Air Ryder (Harper's Mountains Book 3) (9 page)

“Oh, noooo,” Lexi drawled out as she bounced and bumped her way through the gate.

There was a cabin at the edge of a clearing with strange-looking plastic, green shutters and a couple more cabins up the dirt track that wound around jutting black boulders.

She’d definitely thought Ryder lived by himself.

Ryder, Weston, and Aaron sat on the front porch of the first cabin, and up the trail, Alana, Harper, and Wyatt were walking toward her Jeep. Shit, shit, double shit.

Ryder’s greeting grin was beaming as she hit the brakes and rocked to a stop next to Ryder’s jacked-up, gunmetal gray Chevy pickup. Beer in hand, he jogged down to meet her, but skidded to a stop by the driver’s side, his eyes on her cleavage.

“What are you wearing?” he asked, his voice muffled through the door.

Heat blazed up into her cheeks, and she couldn’t meet his eyes. She searched the back seat for a jacket or hoodie, or for fuck’s sake, a burlap sack would’ve worked about now. But of course, there was nothing since she’d just cleaned her ride out last night.

Her mortification was infinite, and now the other Bloodrunners were gathering around her Jeep.

Well…there was no help for it. She couldn’t just turn around and speed out of here, even if that was exactly what she wanted to do.

Ryder pulled open the door as she unbuckled. Boneless and full of shame, she slid from the seat and clamped her hands in front of her thighs.

“Holy fuck, you look hot!” Ryder crowed. He pointed to each boob in turn. “That’s mine and that’s mine.”

Wes and Aaron were snickering.

“I didn’t know the whole crew lived together,” Lexi choked out. “I thought you lived alone.”

“That’s okay, nobody minds you dressed up as a…” Realization struck Ryder’s face like lightning. “Is this for me because of what I said the other day?”

“What did you say?” Harper asked, biting her lip to hold back a smile. She was failing.

Lexi wanted to crawl in a hole and never come out. “Ryder said he always had this fantasy of fucking a Wild West saloon girl.”

Aaron doubled over and laughed so loud it echoed across the mountains, but Alana shoved hard, and he almost fell over. Wes was staring at Lexi’s tits, pushed up to her chin with the red silk corset lined in black lace. Ryder looked so damn gleeful Lexi wanted to slap him.

“This is your fault!” she snapped. “You told me to dress like this.”

“I assure you I did not. I would remember. I said ‘dress for the woods.’”

“Oh. Shit,” Lexi muttered. “Well…” She pulled down the tiny skirt to cover up her fishnet clad thighs a little better. “That makes more sense then.”

“What did you think I said?”

Her cheeks caught fire. She cleared her throat delicately and muttered, “I thought you said ‘dress for wood.’”

Wyatt and Aaron weren’t even trying to stifle their laughter now, Wes was still staring at her fucking tits, and Ryder was doubled over cackling and stomping his feet, spilling his beer all over the grass.

Alana looked impressed, though, and she punched out through her giggles, “Girl, at least you’re working it. You came to get your man.”

“He’s not getting anything now,” Lexi grumbled.

Harper shoved Wes’s head, and he came out of his tit-trance, but just barely.

“I have some clothes you can borrow if you want,” the Bloodrunner alpha offered. “You look awesome, but I doubt that will work for where we’re going.”

“Where
we’re
going?” God, she’d really thought when Ryder called earlier, he had a one-on-one date planned for them. Apparently this was a group date, and her mortification somehow deepened.

Ryder picked her up like a sack of flour and tossed her onto his shoulder.

“Ryder!” she squawked as he slapped her bare ass.

“Sorry, y’all. I need at least thirty-three seconds with my girl.” Ryder pretended to shoot laser beams from his dick with a couple pelvic thrusts and said in a high pitched voice, “Pew pew.”

Lexi struggled, trying to hide her bare body parts from the crew, but Ryder was immovable, the brute.

“Thirty-three seconds, yeah right,” Aaron called as Ryder shoved the door to the cabin open. “That would be a record for you, Ryder! One pump wonder!”

“Harper!” Lexi pleaded. “Clothes!”

Ryder shut the door, but she could hear Harper’s muffled voice. “I’ll bring them to you!”

