Page 8 of Tough Nut to Crack

"My drink is on you," she says before she starts to walk away, but to my surprise, she stops and throws me a look over her shoulder. "The offer only stands for the next couple of minutes, Mac Hammer."

And then she walks right out of the bar.

I don't worry that I drop too much money on the bar top before chasing after her.

I fully expect to see her hauling ass out of the parking lot, getting a good laugh at me, but she's just outside, her face turned up toward the night sky. When she spots me, she walks toward my truck, and I shuffle past her to open the door for her.

She's silent when I climb into the driver's seat. If I hadn't seen her walk into the bar and only have one drink, I'd think she was too drunk to make this choice tonight.

She shifts her weight in her seat as I pull out of the parking lot.

"It smells like you in here," she says conversationally, as if we're heading to the grocery store or if I'm giving her a ride to the bank or something rather than where we're really heading and the plans we have.

"It usually smells like gym socks and sweat," I mutter. "But I had a client meeting earlier today."

"My client threw soup in my face today," she says, her tone not changing.

I snap my head in her direction so fast the truck lurches. I barely straightened it up before hitting a row of mailboxes.

"Excuse me?"

"I signed an NDA. Can't really talk about it."

"A sex contract?"

"What?" Her head snaps in my direction.

"Aren't those for sex?"

"Lots of people use NDAs. It wasn't about sex. It was a catering contract."

"So soup in the face isn't a kink you have?"

Her laughter fills the cab of the truck, and it works to take a little of the edge off, but she doesn't go further to explain exactly what happened. I commend her for not being one of the ones quick to gossip when she has signed a contract promising she wouldn't.

"I haven't been out this way in a really long time," she says when I take a left out of town. "I forgot how pretty the houses are out here."

"My dad built a lot of them," I explain.

"I know," she says, her voice a little lower than before.

Should it feel weird that we're sharing small talk with the plans we have for later tonight?

We're chatting like old friends, and in less than half an hour, I'll have her naked and laid out on my bed.

Unlike other girls I take home, who would be crawling all over me and trying to reach for my crotch and ignoring their seatbelts, Riley is looking at the houses as we pass by.

Her hands twist and turn in her lap when we pull up my driveway, and although she may be nervous, I also know she's a grown woman. From how she quickly spoke up in the bar, I have no doubt she'd do it again in a second if she changed her mind.

"Ready?" I ask, waiting for her to dip her head before climbing out.

She waits for me to open her door, and I have to smile about it. She was raised in Lindell just like I was, and there's just something about her expectations of me that makes this seem better somehow.

She places her hand in mine when I offer it, but the second her feet hit the ground, she pulls it free.

"Riley," I say when she starts to walk toward my front porch.

She raises an eyebrow when she turns back to look at me, and I hate the swallow that works its way down her throat as if she's expecting something bad from me.

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