Page 11 of Resting Grump Face
I think about it for a second.
What does he care, anyway?
“I will answer your question and you will tell me what happened to you.” I point at the wound, which has stopped bleeding by now.
Ryker nods. “Okay, you go first.”
“First of all, I don’t have a deal,” I lie.
“Everyone has a deal. Everyone has a story that made them who they are. I want to hear yours.”
He’s not wrong, of course. Everyone has their baggage. Mine is obviously none of this asshole’s business, but I can give him just enough to get what I want. “You want the abbreviated or the long version?”
He turns on his side, his arm propping up his head. Then he answers with no emotions in his voice whatsoever, “I want the extensively extended super duper double feature.” There is also no indication of emotions on his face, except for two cranky looking eyebrows, which, I conclude, might be a chronic condition.
“Well, I still don’t have a deal. I just had a bad day. I got fired from my much-needed job, then saw some privileged rich asshole,” I wave in his general direction, “fire someone else and figured maybe I could do something about that at least. Just a little revenge for that poor girl.”
Someone has to, after all. Or else entitled people like him keep getting away with whatever they want.
“So, you’re saying sex with you is a punishment…”
Ran right into that one, didn’t I?
I try not to grin. “That was but a brief —very brief— lapse of judgment. Won’t happen again. Don’t worry.” I try to turn my actual grin into a fake smile. “There’s not much more to tell, really. As I said at the airport, stuff like that has a way of coming back around. Karma and all…” I blow a lock of my hair from my face and feel annoyed at myself for violating rule number three:do not get caught. “I stole your pants because you had it coming. And now we’re here, and it’s your turn… How did you get that wound?”
Ryker looks at me inquisitively as I disappear into the bathroom.
“So, you don’t have a job right now,” he says, as if plotting something nefarious. “What do you do when you don’t work as a poor man’s vigilante?” He coughs. “Sorry, poorwoman’svigilante.”
The sheer gall and disrespect on this guy. He probably never worked a day in his life and thinks he can make fun of me?
I return with the first aid-kit in my hand and sit next to him on the bed, then retrieve the disinfectant and a band-aid. “Well, I’m certainly not a nurse. So this might sting.” I can hardly hide my pleasure as I spray the disinfectant on his wound liberally. To my not so pleasant surprise, he doesn’t even flinch, instead his eyes keep staring at me without blinking, only slightly narrowing in defiance. It’s like a silent challenge.
“I have a background in business consulting.” I dab the disinfectant, put the band-aid over his wound and quickly get off the bed, away from his glowing heat and dripping hair that is still asking my fingers to run through them.
Maybe I could pull on his hair a little too?
“My last job was as a PR consultant for a non-profit organization.”
“Hm,” Ryker hums. “Did they sack you because you set something on fire? Threatened a co-worker? Murdered your former boss?”
“Oh, no. It was nothing like that,” I explain with a smile. “After all, I wasn’t working for you.”
For a moment, the grumpy expression is almost gone. His eyes light up with something that, for lack of a better word, canbest be described as cheerful diabolicalness. The terrible part about it is that his eyes are at least as diabolical as they are mesmerizing.
“Well, you are from now on,” he says.
5
RYKER
“Iam what now?” She looks at me as if she would like to say that she’d rather strangle me to death than spend a single minute as my subordinate. And to be perfectly honest, I would love for her to try just to get a chance to put her in her place.
Adrenaline is racing through my veins as if my body is preparing to fight a tiger. I haven’t felt like this in… ever, really. I mean, how often do you have to fight a tiger?
Getting to torment her as my employee in return for what she did yesterday would not only be what she deserves, but it would also double as a reasonable precaution to keep the board off my back. Hiring a PR consultant (one I can control) would send the right message and allow me to take care of the unavoidable exposing-myself-and-getting-tased-at-the-airport-scandal myself. No need to involve more outside people in my private life. It would seem that there are only advantages to this idea.
I sit up on the bed in an attempt to hide what is happening in my pants. She really doesn’t need to know about that. ThoughI should probably consider seeing a therapist about why this whole situation is turning me on. Again.
