The Replacement (26 page)

Tossing the bag of chocolates onto the coffee table and peeling the throw blanket from my lap, I pull my stiff body upright, wincing when a pang strikes my forehead. My eyes roll to the near-empty bottle of wine on the table, and I sigh, knowing a headache is just around the corner. It’s not even 7 p.m. and I’ve already drowned myself in a chocolate-and-wine deluge. I didn’t even get to sleep through the night. At least that would have delayed the consequences by a few more hours. Flicking the television off, I drop the remote and move to stand, knowing I made other plans tonight, before things with Natalie blew up in my face.

Ryder.

He’ll be here soon, and I haven’t showered. I need to brush my teeth, hydrate, and clear my foggy brain before he shows up. I don’t want to process my confrontation with Natalie, much less even think about how I’ll face her at Stella’s tomorrow, but I know when Ryder walks through that door, I need to have my shit together, or he’ll want to talk. He already wants to talk, but I don’t want to add this to the list of things to discuss.

The hot water feels good on my back. I take extra time shaving and primping, making sure to wear my sexiest stilettos. My black thigh-high fishnet stockings hug my lean legs and my lace corset top brings my boobs sky-high. I eye myself over in the mirror.

Good. Nice and distracting.

It doesn’t matter that Ryder likes me simple—bare faced and wearing nothing but his t-shirt. I go all out tonight, complete with a touch of my favorite perfume and dramatic lashes. No man can resist this, and he’s full of shit if he says he doesn’t like the effort. Tonight, Ryder is mine. All mine, every delicious inch of him, and he’s going to love every second of it. Tonight I will prove something to myself. Tonight I will prove Natalie wrong.

Ryder shows around 9 p.m., complete with a bouquet of blood-red roses, a bottle of wine—good, because I’m out now—and a bag full of DVDs. “Take your pick,” he says, setting the bag down on the coffee table. He notices my heels as he does, and lets out a low whistle. “Damn, baby.” His eyes travel upward, over my stockings and silk robe, and I begin to prowl toward him, setting the wine glasses down.

“The movies will have to wait.”

“You have something else in mind?” His brown eyes glint with mischief and he pulls me against him, one of his hands snaking out to tug on the belt of my robe.

“Of course. How lame do you think I am?”

“Ouch,” he laughs. “You stole my line.”

I peer down to watch him loosen the robe belt. As soon as it’s undone, I lift my chin and grin wickedly, flicking the silk down my shoulders, letting the robe slip to the floor. It flutters to my feet and Ryder’s eyes flare. I knew it. He likes what he sees.

“There’s no way we’re making it to the bedroom with you looking like that,” he says, tugging at his collar.

“Who said anything about the bedroom?” I take a step forward and give his chest a nudge, shoving him back so he falls to the couch. I bring my legs over his and straddle him, feeling him grow hard as I slowly grind against his lap.

“I want to give you your Christmas present.” He gets the words out, but there isn’t much conviction behind them. He’s too busy skimming his fingers along my thighs, watching as I give my hips another roll. “Baby,” he whispers, “please, I need to—” he groans and glances at my cleavage, spilling in front of his face, “I need to talk to you about something.”

“Talk later.” I nip on his bottom lip and slip my tongue into his mouth, needing him to get lost in me. When he was here earlier, I had questions. Lots of them. Now I have a different mission.

“This can’t wait.” He grips at my hips and eases me off his lap, placing me next to him on the sofa. The rejection crawls beneath my skin, and I can’t sit still. I cross my legs and fold my arms, then let my hands drop to my sides, where I pull at the top of my stockings.

“Okay, what is it?” I ask impatiently. What’s the point in having beauty as a superpower if it won’t let you seduce a man?

Ryder rises to his feet, and as he does, I hear a crunch beneath his boot. He lifts his foot and I spot a tiny Eiffel Tower, now in three pieces, embedded between the fibers of the carpet. I must have missed it in my hasty clean up.

“What the hell?” he asks, his eyes filled with confusion. “Isn’t this from the snow globe Natalie gave you?”

