The Christmas You Crash (Going Rogue #2)

Chapter 14

fourteen

LEXI

I just humped Ryder’s leg like a bitch in heat.

Lost in my head, I don’t speak as Ryder takes my hand in his and leads me back inside the house. I can’t believe I did that.

What the hell, Lexi?

He leads me through the garage and into the mudroom, where he studies my dazed expression. His long fingers unzip my coat and peel it off my body before he removes my hat and gloves, then drops to his knees to untie my boots and tug them off my feet. When he rises, he scans my face once more before gently gripping my cheeks and forcing my head back so my eyes meet his. Ryder’s lips twitch. His swollen, sexy-as-sin lips.

My eyes flutter shut when he leans down and presses a long, gentle kiss on my forehead before whispering, “Go warm up in front of the fire, beautiful. I’ll bring the wood into the garage.”

It’s all I can do to nod mutely. Ryder Hanson kissed the words right out of me. His thumb traces my lower lip, and I hold my breath while I wait to see if he’ll kiss me again. For a moment, I think he’s going to, but then he shakes his head slightly, as if to clear it, before stepping back.

“Go on, baby. You’re shivering.”

I am, I realize as the door snicks shut behind him. Dazed, I make my way into the main part of the house. But before I settle in front of the fire, I need to change my panties and clean myself up. I’m soaked and uncomfortable. My pussy still throbs from my orgasm.

Did that really just happen?

My feet barely touch the floor as I float through the house. I change into an entirely new outfit because I’m wet in more ways than one. Between the snow and exerting myself while I chopped wood, my clothes are damp and uncomfortable. Then, of course, there are my soaked panties.

God , I can’t believe I just did that. I must be out of my damned mind. If my father ever found out about what we did… No. Nope. Not going to think about my dad right now.

Every nerve ending in my body is still lit up like a Christmas tree, and all my traitorous mind can focus on is how I want more. I want to know what it feels like to have Ryder Hanson between my thighs for real. To have him whisper dirty, filthy things in my ear as he pounds into my pussy like a man possessed. To scream his name as he fills me with his cum.

Wait, what? Down, girl. No one is filling anyone with cum.

Banging my head against the wall is all I can think to do to change the direction of my wayward thoughts. With a groan, I listen for Ryder, to see if he heard me knocking some sense into myself. But the house is still silent.

Should it be taking him this long to drag the wheelbarrow into the garage? What if some desperate drifter was watching us outside, just waiting for his chance to slit Ryder’s throat, and I’m next?

On tiptoes, I make my way through the cabin and toward the garage. There are no sounds of a struggle, no gurgle of life’s blood leaving Ryder’s jugular as he bleeds out and dies.

Jesus. That’s dark for a girl who just got off.

“Ryder?” I call, poking my head into the garage. “Do you need help?” Or something to staunch the bleeding?

“I’m good, Lex. I’ll be right in.” He grunts as he wrestles the wheelbarrow into the garage. “Think you could make us some more of that hot chocolate?”

Satisfied that all of his blood is, indeed, still in his body, I nod. “Yeah. Of course.”

Despite wearing several layers of clothes, I still shiver as I heat milk in a saucepan and chop up the chocolate. At least this kind of chopping isn’t nearly as strenuous. I try not to stare at Ryder’s muscular form as he hauls a few armfuls of wood into the cabin, but he catches me a few times and rewards me with a sinful smirk.

Should we talk about what happened? Ignore it? Pretend that aliens momentarily took over our bodies and forced us to hump like horny teenagers?

Probably the second option. Ignoring is usually the way to go. Especially since whatever that was between us can never be repeated. Ryder and I have no future. There’s no world in which this works out for us if we keep playing such a dangerous game.

“That smells amazing,” he says after changing into dry clothes. He stands behind me, mere inches between our bodies. It’s all I can do to keep myself still. What I really want is to turn around, tug his sweatpants down to his ankles, and choke myself on the massive cock that pressed into my butt when we woke up this morning.

Oh my god, Lexi. Get a freaking grip already!

“Should be done in a minute,” I squeak out instead.

Ryder’s low chuckle vibrates through me and travels straight to my clit. When he walks away to add another log to the fire, I sigh with relief. Stupid blizzard, causing a stupid power outage, which caused us to sleep together so we didn’t turn into stupid human icicles.

All of this has gotten way too complicated.

“We should play a board game,” I blurt out. Because board games are the least sexy thing I can come up with right now. Which makes them the perfect distraction from my raging horniness.

