Can't Touch This (Can't Touch This #1)

The pooch yipped and licked Ryder’s nose.

I melted.

I was no longer a girl but a puddle.

How did this happen?

This infuriating man and his jackass jokes turned me into putty when he spoke to a creature with four legs.

Maybe, I should get on all fours and he’d be nicer to me.

The idea shoved aside treatment plans once again in favour of blow jobs and addicting kisses, proving that I sucked as a vet and needed to either go back to university or never be in the same room as Ryder Carson again.

Polly can have him.

This business was half hers. She could take one for the team.

However, as Ryder grabbed his wiener and held out his hand for the script, the thought of him having the same kinky, heated conversation with Polly, instead of me, twisted my tummy.

Ah crap.

I liked him.

And there was no room in my colour-coded diary for a dirty talker, pooch lover, and gorgeously handsome man.

Even if I did want to touch it.

CHAPTER FOUR

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Ryder

IT WAS TOO FUCKING EASY.

She was so uptight; one tug on her strings and I sent her spinning like a top.

I laughed out loud, staring at the ceiling where a flake of paint had come unstuck thanks to years of neglect and howling storms with no one to patch the damage.

I wasn’t unhappy in my life. I found purpose and friendship and kept myself busy doing things that granted good karma and an even better feeling of worth. But Vesper Fairfax patched up that tiny hole left inside that no activity could fill.

Fun.

She made me set down my rules and seriousness and want to be an annoying idiot with far too much testosterone. She made me crave stupidity that came from no expectations or aspirations—just playing together because we could.

Not that she thought it was fun when I threatened her with a bogus lawsuit.

My gaze followed the flaky paint to the crack in the wall caused by a decade of slow leaks. The small town of Thorn River didn’t often have bad weather—in fact, we were pretty lucky as far as hurricanes and earthquakes went—however, nothing was worse than carelessness.

And this house had seen its fair share of unwanted abandonment.

I wasn’t saying Thorn River didn’t have bad weather. Shit, being a township along the famous rapids meant the area flooded every few years. But apart from that, it was a safe community.

Only problem was, I was still fairly new.

An outsider.

I’d grown up a few towns away, but in a parish of a few thousand people that meant I was a foreigner. I’d been a novelty when I first arrived, slowly becoming accepted or scorned depending on who I managed to piss off. Now, I was the butt of most jokes for buying the local dilapidated old mayor’s estate from the gold rush era.