Page 32 of Playboy For Hire

He turned to me. “What do you think? Does he do it for you? Because if he doesn’t, maybe you and I could—”

“What the fuck are you doing?” I snapped, finally getting the words out.

“Just having a drink,” he said, gesturing to his beer. “Catching up with old friends. Is there a problem?”

“We’re not friends,” I said.

“Okay, sure, I suppose ‘old fuck buddies’ is probably more accurate.” He chuckled, then said to Ewan in a confiding tone,“Quinn once made me come five times in one hour. Magic dick, I swear. You’re in for a treat.”

My heart was still pounding, but not from shock anymore. No, now it was from anger.

“Ryder, I don’t know what you think you’re doing—”

“I just told you, I’m—”

“But I want you to leave. Now.”

Ryder cocked his head to one side, like he wasn’t sure he’d heard me correctly.

“Oh, come on. We’re all having fun here, aren’t we? That’s a little premature.” He turned back to Ewan. “Not a problem Quinn has, by the way. He can goall night.”

“Ryder,” I growled.

Sighing dramatically, he pushed his chair back from the table. He didn’t stand up, though.

“Okay, okay, I can tell when I’m not wanted.” He smirked at Ewan. “Hey, at least one of us is getting lucky tonight, even if it’s not me. But when he’s reached your stomach with that giant redwood of a cock, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“I think I’m gonna go,” Ewan said, standing up suddenly.

Ryder and I both stared at him, but Ryder reacted quicker.

“What? Man, I really think you’ve got a chance here, if you stick it out,” Ryder said. “Quinn’s pretty picky, but even a one-night-stand with him is worth it, if you don’t make the cut for boyfriend material.”

“Yeah, I—no. I think it’s best if I—” Ewan shook his head. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but I don’t want to be part of it, I think. Bye.”

He gave a final nod, then walked away. It was the longest sentence he’d strung together all night.

I stared at Ryder after Ewan left, trying to tamp my anger down enough that I could actually get words out. It was hard to focus that much when what I wanted to do was throttle him.

“What the hell was that?” I snapped. I worked hard to keep my voice under control. I wasn’t going to yell in a public place. But God, I wanted to.

“What do you mean?” Ryder asked, looking at me with what appeared to be genuine confusion.

“I mean, what the hell were you doing just now, torpedoing my date? What are you even doing here?”

“I wasn’t torpedoing anything,” he said, his tone defensive.

“You interrupted my date, pretended to be the world’s creepiest ex, and kept talking until Ewan left. What do you call that if not torpedoing?”

Ryder rolled his eyes. “Okay, so it didn’t go quite like I hoped it would. But I wasn’ttryingto torpedo it. I was trying to help.” He wrinkled his nose. “Though to tell the truth, I think you can do better. I was watching you for a while, and talking to that guy looked about as fun as waiting for your computer to install updates. Also, what the fuck was he doing, trying to touch your birthmark? That was weird.”

It didn’t help my anger that Ryder was right about both those things. Then something else he’d said clicked into place.

“Wait a second, you werewatching me?” I popped up out of my chair. I was too frustrated to stay seated any longer.

Ryder rose too, but he waved my question away. “Anyway, you’re way hotter than that guy. So it’s his loss.”

“No, I’m not, but that’s not even the point,” I sputtered. “Looks aren’t everything.”

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