The copper valley bro co.., p.34
The Copper Valley Bro Code Series: Volume 1, page 34
“Our relationship is just for show,” I reply, equally hoarse, because my pulse is ramping into dangerous territory and I’m getting a drunken buzz in my nether regions, which are solidly in favor of seeing if he’s even half as good with his equipment as Trent was. “Not for real.”
His ribs are expanding and contracting rapidly. “I had a lot of fun with you tonight.”
“You’d have fun with a professional fun-killer.” Why can’t I stop touching him?
“I want to kiss you again.”
“That’s a bad idea.”
“Says the woman who’s stroking me.”
“Your robot pheromones are hypnotizing me.”
“Sarah.”
Oh, crap, he’s using my name against me now too.
But he’s funny. And he’s sweet. And there’s literally not one thing about him—beyond how we met and the fact that he’s a celebrity—that I can find fault with.
He’s apologized profusely.
He adores his mom.
He loses video games to his nephew. On purpose.
And I just like him.
What’s the harm in kissing?
I miss kissing.
And I’ve never kissed a man who knew all of who I was. About my parents. About the Hagrid incident. I’ve never even told a boyfriend about my year in Morocco.
“There’s no off-button back here,” I tell him.
But there is a very shapely ass clad in RYDE-brand denim that I could squeeze, if I was the bold type.
He turns, and I drop my fingers and look down, but my eye catches on the bulge in his jeans, and there’s no freaking way Beck Ryder’s turned on because of me.
Is there?
I go out of my way to not look sexy.
But if he’s stuffing his briefs, he wasn’t earlier, which suggests he’s either turned on by me, or he was thinking about internet porn.
He hooks a finger under my chin and lifts my face so I’m looking up at him.
So tall. So tall, and lean, but also wrapped in a layer of sinewy muscle that I want to trace.
And lick.
I am in so much trouble.
“I like you, Sarah Dempsey,” he whispers.
And those blue eyes aren’t lying. They’re not overflowing with confidence or ego or self-importance.
They’re cautious. Searching. Like he knows he’s sneaking out on a limb that might or might not hold his weight, but that apple at the end is worth the risk.
I’m his apple.
How am I his apple?
“I’m trying really hard not to like you.”
His eyes crinkle when he smiles, like he knows I’m lying and that I’m not trying very hard at all, and I do like him, and I am so done for.
There aren’t any cameras down here. No prying eyes. No reason for him to pretend he likes me when we have a contract that very specifically spells out that this is a bad, bad idea.
But my lips are tingling and my lady bits are stirring and his skin is so warm and soft over rigid muscle right there at his waist where my hand has accidentally fallen, and when he lowers his lips to mine, I don’t fight it.
Because I want to know.
I want to know if this is all a fluke, or if it’s the mint tea talking, or if it’s the weird circumstances, or if he’s secretly that turned on by the fact that I have a replica of the Serenity starship.
“You have the prettiest eyes,” he murmurs against my mouth, his lips teasing mine, his breath warm and sweet.
I’m going to do this.
I’m going to kiss Beck Ryder.
Right—
“Coast is clear!” my dad bellows. The basement door hits the wall with a crash. “Go! Go now, before the Euranians come back!”
We leap apart as his footsteps thunder down the steps. Beck snags his shirt, and he’s still buttoning it when Dad reaches us.
I dive into digging through a box of comic books, because it’s the closest thing I have.
Dad looks between us. I don’t have to look up to know he’s threatening to murder Beck with his eyeballs.
“Were you compromising my daughter?” he growls.
“I was trying to figure out what the birthmark on his shoulder reminds me of,” I say desperately as I lift a comic. “I’m positive I’ve seen it in this—erm—Buffy the Vampire Slayer comic.”
“Whoa, holy shit, you have—ah, yeah. Birthmark. Buffy. Like one of the monsters or something,” Beck says.
I glance at him.
He’s ogling the box of Buffy comics I was just riffling through.