“I knocked into it when I was vacuuming and it broke.” I grind my teeth as I follow his puzzled gaze to the little, delicate tower pieces on the floor.

He regards me suspiciously for a moment but doesn’t comment. “Did you and Natalie have a good time today? What movie did you see?”

“Nothing. We didn’t…” I squirm and uncross my legs. “We didn’t have time to see a movie.”

“No? What about Pike’s Market? Did you have fun?”

“Ryder, what do you want to talk about?” I sound snippier than I intended and decide to make a move for the trash can. Ryder is silent, watching me snatch the can from under the sink with a little too much force.

“Here,” he says quietly as I walk over to him, “let me take care of it.” I eye him for a moment, but hand him the trash can, waiting for him to discard the evidence. He lifts the pieces of glass from the carpet, dropping them into the garbage can with a small
clink
. He looks up, keeping his eyes straight ahead. “This used to be on your nightstand.”

“I moved it.”

He quietly rises to his feet and slips his jacket off, tossing it on the sofa. He begins to roll up his sleeves. A muscle clenches in his jaw. “I need to know what we’re doing here,” he says, meeting my gaze. “I need to know…other things about you, besides the fact that you’re a waitress or that you’re learning to speak French. I need to know more than your favorite TV show or your favorite wine. I need you to let me in, not lock me out all the time. I need you to not lie to me about something as stupid as how this snow globe broke or where you were all afternoon.”

“You do know other things about me.”

“Like what?”

“That night we played that game at your cabin, in front of the fire. I answered your questions. We’ve been spending time together; you’ve been screwing me. What more do you want to know?”

His shoulders tense and his eyes glaze over with something dark, as if I’ve surprised him with a punch to the gut. “You shut me out, and I don’t know where to go from here, don’t know what you want from me. All I know is I can’t stop thinking about you. I want to be with you all the time, and when I’m not with you, I’m thinking about when I can show up on your doorstep again, or when you’ll show up on mine. I know I don’t want anyone else and that I’m jealous as fuck. I want you all to myself, and I want to hear that you’re mine and mine alone, straight from your lips. I’ve wanted to hear that since the beginning and you’ve known that but I haven’t pushed it because I didn’t want to scare you away. But this—” he waves a hand in the air, “not knowing where you’ve been or who you’ve been with or what you’re thinking…I don’t know if I can handle it anymore.”

My fists open and close at my sides. My mouth goes dry, and it takes every effort to swallow as I stare back at his intense, wholly sincere gaze. I’m rendered speechless.

“I wanted to talk to you tonight about other shit. About this.” He reaches in his back pocket and retrieves a folded up envelope. It’s red and has a candy cane label on it, addressed to me. He doesn’t hand it to me, just holds it and stares down at it, like he’s chewing over his decision to say any more. “I wanted to give you your Christmas present and ask you to be mine—not just someone I screw, Elise.
Mine
. My girl.”

I swallow audibly, my heart clenching in my chest. He really does want me to be his girl. It’s not just an endearment. He wants me to be something. To be somebody’s something.

To be his something.

I haven’t been imagining this or just hoping for it to be a reality. It’s real and it’s here, right now, right this second, and now that he’s confirmed it all for me, there’s no way out. There’s no back door, and there’s no going back. I know what’s next: the mutual exchange. He’s made his avowal and it’s time for me to make mine. But I can’t do that and sleep easy at night. I can’t give him that and live with myself.

Not when he doesn’t know the truth.

A shaky breath rattles from my lips and I step forward, planting my hands on his chest. “I can’t make you any promises, Ryder.” My voice is gentle and quiet, as if I’m approaching a scared animal. “I can only do this.” I lean up and press my lips to his, lightly and cautiously, one of my hands gliding down over his abdomen. It drifts lower and lower. I reach my target and begin to stroke him, deepening the kiss. “Can you let this be enough?” I murmur against his mouth. “The knowledge that I want you? That I think about you all the time, too?”

