Page 29 of The Christmas You Crash

Jesus. That’s dark for a girl who just got off.

“Ryder?” I call, poking my head into the garage. “Do you need help?”Or something to staunch the bleeding?

“I’m good, Lex. I’ll be right in.” He grunts as he wrestles the wheelbarrow into the garage. “Think you could make us some more of that hot chocolate?”

Satisfied that all of his blood is, indeed, still in his body, I nod. “Yeah. Of course.”

Despite wearing several layers of clothes, I still shiver as I heat milk in a saucepan and chop up the chocolate. At least this kind of chopping isn’t nearly as strenuous. I try not to stare at Ryder’s muscular form as he hauls a few armfuls of wood into the cabin, but he catches me a few times and rewards me with a sinful smirk.

Should we talk about what happened? Ignore it? Pretend that aliens momentarily took over our bodies and forced us to hump like horny teenagers?

Probably the second option. Ignoring is usually the way to go. Especially since whatever that was between us can never be repeated. Ryder and I have no future. There’s no world in which this works out for us if we keep playing such a dangerous game.

“That smells amazing,” he says after changing into dry clothes. He stands behind me, mere inches between our bodies. It’s all I can do to keep myself still. What I really want is to turn around, tug his sweatpants down to his ankles, and choke myself on the massive cock that pressed into my butt when we woke up this morning.

Oh my god, Lexi. Get a freaking grip already!

“Should be done in a minute,” I squeak out instead.

Ryder’s low chuckle vibrates through me and travels straight to my clit. When he walks away to add another log to the fire, I sigh with relief. Stupid blizzard, causing a stupid power outage,which caused us to sleep together so we didn’t turn into stupid human icicles.

All of this has gotten way too complicated.

“We should play a board game,” I blurt out. Because board games are the least sexy thing I can come up with right now. Which makes them the perfect distraction from my raging horniness.

“Sure,” he says. Amusement colors his tone. “What game?”

There’s only one game that can go on forever and is so boring that my libido can’t possibly outlast it. “Monopoly sound good?”

“I can’t guarantee my attention span will allow me to finish an entire game, but yeah. Monopoly works.”

Perfect. We’ll be so bored, it will be impossible to get turned on.

“Cheater!”I shout as Ryder pulls a get out of jail free card on his first try.

He scoffs. “Excuse me? How am I supposed to cheat at Monopoly? That was just lucky.”

“Lucky, my ass,” I grumble. He rolls the die and lands on the property I’ve been itching to buy for the last thirty minutes. “Don’t even think about it.”

Dark eyebrows rise and his dumb dimples make an appearance. “Think about what? Buying this lovely piece of property? Why, yes, I think I will.” He counts out his money and hands it to me with a flourish.

“You knew I wanted to buy that.”

He chuckles. “Sorry, OTG. That’s the way the cookie crumbles, sometimes.”

I slam his money down. “Stop calling me that!”

“Aww,” he coos, turning his lips down in an exaggerated pout. “Are you feeling grumpy because you’re losing, Oscar?”

“I’m not losing. I’m still going to kick your ass.”

He throws his head back and laughs at that. So much for choosing a boring game. Turns out, both Ryder and I are way too competitive to allow even Monopoly to be boring. From the moment the die hit the board for the first time, it was on.

“Your pathetic stack of money would say otherwise,” he taunts in a lyrical voice. “Someone is about to go bankrupt. And then how will you pay your rent when you land on my properties? Accepting sexual favors in lieu of money is illegal, you know.”

I screech in frustration and launch myself across the board, grabbing for his money. “I’ll show you illegal, you pompous ass.”

Ryder barks out a laugh as my fingers wrap around his monopoly money. “You little shit. I’ll teach you not to steal from me.” And then his fingers dance along my sides as he wrestles me onto my back and away from the board and his money. “You’ll pay for that.”

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