Flakes (Licking Thicket 0.50)

Ryder smiled a sexy little smirk, his shaggy head tilted to one side and a big ol’ bottle of grain alcohol held by the neck in one giant, callused hand and a shot glass in the other, looking like everything Granny Joyce had ever warned me against. When I licked my lips, I could still taste him.

“Does it matter? It’ll stop when it stops. We’ll leave when we can. In the meantime, we’ve got cupcakes, alcohol, and electricity. People have suffered through worse. Maybe just let things happen for once. You don’t need to design everything in life.”

“That’s… that’s…” I swallowed. In truth, that was a little too accurate, but what I said was, “Ridiculous! Irresponsible.”

He snorted and set the bottle down on the coffee table, then knelt by the fireplace to crumple newspaper under the logs already waiting there. “Okay, then. If you need a plan, Kearns, we’ll make one. Step one, I propose that you get out of that damp shirt while I build a fire—for heat, obviously—and then, step two, we drink a warming beverage.” He nodded over his shoulder at the moonshine, before he lit a match and set the fire ablaze.

Oh, dear Lord.

“Step three, we distract ourselves.”

“Distract ourselves how?” I demanded. I stood, damp and chilly, in the middle of the giant, drafty pink living room, facing the man who’d been the bane of my existence for years, while the skulls of a dozen animals stared down at me. I couldn’t imagine anything distracting me from that.

Ryder’s grin was positively decadent as he stood to face me. “We could always go for round two. I can’t lie, your mouth makes me think… all kinds of thoughts, Kearns.”

And I wanted to know every single one them in graphic, explicit detail.

“Get my mouth out of your mind. What happened earlier was… an… an… an aberration. Never to be repeated. I make a point not to sleep with guys at work.” And given how much I worked, this meant I didn’t sleep with many people at all, ever.

“Who do you sleep with, then?” Ryder demanded, like he could read my effing mind, which was weirdly insightful and also massively annoying.

“That is none of your—”

“Beeswax,” Ryder and I finished together.

I scowled. He laughed.

I lifted my chin. “I don’t care for a round two at this juncture. Round one was… pleasant enough, I suppose.” Like chocolate cake was pleasant. Like winning a million dollars would be pleasant. “But not something I’d care to repeat.”

I was beginning to realize that perpetually scowling at me was the biggest gift Ryder could have given me over the past three years, because Ryder grinning at me like he knew what my dick tasted like—because he did know what my dick tasted like—was gonna drive me insane.

“You’re lying,” he said, not remotely upset. “Round one was fucking amazing.”

My cheeks went hot again. “I doubt it got my heart rate up enough to close the activity rings on my watch,” I sniffed.

He took a step toward me. “That’s not what you were thinking when you were on your knees in the kitchen, staring up at me with your mouth stuffed full of my cock.”

I valiantly fought a shiver. “Stuffed? Please. It was… it was… barely a mouthful.”

“Turns out you’re no better at measuring dicks than you are at measuring snow, Kearns. But if you talk sweet, I might let you see if you can ‘drive’ this.” He waggled his eyebrows.

My jaw dropped. “You’re disgusting.”

“And you’re—” Ryder’s smile deepened as he lifted both hands to cup my cheeks, but as soon as he touched me, his smile faded. “—freezing. Damn it, Colin.” He scowled as he reached for the buttons on my shirt.

“Hey!” I smacked at his hand, but he ignored me. “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”

“Despite all evidence to the contrary?” He huffed out a breath. “You take care of lots of things, Kearns, and lots of people… but I’m starting to wonder whether you take care of yourself at all.”

“You’ve ignored me for three years.” I shivered again, and I wasn’t sure if it was from his nearness or from the damp chill sinking into me. “You don’t like me.”

“I already told you, I noticed you plenty. Too much. I noticed how you care about people. I’ve noticed how dedicated you are to the job. I’ve noticed how much you compromise, even when you shouldn’t. And if I disliked you, Marvel Interiors and Richards Renovations wouldn’t work together on nearly as many projects as we do… Not with you as lead designer, anyway. We’re not exactly hurting for work.”

I blinked. I’d known, of course, that if I’d said a negative word to my bosses about Ryder, Marvel wouldn’t give Richards as much business… but it had sort of slipped my mind that, all this time, Ryder had chosen to take that business.