Page 81 of Head Over Heels

She needed to stop.

“Is it warm in here?” Bill asked, shaking Sophie from her haze. “I can see if they can jack up the air.”

Sophie shifted in her seat, dismayed she appeared ... heated. “Nope, I’m good. It’s the perfect temperature.”

Her gaze slid to Ryder, who smirked. As though he knew what she was thinking about.

Bill nodded. “So Ryder, how are you enjoying your new neighbor?”

Sophie tensed.

Ryder picked up his glass of water and took a sip. “She keeps things interesting.”

The waiter showed up, saving Sophie from having to kick him under the table.

She beamed at him. “I’ll have a double martini, straight up with olives.”

Ryder cocked a brow.

“I’ll have a white wine spritzer,” Cheryl said, making Sophie look like a raving alcoholic.

But she didn’t care. Girly wine spritzers wouldn’t cut it.

She needed alcohol. Lots and lots of alcohol.

* * *

This dinner ... wasn’t working out as Ryder had planned.

Sophie had quite the buzz going, and he wasn’t exactly the most sober he’d ever been. Bill and Cheryl, on the other hand, kept it perfectly together. The sane ones in their little party of four.

The night was a recipe for disaster but had taught him one thing. Seeing Sophie and Cheryl side by side, he understood why he’d kept forgetting to ask Cheryl out. She was nice enough, and she was certainly pretty enough. And sweet. Very sweet.

But watching Sophie in her little black dress with her flashing eyes and death glares only brought home the fact that nice and sweet wasn’t his kind of girl. When he’d decided to move to Revival and started to think about settling down, he’d thought he’d needed to change the kind of girl he dated, but now he understood the truth.

He needed someone like Sophie.

Someone who’d kick ass and take names. Someone who was as bored by convention as he was. Someone who’d make damn sure he didn’t get away with anything. Before Sophie, he’d been limiting himself both ways.

Sophie had shown him. She was like him that way. A little too wild, too edgy to really quite fit into convention.

He’d feel bad about Cheryl, really he would, only he was doing her a favor. He wasn’t any more suited for her than she was for him. He kept hoping she’d figure out she liked talking to Bill a hell of a lot more than she liked talking to him.

Cheryl laughed at something Bill said, but Ryder had no clue what they were talking about.

Bill grinned at Cheryl. “He told me he couldn’t do burpees because it was against his religious freedom.”

This made Bill and Cheryl roar with laughter.

Across the table Sophie looked at him, brow raised. He shrugged. She shifted in her seat, taking another sip of her drink and meeting his gaze over the rim. He knew that look. She wanted him as much as he wanted her. Under the table, he moved his foot, stretching out his leg so it slid next to her heel. She licked her lips and stayed.

In that moment, he confronted the truth. He would get emotionally attached to her—hell, he was emotionally attached to her. The smart thing to do was to save both of them from heartbreak. But he couldn’t.

If he didn’t just fucking take her and make her belong to him for as long as he had her, she’d be a regret.

And he didn’t do regrets. He’d never played it safe in his entire life, and he wasn’t about to start with Sophie. He’d never met another woman like her, and he didn’t intend to let her go until he had to.

So he was going for it. Consequences be damned.