Which shouldn’t be a surprise. If he likes Firefly, it stands to reason that he likes Buffy too.
“You have three minutes to get your sorry ass out of my house,” Dad tells Beck.
“Dad. It’s my house.”
“I’ve commandeered it for the mission. And the mission is getting this nudist out of here. He has his own playbook. I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.”
“It was an honor to take your daughter to a ball game, sir,” Beck says.
“You’re damn fucking right it was,” Dad growls.
Thank you, I mouth to Beck through a smile, because I don’t know what else to say.
He grins back, and the wings flying my heart into my breastbone slow their flutter. “I’ll call you later,” he says.
Like we’re teenagers who just got caught making out in the parents’ basement.
“You’ll call me first,” Dad growls.
“Gotta go,” Beck replies. “Before those Euranians get back.”
He flashes me a lopsided smile that seems to be equal parts amused and frustrated, and he slips up the steps.
“Dad,” I say.
He, too, grins at me, dark brown eyes twinkling merrily. “You should’ve dated more in high school,” he growls. “This is fun.”
My life, ladies and gentlemen.
This is my life.
20
Beck
Tuesday morning, I’m in the middle of a virtual staff meeting on the floor below my penthouse and I’m losing my fucking mind.
“Crawford might be placated for now with all those pictures from last night and public opinion swaying back your way, but there’s no telling if he’ll stay that way for long,” my manager, Bruce, is saying from his over-decorated office in LA. “You need to get caught buying the frumpy girl flowers. And can you get her to brush her hair?”
“Her name,” I say distinctly, “is Sarah.”
“Right, right. What are her parents saying? You’ve met them, right? Judson fucking Clarke. If we could get him to vouch for you, all of this would go away.”
Charlie rolls her eyes. She and Bruce often butt heads, but it’s getting worse. “You want a man to speak up about another man making his daughter’s uterus into public fodder?”
“She’s right, Bruce.” Hestia, my PR team lead is also rolling her eyes. “Now, if we could get Sunny Darling to join us all on Calista Finley, that would help. Although, rumor has it she’s in need of rehab.”
“Sunny Darling does not need rehab.” I’m going to pull my hair out. Fistfuls of it. And toss it all over the fucking floor. These people were so competent last week. What the fuck is going on? “And I’m not going on Calista Finley’s talkshow. We’re sticking with the plan.”
“You’ve been uninvited from the World Music Awards.”
I look at Charlie, because have they been listening to a word either of us has said?
“Beck wasn’t going to the World Music Awards,” she tells the team. “He’s on vacation that week. A real vacation. Where he’s not tweeting. Or talking to people. Or doing anything else that’ll require any of us to work overtime, and he’s even going to do his own laundry and cooking.”
I nod in vehement agreement. I didn’t know I was taking a vacation that week, but I never turn down an opportunity to hang out at home and torment my sister and remind my mom how much she misses me while I’m gone.
Plus, there’s the Tucker factor now, and I still have other friends I haven’t caught up with in town.
“It still looks bad that you were uninvited from one more thing,” Hestia says. “They’ll spin it.”
“You know he’s going to look like a saint when we finally announce the FLY HYGH Foundation, so it won’t matter,” Charlie replies. “And we just threw together the mother of all black-tie dinners for Sarah’s favorite giraffe on Saturday night, and Vaughn’s tentatively on board to fly in for it too, so I don’t think anyone’s going to give two fucks if Beck doesn’t show up at an awards show two months from now that he already declined.”
“Do you really need me here?” I ask her.
“Shut up and sit down. This is still your fault.”
“Fair enough,” I grumble.
“You need to go play with animals at that shelter your sister likes,” Hestia says.
“He needs to get Levi Wilson and Cash Rivers making more noise about him being a good guy,” Bruce replies.
