Secrets Behind Those Eyes (3 page)

“Come on, Brandon; let’s just go grab
a drink. They were leaving anyway. I guess those two years of no
sex with her is paying off for Mr. Cotton over here.”

Scarlet steps at Dustin. “For your
information, I never wanted to have sex with you; it didn’t feel
right. I guess I know why now. As for Ryder and I... Not that it’s
any of your business, but that’s not going to happen. You kinda
turned me off guys for a while. Maybe you guys can help me out with
those issues, huh?”

Dustin spins around and grabs
Brandon’s arm. “Come on.”

I look down at Scarlet. “You ready to
go now, Rocky?”

“Yeah.”

As we walk out of the bar, I look over
at her. “Okay, so I won’t ever give you shit about bashing his car
again. He’s always been a dick.”

“I don’t know; he was always nice to
me. Brandon always seemed off, like he hated me from afar but I
don’t know why.”

“Um, because he’s always been in love
with Dustin.”

She stops, almost making me slam into
her. “Why do you say that?”

“Well, let’s just say I’m not totally
dense to the conversation you just had and I had my own suspicions
when we were in school. Brandon was always possessive over Dustin
like a jealous boyfriend.”

She shakes her head. “How did I miss
it?”

She stumbles and I catch her waist.
“Let’s get you to my jeep. I think those shots are finally catching
up with you.”

I have to help her up in the jeep and
I get to touch her ass. My dick starts to stiffen and I have to
shake it off. Once I’m in the jeep, she reaches over, rubbing the
stubble on my face, and giggles. “You know, Ryder, if you weren’t
such an asshat, I’d think you were cute.”

“Well, thanks, Blondie.”

She passes out on the way to the hotel
and I have to carry her in. I go to the room number that Judd text
me, but there’s no answer. I beat on the door again with a passed
out Scarlet draped over my shoulder. Finally, my phone chimes. It’s
another text from Judd.

Just give me another hour,
man. Please, I’ll owe you.

Look, just crash there.
Scarlet is passed out anyway she can stay with me.

Awesome.

I make my way to my room down the hall
and put her on the other bed. I pull off her boots and place her
under the covers. The next thing I know, her pink top is flying
off, revealing her amazing tits and she shimmies her jeans off
under the blanket. She pulls the blanket up on her and passes back
out. Fuck, this is going to be fun to explain in the
morning.

Chapter 3

Scarlet

Oh, damn, my head hurts. I
think something died in my mouth.
I roll
over to see a male figure covered up in the other bed; he has his
back to me. Looking down, I realize I that I’m in nothing but my
lacy panties. I can feel the heat creeping up my face. All of a
sudden, there is a grunt from the other bed.

“Hey.”

I look back over to find
Ryder staring at me. Well, to be honest, at my boobs, which I just
noticed aren’t covered. I pull the blanket up, covering
myself.
How did I get out of my clothes?
That son of a bitch.
I pick up my boot off
the floor and throw it at him.

“You asshole. How could
you?”

He puts his hands up in defense.
“What?”

“You stripped me practically naked.
What the hell am I doing in the room with you anyway? When we left
the bar, you were giving me a ride to my room.”

As I’m picking up
something else to throw, he put his hands up again. “Whoa. That was
the plan. You passed out after we left the bar. Then Judd and
Annabelle were still
busy
when we got here. So I brought you here, put you
on that bed, and took off just your boots. You did the rest there,
sweetheart.” He motions up and down my body.

I put my head in my hands. “I’m going
to kill Annabelle.”

He stands up, walking to
the bathroom in a pair of boxers. Grabbing a cup of water, he
returns and hands it to me with some aspirin
. “Here, take
these. We’ll go grab some breakfast and see if our friends can tear
themselves apart from each other.”

“Did Judd go to school
with you and Annabelle?”

“No. Judd’s daddy worked for my dad.
His dad runs a couple of our farms. So Judd and I grew up together.
He tries to keep me straight and out of jail.”

I try to relax. He’s
trying to be nice. This has obviously been a weird twenty-four
hours. So I try to make conversation. “He seems nice. Well, the
five seconds I got to talk to him before he and my best friend
started sucking face. Will you hand me my top and my jeans? I gotta
walk down to my room and grab my bag.”

Handing me my clothes, he goes back to
the bathroom. “He’s a great guy,” he says through the bathroom
door. “I’d trust him with my life. He likes me for who I am, not
how much money my family has.”

“You know, if you hadn’t come on to me
like some kind of sleaze ball, I might have liked you for who you
are, too.”

He steps back out into the room. “Hey,
I just feel that it’s important to be upfront. You’re the one who
was telling me how cute I was last night when you were
drunk.”

“I did not,” I argue.

“Yes, you did. Well, in your defense,
we’d just ran into the two douche nozzles. So I think, looking at
me, you just said what felt natural.”

I stand up after pulling
on my boots. “Whatever. But I do appreciate you giving me a ride
and not leaving me with those two. I vaguely remember seeing them
anyway.”

“Like I said, I go way back with those
two and I can’t stand them.”

I touch his arm
as I grab the
door. “Well, thanks anyway. I’m going to grab my bag.”

I walk down the hall to my
room
and
bang on the door. Annabelle answers with a towel wrapped around
her. She has “I just got fucked all night long” hair. “Hey,” she
says.

“I need my bag. If you can pull
yourself away from GI Joe long enough to hand it to me.”

“Yeah, sorry about last night, but
that was just too good to pass on, trust me. Here’s your bag. We
were thinking about going next door to that Waffle House to grab
some food. What about you and Ryder?”

“We were talking about some food. I’m
going to take a shower and we’ll meet you over there in, say,
forty-five minutes?”

“Sure.”

