by Nicola Marsh
After their unexpected dirty afternoon at the motel, they’d spent an incredible night at her place, pleasuring each other in ways that still blew his mind. And much to his relief they hadn’t been awkward with each other the next morning either. But something had changed while they’d been eating breakfast together and she’d visibly withdrawn. They hadn’t been doing much—just making small talk—so it couldn’t have been something he’d said, yet no matter how hard he racked his brains trying to figure out what had gone wrong he couldn’t come up with a single thing.
This wasn’t him, trying to figure out what made a woman tick. But this was Polly and he didn’t want to hurt her. Not because of some veiled threat from Archie to dismember him if he did, but for the simple fact that she was the only woman to truly get under his skin. First as a friend, now as a lover, and he cared about her.
Inhaling deeply, he blew out a breath and strode into Sizzle. He hadn’t taken much notice of the ambience the first time he’d come here, too hell-bent on saving Polly from the towering woman publicly berating her. Now he glanced around at the sleek chrome chairs and curved front desk, the soft white backlighting on the walls and the vivid splashes of colour in the framed clothes. The place screamed hip and cosmopolitan, and far removed from any workplace in which he envisaged Polly.
Yet she desperately wanted a job here and would go to any lengths to achieve it, including put up with crap from a woman she’d usually have no compunction in dressing down—no pun intended.
Considering the way Andrina had fawned all over him the last time he’d been here, he hoped she would cut Polly some slack when he nailed the keynote speech for her precious bloody fundraiser. He intended on wowing Andrina and her crowd, who, if they were half as uppity as her, would be a tough audience.
As if thoughts of the she-devil conjured her up, Andrina stepped out from behind a plush purple curtain behind the reception desk and caught sight of him. He raised a hand in greeting and she beamed, her crimson-slicked lips ridiculously plumped by fillers.
She bore down on him, crossing the entrance foyer quickly despite her towering five-inch heels. ‘Ryder Beale, what a delight.’
‘Andrina.’ He offered a terse nod. ‘I’m here to see Polly.’
‘Great, I’ll take you to her office.’ She touched his arm, a lingering gesture that left him wanting to take a bath. ‘She’s very busy with the fundraiser.’
‘She’s a good worker, you’re lucky to have her.’
She made a face, half-grimace, half-surprise. ‘Yes, well, she’s proving her worth, especially by convincing you to be our keynote speaker.’
Ryder hid his distaste for this woman with a brief smile. He knew her type. He’d met people like her all around the world, people so filled with their own self-importance they only valued others who they deemed to be on their level. Everyone else was beneath them and treated accordingly.
He hated the hypocrisy. Just because he came from a moneyed background, had built a reputation as a daredevil, then lucked into the life-coaching gig where people actually wanted to hear what he had to say, people like Andrina revered him. What would they think if they knew the truth? That he had more insecurities than most and was plagued by self-doubt on a daily basis—about his family, about the choices he’d made over the years, about everything.
‘How did she convince you anyway?’
Of course she’d ask something like that. Her implication was clear. How did an unimportant subordinate warrant a visit from him, let alone secure his participation in a Sydney fundraiser when he’d commanded audiences around the world?
He decided to toy with her and hopefully teach her a lesson. ‘Polly has connections everywhere and, as I’m sure you’ve learned, she’s very hard to say no to. She’s one hell of a woman.’
‘Yes, well...’ Andrina blustered, lost for words, and he bit back a grin.
Take that, you bossy old bat.
Thankfully, they’d arrived at Polly’s office. ‘I’ll take it from here,’ he said, dismissing her by turning his back on her.
‘Nice seeing you again, Ryder.’
He didn’t respond and instead knocked on Polly’s door, glad when he heard a soft ‘Come in’.
Polly’s startled expression had him biting back a second grin in as many seconds.
‘Not pleased to see me, Pol?’
She reassembled her wits quickly, he’d give her that. While her smile appeared forced her eyes didn’t lie and they glowed with warmth. ‘You can’t drop in like this. You’ll get me fired.’
‘On the contrary.’ He winked and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘Your boss has a lady boner for me.’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘Yuck. That’s gross.’
‘But true.’ He strolled towards her desk and took a seat opposite without asking. ‘Now that I’m here, aren’t you going to admit you’re pleased to see me?’
‘But I don’t lie.’
She widened her eyes in faux innocence and he laughed. Damn, he loved it when they played like this, swapping banter like the good old days.
The Scanlons had never pressured him for answers regarding his occasional foul moods, they’d never asked why he spent more time at their place than at his own, and they’d never made him feel second best, a feeling he’d grown up with every single day with his grandparents.
He couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment he’d felt like a burden to his grandparents but the gnawing feeling of being unwanted and unloved had grown over the years with every harsh putdown from his grandfather until he couldn’t wait to escape. While he never regretted leaving Sydney behind he did regret not spending more time with his friends once he’d escaped.
‘Well, I’ll say it for the both of us then,’ he said. ‘I missed you.’
‘It’s been four days.’ She rolled her eyes but he saw the pleased flush in her cheeks. ‘And I seriously doubt you’re the pining type. You miss the sex.’
