Page 27 of Nailed (Dad Bod Contracting 3)
Eventually, even with my comfy heels and sweater, my feet start to hurt and I get chilly.
Ryder notices, and we stop walking. “Done walking?”
I shrug. “I’m enjoying the conversation, but heels aren’t made for extended walking, and it’s getting a little cold out here.” I smile at him. “Shall we go somewhere for a nightcap?”
He doesn’t smile back; his eyes meet mine, intense, wild. “We could.” He has both my hands in his, and his thumbs brush over my knuckles.
“You have a better idea?”
His smirk is suggestive. “I might.”
“Do tell,” I say, giving him a coy grin.
“This is us,” he says, gesturing to an adorable boutique hotel right in front of us. It’s small, trendy, and inviting. I frown at him. “What about your car?”
He smirks. “While you were in the bathroom at the restaurant, I spoke to the valet attendant. For a few extra bucks, I had them bring my car here and leave it with the hotel valet.”
I laugh. “So this whole walk wasn’t just random wandering, was it?”
He shrugs. “I wanted to keep talking to you.” His gaze is earnest. “I’m really enjoying getting to know you, Laurel. But no, it wasn’t random. I chose the restaurant and hotel because they were within walking distance of each other…just so we could do this.” He gestures at the sidewalk. “Just walk, and talk, and get to know each other.”
I melt just a little more. “I like getting to know you too, Ryder.” I trace a finger across his shoulder, my eyes on his. “I wouldn’t mind going in now, though.”
He brushes a thumb over my cheekbone, leans close, a touches a ghost of a kiss to my lips. “Thank god.” Another slide of his lips over mine, a tease of a kiss. “I’m dying to get to know you in a whole different sort of way.”
I squeeze his hand hard, teasing him with my lips, darting away from his kiss and then closing in to nip his lip. “You want to know me Biblically?”
He rumbles an amused laugh. “Nothing Biblical about what I want, Laurel.”
“It’s an expression—” I start.
He laughs, pressing closer to me, and kisses me to shut me up. “I know,” he says, whispering against my lips. “But what I want with you sure as hell ain’t the kind of thing you’d read about in a Bible.”
“Take me to our room and show me what you mean,” I murmur back. “Please?”
He growls as he backs away, his eyes blazing. “Don’t have to ask me twice, babe.”
He takes my hands again, leading me into the hotel. He signs a slip to acknowledge that they have his car in valet parking, takes the ticket from them, goes through the process of getting our room key.
The entire time, I’m leaning against him, my hand in his, fingers twined. I can’t help touching him, teasing his fingers with mine, running my finger between his, rubbing the back of his hand with my thumb, gripping his massive bicep over his blazer sleeve, resting my head against his shoulder, gazing at him as he accepts our room keys and listens to the usual spiel from the desk clerk.
Finally, we’re on the elevator. Ryder backs me into a corner, pins me against the wall, his palms on my cheeks, thumbs brushing my skin, lips slanting against mine. My heart pounds, my eyes slide closed, and my hands roam his shoulders, up into his hair, mussing it further. I feel his hand burying into my long, loose black hair, while the other roams down my waist to my hip. His kiss is wild and hungry.
All too soon, the elevator dings as we arrive at our floor, and Ryder backs away, dragging a wrist across his mouth. “Damn, girl. You kiss like you’ve never been kissed before, and I mean that in the best possible sense.”
I follow him as he backs out of the elevator, and I touch his mouth with my fingers. “I haven’t—not in the way you kiss me.”
“And how is that?”
“Like…like you want me so bad kissing me is the only way to even start expressing it.”
“That’d be an understatement.” He looks at the envelope containing our key cards, which has our room number scrawled on the outside. “I wasn’t listening when he told me the room number.” He glances at me with an amused smirk. “Somebody was playing handsies and distracting me.”
I lift my eyebrows and endeavor to look innocent. “I haven’t just held anyone’s hand in a long time. I was enjoying it, that’s all.”
He examines the signs on the wall, and leads us toward our room. “A likely story.”
I laugh. “What? You think I was intentionally trying to distract you?”
“That thing you were doing with your finger on the back of my hand? Yeah, distracting.” We reach the correct room, and Ryder slides a card through the reader, but it blinks red. “Dammit. The card’s not working.”