“He called in personal favors from over fifty celebrities and politicians and talked them all into buying thousand-dollar tickets for a fifty-dollar affair to raise money for the world’s most famous endangered animal, and he’s taking both his and Sarah’s entire families,” Charlie says. “You let him loose in a dog pound, he’ll crack a joke about a bitch and we’re done. You let the plan play out as the plan is supposed to play out, and this will all be just fine.” She glares at me and makes a slashing motion across her throat.
Right. She’s done with Bruce.
“Got a call from a movie producer who wants to know if you want a cameo in a slasher pic,” Bruce tells me. “They’d make you look good when you die.”
“We’re not doing cameos,” my marketing guru, Vicki, replies. “It’s starring roles or nothing.”
“Whoa, wait, we’re not doing movies,” I say.
My entire team shuts up and stares at me.
“What?” I ask.
“Ryder, I like you, but you’re a PR nightmare,” Bruce says. “We’re saving your ass this time, but what happens when you call one of the royal babies ugly, or get caught sticking your dick in a goat?”
“PR nightmare? The Ryder Family Foundation gives away millions every year, and not two weeks ago I was all over the news when those cameras crashed my visit to the children’s hospital in London.”
He shakes his head. “You need to think long-term, because sooner or later, you’re gonna blow it in business. So do a slasher pic. Not like you’re the type to write a tell-all book. Haven’t slept with enough women anyone wants the dirt on for that. And I got a guy who’s interested in buying out your DRYVE and SHYNE lines. You should take him up on it. Won’t get a better deal.”
“Sell my lines?”
Charlie’s not even speaking. She’s just gawking. Hestia and Vicki both clear their throats and dive for coffee and cigarettes.
“Sell them,” Bruce repeats. “Then you need to kiss Crawford’s ass, because we all know this FLY HYGH Foundation is really just an excuse to get a partnership with him so we can branch out into footwear.”
I stand and accidentally on purpose dump an entire coffee mug all over the computer.
It sizzles and fries and sparks and the screen goes blank, and Charlie slumps back in her chair with a sigh. “Took you fucking long enough.”
“Sell my lines?” I say to her.
She rolls her eyes. “I don’t care how long he’s been your manager, you need to fire him. He’s losing his fucking mind. And he’s always been a twatwaffle. Also, I’m not replacing that computer. You can get your ass down to the Apple store yourself this time, and I don’t care how many people try to run you over on the street.”
She grabs her phone and types out a message—undoubtedly telling my team I fucked up and we’ll talk again tomorrow at our regularly scheduled time, because that’s what she does, and I probably need to give her a raise again this week—and I head for the kitchenette in the small office area. The rest of the floor is apartments.
“You like Moroccan?” I call. “Sarah showed me this place over in University City. We could order couscous. Or kefta. Or kebabs. Or all of it. With four gallons of mint tea. And cookies. Definitely cookies.”
She follows me and leans into the doorway, head still down over her phone. “You can’t eat this away, Beck. You still have a shoot in three weeks.”
“And nothing to do in the meantime except work out and play video games.” Everything’s on hold. Everything. The designs I was supposed to look at this week are delayed. All my meetings—outside the crisis meetings with my team—are canceled. My only job is to not fuck up more and keep publicly wooing Sarah.
Maybe privately wooing Sarah.
I wanted to kiss her so badly last night, and I still don’t know if it was a good idea or a bad idea, but it’s what I wanted.
Charlie doesn’t smile. “You ever seriously consider selling out and retiring?”
I told her I was going to last year, after Ellie’s accident. She didn’t take me seriously, but she also made sure everything on my schedule got delayed or canceled, and she’s kept me booked less full so I could be home more.
“Why?” I ask her. “You want to slow down?” She sees her family less than I see mine, but she’s never complained about it.
“I don’t do slow, Ryder. You know that.”
“Good, because even if I did sell out and retire, I’d still need you running my life, you know. Who else would make me get out of bed and remind me to brush my teeth in the morning?”
“Your mother, Ryder. Your mother.”