‘Ouch.’ He clutched at his heart in mock outrage. ‘You wound me, Pol.’
‘Yeah, right.’ She ducked her head but he glimpsed her smile as she added, ‘Hide like a freaking rhino.’
He laughed, glad that the tension of the other morning had faded away. ‘How’s work?’
‘Good, apart from unexpected interruptions.’ She sent him a pointed glare. ‘Everything’s ready for the fundraiser.’
She paused then glanced away, before refocussing on him with renewed purpose, like she’d come to a decision he might not like. ‘I’ve been going over the final copy for your introduction.’
‘And?’
‘Why didn’t you mention the accident?’
His blood chilled like it usually did when the subject of the accident was brought up, the same frostiness that enveloped him when he still woke with a start in the dead of night all these years later, hearing the screams for help of those car occupants before the ear-splitting yells faded to nothing.
‘You’ve been doing some research.’
The statement was delivered in a monotone that earned a raised eyebrow. ‘It’s my job so yeah, I did. And it surprised me that you never mentioned it to Archie either.’
Fuck, he hadn’t come here to be interrogated. He didn’t need this shit. Rehashing the pain of the past would be nothing but detrimental.
But then he risked a glance at her face, saw the worry in her eyes, concern for him deepening the grooves bracketing her mouth, and he realised they were more alike than he’d thought.
He’d come here to find out what made her tick, to get to the bottom of her withdrawal the other morning. How was that any different?
Reaching out had nothing to do with the two of them hooking up and everything to do with friendship. If he’d come back to Sydney after the accident he would’ve told her about it, Archie too. But he’d distanced himself for a reason and while he wasn’t quite ready to
open up to her about that, he knew he had to give her something because she clearly cared.
‘The accident shook me up. Badly. It took a long while to get over the guilt that I wasn’t in that car when I should’ve been.’
He didn’t need her pity but he understood her sorrowful stare.
‘I read a bit about it. Will you tell me what happened?’
‘A party of us had been travelling together, doing an informal extreme sports tour. When I busted my leg they stuck by me, so I decided to tag along when they headed to their next cliff. One of the girls fancied a guy in the first car, so we swapped out...’ He shook his head, hating the inevitable tightening in his chest as he remembered the exact moment he had made the decision.
Jules had been her name, a boisterous South African who had never shied away from a challenge. Long blonde hair perpetually in a loose bun on top of her head, a large nose, freckles. She’d had a laugh like a braying donkey and the gang had loved it. Spontaneous, warm, adventurous, she’d be the first in line to abseil down a mountain or jump off a cliff.
She’d all but hauled him from the car that day, insisting he’d be more comfortable in the larger van and he’d laughingly agreed when she’d winked and jerked her head at the tall Swede in the front seat on whom she had a major crush.
Ten minutes later, he’d watched that car become a mangled mess, the screams of his friends obliterated in a fireball when it exploded.
‘Survivor’s guilt,’ Polly murmured, and he nodded, the simple action making his rigid neck muscles ache.
‘It messed me up, but it also changed my perspective on life.’
He hadn’t stopped chasing adrenaline highs out of fear but from gratitude. Watching that fatality, seeing how close he’d come to death, had made him re-evaluate everything in his life and scaling down impossible cliffs or jumping out of planes hadn’t seemed so important any more.
‘So a changed perspective meant you embraced a second chance?’
‘Something like that.’ He shrugged, like it meant little, when his entire life had changed courtesy of a split-second decision. ‘I saw a shrink for a while afterwards who helped me gain perspective, and seeing that guy work a miracle on me made me want to complete my psych degree, and with Archie’s encouragement too, I did.’
She wanted to ask more. He could see it in the slightly arched brows, in the way she opened and closed her mouth. To her credit, she didn’t push.
‘After that, I fell into the life-coaching thing after word spread about the adrenaline-junkie-turned-nerd.’
At least, that was the version he told people. Nobody knew how hard he’d striven to get where he was today and he wanted to keep it that way.
‘You’ve been through a lot,’ she said, clasping her hands on her desk and he had the distinct impression she was interviewing him for a position he didn’t want. ‘I’m always here for you, if you want to talk.’
‘Now who’s the shrink?’
She didn’t laugh at his joke. ‘Seriously, Ryder. We’ve always been friends and when this thing between us is over I don’t want you to feel like you can’t talk to me any more.’
Of course their fling would end sooner rather than later. They’d both known that going in, which made it all the easier for him to assuage his guilty conscience that he was taking advantage of the situation.
But something in the way she said ‘when this thing between us is over’ was so matter-of-fact that it made him wish for something different for once in his life.
It was crazy, because he couldn’t stay in one place for too long; it wasn’t in his DNA any more. And considering the bad memories associated with his upbringing in Sydney, the harbour-side city would be the last place he’d put down roots.
But having Polly onside, having her look at him like he hung the moon and stars after opening up to her the tiniest amount, made him wonder what it would be like to come home to someone like her every day.
