Ryker Read online

  Ryker

  Unprofessional Bachelors

  Book #1

  Rhian Blaque

  Copyright © 2020 by Rhian Blaque

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places, and events are a product of the author’s wild imagination and are fictitious. Any resemblance to an actual person, events, or locations are coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without express permission of the copyright owner with the exception of quotations in book reviews.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1: Corinne

  Chapter 2: Ryker

  Chapter 3: Corinne

  Chapter 4: Ryker

  Chapter 5: Corinne

  Chapter 6: Ryker

  Chapter 7: Corinne

  Chapter 8: Ryker

  Chapter 9: Corinne

  Chapter 10: Ryker

  Chapter 11: Corinne

  Chapter 12: Ryker

  Chapter 13: Corinne

  Chapter 1: Corinne

  I burned the pizza on purpose. It hurt me inside to do it, too. But how else do you get the fire department to show up at your house? I'll happily go to my grave without feeling any guilt for what I did.

  "Corinne, I know you know how long to cook a Papa Murphy's pizza for. You've been cooking them for years," Ryker says with a heavy sigh and a shake of his head as he looks at the charred remains of my triple pepperoni pizza that had become a casualty of war. He almost looks as forlorn as I felt. "What happened?" I knew he was asking for his paperwork for the fire department, but I was enveloped in my personal drama.

  I sneak a peek down the hallway to see if my roommate and best friend, Alexandra, has finished sorting things out with Ryker's partner, Shane. I didn't want to clear the scene in the kitchen too quickly, or else all of this would have been for nothing. "What? I burned a pizza. What do you think happened?" I can't keep the snark out of my tone even if I wanted to. I'd known Ryker for years and it didn't help that his questions, albeit necessary, were also kind of stupid.

  Grabbing my chin, Ryker turns my head to look at him and meet his eyes. "Corinne, look at me when I'm talking to you." His dark and stormy blue eyes were quite the sight, even after all this time. They're the kind you write embarrassing poetry about in middle school for language arts class, then all your classmates make fun of you even though they have the same sexually repressed feelings that they don't know how to explain. Or, you know, something like that...

  I could feel a twinge of desire course through my body at the tone of his words. Having grown up with Ryker being my older brother's best friend, he'd been around the house a lot in my youth. I'd seen his body when he was a gangly teenage boy. Now that he was one of Sweet Creek's local firemen, he filled out that uniform like he was born for it. Muscles bulged from every place they could bulge from, even that special place that I fantasized about before I was old enough to understand what it could do. "Could you keep it down? I'm trying to play matchmaker for Alex."

  Ryker narrows his eyes at me and shakes his head in mild disgust. "Don't tell me you burned this pizza to get your roommate and my partner together."

  There it was again, that tone of voice of his that left my pussy aching with feelings that I couldn't exactly define even to this day. I knew it was lust, but I also knew I couldn't feel that for Ryker. "Shh, Special K, before somebody hears you," I called him by his childhood nickname, a stupid nickname I'd come up with because too many people thought his name was a misspelled version of Ryder. Maybe it'd make these feelings I was having go away. Or at least put a lid on them until he could get out of my kitchen and I could go back to fantasizing about him in the peace and quiet of my bedroom where he wasn't standing in front of me with his smoldering eyes and sexy, broad shoulders.

  He crosses his arms over his chest and wears that look that says he means business. "Corinne Marie Harrison, you are in trouble." God damn, that tone...

  Now that he mentioned it, I was also going to be smelling burnt pizza for the next month every time I opened my oven, but I wasn't loudly announcing that to the entire apartment. Why was it every single time I did something wrong, this man had to be the one to bust my balls about it? He did it while I was growing up, too. Whenever I'd get in trouble with my parents, he'd stroll past my room and make fun of me for it.