Ryder strode straight into the bedroom and dumped her unceremoniously on the bed.

“I’m so embarrassed!” She pressed her palms against her burning cheeks to cool them. Ryder was unsnapping his pants like this was really going to happen now, and Lexi opened her mouth to tell him
hell no to all of this
, but movement caught her attention.

When a mouse ran across the wooden floors of the bedroom, Lexi bolted upright on the bed with a horror film scream clawing its way up her throat.

Ryder hunched and covered his ears, and outside Aaron yelled, “Sounds like she saw Ryder’s dick!” More laughter echoed as Lexi inhaled for another scream.

Ryder clapped his hand over her mouth and said, “Woman, stop your screeching! It’s a pet mouse!”

“Why would anyone have a rodent as a pet?” she asked, her voice still two octaves too high.

“Because he’s fucking awesome. Look at his nuts! They’re huge, and he eats food right out of my hand.”

Ryder jacked his eyebrows up when she high-kneed it over the bouncy mattress to cower beside him, as far away from the mouse as possible. He peeled her claws from his shirt and left her—left her!—to defend herself. She picked up a pillow and prepared to whack that little sucker if it came any closer.

To her horror, Ryder picked up the little black and white mouse easily and ran his finger gently down the little critter’s head. “Lexi, meet Sammy Scrotum, Sammy Scrotes for short. Sammy, this is Sexy Lexi.”

Ryder approached her with a teasing grin, and she reared back with the pillow. “Don’t you fuckin’ dare.”

“Come on, pet him. Look how cute he is. Look at his wittle ears and his wittle whiskers.” Ryder scrunched up his nose like a mouse and Lexi bit back a smile. This was not funny.

“Ryder, I don’t do mice.”

“Ew, me either. That’s gross.”

Lexi growled at him and backed toward the headboard when he stepped closer.

“Pet him once, and I’ll let you suck my pener.”

Lexi had to force herself not to laugh. Ryder looked determined, so she asked, “Will it bite me?”

“No! Sammy Scrotum is nice.”

“That’s a terrible name.”

“He likes it. It’s a warrior’s name. Pet him. Come oooon. Do it. Peer pressure. Give in. Pet him.”

Every muscle in her body shaking, she dropped the pillow and stuck her finger out, then squeezed her eyes tightly closed so she could pretend she wasn’t actually doing this.

Soft fur touched her fingertip, and she yelped and drew back. She cracked an eye open and tried again. Sammy Scrotum didn’t seem to care at all and just went to climbing all over Ryder’s open palm, sniffing his little nose and shaking his little whiskers. He was kind of cute, and one of his black spots was shaped like heart, which she really liked.

She brushed her fingertips from his head to his back and down his tail, then flinched away with a proud grin. “I did it.”

“You fuckin’ did it!” Ryder said, his eyes wide and sparking like blue flames.

As he set the mouse back down on the floor to scurry on its way, Lexi clutched her chest and sighed a gusty exhale. “My heart is going ninety to nothing. It’s like hummingbird wings. Feel it!”

Void of hesitation, Ryder grabbed her boob. “Yep, super-fast,” he muttered in a tone that said he gave zero fucks about her heartbeat right now and was in it for the teat-fondle.

“Ryder, I’m coming in, stop boning,” Harper called from the front door.

“I touched a mouse!” Lexi exclaimed as the dragon-eyed alpha came in with a handful of clothes and a pair of hiking boots on top of the pile.

“You met Sammy?” she asked with a megawatt smile.

“Yes, and he was terrifying and cute, but mostly terrifying.”

She giggled and told Ryder, “Fasten your pants, man.”

Ryder threw something small, oval, and chocolate-colored at Harper, who ducked out of the way. Lexi was going to pretend it was anything but a mouse turd, because sanitation.

Ryder disappeared into the bathroom, and the running water of the sink sounded. Harper set out the clothes on the bed and Lexi picked a pair of black skinny jeans and a forest green tank top to go with the hiking boots. The shoes were a size too big but they worked a lot better than the strappy gladiator heels she’d fastened onto her feet when she was dressing in her skanky saloon girl getup.

