Page 29 of Rival to the Billionaire

My chest tightens.

I think about Ryder kissing me.

My stomach clenches.

My touch tips downwards, trailing towards my belly and into my navel. I lower my hand into the bubbly water again, but this time I purposefully brush against my thighs.

The contact is light. Flirtatious.

My heart jumps.

The way he had brushed against me by the elevator.

My thighs.

I continue to massage my belly, fingers slipping just a little lower, teasing circles near my clit.

I think about Ryder Anderson's hands. His sea blue eyes. His husky velvet-smooth voice. His confident swagger.

My fingertips trail downward, slipping inside my wet folds. Finally, I slide the vibrator above my clit. It's cold and firm for a second, and then it warms to my touch.

A low sigh escapes my lips.

Ryder's on the brain, but I try to shake it off. To think of…someone else.

Instead, my mind's eye flicks through random images of our childhood, our elementary school years…when we used to live in the same neighborhood.

When we used to walk home together every day.

When we used to be friends. Best friends, even.

When we used to go to his house to play in the long grass at the end of his street, chasing each other, darting past the row of endless fir trees.

“Scaredy cat!” I'd sometimes call out teasingly from behind the trees.

And it was always fun.

Until the day it wasn't.

Until the teasing drew hostility. Until the laughing faces turned into heated glares.

Until the friendship became strained. Until it became impossible.

Until Ryder decided that he hated me and began to pull his first pranks.

And the summer after, we never spoke the same way to each other again.

Up until then, those summers had been my fondest memories.

I remember the honeyed smell of the madrone tree in his backyard, the one we used to climb to look out over the neighborhood. The warm feeling of the golden sun as it filtered through the leaves.

I think about the long days in the long grass, the even longer nights when we'd sit on the porch steps, watching the sun set over the ocean.

The salty Seattle air on my skin as we gazed out into the night.

I think about what those nights would look like now beside the adult Ryder Anderson. The cocky smile lighting up his face as he brings me long grass and wildflowers. The look of mischief in his eyes and laughter in his voice as he tells me that he's thought of me all these years.

The tingle against my clit from the vibrator becomes an electric pulse, my back arching off the bathtub. I find myself gasping, and my back straightens, the water spraying a little as I let my head fall forward, exposing the curve of my throat.

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