  "Can you calm down for a sec, Ryker? It's not a big deal. Alex and Shane have been talking to each other for weeks now, but they haven't made the move from 'just talking' to dating. They needed a push. So I got my brother to tell me when you'd be working next and decided to play the role of matchmaker myself. If they're not going to do the heavy-lifting, then I will. I'm in remarkably good shape for someone who's hasn't been to the gym in 22 years." Literally, never. Ryker looks exasperated now. I was good at pushing his buttons; it's a shame they don't let you go to the Olympics for stuff like that.

  "I can't believe you got Nathan involved." He grabs his radio and calls in to say that he and Shane are wrapping up the house fire. "Actually, I can believe that you got Nathan involved. How did you know that Shane was my partner?"

  If that's what he wanted to know, if that's the part that seems out of my wheel-house of knowledge, then he hadn't paid enough attention to me over the years. "Women know everything, sweetheart. You're not going to get me in trouble, are you?" I narrow my eyes at him. "I had good intentions. And I paid $10 for this setup and I don't even know if it worked. What if I don't even get a date out of the deal?" I look down the hallway once more, biting my lower lip and wondering if it'd be fair to ask Alexandra for a refund and another pizza.

  "Oh, you're getting a date out of the deal," Ryker chuckles and shakes his head at me again. "You're going out with me or I'm informing the department that this was staged."

  My jaw drops in shock as I look him up and down. I know he's probably got better things to do with his time, real fires to put out and such, but how dare he threaten to spill the beans on me. "Snitches get stitches, Ryker." I don't care how good he looks, he's still the same little kid who told on me for lighting a match in the backyard in the summer of 2004. Or, you know, an entire package of matches. I should have known then that he was going to become a firefighter.

  He gives me a once over, looking me up and down as though he wants to devour me on the spot. "You're lucky I don't take you over my knee and give you what you deserve, Corinne, which is a well-spanked bottom."

  At this point, Shane and Alexandra walk out from the back bedroom and I don't have time to do anything but blush and let my jaw hang open like a fish gasping for water. "Everything okay in here, Ryker?" His partner asks.

  I'm beginning to wonder if I've made the wrong choice here. Maybe I shouldn't have played matchmaker, I should have just let my best friend figure it out for herself. Now I think I'm screwed, and not in the way I want to be. Or... no, he can't possibly...

  "It sure is, Shane." Ryker gathers up the paperwork he started on the fire and tips his hat at me. "I'll text you later, Corinne. Clear your schedule for tomorrow night. I've got the perfect date in mind." Then he winks and gives me a little half-smirk thing that makes my knees weak. How dare he. Like my stomach needs any more reasons to turn to jelly.

  I can see Alexandra's face light up and I know she's got a million questions, but right now I just want to melt into the floor. "Thanks for your help, Ryker," is all I can muster, "I'll see you tomorrow." I know I had a crush on him all those years ago, and sure, I've fantasized about him a time or two since, but he's my brother's best friend. Isn't there some kind of rule about dating your brother's best friend? Isn't it illegal? Shouldn't it be?

  When they leave, I collapse onto the kitchen floor with my charred pizza and my fluttering heart. I can't handle a date with a demanding, dominating Ryker Thomas.
He's too sexy. He's too intimidating. He knows too much about who I was back in my nerdy days. Why did I have to do something nice for my best friend? And why did it have to backfire on me?

  Chapter 2: Ryker

  I've known Corinne basically my whole life and she's been a pain in my side the entire time. I've known her since she was an annoying six-year-old who wanted to play tea party. I remember when she started developing breasts. I can even remember when I started wanting to see those breasts. She's been in my life for as long as I can remember, and I've loved her for almost every second of it. Except for the tea party years.

  When we got the call to her house saying there was a minor fire, my heart started racing. Please God, not Corinne, I thought. I saw a thousand memories of our lives together flash through my mind. All those years that we'd been friends -- sort of, I'd been friends with her brother more than her -- played across my mind like a movie. By the time we arrived at her house, I had convinced myself that as long as she was okay, I was going to ask her to marry me.

