For example, take what he was doing right now. Pursing his lips, doing his damnedest to stay closed off.
“While you sit there and keep telling yourself that you’re not interested in me, I’ll be right over here, minding my own business, and calling bullshit on you,” she said with a happy smile.
Ryder wanted to play a game of avoidance? She could play, too. And she’d call his bluff. He wanted her. She could see it in his eyes, and damn her stupid body, she wanted him in return. But she wasn’t about to let him get the impression that she wanted more or needed some kind of polite conversation about rules and distance. He could have his distance. She’d just be doing her thing from afar. If that happened to test his control…so be it. It was all fun in the end.
“So, are we going out for coffee?” he asked. “Just a friendly cup between two neighbors.”
“No, thanks,” she said. “But let me know if you want another night.”
“Whitney…” he rasped as she started to strut away. “What kind of game are you playing?”
“I’m not the one playing games. Unlike you, I’m being honest.”
“So am I.”
“Great! Then we understand each other.”
“Not really,” he said.
She turned back to him, leaned over the bar, and absently ran two fingers along the neck of his beer. “I’m onto you, Mr. Diamond. You have impulse issues.”
Wow, he smelled good. All man, and an outdoorsy, woodsy scent that had her hormones jumping for a taste.
“I control my impulses just fine,” he countered.
“Yes, that’s right. You especially controlled those impulses when you were bench-pressing me over you the other night.
“And if I recall…” He did his own little lean and brought his face in line with hers, putting his firm mouth within licking distance. “My reward was your tight, hot pussy as I moved you up and down. Best damn workout of my life.”
It took everything she had not to moan and tremble at the recollection. “Ah, so you do remember.”
“I may have given in the other night, but that’s what I’m trying to rectify from here on out.”
Ice water would have been more subtle than that cold phrase.
She stood up straight and plastered on her best fake smile. “Good luck with that, then.”
“You really looking to challenge me?”
“I’m just looking for some honesty,” she said again.
“I want you,” he growled. “That’s not a secret.”
“But you’re trying to resist me?”
He nodded.
“Why?”
“Because you threaten something very important to me.”
Her mouth dropped. Wow, that stung. What an ass. “Oh, I threaten your precious reputation, huh?”
“No,” he said quickly.
She almost believed him. But it didn’t matter. Fact remained that they were opposites in almost every way, and she wasn’t going to stand there and try to be buddies with a man that made her wet at just the sight of him.
“Well, I’m sorry, but I’m not falling over myself to get to the messiah of Diamond. Not my style.”
“I’m aware,” he said lowly.
She paused for a moment. Maybe she was being too hard on him. But he was being so freakin’ cryptic. The man was a walking contradiction. One moment he was looking at her and talking to her like she was the object of all his fantasies, the next he was trying to push an odd, platonic notion of a coffee date on her. Manners vs. desire. He was walking a very thin line, and it was one she couldn’t walk with him.
It was fine trying to be nice. She wasn’t completely without manners. But good manners never stopped her from claiming something. She wanted someone, she went after him. But Ryder was looking for rules, boundaries, and…
“Control,” she whispered. It all came together. His control was what she threatened. She’d felt it that night she was with him. He held such a tight grip over everything, it seemed, yet when he was with her, he let out his wild side. A side of him she’d give anything to experience again.
And all he wants is coffee…
Nope, she wasn’t going to play the part of “boring date”.
“All right, Mr. Diamond, you’ve made your intentions clear. And while they’re noble, I’ll still have to decline.”
“What?” He frowned, and she leaned over the bar, pressing her cleavage together.
Yeah, that got his attention.
“I’m not interested in being friends. In fact, I’m not at all interested in this faux Ryder Diamond in front of me.”
His brow sliced down, and he stared at her with pissed off lust, and she knew she was pushing those same buttons she’d found before. Did no one ever challenge him? Ever turn down a date with him?
“I like the Ryder I met the other night,” she whispered close to his face. “The one that smacked my ass and made me come hard.” She glanced at his mouth, remembering what it had been like to hold him inside her, then she looked back at his eyes. “Can that naughty Ryder come out to play? Or do you have him locked up somewhere?”
“You have no idea what you’re messing with, little girl.”
Oooh! There it was! That sexy, raspy dominance she’d heard the other night.
“I’m very aware of what I’m messing with. The question is…are you?”
He looked her over, hard. She rose to stand, then turned on her heel to get back to the other customers.
But not before she slapped a menu down in front of him and said, “Let me know when you’ve made up your mind on what you want.”
Chapter Five
What. The. Hell?
If Ryder hadn’t been sure, he was now: Whitney was toying with him. Either that or she was the ballsiest woman he’d ever met. And heaven help him, he was ready to take the bait of all the sinful promise those dark eyes held.
She didn’t want what he was offering. That stung a tad. Until he thought more about it and realized that she didn’t want the side of him that most women wanted. She wasn’t looking for safe, stable, or secure. And she sure as hell didn’t want his money.
She wanted the animal he’d unleashed the other night. That side of him no one ever saw. The passion that was bubbling inside him. But Ryder didn’t know what to do. Because if he gave in, he’d be right back where he started.
He needed to maintain control.
Prove that he could handle himself and not give in to the wild Whitney.
She already was clouding his judgment, making him hum with the need to play her game and rise to the challenge she’d laid out there. The way she swung her hips a little extra when he was around, like she knew he was watching, made his dick strain against his jeans. Because every red-blooded man in the diner tonight had noticed her, and whatever hesitation he might feel about going after her again, he’d be damned if he let another man touch her.
Except he couldn’t expect her to stay celibate if he wasn’t offering her the person she most wanted.
Him.
So he sat there, beer in hand, waiting for her to come back. Fuckin’ brilliant plan.
Keep. Calm.
He would, damn it. He could outlast Whitney’s sexy smiles and sinful swishes. When she removed the rag from her shorts again, her tight shirt shifted, and he caught the briefest sight of her midriff. He remembered instantly how perfectly his hands fit around that trim waist, where her ribs curved into her hips. Right, dead center. He could clamp her in his hands, lift her, position her over his cock—
“Well, hello there, stranger,” a lyrical voice rang out. Ryder looked over his shoulder, and standing next to him in a bright yellow dress, beaming like the damn sun, was Clara Davenport.