Page 15 of Midnight Surrounds Us

“Huh?”

“A link or an email or somethin’ that’ll take me to the website where I can make the payment.”

“But what if I don’t live up tomypart of the bargain?”

He clicked off his phone and slid it back into his pocket, then grabbed both my hands. “Spitfire, if all I get out of this deal is the satisfaction of helpin’ you, I’m okay with that. I’d do anything for you.”

Spitfire? Oh, so now we had pet names for each other? His would probably be Playboy Asshat. I’d seen the young women he’d paraded around the entire western US. Although, I hadn’t seen him with anyone lately.

“Why?”

It made no sense. Why me?

He chuckled softly. “You remember that dress you used to wear, when you and Tommy would hang out with Junior? Before y’all got married and he went off to the Army?”

“Dress?”

“Yeah, it was pink. It cinched under your breasts, flowed down over your cowgirl boots, and in the sun, the color made your hair shimmer like rose gold.”

“No. I-I don’t remember that.”

“Well, I do. I still dream about you in that dress. More than I probably should admit.”

I was speechless. I’d lied; I did remember. I still owned that dress. I used to love that dress. My mom had bought it for me at a boutique down near Salt Lake City when I graduated business college.

I’d worn it for Tommy, but he told me he didn’t like it, that it was too immodest. The thing went down to my ankles, but the square neckline accentuated my chest. I thought I lookedbeautiful, but all Tommy had seen was something other men might covet, so it made him mad.

“Th-that was over twenty years ago.”

One nod of Rye’s head and the unflinching look in his eyes told me he knew exactly how many years it had been.

He’d been pining for me for twenty years?

Me? He could have literally any woman he wanted.

Reading me again, he said softly, “You got married. I was too young. Life went on.”

His name came out of my mouth in a whisper, “Ryder.”

It was the sweetest thing anyone had ever said to me.

He squeezed my hands softly. “Make this deal with me. Spend time with me. God, I’d love to take you out. Shit, I’d take you to Paris if it’s what you want.”

“I don’t want Paris. I just wanna save my store.”

“So is that a deal?”

Catching my bottom lip between my teeth, I sucked in a breath to say yes, but then I felt a boldness overtake me. It felt dangerous, but it felt like the old me, before I became the mother of two delinquents and the wife to a man who saw me as nothing more than his property.

The me who’d worn that sexy dress.

“Beg me,” I breathed, and I pointed to the floor with one unbending finger. I could worry about the impropriety and all the gossip people would be spreading later.

Instantly, Rye dropped to his knees. He looked up at me, and there was so much vulnerability in his eyes that he took my breath away. Vulnerability that said that this man would give me anything I wanted.

Was five-thousand dollars going too far? It was. I knew it, but I could pay him back.

And seeing him like that, down on his knees for me, did something to my body. Nerve endings fired in the mostinappropriate places, and for the first time in more than ten years, mind-bending orgasms didn’t seem so far off.

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