Page 5 of Summer with a Ranger

As I whipped out of the building, I could've sworn Angel smiled again.

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I shouldn't have asked to read what she wrote.

That was all that crossed my mind as I stared down at the sexist gibberish that covered the digital page. Mind, seeing as she used a stranger to keep her single status card intact, I shouldn’t have been surprised. Still, those words actually did reduce her sex appeal.

Minutely, maybe.

Fuck it. I still wanted that kiss.

Girls, if you’re going to free air the kitty to encourage your man into action, he might need a little help. Flick the skirt, grind, let his hand wander. Sometimes men can be so ingrained in their habits they usually can’t see what’s right in front of them. But keep it discreet. Subtle is sexy.

I blinked at the screen. What were we, men from the stone ages? Miss Skye Hamilton–I stalked her name and maybe her number in the cottage guest book–needed a little nudge in the right direction. Setting my jaw, I handed her laptop back, ready to rain hell on her thoughts about my sex.

“You might wanna go easy on the, uh, aggressive tone,” I murmured, trying to work out how not to offend her while still getting my point across.

“You don’t like men being objectified the way you have with women for centuries?” She tossed her glorious mane over her shoulder, a defiant glint in her eye that may or may not have bordered on maniacal.

“Damn, that’s pretty. Huh?” I half reached out to touch her, though my hand suddenly stung like hell. “I didn’t deserve that.” I looked at her after studying the pink finger marks on the back of my hand. Really looked at her, and reassessed my original vision of the girl who wouldn’t leave me alone.

Strong, but fragile underneath. She’s covering cracks in her self-belief with muscle so she can fight what–who–ever comes at her.

Nothing about my epiphany made her less sexy in my eyes. Maybe more so, because now I knew she wasn’t just driven, she was also a fighter.

“You did.”

“Nope. Just stating what I see, princess.”

“See.” She flicked sand at me. The golden grains bounced off her laptop case. “Objectifying me.”

“Yeah, just like you did the first day you planted your tush beside me–unobjectified tush–” I held up a finger when her pretty mouth opened–the objectified, pretty mouth I wanted to do bad, bad things to–and kept talking. “–and called me baby oil boy, and big boy, saying I had nothing going for me but muscles.” Okay, so I paraphrased, but that was the gist of it.

Her mouth opened, and closed, then opened again. “That’s not–”

“What you meant to say, but it is what happened,” I reminded her gently. “Maybe you should look inside with this one, Skye, before you send that off to wherever it’s going.”

Personal blog, her friends group, a magazine, what the fuck ever. But she’d get blasted for it, or I had no faith in the female population standing up for their favourite boy toys, and not the battery operated sort.

“How dare you.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Do you understand why I word things the way I do?”

“Enlighten me.”

“You’re ridiculously white,” she seethed. I raised an eyebrow and gestured at her Aryan look. She ignored me. “Privileged may as well be stamped across your forehead. Or maybe it’s on the back of your designer polo.”

“You’re wearing the same label as me.” I pointed out, unwilling to back down just because her bikini bottoms got in a sexy, damp little twist.

“Hudson, let me mansplain this one for you.” She ran her fingers through her hair. “I reach women in all corners of the US, and some farther afield. Some are very quiet, conservative areas. Some aren’t white areas.” The obsessive–excuse me, passionate–gleam replaced a flicker of exhaustion in her gaze, lifting the colour in her face. “Let’s say we went out on a date. We got along well, shared a hot kiss, and decided to take it further. Both of us being professional city dwellers, or wherever you come from. Would you think less of me in the morning for it?”

How long were you up writing for last night, Skye? Because she sure as hell outlasted me when I dozed in my chair for half the night, creating new fantasies about my beach towel buddy.

Her gaze fixed on me, and a flush travelled up my cheeks. I resisted the urge to curve my hand around her nape, pull her into me, and find out just what that scenario she outlined felt like first hand.

“Of course not.”

The image of kissing her hard enough to push her against a wall in my room and run my hands up those toned thighs and beneath her sarong ripped through my mind on a swift current of searing arousal.

My cheeks weren’t the only things overheating.

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