Shit. Don’t even go there, he muttered to himself. And that thought was swiftly followed by a guttural Christ, I need a drink.
He spent a lot of time these days telling himself what he needed to fix his head. A drink, a woman, or women when he couldn’t be bothered to choose which one he wanted to take home for the night. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to develop a reputation in town as the lawman who could screw his way through hoards of party girls without ever losing his breath. At the age of thirty-three, it wasn’t a distinction to be proud of. It just meant that while all the other guys were getting on with their lives, he was still acting like an idiot who thought with his prick. Or one who would only touch a woman if she let him tie her—No, damn it. He wasn’t going there tonight either. In his current mood, those thoughts wouldn’t lead him to any place good.
Hitting the five-mile marker, Ryder finally slowed to a walk and pulled off his damp T-shirt, using it to wipe the sweat from his face. He headed across the sand toward the beachfront duplex he rented from an elderly couple who had retired there after living in New York for the past forty years. The house was designed with an entrance to each half at the sides of the duplex, bougainvillea-covered trellises creating two pathways that sheltered the entrances from the street, with matching archways in the back that you could walk through if coming up from the beach. The profusion of flowers was a little fanciful for Ryder’s taste, but his sister had gushed about them when she came for a visit last month, claiming the trellises gave the house “Southern charm.”
Wondering if he’d finally be able to chill enough tonight that he could sleep, Ryder had nearly reached his front door when he sensed a slight movement to his left, in the shadows of the trellis, and he reacted before he’d even given conscious thought to the possible threat. That’s what over a decade of black ops training could do to you, and despite being out of the game for a few years now, his reflexes were as lightning quick as ever. Dropping his shirt, he reached into the shadows, snagged a feminine arm, and yanked the woman into the moonlight, the shrill scream on her lips quickly shifting to an outraged snarl as she brought her other arm around to strike him across the face. He quickly blocked the move, catching her wrist and pinning both arms behind her back, while she flailed in his hold, kicking at his shins with her sandal-covered feet.
“Who are you?” he growled, quickly assessing that she wasn’t a physical threat. Her hair covered her face as she struggled to free herself from his embrace. But despite her efforts, there wasn’t a chance in hell she could break free. He knew how to counteract every one of her defensive moves, which only infuriated her more.
Narrowing his eyes, Ryder carried out a quick visual check on the female. She had her head down so he still couldn’t see her face—but what he could see of her made his mouth go dry. Waves of silky strawberry blond hair. Her miniskirt and short-sleeved, button-down shirt revealed creamy skin and a body that was slight but deliciously feminine. So familiar it was almost too good to be true. She had the right shade of hair. The right frame. The right shape. The right fucking everything, ripped right out of his goddamn memory to torment him.
He could hear a roaring in his ears, drowning out the rational voice in the back of his mind shouting for him to move away from her. Instead, he continued acting purely on instinct. On the raw, powerful lust that ripped up through his insides the instant he realized he had someone who reminded him of her in his arms. The very woman he never allowed himself to think about, let alone fantasize. But this was like a gift from fate. The bastard had never been kind to him in the past, but at the moment Ryder just didn’t give a damn. The only thing he had to worry about was convincing the little hellcat that there was something a hell of a lot better they could be doing together than fighting.
His breathing got deeper, nostrils flaring as he pulled in her light, purely feminine scent, the autumn night warm enough that the air was still sultry and damp from an earlier rainstorm. His body had already reacted to the feel of her wriggling against him, a serrated groan on his lips when her belly brushed against his erection, making her gasp. She went instantly still, but not with fear. It was more like . . . surprise, and he knew the exact instant her anger flared into lust—and he was done for. In that moment he couldn’t have walked away from her if his goddamn life depended on it.
For all Ryder knew, the woman was a thief who’d been getting ready to clear his house out, but he didn’t care. She smelled like Lily, had that same gorgeous hair and sexy figure, and he was too fucking starved to resist. One second they were standing on the walkway in front of his door, and in the next he had her plastered against it, wishing like hell that he’d replaced the blown bulb in the outside light so that he could get a better look at what he was tasting. His mouth had instantly settled against the base of her pale, slim throat, his tongue fluttering against her hammering pulse as he grabbed the front of her short-sleeved top and ripped. By the time Ryder could hear the shirt’s buttons pinging against the ground, he already had his mouth buried between her beautiful breasts. Any concerns he might have had that she wasn’t on exactly the same page as him were shattered by the low moan she gave when he ripped the silky cups of her bra down and curled his long fingers around the firm, delicate mounds, covering one of the hardened tips with his mouth. She cried out as he suckled her, her short nails digging into the bunched muscles in his shoulders, and it was like losing himself in a fever dream, her wild response to his aggression only adding fuel to the fire.
The nipple in Ryder’s mouth was tight and sweet, the intoxicating taste of the woman’s skin cranking his lust up to a primitive level. That irritating voice was still shouting in the back of his mind, warning him to snap back to reality and think about what he was doing—but he was too far gone, and she was too damn hot and willing. Her hands were already fisted in his hair, holding him to her as he switched to the other breast, her thigh riding his hip as she arched against him, as if she was as desperate for this as he was. And he was beyond desperate, his dick so hard he could have hammered through the fucking door with it. And the longer he touched her, the harder he got. Not that she was complaining. The woman was grinding herself against the front of his running shorts, riding the hard ridge of his cock, the husky sounds spilling from her lips the sexiest damn thing he’d ever heard.
He didn’t have a condom on him, which meant he couldn’t fuck her until he got her inside. He might be aching for it, but he wasn’t stupid. He’d always been religious about suiting up with latex and had never screwed without it. But this hot little stranger made him damn tempted.
“We need to move this indoors,” he rasped against the soft skin just under her right breast. Gripping her hips, Ryder dropped to his knees and kissed his way down her flat belly, until he’d shoved her skirt up and had his face buried against the silky front of her panties . . . then lower, between her legs. A rough, guttural sound crawled its way up from his chest as he caught the hot, mouthwatering scent of her cunt, the sexy underwear already damp with her juices. And then she had to destroy the whole goddamn thing with the soft, whispered sound of his name.
“Scott.”
Ah, Christ. No one fucking called him that but her, and it hit him like a bucket of ice water in his face.