“Sure,” he says. Amusement colors his tone. “What game?”

There’s only one game that can go on forever and is so boring that my libido can’t possibly outlast it. “Monopoly sound good?”

“I can’t guarantee my attention span will allow me to finish an entire game, but yeah. Monopoly works.”

Perfect. We’ll be so bored, it will be impossible to get turned on.

“Cheater!” I shout as Ryder pulls a get out of jail free card on his first try.

He scoffs. “Excuse me? How am I supposed to cheat at Monopoly? That was just lucky.”

“Lucky, my ass,” I grumble. He rolls the die and lands on the property I’ve been itching to buy for the last thirty minutes. “Don’t even think about it.”

Dark eyebrows rise and his dumb dimples make an appearance. “Think about what? Buying this lovely piece of property? Why, yes, I think I will.” He counts out his money and hands it to me with a flourish.

“You knew I wanted to buy that.”

He chuckles. “Sorry, OTG. That’s the way the cookie crumbles, sometimes.”

I slam his money down. “Stop calling me that!”

“Aww,” he coos, turning his lips down in an exaggerated pout. “Are you feeling grumpy because you’re losing, Oscar?”

“I’m not losing. I’m still going to kick your ass.”

He throws his head back and laughs at that. So much for choosing a boring game. Turns out, both Ryder and I are way too competitive to allow even Monopoly to be boring. From the moment the die hit the board for the first time, it was on.

“Your pathetic stack of money would say otherwise,” he taunts in a lyrical voice. “Someone is about to go bankrupt. And then how will you pay your rent when you land on my properties? Accepting sexual favors in lieu of money is illegal, you know.”

I screech in frustration and launch myself across the board, grabbing for his money. “I’ll show you illegal, you pompous ass.”

Ryder barks out a laugh as my fingers wrap around his monopoly money. “You little shit. I’ll teach you not to steal from me.” And then his fingers dance along my sides as he wrestles me onto my back and away from the board and his money. “You’ll pay for that.”

I squeal as he tickles me, still clutching the colorful paper bills to my chest like they’re real currency. “What are you going to do, huh?”

Ryder’s long fingers wrap around my wrists. My hands are clasped together to keep him from getting the money. It allows him to maneuver both of my arms above my head with his left hand while he continues to torture me with his right. “I’m going to make you beg for mercy,” he says with a laugh. His face is mere inches from mine, and his big, muscular body covers my own, pressing me to the floor. “And maybe if you’re a very good girl, and you ask very nicely, I won’t punish you.”

Oh, shit . Heat floods my core, and my eyes are wide as saucers. It’s at that moment that I know my plan to bore the sexual tension between us to death has failed. Because Ryder’s pupils blow when he notices my breathing has gone ragged and his attention goes to my chest. Despite the layers, I’m certain he can see my peaked nipples.

“Lexi,” he whispers. He’s utterly still, and I know that if I lift my head even the slightest bit and close the gap between us, that will be it. We’ll cross the invisible line in the snow, and there’ll be no taking it back. And I want that. God, do I want that.

But I can’t. I can’t risk my heart for a man who is contractually obligated to be loyal to my father above me. I can’t fool myself into thinking that this would be nothing more than a meaningless fling. A hot, snowed-in hookup. Because I don’t do meaningless flings and no-strings-attached hookups. I crave something real. A connection that will help me believe in love again. I always have.

And whatever this is with Ryder Hanson, it can never be that.

So, I suck in a breath, embrace a moment of searing regret, and open my mouth. “We can’t do this.”

It takes him a moment to register what I said, and then he’s scrambling off me. “Of course. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to?—”

“Ryder,” I say, cutting off his panicked words. “It’s okay. You didn’t do anything I didn’t want, we just can’t… I just can’t do this.”

“With me, you mean,” he says softly. “You can’t do this with me.”

I hate the way his eyes dull and his dimples disappear. Hate myself for the change that washes over him like an icy wave. But it’s better for both of us this way. We’ve already taken things too far, and I don’t know if I could come out of this week unscathed if I let this go any further.

“My dad,” I say by way of an explanation.

“Right. Yeah. Your dad. Totally. You’re absolutely right.” He stands, extending a hand to help me up. A smile curves his lips, but it’s disingenuous. I can tell, because mine is too. “How ‘bout we watch a movie?”

My heart clenches when he puts space between us and throws another log onto the fire. But this is what I wanted. This is how it has to be. “A movie sounds perfect.”

When the film ends, I don’t remember a single scene.