It was a ridiculous thought, because he knew what he was like. For him, Polly represented the ultimate challenge, a woman who’d never shown overt interest in him, who’d done her best to take him down a peg or two for most of their lives. And he knew, deep down in his gut, that now he had her he’d soon tire and move on, seeking the next challenge. It was what had driven him since the accident and he couldn’t change. He didn’t want to. He guessed he had his grandparents to thank for that, because not feeling worthy of a long-term relationship had stemmed from them.
No, he could never be anything more than a good fuck and a childhood friend for Polly. Imagining anything else was masochistic and he’d been through enough pain in his life already.
‘Thanks for the offer, Pol, but talking is overrated,’ he drawled, determined to lighten the hell up. ‘Sex is better.’
He expected her to chastise him or blush or parry with one of her famous quips.
So she surprised the hell out of him when she stood and held out her hand, an eyebrow arched, her gaze brazen.
‘I couldn’t agree more.’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
RYDER WASN’T THE only one to turn escapism into a fine art.
She understood now why he hadn’t come home to Sydney for the last five years. He’d been running since that heart-breaking accident and hadn’t stopped.
She’d escaped feeling second best by turning to glossy magazines and had ended up bonding with her mum a little because of it.
They’d never had a close relationship but for those few hours on a Sunday afternoon when her mum would bring home the latest releases they’d sit together at the dining table or in the far corner of the backyard under a towering eucalypt and pore over the fashions and the make-up and the celebrity gossip, eagerly tearing out tiny sachets of sample perfumes or foundations.
She may not have ever dabbed those perfumes behind her ears or slathered foundation over her face, but keeping them in a small treasure box under her bed had made her feel like she had a connection with her mother, who had used both liberally.
Facts and figures grounded her but fabrics and fashion had always been her escape.
Like now.
Ryder needed a distraction, badly, and she knew just the way to provide it.
‘Where are you taking me?’
‘You’ll see,’ she said, shooting him a flirtatious glance from beneath her lashes. ‘Why? Don’t you trust me?’
He leaned down to murmur in her ear, ‘After the filthy things you did to me at that motel and at your place later that night, I’m never trusting you again.’
She laughed and squeezed his hand. ‘Lucky for you, I’m feeling particularly filthy again.’
That silenced him and as they reached a tiny storeroom at the end of a long corridor, she unlocked the door and tugged him inside.
She released his hand to lock the door and pocket the key. ‘I’d planned on doing some inventory in here today so I’m the only one who has the key.’
He quickly cottoned on to the importance of her declaration, if his decidedly wicked smile was anything to go by.
‘Are you saying—?’
‘Yeah, I’m saying exactly that.’
She placed a hand on his chest and pushed gently, guiding him to a low-slung velvet chaise longue in the corner. It had seen better days, had probably been in the reception foyer at some stage, before being relegated to this back room. But it would be perfect for what she had in mind.
She loved this room, overcrowded to the point of stifling with random cast-offs of fabric and clothing. There was a shocking-pink taffeta ballgown that looked like something out of a Bollywood movie hanging from the ceiling, swathes of emerald-green velvet cascaded from a roll and slashes of silks in a rainbow of colours were draped over every available surface.
She hadn’t lied earlier when she said she’d planned on doing inventory in here today—not because it was
part of her job description but as a way to ground herself.
If Ryder hadn’t shown up, she’d been in danger of going in search of him. She’d been angsty all day, wishing she hadn’t been so curt in her responses to his texts, wishing she had the chutzpah to follow her heart and tell him about her burgeoning feelings.
Then, to make matters worse, he’d opened up to her, revealing more than she could’ve anticipated, and it had made her fall even deeper.
She needed a distraction and the one thing guaranteed to take her mind off her insane urge to spill the truth was to drag him into her favourite room and go for it.
‘What is this room?’
‘My go-to place.’ She snatched up a daffodil-yellow satin stole, draped it across her shoulders and batted her eyelashes at him. ‘You like?’
‘Babe, I like you in anything, anywhere.’
‘You’re quite the charmer.’ She flashed a coy smile. ‘But two can play at that game.’
His eyebrow arched. ‘What do you have in mind?’
‘I’m going to charm the pants off you.’ She flung the stole away and advanced on him, only to kneel at his feet. ‘Literally.’
He sucked in a breath when she reached out and snagged his zipper, before tugging it down slowly.
‘Babe...’
‘Lift your butt and wriggle down your jeans,’ she said, sounding breathy yet commanding.
She eyed the rigid outline in his jocks before raising her gaze to meet his, smug that she could turn him on this much.
‘Whatever you’re thinking, I like it.’ His gorgeous mouth quirked in a lopsided smile. ‘I like it a lot.’
‘Then you’ll like this even more.’
She slid her hand into his jocks and wrapped her fingers around his cock. He moaned as she eased him out and slid her hand up and down the shaft, her grip firm.
‘Yeah, just like that.’ He gasped as her thumb brushed the head, a second before she leaned forward and licked him.
It was a long swipe of her tongue from the base to the tip and back again. Over and over, savouring the musky taste of him.
