Page 39 of Confessions of a Former Puck Bunny

“Seriously.”

I sat on his back, sidesaddle, half expecting him to jerk out from under me as punishment for teasing him earlier. He lowered his body mere inches from the ground and I rode up and down, up and down, feeling the muscles bunch and move underneath me—which was its own form of punishment. Every thought turned to how strong he was. How much I’d like to see all those muscles without a shirt in the way.

Once he’d counted off twenty-five, he stood and, as if he’d been reading my mind, peeled off his shirt.

I stared. Not subtly, either. Nope, totally unabashed, taking in every dip and groove of his sweat-glistened skin.

“Since we’re playing dirty,” he said, shooting his wadded shirt over to his bag. He grabbed my hand. “Last machine. I’m not sure you can handle it, though.”

“I’m not sureyoucan handle it.” As far as comebacks went, not my best, but I mentioned he was shirtless and crazy ripped, right?

He sat down on the leg machine, the one where the seat reclined at a forty-five-degree angle, and then he lifted the weighted bar that rested at shin-height with his legs.

He reached for my hand, and since I’d already talked trash, I took it, even though I was starting to think Iwouldn’tbe able to handle it. He pulled me toward him, and I had no choice but to run my shins into the weights or to straddle the machine. I chose straddling, but kept space between us like I had earlier.

My heart hammered against my rib cage, beating in time with his leg lifts, the steady clink of the weights filling the air. Ryder’s eyes remained locked on mine, and energy crackled in the air between us. He sat up enough to run his hands up my thighs.

A dart of heat shot through my core, and my breath lodged in my throat. Ryder’s fingertips skimmed the skin between my pants and shirt and desire danced across my nerve endings. Still our eyes remained fixed on each other, and I wasn’t sure I was taking in oxygen anymore.

A distant part of me whispered that if I didn’t stop this…whatever we were doing, I’d be in trouble. But fighting my attraction to him was exhausting and the ache that’d formed between my thighs grew more persistent, drowning out silly things like common sense.

I leaned over like I had before, my hands braced on either side of him. He lifted the weights again, and then he brushed his lips against mine, just a quick slide of soft lips.

My throat went completely dry. I pressed my palm flat against his stomach and slowly slid it up, feeling his firm chest and the hammering of his heart, which echoed mine.

Ryder gripped my hips and pulled me down to sit on his lap, eradicating the space between us. He lifted the weights with his legs a few more times, each rep bumping me tighter to him. Friction was definitely happening, and with each lift, it became clearer and clearer how much it was affecting him as well.

The tiniest whimper escaped my lips and he raised an eyebrow that added even more smugness to the curve of his tempting mouth.

Two could play dirty. So I sank farther into his lap and he groaned.

Of course, all it did was give me dirty thoughts and turn me on that much more.

He lifted his legs two more times, the movement shaky. He slowly ran his fingertips up my arm, across my collarbone, up my neck, and then he reached back and tugged my hair free of its ponytail.

He drove his hand into my hair, cupped the back of my head, and for one torturous moment, time stopped, both of us suspended right there on edge of crossing lines.

Or crossing more lines, as we’d clearly already crossed a few.

I licked my lips and he yanked me to him as he sat up. Our mouths crashed together somewhere in the middle, and there was nothing tiny about the moan I let loose as his tongue met mine. I rolled my hips and he groaned, growing even harder underneath me. Desire and lust crashed, thoughts turned hazy, and my focus narrowed to his lips, his hands, his hard body underneath me.

I melted into him, throwing myself fully into the kiss and telling myself I’d worry about repercussions later. My fingers traced his firm pecs, shoulders, biceps, abs—all the sexy muscles I’d wanted to touch since I’d shown up this morning. Hell, since the first moment I saw him.

He slid an arm around me and brought me to lie tight against him as he stroked my tongue with his. “God, Lindsay.”

I was just about to respond with a compliment of my own, something super coherent likeholy shit you can kiss, but the sound of the door opening broke through the sounds of our labored breaths.

I nearly face-planted as I tripped my way off Ryder, and I barely righted myself in time for Hudson and Dane to step through the door.

“I thought we’d find you—” Dane’s gaze flickered to me. “Bro.Um, sorry. We didn’t…”

“I was just getting some help on my math,” I said, and judging from the skepticism on their faces, neither of them believed me for a second. No doubt my disheveled appearance didn’t add much credibility to my lie. My face flamed as I gathered my books.

Ryder stood and reached for me. “Lindsay…”

“I’ll catch you later.”

As I rushed out of the gym, everything hit me at once, along with a big swirl of emotions that made it hard to sort one from the other.

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