I laugh at the image of my mom trying to get me up in the morning. She’d dump ice water on my head without hesitation, a tidbit I won’t be sharing with Charlie, or she might try the same next time we’re traveling.
She’s smiling too, because she doesn’t actually set my alarms or remind me to brush my teeth.
Usually.
“You should sign up for a dating app,” I tell her, even though I think I would have to sell my businesses if I didn’t have Charlie to keep me organized. “Meet someone. Go see the world through love’s eyes.”
“Rather see the world by myself, thank you very much. The pictures from the game last night are everywhere, and they’re reporting both that Sarah totally denied you a kiss and that she started a food fight that was probably foreplay to what you did in the bedroom. The pictures are perfect. Lots of the two of you laughing. Especially her. Plus, the media likes that she’s playing hard to get, and that you keep trying.”
“Nice avoidance.”
“You’d rather talk about why you were late after the game last night and came in looking like you just found an all-you-can-eat steak and cupcake buffet?”
“No.”
She smirks. “Didn’t think so. Tripp Wilson’s waiting for you upstairs.”
“So that’s a no to Moroccan?”
“One of everything. University City. I’m on it. But you’re going to have to spend an extra two hours on the treadmill.”
I hate the treadmill. “I can order in.”
“Nope. Can’t talk and drive. Your diva ass is getting me out of a telecon with Brass and the Dinglehoppers to discuss your incompetence at attending telecons.”
“Brass?”
“Bruce the Ass.”
“Let’s get through smoothing out my dumbass tweet, and then I’ll talk to Bruce about why he’s losing his mind. Two weeks. Tops. And if he’s still insane, he’ll be gone.”
“I’m using your card to pay for lunch for everyone in the restaurant.”
“Send some couscous to Sarah’s office while you’re at it.”
“That would be filed under duh.”
“You’re an empress among assistants.”
“I know. Don’t eat your arm off while you’re waiting for food. You need it to sign papers so we can get rid of Bruce.”
She heads for the elevator while I take the stairs to the penthouse, where I find an old friend waiting for me.
And he’s not alone.
“James! Hey, bud. Give it up.” I hold out a fist to Tripp’s three-year-old, who eyeballs me with rightful suspicion. He’s in preschooler-size jeans with bright green pajama shorts over them, and at least two shirts, because I can see a yellow collar under his bright orange Captain Beanbag shirt.
He’s also sporting a purple cape.
All of my buddies have the cutest kids.
“He’s on Twitter and he knows you’re a disaster,” Tripp tells me. “You’re gonna have to give him something more than a fist bump to win him over.”
He’s holding his daughter, who’s just over a year old and clearly didn’t dress herself this morning, because there’s no way she could’ve put that dress on herself.
I don’t think.
Plus, if I were barely a year old and allowed to dress myself, I’d be naked. So I guess I’m assuming she’s probably the same.
“Everybody screws up time to time,” I say.
Tripp gives me a wry grin. “Yeah. Just time to time.”
“You like playing ping-pong?” I ask James.
“You gosh to pway twuck but it fall in da fountain,” he replies solemnly.
Tripp ruffles his hair. “The truck dried. We left it at home.”
“I’ve got trucks,” I tell him. “Well, cars, but they have wheels and you can make them go vroom.”
Tripp shakes his head at me, eyes widening. “Dude, he will tear those things apart.”
“What? They’re just things. C’mon, James. Let’s go check out my rides.”
I get him set up playing with a couple of the model sports cars I keep on a high shelf in the game room while I play peek-a-boo with Emma, who finally decides I’m cool enough to drool on for a while. Her blond hair’s on top of her head Cindy Lou Who style, and she’s chewing on her fingers when she dives for me to hold her.
Tripp sags into the couch facing the TV. “Thanks. She’s getting heavy.”
“Need to work out more.”
“You carry her for two hours and then say that again.” He’s sporting bags under his eyes, and he only shaved the right half his face, but he’s still managing a smile.
