“You’re not even that hot,” I lie to myself as the water beats against my back and my brain buzzes.
And then, mid-conditioner, it hits me.
My eyes widen, and I stop franticly running my hands through my wet hair. “Oh, my god.”
I have an idea. A brilliant, devious, chaos-fueled idea.
“If I can’t delete you,” I whisper, my voice full of malice. “Maybe I candistractyou.”
A wicked grin curls at my lips.
Squeaky clean and fully alert, I wrap myself in a towel, and storm out of the bathroom full of pure, unadulterated spite.
Water drips from my hair and runs down my shoulders, leaving a trail of water on the floor in my wake.
Fuck it. I have a purpose, a goal, a loophole in the very laws of fictional physics.
If I can’t write Ryder Blackwood out of my world? I’ll write him into a corner.
A veryerotic, tongue-filled corner.
Making a beeline for my desk, I open my laptop.
So he wants to play games? Fine. Let’s see how he likes kissing someoneelse.
Hands still damp from the shower, I crack my knuckles and type like my life depends on it.
Ryder stepped into the sunlit bookstore, eyes scanning the quiet corners of the shop until they landed on Lexi.
The barista-bookworm with legs for days and a mouth made for sucking his cock, turned, her eyes going wide when she spotted him. “You came back,” she breathed.
He took one step forward, then another, their chemistry igniting like sparks on gasoline. “I couldn’t stay away,” he said, voice low and rough.
And then he kissed her, slow and deep, devouring every inch of her mouth.
My lips twist into a satisfied smirk. Take that, Ryder Blackwood.
As soon as I hit SAVE, the air shifts and a static hum crawls across my skin much like the moment right before lightning strikes.
A floorboard creaks behind me.
No. Nope.
I spin in my chair and?—
Mother fucker.
Leaning against the door jamb—still shirtless by the way—his arms are folded across his chiseled, tattooed chest, jawtwitching at his temple, eyes locked on my laptop. And his signature smirk? Gone.
His growl is low and dangerous. “Lexi? Really?”
My stomach drops somewhere between the keyboard and the entrance to hell.
