Page 41 of Stuck On Them

He pushed off the door frame and shuffled toward me, a look in his eyes so heated it scared me. “To hang out?”

“Yeah, just as friends. We can be friends, right? Me and Luca, I mean. Well, and you too. I want to be friends with you. I think. Do you want to be friends?” My mouth wouldn’t stop running, but every other part of me was frozen until he was close enough to touch me.

“Friends?” He grabbed my hand to stop me as I started to back into the room. “Does it feel like we’re just friends, Paige?” He placed my hand over his crotch.

I think I stopped breathing as my hand inadvertently wrapped partly around his thick erection. “Yes,” I squeaked. “The bestest of friends. Bosom buddies even. Chums. Amigos.”

He smiled as he brought my hand to his lips and kissed my palm, which put me at a loss for more ways to say friends. His lips were hotter than they should have been temperature-wise. “Sisters from another mister?”

“Well, no. That would be incest.”

He laughed and it lit up his entire face. The deep throaty sound of it, the way his blue eyes sparkled, the brightness of his smile. I wanted to make him laugh like that again and again.

His hand yanked away suddenly, covering his mouth as he coughed. It didn’t sound like it was coming from his chest, so that was good.

“You should be in bed.” I grabbed his elbow and steered him back toward his room. “I’m sorry if we woke you.”

“I have work I need to get done.” Despite his sluggish movements, he ended up turning toward another door and opening it. “And don’t worry about me. I’m a big boy.”

You sure are.

I gasped as he entered a large room with a desk in front of the windows and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves surrounding the rest of the room. The wall with the door had cabinets on the bottom and shelves on the top displaying all kinds of pictures and trinkets. The other two walls on either side of the room were all books and both had sliding ladders.

“May I?” I walked to one of the ladders and was about to lift my foot when I remembered I didn’t have on any panties. “Never mind.”

Tugging on the shirt, I turned to find his eyes right where my ass would have been. He looked up and cleared his throat. “It’s probably best that your Belle moment happen some other time.”

“Of course.” I patted a rung of the ladder. “I should probably go get dressed.”

He went around his desk and sat down heavily in his office chair. “I’ll order some breakfast. I don’t have much in my fridge since Garrett usually cooks for us, or I grab something on the way to and from work.”

“Garrett cooks for you?” I wanted to bang my head against the ladder, which I couldn’t seem to stop touching.

“Honestly, he should have gone to culinary school.” Ryker opened a laptop that was on his desk. “What do you want to eat? There’s this really good bagel place that makes amazing egg and bacon sandwiches. Or pastrami and egg…” His lips twitched. Was he teasing me?

“You could get one of each and we could split.” I scanned his books, surprised it was mostly fiction. Even more surprising were the bottom shelves full of manga. “Do they have soup? You should get some for later.”

He made a noncommittal noise and focused on his computer screen while I walked to the other side of the room. There were so many books he had doubled them up in some places. I slid one out and he coughed so loud I jumped.

“I don’t like people touching my books.” He barely got the words out before coughing some more.

I slid the book back on the shelf, which didn’t have a speck of dust in sight. “Sorry. I just miss my books. I didn’t have quite this many since print copies are so expensive, but it was a few shelves worth.”

“You didn’t bring them with you?” He went back to clicking on his computer.

“I brought three big suitcases and put everything else in storage until I figured things out.” I moved toward the door, sensing he wanted to be left alone.

He looked up. “Why didn’t you just kick him out? He’s the one who cheated.”

“It was his house. I just paid him rent-”

“He made you pay him rent?” Rent came out a little higher pitched and he roughly cleared his throat. “Was this guy a deadbeat?”

I looked down and ran my big toe along the edge of the area rug on the floor. “No. He was a lawyer… a partner.”

“And he was making you pay for the wedding?” I could hear the fury in his voice.

Hearing it from someone other than Nora and my parents really ripped at the last piece of dignity I had where that relationship was concerned. I’d been so naïve and in love with the idea of marriage and a life with someone that I had brushed aside all the negatives. And there were a lot. More and more, I was realizing, with each passing day.

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