I remember what I did at the club, and pull out my phone, then type in the notepad, Evergreen seduction?
She squints as she reads, then she flops back onto my bed. “Yes.”
That’s all I get. Yes.
I roll my eyes. Willa flails in my bed until she’s wrapped up in my comforter like a burrito. Watching her, I unbutton my shirt which smells faintly of vomit and sweaty bodies. I throw it in the laundry, then turn toward the dresser to pull out a T-shirt when I catch a strangled noise come from the bed.
Two dark eyes peek over the comforter.
As I drag the V-neck undershirt over my head and torso, I sign, What?
Slowly, she tugs at the blanket so her face is free. “Ryder, Keeper of Notes. Asshole lumberjack of Los Angeles County, you have a fantastic upper body.”
A laugh leaves me. An actual laugh. I feel it bubble out of my belly, soar through my throat and reverberate in the air.
Willa sits up, throwing back the blankets. “You just laughed! I just made you laugh!”
My heart pounds with nerves. My skin crawls with dread. I’m waiting for the inevitable. For her to say I sound weird or terrible.
But she just throws her hands up and crows, “Wooohoooo!”
I cover both of my ears instinctively before the hearing aid squeaks feedback. Willa climbs out of the bed, tripping over her feet until she runs smack into my torso and wraps her arms around me. Muffled sound lands somewhere between my pecs before Willa seems to remember to unsmoosh her face. Setting her chin on my sternum, she peers up at me. “I made you laugh, Lumberjack.”
I try not to smile but fail, grinning ear to useless ear as I nod.
Slowly, her fingers trail up my chest, leaving a wake of sparks simmering beneath my skin. Her fingers skate up my throat and drift through my beard. They rest over my lips, parting my facial hair as she squints at my mouth. “This squirrel-tail is a problem.”
My eyebrows lift. My beard’s not that scraggly.
…Is it?
“I can’t see your mouth. And I’m suspicious that it’s a pretty mouth. Like one of those mouths that a man with eyelashes like yours has no business having.”
She sways slightly in my arms, her eyes drifting shut as she mumbles, “I wish you would talk to me, Ry.”
I know she’s drunk and unfiltered, but her words land like a physical blow. My hands go to her waist, to steady myself as much to right her wavering posture. My grip tightens as the sound of my nickname on her warm, husky voice hits my bones and echoes.
Fear creeps up my spine. I feel its exact journey, icy fingers climbing each vertebra until it clutches my throat. It’s getting harder and harder to lie to myself when Willa Sutter’s around. To tell myself my heart doesn’t trip when I look at her, that need doesn’t torture my body. That I don’t daydream about sliding my hands under those baggy hoodies she always wears, feeling the silky skin along her ribs, the soft handful of her tits. That I never wonder what it would be like to drive down the road, holding hands affectionately while still lobbing jabs and busting bullshit. That I don’t fantasize about how we’d play the radio and I’d be able to talk and hear over it. Willa would slide her hand up my thigh, and I’d have to pull over and kiss her until that mouth finally stopped running at me long enough for me to give it all the attention it deserved.
Willa as my nemesis is safe. As my antagonizing quasi-friend, a manageable risk. Or so I thought. But now I see that anything more than that, and nothing remotely manageable comes of it. Nothing at all.
I’m brought from my thoughts as her hair whispers over my skin. Those untamed tendrils are the same rich brown as her eyes, streaked crimson and gold from hours spent daily in the California sun. They tickle my arms and chest as Willa sways in my grasp, her eyes drifting shut as she smiles.
Carefully, I hold her to me and give myself this one moment that I can only hope she won’t remember, even though it’s one I never want to forget. I press my nose to her hair, a long, deep breath as I commit her gentle scent to memory—orange zest and sunscreen at the ocean, the pure softness of roses. One soft kiss to her temple—
Shit.
I pull back. It might be the barest touch of my lips to her forehead, but I’m kissing my drunk project partner, and I don’t have her consent.
“Shut up your head,” she mutters. “I want you just fine, now kiss me again.”
Crazy mind reader. Her lips sear the skin exposed above my shirt, where she presses a soft, wet kiss.
Willa’s hands link around my neck, as if to kick out fear’s grip and stake her claim. Her fingers slide along my scalp, making some kind of desperate groan rumble out of me. Willa shoves herself even tighter to my front, and we stumble until we bump against the wall. My hand dips down to her waist as she hitches her leg around my hip. I wrap my hand around iron-solid thigh and try to take a steady breath.
Her gasp is a soft burst across my neck. Her nails sink harder into my scalp as she presses on tiptoe, those bee-stung lips begging to be kissed.
“Ryder,” she says. “I demand to be kissed.”
A quiet laugh leaves me. Gently, I clasp her jaw and my thumb traces her mouth. If I do this, who knows what will happen, what kind of damage control this would require tomorrow? She’s half-asleep, half-drunk. If and when I kiss Willa Sutter, I want her to remember it.
I press my lips to her temple again and feel a heavy sigh leave her. Her mouth slides, wet and hot along my collarbone. I suck in a breath, leaning my cheek against her wild hair, my fingers sinking into its chaos. Her tongue swirls at the hollow of my throat. My lips sweep the shell of her ear.
Willa and I aren’t even kissing, not on the lips, but we’re moving, rolling against each other, and that I know has to stop. What we’re doing right now only leads to one thing. One thing that absolutely cannot happen right now.
When I pull away, Willa does too, her features tightening. “Why did you stop?”
I tug at my hair. My hand falls and I shake my head. Fatigue from the day makes my thoughts increasingly fuzzy. I don’t even know what I’d try to sign to her, what words I’d write in my notepad.
“You don’t want to anymore?” she asks faintly.
Her eyes are getting heavier, and I think this time, there won’t be any waking her. Before Willa can argue anymore, before she can demand a kiss or ask for one step further, her eyes fall shut and she drops, a dead weight in my arms.
“Sleep,” she says.
Nodding, I scoop her up. For once, Willa Sutter and I agree on something.
10
Willa
Playlist: “Surround Me,” LÉON
“Oh, God.” Blinking hurts. Thinking hurts. I shift and bump into something solid and immovable. Whatever it is, it smells like sex in an evergreen forest. Cedar. Pine. Spruce. I’m warm, with one tree limb draped around me, another poking my butt. Wait—
Startling, I spin inside the tree limb that I realize is an arm. It’s so damn heavy, it might as well be timber. Ryder’s out cold, his mouth open softly in sleep. There are smudges under his eyes which I’m sure have everything to do with the fact that he went driving to some ritzy club Rooney and Becks picked, at God knows what hour of the night. That plan backfired a little bit. I know loud environments are nightmarish for his hearing. I didn’t mean to lure Ryder there. Becks was just supposed to send a picture of me being obnoxiously sexy. In the name of retribution, and all.