Play With Me

step back.
    “Hunter. What
are you doing here?”

 
     
     
    CHAPTER
    12
     
     
    “I FORGOT
SOMETHING.”
    “You can’t just
come up here. I’m already in my jammies.” My protest was weak like a moth’s
wing-beat. In fact, I couldn’t care less about my current clothing. All that
mattered was that he was here. A burst of adrenaline swept through me.
    Ryan walked
toward me with this predatory look and a sly grin. His gaze skated down my bare
legs. Shivers left a trail of goose-bumps on my skin. “I’ve never seen anything
sexier than those shorts on you.”
    He blasted the
rest of the world right out of my mind when he hooked his finger to my
waistband and pulled me closer. My hands came up to rest on his chest. Stunned,
I gaped at him, my eyes wide.
    This was too
close. But I couldn’t stop staring at him, at his lips... Screw Tony and my preserved
love for him.
    “You forgot
something?” Shit, I sounded more like a toad than myself. “What?”
    Ryan took off
his ball cap and tossed it on my bed. His hand moved around my waist, pulling
me even closer, his other palm shaped against my cheek and neck. He leaned in
so slowly that I thought I was going to die of anticipation. His gaze moved to
my lips and back to my eyes. He dipped his head.
    The first soft
touch of his lips to mine rendered my eyes shut. I let him hold me, guide me,
work my mouth open with his kiss. A little shy, I shifted my hands up and
around his neck. He seemed to enjoy that because he pressed me harder against
him. My breasts got squeezed between us. His tongue brushed against mine, very
slightly at first. The intimacy of this move had me shaking to my core.
    Ryan thrust his
hand into my hair. As he deepened the kiss, I finally responded with a
surprising moan. I let him engage me in a dance of lips and tongues, sometimes
eager, and then softly the next moment. The wonderful musky smell of his
aftershave filled my head, and I knew the scent would be edged in my mind
forever with the memory of him rocking my world tonight.
    He inched away
and waited for me to open my eyes. With a half-smile, he leaned his brow
against mine. “By the way, I’ve known your name since the very day that you first
came to watch Mitchell’s soccer training in third grade, Liza.”
    I bit down a
grin about his surprising confession. “Have you, really?”
    His lips thinned
to a mocking line. “Um-hm.” He nudged my nose with the tip of his then took my
mouth again in a beguiling, slow kiss. His hands started to explore underneath
my top, skimming the sensitive skin along my spine.
    I surrendered to
him, my knees getting weaker with the heat he ignited inside me, but he
supported part of my weight with a tight embrace.
    “What the
fucking hell—!”
    Ryan was pulled
away from me so fast I had no chance to protest other than with a grunt,
struggling to keep my stance.
    “Take your
bloody hands off her!”
    “No! Tony!” A strangled
shriek escaped me as he punched Ryan hard in the jaw.
    Ohmygod!
Ohmygod! Ohmygod!
    Ryan staggered
back a step then caught himself before he crashed into my closet. I rushed to
him, but he held his hand out and stopped me with a scowl that turned my blood
cold. He ran his tongue over his cut lip then wiped the blood off with the back
of his hand. The next instant he had Tony pinned against the wall, with his
forearm pressed to Tony’s throat.
    “I’ll let you
get off with this because you’re my friend , Mitchell,” he growled as
dangerously as a rabid wolf. “But do this again and you won’t live through the
night.”
    “You don’t scare
me, Hunter.”
    I had never seen
Tony so furious. He didn’t heed Ryan’s warning, but head-butted him on the
nose. My mind roared in panic. I couldn’t move, caught in a stranglehold of
shock. From the edge in Ryan’s eyes as he clamped down on his teeth, I could
tell Tony had just signed his own death sentence.
    Full of fear for
my best friend and no less sorry for Ryan’s bleeding nose, I struggled to get a
grip and stepped between them, one hand braced on either of their chests. “No. No! You’re not going to do this. Not in my room,” I hissed. “And not over me.” Then
I scowled at them both in turn with the insane fear my parents would wake up
and kill me for having two boys in my room in the dead of the night.
    When I wouldn’t
let them get at each other, both drew in a deep breath, and the rattle of my
bones from holding them back eased a little. I turned