I walk back down to
Ryder’s room and knock on the door. He answers in a towel.
Damn, he’s got some killer abs
. He motions for me to come in. “Do you mind if I use your
shower?” I ask. “Annabelle said that they’ll meet us next door in
forty-five minutes for some breakfast.”

“Sounds good; I’m
starving.”

I walk into the bathroom
and shut the door, leaning back against it. Reaching over and turn
on the shower, letting the steam fill the room. I slip back out of
my clothes and step under the hot spray. I scrub last night’s
make-up off and then get to work on the mess
I call hair. I hear the door open.
I know he didn’t just come in here.
“Um, hello. Still in the shower here.”

“I’m going. I forgot to brush my
teeth. Shit, it isn’t as if you didn’t show me plenty last
night.”

“You’re an asshole. Do you know
that?”

“Yes, I know I’m an asshole. Don’t be
so defensive. I don’t want to sleep with you. So can’t we just be
civil to one another?”

That asshole!
“What do you mean you don’t want to sleep with
me? You’d be lucky to get to sleep with me. I don’t want to sleep
with you, either, so get the fuck out of the bathroom.”

“What the hell? One minute I’m an
asshole because you think I want to sleep with you and now I’m an
asshole because I said I don’t want to sleep with you?”

I find myself standing with my hands
on my hips like I’m arguing face to face with him. I shake my head.
“Just get the fuck out.”

He slams the door, walking out
mumbling something.

Ten minutes later, I’m out
of the shower and dressed. I finish drying my hair and walk out
into the room, where Ryder is propped against the headboard of one
of the beds watching TV.
Why does he have
to be so fucking sexy
? He’s left his shirt
unbuttoned and I can see the top of his boxers poking just out of
the waistband of his jeans.
Pull it
together, Scarlet; he’s a rich boy with entitlement
issues.

“You ready to get some food?” I
ask.

He turns the TV off and sets the
remote down. “Yeah.” He reaches down by the bed and pulls on his
boots. “Let’s go.”

“Do you need to check out or
anything?”

“Nah, I’m staying another day to spend
some time with Judd,” he says, buttoning his shirt.

I shrug and we head out the door. I
text Annabelle to let her know that we’re walking over to the
Waffle House. She texts that they’ll be over in just a few
minutes.

“Annabelle says they’re on
their way and for us to grab a table.”

We walk in to the typical
“Welcome to Waffle House”
chorus among the
waitresses and cooks. I slide into the booth and Ryder slides in
next to me. I look at him, about to argue, when Annabelle and Judd
walk in and slide into the other side.

An older lady walks up to wait on us.
“How’re y’all doing this morning?” We all nod and mumble fine. She
chuckles. “Sounds like y’all laid out with the dry cows last
night.”

Ryder laughs. “That sounds like
something my nana would say. Yes, we did, and it was
fun.”

She smiles and laughs. “Well at least
you’re honest. Now what can I get y’all?”

Judd looks up. “I’ll have coffee and
the All American Breakfast. Eggs over medium, with grits, bacon,
and a pecan waffle.”

Ryder looks up. “I’ll have the
same.”

Annabelle laughs. “Well, make that
three except give me a Coke instead of coffee.” She looks over at a
shocked Judd. “Hey, I burnt off a lot of calories last night. I’m
starving.”

We all chuckle. I look up. “I’ll have
a Coke, two eggs scrambled, hash browns, covered and chunked. Bacon
and toast.”

Ryder grins. “Nothing like some good
ole’ Waffle House grease in your belly to make you feel better
after getting trashed huh?”

Judd shakes his head. “Yep it’s one of
the things I’m going to miss about home that’s for
sure.”

We spend the next forty-five minutes
make general conversation with Ryder and me being total smart asses
to each other.

We finish our food and
walk out
.
Annabelle and Judd exchange goodbyes. I look over at Ryder. “Thanks
again for the ride last night and not leaving me.”

He pulls his shades down. “No problem.
So you’re finished with your hours now?”

“No, I’ve got a couple of days this
week and I’ll be done. What about you?”

“I’ve got another week.” We both look
over at our friends sucking face. “Damn, is he gonna let her come
up for air?” he asks.

I shake my head and chuckle. “I’m
beginning to wonder about that myself.”

They finally break apart and Annabelle
grabs her keys. I pull my shades down over my eyes and climb in her
car. She smiles at me. “Ready?”

“Yeah, I wasn’t the one sucking
face.”

“You so could’ve been.”

I look at her like she’s lost her
mind. “You’re crazy.”

“Come on, I wasn’t even around you and
Ryder that much but you guys have some serious sparks going
on.”

Trying to play off how
nice he actually was to me. “Um, yeah, sparks of anger, hate,
loathing each other. We’ve just moved past the urge to kill each
other.”

She laughs as we get on I95.
“Whatever.”

Chapter 4

Ryder

Watching the girls leave, I just shake
my head. “So, lover boy, do you think you’ll spend a day with me
now?”

“Hey, you asked me to keep Annabelle
busy and I damn sure did,” he says with a cocky grin.

“Dude, spare me the details. I’ve hit
a dry spell since the night I got arrested.”

“You had that hot little spitfire all
night and did nothing?”

“I don’t know that I’ve ever met
someone like her before. I think she fucking hates me.”

“No way, man; you two are one hot
argument from tearing each other’s clothes off.”

“Whatever. What about you and
Annabelle?”

He shrugs. “We had a good night,
nothing serious. She knows I’m probably leaving on a deployment so
we exchanged numbers. We plan to keep in touch, but until my
schedule gets figured out, we are just keeping things
fun.”

“I remember Annabelle from school; she
was kinda cool. Hey, I also figured out whose car Scarlet bashed
up. That asshole, Dustin Winston.”