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

I sent one last text.

Me: Fiona said you should. Like me, I mean.

I didn’t get a reply all night.

I really shouldn't have sent that last text.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

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Vesper

WHO THE HELL IS FIONA?

And why the hell should I care who Fiona is?

I don’t.

I don’t care.

Liar, liar pants on fire.

Ugh, I hated it when my brain fixated on something and didn’t give me any peace.

For two days, I’d wallowed in bed unable to do much but give my body time to heal. In those forty-eight hours, Ryder texted me often. I replied, but with each one, I wanted to blurt out and ask who the hell Fiona was.

Damn man.

If I wasn’t so grateful to him for stocking my fridge full of nutritious soups and chunky delicious readymade pastas, I would’ve ignored him completely.

Liar, liar pants in total ruin now.

Dangnamit.

I couldn’t deny I was indebted to him in a way I didn’t like. He’d been there for me when I hadn’t asked him to be. He’d been there even when mutual dislike had ignited and turned into the hottest combustible chemistry I’d felt.

But just because I liked him didn’t mean I had to jump into anything or label this, right?

Would you care if some other woman stole him?

What the hell sort of question was that? Of course, I would. I’d probably start a cat fight, and that wasn’t me at all.

Crap, he’s already changing me.

I felt possessive toward him. I wanted him more than just physically but as a friend, too.

How had this happened?

Regardless of my confusion and rapidly beating heart whenever I thought about Ryder Carson, life went on and I got better.

Plus, I had a business to run, a partner not to let down, and parents who were too self-absorbed to care what I did with my life.

On the morning of the third day of my sickness, I managed to shower and dress and head to work with only a mild headache and a few sniffles. I was better, bitches (dog speak only), and I wouldn’t lie around in bed thinking and fantasising and wanting so much to talk to the boy who made me hot in all the right places.

When I got to work, Polly threw her arms around me and looked as if she’d pass out with exhaustion. “Oh thank God, you’re back. I can’t do it anymore, Ves. I’m beat.” She dragged me into the surgery where a cat sat on the bench, squalling in a plastic carry case. “It needs its leg set. It was mauled by a neighbour’s cat in a turf war, but I don’t want to operate on my own.” She batted her eyelashes. “Are you up for it? Together, of course?”

I nodded, stretching out the residual aches in my muscles. “That’s why I’m here. Do we have time now?”