Only When It's Us (Bergman Brothers #1)(86)

Ryder’s laugh echoes in the trees as he starts down the path. “If I tell you, where’s the fun in that?”

I run at him, then lunge like a monkey onto his back. He doesn’t so much as break his stride.

“The last known California grizzly bear, Ursus arctos californicus, a now-extinct subspecies of the grizzly bear, was killed roughly a century ago,” Ryder says gently, hitching me higher in his grip.

“Well, that’s a relief. Aren’t you just a little California wilderness encyclopedia.”

Ryder squeezes my legs, his hands nearly wrapping around my thighs. Maybe not so little.

Dropping my head against his neck, I remember our hike to the falls. The clean, sharp scent of his sweat. Muscles shifting in his back. Once again, I feel them. I breathe in deep mountain air and Ryder’s warm body. I press my lips to his skin how I was too afraid to last time. His grip tightens on my legs, and when he glances up at the path ahead, a smile warms his face.

Tree leaves whisper in the breeze. The sun slips lower in the sky. Ryder carries me the whole way down.





Add cooking to frowning, opening laptop bags, sleeve cuffing, and other mundane activity that Ryder Bergman magically makes pornographic. Any time I’ve eaten at his place, the cooking’s pretty much done when I get there, which betrays deep wisdom on that man’s part. I can only last about five hungry minutes around the smell of food before I need to eat. Before I turn into an angry food troll.

But tonight, the jerk had the audacity to set up a tray of fancy snacks, pour me a fat glass of red wine, and not only roll up his sleeves in front of me, but prepare our meal from scratch.

“Enjoying the show?” His eyes are on his hands as he finely chops an onion, but the smartass grin on his face is unmistakable.

I lob a cashew at his head. He pauses only long enough to pop it in his mouth and resume chopping while he chews. Jeebus Christmas, watching him chew and swallow is even disgustingly sexy.

“I’m enthralled,” I answer drily. Ryder’s smirk says he doesn’t buy the sarcasm, but I take the high road because he is cooking for me. If I kicked his ass before dinner was finished, then what would I do? “Where’d this food come from anyway?”

“I ordered it, Sunshine. There’s this modern marvel called online ordering and delivery of groceries.”

“Bergman, you better watch that mouth. I’m a vengeful woman with a gift for nighttime pranks, and it won’t be hard to find where you sleep tonight.”

“Won’t be hard at all. Seeing as we’re staying in the same bed.”

I choke on my wine. “We’re what?”

“Well, we might start in separate rooms, but you’re a SoCal sissy who shivers when it dips below sixty degrees. Here, it’s still low-thirties at night.”

A pathetic noise escapes my throat. “That’s fucking arctic.”

Ryder snorts as he scrapes the chopped vegetables into the pan and dials up the heat. “To you, Willa, yes. Fifty bucks says you don’t make it past midnight before you come crawling to me for body heat.”

Right now, it only feels cool. I listened to Ryder for once and packed hoodies and long-sleeve shirts. I’m layered in clothing, topped off with oversized sweats and fuzzy socks. Very seductive. But at least I’m not freezing. Yet.

I let out a shaky breath. “Don’t you have heat?”

“Woodburning.” Ryder nods toward the hearth. “Fans send the fire’s heat throughout the house.”

I stare at it. The fireplace is cold and empty. “Are you going to light it, then?”

Ryder frowns, glancing up slowly from the chicken he started butterflying. “I wasn’t planning on it, no.”

“W-what?” I stammer as my eyes widen. “But I’ll be cold.”

He shrugs. “It’s environmentally irresponsible to heat this entire place for two people. I won’t do it, but if you can start that fire yourself, be my guest. Or you could consider doing your part to protect the dwindling polar ice caps, harbingers of impending climate-change catastrophe, and bedshare with a warm-blooded human. Your choice.”

I groan and scrub my face. “Tree-hugging survivalist.”

“What’s that, dear?” He cups his ear.

I throw an escaped sliver of chopped onion at his head. “You heard me.” I don’t know the first thing about Girl Scout shit like that, and Ryder knows it.

Once again I’m tempted to do him violence, but the food smells really good and I’d like him to see it through to completion. Maybe then I’ll get his balls in a twist and make him light the fire.

My stomach growls, so I shove a handful of English cheddar and dates in my mouth and chew, struggling to hate someone who can make a charcuterie board this damn tasty. “You’re playing dirty, Bergman.”

His smirk is almost imperceptible before he schools his face. “I warned you I wouldn’t always play clean.”

He’s fucking with me, and that’s what we’ve always done. He ribs me, I rib him. We take turns playing the roles of cat and mouse, provoking each other, nudging the other person until they’re cornered where we want them before we take mercy and let them go.

But he’s leaning in, applying more pressure. He’s not just cornering me. Ryder’s forcing my hand. Because while he knows I’d sleep with him at the drop of a hat—what woman in her right mind wouldn’t?—Ryder doesn’t want that. He wants me to want more than six foot three of muscles, handsome face, and just enough asshole to make him my kind of surly. He wants me to want him. He wants me to make the move that shows him that.