His resolve falters as I touch him. He hardens beneath my hand and his mouth is desperate, but his words are stubborn, just like his mind. “I wish it were,” he replies glumly, pulling away from my kiss. The envelope he’s holding crumples between us, our mouths inches apart.

“I thought you wanted me.”

“Don’t play that game with me, Elise. Play it with all those other assholes chasing you around, but not with me. You know damn well I want you.” He breathes roughly against my cheek, his eyes turning hard as they search mine. “You know you make it excruciating for me. You make it difficult for all men like me, don’t you?”

“I’m not making this difficult for you.” I take his hand and press it against my breast, begging him to cup me, to respond, but all I’m met with is a clenched jaw and a gaze that aches so strongly I can reach out and touch the pain.

“I’m not talking about all men,” he closes his eyes tightly and his fingers twitch against my breast, “I said men like
me
.” He grinds that last word out, struggling. This could be a whole hell of a lot less complicated if he just accepts things the way they are, takes them for face value. No explanations, no promises, no nothing. Just this, just the way we are.

“What are you talking about?” I snap, reaching up to bring my lips to his again. If I can just get him to taste me again, he’ll drop this. He needs to drop this.

His eyes open. “Men who actually give a shit about you. Who want you for more than just this.” He emphasizes
this
by squeezing my breast, his breath catching in the process.

“You’re the one making this complicated,” I hiss through my teeth, arching my back to press myself farther into him. “Just fuck me, already, Ryder.”

His lips part slightly and he tries to reign himself in, as if he isn’t drunk on lust, but his uneven breaths and stern jaw still give it all away. Well, that and his raging hard-on wedged in between my legs.

“No.”

“What do you mean,
no
?” The words roll off my tongue like they’re dirty. “Why not?”

“Because I can’t have all of you.”

“What does that even mean?” My head drops back in frustration. I know exactly what it means, but I need him inside me, like, yesterday, if I want to save this before it crashes and burns.

“It means exactly that, Elise.” He drops his hand from my chest and pushes away from me, shoving his fingers through his hair. “I don’t just want a quick lay with you, don’t you get that? When I fuck you, I want all of you. Your mind, your heart—I want
you
. How many times do I have to say it?”

“Oh, Jesus,” I scoff, rolling my eyes and straightening my corset. He’s opting for crashing and burning. He’s rejecting what I’m offering. He’s going to make me say it.

A switch flips, and my eyes flare with heat.

“Seriously? You’re either the dumbest man I’ve ever met or you’ve been in the closet so fucking long, you don’t know which way is up.”

His whole body goes rigid, and he stares at me steadily when I can’t even maintain the simplest eye contact. My gaze darts everywhere, and I begin to pace. Edginess begins to boil in me, hot and dangerous, and I don’t think I’ve ever felt this helpless. Everything—anything good we have going between us—is about to be ruined, all because what I’m offering to give him isn’t enough. Just as I’d feared, I’m not enough. Christian was right. Enough doesn’t exist.

“You don’t get to do that,” he grinds out.

“Get to do what?”

“Hurt me, hurl insults like I’m one of your piece-of-shit hook-ups. You don’t get to just push me away because you’re not in control, here. Relationships don’t work like that.”

“Oh my God,” I laugh, throwing my head back in disbelief, “where the hell have you been? There is no relationship! This
is
a piece-of-shit hook-up, or it would have been if you would’ve thought more with your dick and less with your head, for Christ’s sake! And I’m very much in control, if you haven’t noticed. Get out, Ryder.” I storm toward the door and pull it open wide, working to keep my arm steady as I hold the knob. He knows about me. All this time, he’s known, and now he’s using it as ammo. I can’t handle the humiliation. I can’t let him see me cry. “Please,” I repeat. “Get
out
.”

He follows me to the door, and the heat from his anger is scorching my face. “Hate to break it to you, but this—” he points between us, “is called a relationship. What we’ve been doing? It’s called being friends, being lovers. It’s something adults do when they like each other’s company. Damn it, Elise, look at me!”