  But then I found out that she burned the pizza on purpose, just so that her roommate and my partner could go on a date. I wanted nothing more than to grab that tiny wrist of hers, pull her over my lap, and tan her hide. It was a strange mix of relief and frustration that coursed through me, but mostly frustration. I wanted to punish her for scaring the life out of me and for playing with fire, again, because this wasn't the first time I'd caught her doing that.

  I hadn't given up the desire to marry her just yet, but it was overtaken by the desire to teach her a lesson. Which was why by the end of taking her statement and filling out my report -- and fudging the truth a little bit, forgive me, God -- I'd decided that at the very least, I was going to take that girl out on a proper date.

  Corinne, though three years my junior, was the kind of girl you bring home to your mama. I'd already brought her home several times when she was younger. Her and Nathan's parents were lawyers and on more than one occasion they'd forgotten to make dinner or leave money for the two of them. So I brought the kids to my place where my mother had more than enough food for the Harrison kids to feast on. My mama came from a good Italian family who knew how to cook for a village, bless her heart.

  So I was going to see if I could make sparks fly and play matchmaker for myself. I'd seen the way Corinne looked at me from time-to-time. Out of respect for Nathan, I'd kept from asking her out. I didn't want to date her, find out that we weren't a match, and then ruin things between us. So I stayed away from her and kept things platonic. We had a few close run-ins over the years, including when she asked me to take her to her senior prom, but we bounced back from that.

  Now that she'd scared me half to death with this fake fire all to play Cupid for her roommate, it was my turn. If Nathan got mad, he was just going to have to get over it. I deserved love as much as the next guy. My love just happened to be a small, stubborn, 5'3", brunette who packed more heat than your average house fire.

  Shane and I got in the rig and I ask how things went with Alexandra. "I heard from a little birdy that you two have been talking." If he didn't ask her out, then Corinne was going to be pissed she wasted a whole pizza for no reason.

  "She's a great girl. I actually just asked her out on a date. That was probably unprofessional," he winces, but it kind of looks like an unapologetic smile.

  No, what's unprofessional is threatening to spank your best friend's little sister in the kitchen of your latest fire fighting emergency. But hey, if you think asking someone out is the worst thing you could do, then, by all means, you can crown yourself the unprofessional one in this scenario.

  Chapter 3: Corinne

  Alexandra finds me on the kitchen floor and I don't feel bad that she has to clean up both the charred pizza and my broken soul. "I think you should tell me what happened here," she says between pursed lips. "I'm not sure I understand how you not only burned a pizza that I've seen you make a hundred times but also got a date with a man that I swear I've heard you say you hate a hundred times."

  Wow. She's so pushy. Now I think I hate her. "I'm going to trade the two of your names out in that sentence," I bemoan from the floor. "Instead of 'I hate Ryker', it's going to be 'I hate Alex' from now on." I suddenly realize that our ceiling is one of those popcorn ceilings and I have the urge to scratch it, just to see what's underneath; it was something I always wanted to do as a kid. We're only renting this house, but I'm sure the owners wouldn't appreciate it if I gave into my sudden desire to scrape off their ceiling.

  "Ryker's pretty hot, so I'm glad we're done hating him, frankly." Alexandra ignores my claims that I hate her. Good thing, too, because I never could. We go too far back for something so small to come between us. "You've done a lot worse in the past. Do you remember Rick?"

  I lift my head to look at her and see that she's throwing my charred baby in the trash. The whole thing is an affront to me as a person. "You wound me, Alex. I've done nothing but love you like a sister since we met and now you insult me and you throw away my pizza." My best friend is a blonde bombshell, but she's also breaking my heart. It makes me wonder for a second if pizza addiction is real or if I'm just getting hangry.

  She blinks at me with slow, disbelieving contempt. "If you want to dig it out of the trash and eat the fire-roasted pepperonis off the top, be my guest." Alexandra is a gem, but I'm not going to go sifting through the trash at her behest. "And you did not treat me as a sister back in the third grade. If I remember correctly, you threw a dodge ball at my head." She announces in a singsong voice that reminds me of a Disney princess.

