Page 20 of Summer with a Ranger

“Behave tonight, and I promise I’ll make it worth your while later,” Hudson murmured in my ear. His hand slunk around my waist, pulling me back into him. “And I’ll let you choose the activity.”

“What if I don’t pick your favourite thing?” I asked absently, falling back into our usual, snarky banter.

“But you’re my favourite thing.” He licked the shell of my ear. “If you fuck him, I’ll turn this ass red with one hand and then start with the other.”

A shiver rippled over me at the thought, both terrifyingly satisfying and abhorrent in equal measure. “You and your dirty promises.”

“Will you take me up on one?” His fingers drifted lower, grazing the front of my dress that didn’t feel half the shield that it had been when I first dressed in it. The walk into the cove was wonderful in the way that it cleared my head, but walking next to Hudson when he was brooding.... hurt. In all sorts of ways.

He’s not for me.

And yet...he was. Hudson was nothing like the sort of man I usually dated, and I hadn’t gone on a date for a long time. Not to say I didn’t have one night stands and too many that I was able to forget the first shoddy attempts that got worse by the pick-up. But he offered something I hadn’t had—ever.

Security.

I should jump at the opportunity to have someone dote on me but that sort of closeness, the intimacy he needed—that was the terrifying part.

Not his hand on my ass, or me sleeping with someone else. It was the thought that the security he offered might be there one day, and...gone the next.

Cliché, but true.

I’d been there, had it happen, and had to walk away for my own sanity. I sure as hell couldn’t do it again.

That was my game. Cement the future of my career. Little to no risk in my personal life, no matter what it took.

But to do that I’d have to break a Ranger’s heart.

“Skye, we should have talked—” Hudson started,

“My newest toy.” Marco’s voice echoed around the boat and the water, gesturing us onto the one hundred million dollar yacht that by rights belonged to someone else, and registered under another man’s name, or perhaps another name of Marco’s. He had a few, like a collection.

His hands swept out as he said those words, but his gaze remained firmly on me.

Hudon’s touch fell away from me, and cold air brushed my back where he stood a moment before, leaving me alone with Marco.

“Don’t worry. He’s already off doing something he’ll find...fun.” The corner of Marco’s mouth turned up in a dark promise that either meant he expected my new husband to earn himself a night’s worth of lap dances from an expensive hooker, or flat his way across the bay come dawn.

It was going to be one of those nights, and I understood this game well.

From the look in Marco’s eyes, he expected at least a little better behaviour from me than Hudson, and I was more than willing to oblige. For now.

“I’m all yours.” I took the hand he extended, my fingers brushing the dark purple silk weave he wore than on a white man might have looked ostentatious but with Marco’s Spanish heritage, actually looked quite classy. The open, crisp white shirt beneath spoke of an extra sort of expectation.

“Oh, I know.” He leaned down to brush his lips across my ear, erasing Hudson’s touch I hated at the time and missed now.

I steeled myself, tipping my chin up and smiling as vapidly as I could. “What game are we playing tonight?” I’d bet my new salary that Marco had something in mind. He always did.

“My favourite game, Miss Skye.” He held out his other hand, gesturing me downstairs.

The door shut and the lock flicked before I really heard his words...and the fact I didn’t pick him up on it.

Pivoting slowly on my heel I turned to correct his mistake and found myself forehead to barrel with a matte black gun, close enough to read the serial number—if the damn thing hadn’t already been filled off.

Double shit.

CHAPTER EIGHT

HUDSON

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