The Mix-Up (Southern Hearts Club #3) - Melanie Munton Page 0,26
“you said it yourself…I’m not some prize to be won.”
He chuckles darkly. “My words were misleading. You are a prize, duchess. Just not the type you win after tossing a ring at milk jugs at the state fair. You’re the type you wait patiently for, work tirelessly for. The type that your whole life builds up to. And the type that once claimed, makes everything else you think matters seem superfluous in comparison.”
My breath shudders out of me in a gargantuan tidal wave of confusion, distress, and…longing? No, that can’t be right. I’m just on edge with the need to release some of this pent-up sexual tension, and Ryder is using all the right moves to get me there. It doesn’t go deeper than that.
But his words…
“That’s why you make a man want to win you.” He stiffens, as if realizing he actually did say that out loud. Then he relaxes again. “That is, if you can ever get past your own stubborn pride and sassy mouth long enough to let him.”
“Both have been working well for me the past twenty-five years,” I say breathlessly.
Why can’t I take a deep breath?
He grunts. “Don’t I know it. And every other man who meets you does, too.”
“You’re really starting to sound like a jealous boyfriend.”
Jesus C, did I really just hit him with the “b” word?
He slides his finger beneath the gold chain around my neck and lightly tugs. My head falls against the wall as a hiss escapes my lips. He gnashes his teeth, like he’s restraining the urge to pierce my flesh with them.
“If you don’t like it, then stop pulling shit like you did in the conference room,” he grates out. “I know that move was more for me than it was for him—”
“Think what you want, boss.”
He gives the chain another tug, tightening it against my throat. “If you want to show me your body, you do it when it’s just the two of us. When my eyes are the only ones to see it. Understand?”
“That’s never going to happen.”
With blown pupils, his gaze travels the length of me, unhurried. “Your body says otherwise. You’ve been burning up ever since you saw my reaction in that room.”
“Did you ever think that maybe I was just hot in there?”
His mouth curls in a crooked grin. “Oh, you were definitely hot. But I don’t think removing your jacket cooled you off at all. In fact, I think you’re on fire right now.”
I wiggle my hips, intentionally nestling his bulge into the notch between my thighs. “Seems I’m not the only one.”
“Now who’s playing games, duchess?”
The tip of his tongue snakes along the pulse point at my throat. My eyes roll back in my head—
His shrill ringtone severs the heady tension.
He doesn’t immediately reach for the phone. Instead, he lifts his eyes to mine, as if trying to burrow inside them so he can read my every thought. Finally, his finger releases the gold chain and he steps back, putting some much-needed distance between our bodies.
Empty.
Already, I miss feeling that heaviness between my thighs.
Jaw clenching, he reaches inside his pocket and answers the call. At the same time, he punches the emergency stop button, sending us careening back up to our floor. He speaks to the person on the other line in clipped sentences, before eventually hanging up without a goodbye.
When the doors open with a ding, I’m still stuck to the wall like a smashed bug on a windshield. I’m prepared to ride this baby up and down the floors all afternoon if that’s how long it takes to get my shit together.
With his back to me, Ryder exits the car. Doesn’t say another word—
His hand flies out before the doors can close.
He glares at my bare shoulders. “Go put your jacket back on, and get some fucking work done.”
Then he’s gone.
I rush back to my computer to look up the number for a cheap therapist.
Because I need a licensed professional to explain to me why the hell I was smiling as I stepped off that elevator.
Thanksgiving with the Castellanos is always a small, uneventful affair. With my mom’s mother in an assisted living facility down in Jacksonville, we don’t see her often. And my father isn’t very close with his father, who lives in upstate New York near my uncle and his family.
It’s just me, Ross, Mom, and the Major, a.k.a., Dad. We’ve been ordered to call him that ever since we could talk.