  This time I narrow my eyes at her and lower my head back to the ground slowly. "I think you're misremembering the part where you tried to steal my third-grade crush, Noah, but it's fine, we don't have to bring him up if you don't want to." She conveniently never brings up the part where I asked her to pass him a note asking if he liked me, but instead she signed it 'love Alexandra' and pretended that it was from her. But I'm over it now. We haven't fought over a boy since then, even though Noah grew up to be a certified hottie. In high school, we made a pact that neither of us would pursue him. It helped that he came out of the closet after graduation, but we've both kept to the pact anyway.

  Since it's clear that I'm not going to drag myself off the floor, Alexandra joins me. She leans up against the oven for support and begins rubbing my shin affectionately. My love language is physical touch and she obliges. "So what's up, Corinne? Why are you and Special K going on a date? I thought you hated him. I mean, I know you've always liked him deep down, but you hate him. So what happened?"

  I figure now is the time to come clean and admit to the misdeeds that have brought me here. Groaning loudly, I cover my eyes and explain the whole convoluted story about how I pumped my brother for information about Ryker's schedule after she told me that he was Shane's partner. "It was in your best interest, Alex. You two weren't going anywhere. You just kept texting all the time. I'd look over to say something to you and you'd be all text-y text-y McTexterson. I wanted you guys to take the next step and you were too shy to ask him out and I couldn't just go to the fire station and tell him to do it." Well, I could, but it was too much work.

  I drape an arm over my face to hide my shame and genius; it's remarkable how often those two things coincide. "Next thing I know, I've got this insane plan to light the house on fire to get Shane over here so he'll ask you out. Except then I remembered that arson is illegal and we don't own the place, so I toned it down a little and decided to sacrifice a pizza. Which, by the way, you owe me $10 for." I decide to slip that part in since this was all for her anyway. She might as well pay me back since I wound up getting the short end of the stick of the whole deal.

  "Well, I don't think-"

  "Anyway," I cut her off before she can continue responding, "next thing I know, Ryker's here threatening to turn me in for setting the fire on purpose unless I go out with him. A nasty bit of unprofessionalism there, if you ask me. Sounds like somebody was j
ust waiting to get me alone and do something naughty." I would shake my head in disdain, but these hardwood floors are going to give me a headache. "All-in-all, I'm a victim here. I tried to do a good thing and get you a date, and then I got blackmailed by a vulgar, dirty firefighter."

  Then, for reasons no one can understand, Alexandra starts laughing. "Corinne, what are you talking about? It just sounds like Ryker likes you and wants to take you out. It seems like he found the perfect moment to ask you and he jumped on it."

  Oh, I must have forgotten a key part of this story. Silly me. "I must not have mentioned that he threatened to spank me for breaking the law, Alexandra!" I shout with contempt, probably loud enough for the neighbors to hear. If my eyes had been open, I'd have seen her rolling hers. Unfortunately, I was still lamenting my fate. "What happened with Shane? Tell me this all happened for a reason and he asked you out."

  "Yes, he did. We won't be seeing each other tomorrow night like you and Ryker will be, but we'll be seeing each other soon enough." She promises. "I think he said he was free next week. Tomorrow night he's going to help his parents put up a fence on their ranch."

  "Good. At least this wasn't all for nothing." I couldn't bear to think about what I would have done if I'd have gone through all of this and Alexandra and Shane hadn't even gotten a date out of it. "How can I get out of this date though? Should I tell Nathan? He can talk some sense into Ryker and explain to him why this is a bad idea and-"

  It's Alexandra's turn to cut me off, even though I can't stand it. Who can, though? "Or you could just take your punishment and maybe you'll like it. What's there to fear, Corinne? Ryker's a good guy. He's a little rough around the edges sometimes and he's got that thousand-yard stare that makes you feel like admitting everything you've ever done wrong, but it's kind of hot. You guys can role-play and he can be the cop who pulls you over for speeding and you can-"