Ryder came back in smelling like soap as she was lacing the shoes, and without instruction, he took her costume and hung it up in the closet. “For later,” he declared.

Harper walked out, calling, “Let’s load up. We’re burnin’ daylight,” over her shoulder.

Ryder squared up to Lexi, hands tight on her hips as he sipped her lips. “I liked the costume, but you look good enough to eat out in these jeans.”

“It’s good enough to eat.”

“Hmm?” he asked innocently.

“The saying goes, ‘You look good enough to eat.’”

“You want a piggy-back ride, but on my front?”

“No!” she said, swatting him. “Behave tonight and don’t embarrass me in front of your friends. I want them to like me.”

“Hmm.” He frowned. “Can you use the word
behave
in a sentence?” he asked as though he was at a spelling bee.

With an eye roll, Lexi strode out of the bedroom and through the living room toward the front door.

“Can I have the definition?” he asked from behind her, a smile in his voice.

Outside, the Bloodrunners were loading up in Ryder’s truck. Aaron and Alana sat in the bed as Wyatt, Harper, and Wes climbed into the back seat.

Ryder pulled the passenger’s side door open for her. Unhelpfully, Ryder squeezed her ass as she scrambled in with the grace of a rhino. She was giggling uncontrollably by the time she settled into the seat. Ryder leaned in and kissed her quick, bit her bottom lip, before he pulled away with a wicked grin. “I like tasting your laughs.”

Crazy man. As he jogged around the front of the truck, she couldn’t help the giant smile that was stretching her lips.

“He makes you happy, doesn’t he?” Wes asked in a strange tone.

Lexi twisted in her seat to look back at him and nodded. “I can’t remember ever being this happy with someone,” she rushed out before Ryder opened his door.

“Good,” Wes said, giving his attention to the window.

“Good what?” Ryder asked, buckling in.

“Nothing,” Wes murmured.

The smile dipped from Ryder’s lips, and he frowned back at the Novak Raven with an upset expression Lexi didn’t understand. When she rested her hand on his tensed leg, he relaxed and offered her another smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

Perhaps he and his best friend were fighting.

It was six o’clock and the early evening shadows were just now lengthening in the Smoky Mountains. Ryder rolled down the windows and turned up a country rock song. After a few minutes of driving a back road, he belted out the first line of the chorus and then looked right at her, daring her to sing along.

She did know the song, but she’d never been comfortable singing in front of other people. Her voice was reserved for the shower and when she was alone in her Jeep. But then Harper started humming along in the back seat, and Wyatt chimed in off-key. Even Wes sang a word here and there, so fuck it. The second round of the chorus, Lexi murmured the lyrics at normal, conversational volume.

“Yeaaaah!” Ryder said.

He started singing again, even louder, and after she got control of her laughter, Lexi sang, too. And by the time Ryder pulled to a stop in a meadow on the edge of a cliff, they were all belting out the third song, hacking up the lyrics, but no one seemed to care.

It was awesome feeling so comfortable with these people. She’d always wondered how similar shifters were to humans, and after hanging out with them twice now, they were the most normal people she’d ever met.

Everyone started piling out of the truck, but it looked as if they had just stopped at a random bend in the road. “Where are we?”

“I want to show you something.” Ryder got out and met her at the front of the truck, then took her hand and led her toward the cliff.

Around her, the Bloodrunners began stripping out of their clothes. Weird. To avoid an eyeful of swinging dicks and bouncing boobs, Lexi aimed her focus on the cliff.

Lexi wasn’t afraid of heights, but the cliff dropped straight down, and at the bottom, sharp rocks jutted out of the earth. There was a river some distance off, and the scenery was beautiful, but this was close enough. Lexi backed away from the edge, but when she turned around to ask Ryder what they were doing here, a smattering of pops sounded and a monster grizzly burst from Wyatt, and then a blond one from Aaron. They were so intimidatingly big.  They paced around Alana, her Change slower and painful-looking, but when she stood on all fours and roared, she didn’t seem to mind the pain. Her fur was a rich, chocolate brown, almost the same as her human skin tone. And though she was smaller than the other grizzlies, Alana still looked ferocious with all those claws and teeth.