Free Ricochet by Skye Jordan Page A

reached out to pick up the menu but grabbed the sweet little foot tucked underneath her instead and pulled. Rachel squealed and laughed and squirmed away. But Ryker held her easily and pulled her foot to his mouth for a kiss.
    Her toes curled and her leg flinched. “I’m ticklish.”
    When he released her foot, he caught a glimpse of the panties she’d put back on, and picked up the menu. “You’re going to be sorry you told me that.” As he strolled to the kitchen where a phone sat on the bar, he said, “And we need to renegotiate the fondue deal.”
    He turned and met her expectant gaze. “If I’m eating fondue for dinner, you’re doing it without my shirt and without the underwear you’ve still got on underneath.”
    Her lips parted in surprise, and she crossed her arms. “Hardly fair. You haven’t even been out of your pants.”
    “The important parts have been.” He opened the menu, glanced down the selections, and chose the most offensive entree he could find, announcing it with a suggestive voice. “Oh, here we go—escargot and caviar.”
    “Ew, gross,” she said, her voice half complaint, half order. “This is the deal: I either take off my shirt or my underwear, not both. You choose.”
    “It’s my shirt,” he corrected, snapping the menu closed with a grin. “And you drive a hard bargain.”
    “Oh, yeah, that’s me,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “The shark.”
    She was so damn cute all curled into his big shirt like that, her dark hair spilling over the light blue fabric, the sleeves down to her elbows. “Counteroffer,” he said. “You keep the shirt, give up the bra and panties, but …” He held up his index finger and paused, then tapped his own chest, “I get to take them off.”
    She smirked. “I think I know who the shark is around here.”
    “Then it’s a deal.”
    “Do-do, do-do,” she sang, imitating the Jaws theme song. “Do-do, do-do.”
    An unexpected laugh bubbled out of him. “Escargot it is.”
    She cried out in melodramatic distress. “Okay, okay.”
    He picked up the phone and ordered fondue.
    When he pulled out his wallet to put the charge on his card, Rachel said, “No, put it on the room.” Ryker hesitated, and Rachel dipped her chin and gave him a stern look. “They owe me.”
    Actually, Ryker was beginning to think he owed them , but he couldn’t exactly explain that without blowing his chance at the rest of the night with her. So he charged dinner to the room and started back to the sofa, prepared for that always-awkward, between-sexual-acts time period where he and a woman attempted to talk. He’d gotten decent at the meaningless stuff over the years, but had discovered that even if he sucked at talking, women still wanted to fuck him.
    “Okay, I get it,” she said, pointing at his Rangers tattoo as soon as he turned around. The classic emblem of the Army Rangers, a star with two rifles crossed in the background and a ribbon cutting across the image, took up most of his left flank. “Rangers. That’s, like, a football team, right? But what are the guns? Are they for, you know”—she lifted one arm and pretended to flex her biceps—“ these guns?”
    A split second passed before he realized she was completely serious. And he—completely unexpectedly—burst out laughing. The humor released his tension and became cathartic, which kept him laughing and sucked every ounce of stress from his body. Eyes watering, side burning, he bent and pressed a hand to the sofa arm as control returned.
    “What did I say?” she asked, laughing at his laughter, those brown eyes sparkling.
    He shook his head and wiped his eyes. “You’re just…priceless, that’s all. Most people don’t get that from this tattoo.”
    To keep her from digging deeper about the tat, he crawled onto the sofa and lay out on his stomach. Propping his chin on one forearm, he reached out and slid his other palm down her smooth calf.
    “We should take care of that