Roughing It With Ryan Read online

  “Can’t you think with me around?”

  “Frankly, no.” She touched his jaw. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “Then don’t.”

  “I just…need to be alone to think, okay? Good-bye, Ryan.”

  He snagged her hips and held her still, feeling unreasonably panicked, though he forced a smile. “I don’t like that word, good-bye, not when it applies to you and me.”

  “It’s the only one I have at the moment.”

  Be patient, he ordered himself as she drove away. She cared, she cared deeply, he could see it in her eyes, feel it in her touch. Just be patient.

  He might as well have asked himself to stop breathing.

  13

  THE PARTY Suzanne was to cater that night was for a wedding anniversary. Another referral from the party she’d done for Ryan’s brothers.

  It crossed her mind that it was likely Ryan could be there, but as the party was a fiftieth wedding anniversary, and the happy couple was well into their seventies, she figured she was safe.

  That he was safe. Because she had no doubt, she would destroy him.

  But he probably wouldn’t be there, so she could relax. There’d be no long, direct stares that made her knees wobble. No light touches that caused her thighs to quiver. No secret smiles to both lighten and freak-out her heart.

  “I followed my nose all the way in here,” Taylor said as she walked into the kitchen, sniffing appreciatively. “We thought we’d help you carry your stuff down.”

  “We?”

  Taylor turned aside just as Nicole appeared in the doorway.

  “I was signing the rental agreement for the loft,” she said with a shrug that caused her myriad of earrings to tinkle like wind chimes. “The scent drew us in here.” She wore military green cargo pants that hugged her slim hips and a camouflage T-shirt with the sleeves ripped off, emphasizing a tiny, lean and incredibly toned frame. Her short, sleek hair was carefully tucked behind her ears as she leaned over the trays and inhaled dramatically. “My God, you’re a genius, too.”

  “Too?” Suzanne looked at Taylor.

  “Yeah, she graduated college at thirteen. Disgusting, huh?”

  “I’d give it all up to be able to cook like this.” Nicole took another hopeful whiff. “No, I take that back. I don’t want to be able to cook like this, I just want to live above someone who does.”

  Taylor laughed. “You managed that feat, Super Girl.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ll feed each of you whatever you want if you help me load all these trays.” Suzanne wondered if she needed to change her blouse, or if anyone would notice the small chocolate stain beneath her right breast. No time to worry about it, she decided.

  Nicole looked at her watch.

  “What, you got a hot date?” Taylor asked her.

  “Work,” Nicole answered.

  “Food should always take precedence over work.”

  “You’re right.” Nicole picked up a tray.

  It took four trips down the stairs, and by the time they’d finished, Suzanne was huffing and puffing. “For how much I lug around every day, I should be thin. I deserve to be thin.”

  “Nah.” Taylor jerked her head toward Nicole. “If you were thin like Nicole, for example, you wouldn’t have boobs.”

  With a frown, Nicole looked down at her small breasts.

  Suzanne laughed. “I’d give up the extra ten pounds each in a heartbeat.”

  “Really? Wonder if Ryan would say the same…”

  Taylor then ducked past Nicole to avoid Suzanne’s extended foot. “By the way, I hope he’s there tonight, you look great.”

  Suzanne did not feel great, she felt…harried. She was wearing her usual uniform of a white shirt—with the small chocolate stain—and black skirt, which, upon reflection, actually was kind enough to hide her biggest flaw—her hips. “It doesn’t matter to me one way or the other if he’s there.”

  Taylor snorted. “Right.”

  “Singlehood,” Suzanne said. “Remember?”

  “Hey, I’m keeping the vow,” Taylor said. “Don’t you worry about me.”

  “Or me,” Nicole muttered, sliding the last tray in the back of Suzanne’s car and swiping her palms on her thighs.

  “You’re too cute and young for such a vow,” Suzanne said.

  Nicole lifted a brow. “I’m twenty-seven. Same as you I’d guess. And besides, a woman can never be too young to decide no man is a good man.”

  Only a few weeks ago, Suzanne would have said amen to that. But the image of Ryan came to her—tall, dark and…well, hers.

  Damn him. “I’ve got to go.”

  “Give Ryan a kiss for me.”

  “Shut up.”

  Taylor smiled knowingly at Nicole. “She’s going to give him a kiss for me.”

  Suzanne sighed. “There are containers in my fridge. Help yourselves to dinner.”

  Taylor and Nicole high-fived each other and vanished up the stairs.

  Suzanne got into her car, and all the way to the job lectured herself on the reasons why singlehood was a good idea. Why she’d made the vow in the first place.

  And all the way there, the reasons didn’t make much sense.

  An hour later the party was in full swing. She was in the kitchen, racing around, humming to herself, when she turned toward the door and froze. Ryan stood in the doorway looking at her with an expression that completely stole her breath.

  And suddenly, she couldn’t remember a single one of those reasons she’d recited to herself on the way over here. She couldn’t remember anything but how he made her feel.

  He wasn’t wearing his usual jeans and work shirt, but instead a pair of khakis and a collarless thin sweater that clung to his broad shoulders and chest in a way that made thinking all but impossible.

  Before she could recover, his long, long legs swallowed the distance between them. “Hey,” he said softly.

  How was it possible to be so off balance just by looking at him? He hadn’t even touched her, couldn’t touch her when he had his hands in his pockets as he did, and yet her heart had already taken off.

  He slipped his hands out of his pockets to tuck a wayward strand of her cursed hair behind her ear. Just a gentle touch, an easy touch, one he drew out by not retracting his hand right away, instead letting his finger trail down her cheek.

  “I have work to do,” she managed.

  “Okay.” He ran his finger over the pin on her blouse, just above her breast. Her nipples would have hardened, but they’d already done that at the first sight of him.

  She lifted a tray but he took it out of her hands.

  “Ryan—”

  “Let me help.”

  Before she could say that wasn’t a good idea—if she let him help, she would feel obligated to him, and if she felt obligated to him, she might do something stupid at the end of the night like beg him to make love to her—he simply leaned close and kissed her cheek. Just her cheek, just a quick connection, and yet her entire body reacted. Wanted more. No other man had ever had that kind of power over her.

  And, she realized, no man ever would. Her legs wobbled at this realization.

  Ryan walked out the double swinging doors of the kitchen with the tray, leaving her standing there…stunned. Aching.

  “Fine, then. Take the tray.” Muttering beneath her breath about beautiful, bossy men who had to have their own way, she whirled back to the counter and began to fuss over another tray that had gotten a little sideways on the drive.

  “Why is it that every cook I know mutters to themselves?” asked a female voice.

  Angel. Suzanne didn’t turn around immediately, as she wasn’t ready to face yet another Alondo. “How many cooks do you know?” she asked lightly.

  “Well, there’s you. And my brother. Even though we tease him, Ryan is pretty handy in the kitchen, did you know that?”

  No. No, she didn’t. She didn’t know a lot about him, and despite the pull low in her belly at the thought of him, s