Page 31 of Claimed on the Ridge

Cameron is waiting at the hardware store. The ride back is quiet, the shared silence of two people who don't need to fillspace with noise. He doesn't ask what Amberly said. He doesn't ask about the ribs. He drives.

The flirting starts again after dinner.

I don't plan it. The cover story is a countdown I carry in my sternum. Amberly's quiet sentence about her mother is still settling into my bones.

None of that stops the heat that moves through me when Alex leans against the bar and looks at me as if he's already decided what he's going to do and is just choosing when.

"You're staring," I say.

"You're worth staring at."

"That's not a compliment. That's reconnaissance."

"Can't it be both?"

The banter has teeth tonight. The difference between tonight and yesterday is that I'm done being the one who holds still. Yesterday I stepped closer. Tonight I close the remaining distance.

I cross the space between us and lean against the bar beside him, close enough that my arm presses against his. The contact is deliberate.

His hand is on my hip before I finish the thought. Not asking. Taking. His fingers close over the bone and he turns me to face him in one motion, and the speed of it steals my breath. One second I'm beside him. The next I'm in front of him with his hand on my hip and his eyes on my mouth and the bar at my back.

"I said I'm just standing here," I say. My voice is less steady than I want it to be.

"You stopped just standing anywhere when you touched my arm." His voice has dropped into the register that does things to the base of my spine. "You walked into my space. You don't get to pretend that's accidental."

He's right. I did it on purpose. I wanted to know what happens when I walk toward the door he said he'd hold open, whether the man who promised his hands would stay tied can keep that promise when I'm the one pulling at the knot.

The answer is standing in front of me with his hand on my hip and his jaw locked and every line of his body saying he's already decided what comes next.

"What if I want them on me?" I say.

His other hand comes up. Fingers in my hair, gripping at the roots, tilting my head back. The grip is possessive and exact and it sends heat flooding through my stomach and lower. His mouth is an inch from mine. I can feel his breath on my lips.

"You don't get to test me, Kendall." His voice is rough, barely controlled. "You don't get to press against me and dare me to move and then call it a game. I told you I'd wait. I am waiting. But when you're done making me prove it, you're going to say the word, and what comes after that won't be a test."

His mouth brushes mine. Not a kiss. A promise. The contact lasts half a second and the heat of it runs through me like voltage.

Then he lets go. Steps back. The release is abrupt and physical, like a man pulling his hand off a hot surface, and the cold air that fills the space he occupied hits my skin like a slap.

He picks up his drink. Takes a sip. Watches me over the rim the way he watched me this morning in the kitchen, and the look saysfor nowthe same way the silence did.

My legs are unreliable. My pulse is everywhere. The place where his hand gripped my hip is still burning, and I want him back in my space so badly the wanting is a physical weight between my hips.

"Not tonight," I say. My voice comes out steadier than I deserve.

"Your call." Two words. No argument. But the way he says it makes clear the patience has a shelf life, and the shelf is getting shorter.

Bryan's voice cuts through the main room from the direction of the office hallway, calling Alex's name. The tone is clipped, professional, the voice of a man who needs a decision made.

Alex doesn't look away from me. He holds my eyes for another beat, letting me feel the full weight of what just passed between us, and then he pushes off the bar and walks toward the hallway.

I watch him go. I don't count the exits. The realization is so unfamiliar it takes me a moment to identify it.

Then the voices start carrying. Alex and Bryan, near the office, the low controlled register of men disagreeing about something that matters.

"...can't keep her here indefinitely." Bryan's voice, flat, pragmatic. "She's a liability. You know it. I know it. The longer she stays, the more exposed we are."

"She's not a liability." Alex, quieter, harder.