Page 50 of Filthy Rich Santas

“To draw something,” I clarify, flipping to a clean page in my sketchbook. “You can’t bethatbad.”

Tristan twists around a little in the front seat. “Oh, believe me, freckles. He can.”

“Freckles?” Ryder repeats while I send Tristan a dirty look.

“Quit outing me.” I make a face, wadding up a piece of paper and throwing it at him. “I wear makeup for a reason, you know.”

Tristan’s eyes flare with heat, then he blinks and they’re back to normal as he gives me a tiny smile. “You look gorgeous either way.”

I look down, feeling flustered all over again.

“Come on,” I say to Ryder, handing him the pencil. “Just try.”

Beckett scoffs, the only sign that he’s listening with his eyes glued to the road, and Tristan nods.

“Are you sure you want to suffer through this?” he asks, adjusting his glasses with that same small smile hovering on his lips.

Ryder flips him off, then shoots me a wicked grin as he takes the pencil and draws a circle. I mean, sort of. “You want art? I got art,” he says, adding a line connected to the circle. Then he draws a couple more lines, and…

“Ryder!” I laugh, bumping my shoulder into him again. “A stick figure doesn’t count!”

“Hey, I saw some of that Greene guy’s work. It was all lines!”

“Yeah, but those were…” I search for the right word, then give up. “Let me show you.”

“You’re wasting your time,” Tristan jokes.

“You’re just jealous that you’re stuck up there while I get free art lessons,” Ryder shoots back, trying and horribly failing to copy the technique I show him.

“For whatever good they’ll do you.” Tristan snorts. “We should switch spots.”

Ryder smirks. “Pretty sure you already got plenty of time with Lana this morning.”

Heat pools in my core, making me squeeze my thighs together, and the unspoken tension in the car spikes from every direction. We’reallthinking about what Tristan and I did this morning now.

But of course it’s Ryder who comes right out and says something. Again.

He adds a few blobby shapes near the head of the stick figure he drew. “Want to know why I’m crying, love?” he asks, tapping the blobs.

I grin, shaking my head. “Those are tears?”

“Of course they are. Because you ran to Tristan when you had that nightmare instead of coming to me.”

“You were rooming with me,” Beckett grunts from the driver’s seat.

“And?” Ryder throws back. “You know we both would have been there for her.”

Beckett grunts again, and that heat inside me burns a little hotter. “I would have been glad to have you, um, comfort me,” I tell him, suddenly a little breathless. “But Tristan’s room was closer.”

Ryder’s eyes lock onto mine, something wicked glinting in their depths. “Yeah? But just think, love. If you’d gone just a little bit farther, you would’ve woken up sandwiched between me and Beckett.”

My stomach flips, my heart starting to race at the innuendo. There’s no mistaking it, and no second-guessing that he’s flirting. This isn’t Ryder teasing Caleb’s little sister. This is one of the sexiest men I know suggesting that he would have welcomed me into his bed.

HisandBeckett’s.

“Maybe I wouldn’t have minded that,” I murmur, finding a level of daring I didn’t know I had.

Ryder gives me a slow, sexy smile that suddenly makes all sorts of things seem within reach. “You like that idea, huh?”

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