Page 28 of Nailed (Dad Bod Contracting 3)
“Try the other one,” I suggest.
He does, but he has it facing the wrong way, and it blinks red again. “This is stupid.”
I laugh. “I don’t have to try to distract you—you do that all on your own.”
He tries the first card again. “You in that dress…that’s distracting enough.”
Another red flash from the door. He’s getting frustrated, and I decide to lighten the mood a little. I lean up and kiss the back of his neck. Then the side of his neck. And then I lean up against his back and run my hands over his stomach and kiss along his jaw by his earlobe.
“Is that distracting?” I breathe.
“Nope,” he growls. “Not at all.”
He tries the card again, and swears as it flashes red yet again. “Fucker must’ve programmed it wrong.”
“I think you’re just doing it wrong,” I say, suppressing laughter. “You’re distracted.”
“I’m not distracted.” He flips the card, but still gets the same reaction.
“No?” I unbutton his shirt, button by button, starting at the top and working my way down until it’s hanging open, and I untuck it, and then slide my hands under his T-shirt, palming his stomach and caressing his hot bare skin. “Not at all?”
He thunks his head against the door, switching cards. “This fucking thing better work.”
I laugh. “Let me try.” I take the card from him; swipe it, and immediately the light turns green.
Ryder laughs, both annoyed and amused. “Of course it works for you.”
I follow him in, stumbling after him, not letting go of his skin, roaming his chest and stomach, tracing his belly just above his belt buckle. “I just have the magic touch.”
He lets the door slam closed, stops just inside, and then spins around. He grabs both of my hands in one of his and pins them against the door over my head. “You don’t play fair, woman.”
I suck in a sharp breath. “No, but that’s why you like me.”
He kisses me, and I forget that he has my hands pinned over my head, I just sink into the kiss, into him, letting him take all of my weight, letting him pin me against the door with his big hard body, letting his lips scour and search mine, letting his tongue find mine and demand it and demand more, letting him press both of my hands against the door. His other hand slides down my waist to my hip, hugged by the skin-tight green dress. His touch dares further down as we kiss, to the hem, just above my knee.
Abruptly, he backs away, once more dragging the back of his wrist across his lips. “That fucking dress, Laurel.” His tone says more than his words—heavy and thick with desire, ragged with need.
“What about it, Ryder?” I ask.
“I can’t fucking handle the way you look in it,” he says, his voice a deep bass snarl.
“Then take it off.”
Chapter 6
Ryder steps up close to me, his eyes boring into mine. “I like the way you think.”
He reaches for me, his hands closing over my hips, fingers digging into my flesh. With a quick jerk, he tugs me away from the door and up against him; I squeak in surprise, and then the squeak turns to a moan as he dips and slashes his lips over mine. Both hands slide up my body, bury in my hair, tilt my face up so he can deepen the kiss. His body is hard, powerful, and warm. The kiss heats, morphing from a single extended crush of mouth against mouth into a breathless tangle of lips and tongues. His hands scrape down my back and stop, hesitating at the small of my back. I arch into him, raking my hands under his shirt. In a swift, complicated maneuver, he shrugs out of his blazer and button-down at the same time and I shove his undershirt off, and then his whole mammoth, muscular upper body is bare and hot under my hands, his chest bulging with power, his arms thick and corded, his stomach hard and flat. I slam my lips against his the moment his shirt is free of his head, and scour his body with my hands, my touch as eager as my mouth.
I arch against him again, and he takes the hint for what it is: his palms splay open and carve down over my butt, and I feel more than hear the rumble in his chest as he explores the curves and weight of my ass. His hands glide down to the hem, and then whisper up the backs of my thighs, bringing my dress up with it.
I laugh. “Down,” I tell him, pushing down on his hands.
He pulls back, frowning at me. “What? I thought you wanted—”
I laugh again, putting my hands on his and guiding them to the straps of my dress, helping him tug them off my shoulders. “The dress. It goes down to take it off, not up.”
