Always His (Crazed Devotion #1) Read Online Free Page A

said with a laugh.
    “Excuse me?” I repositioned the basket.
    “We’re talking about Ryker, Nic. The guy you fell in love with years ago and never have stopped loving. Regardless of all the shit, he’s still the one. You can’t pull the blinders over my eyes, sweetheart. You forget I know all your dirty little secrets.”
    It was pointless to argue with her; she was right. During all these years she’d been the one to hear my biggest fears and deepest regrets. She knew me better than I knew myself, it seemed.
    “So what time should I be at your place tonight?” she asked, breaking me out of my haze.
    “Um, about tonight.” I smiled, knowing she was going to be more than happy to fulfill my request. “I actually don’t need you to watch Tori. I need you at the bar.”
    “And why, might I ask?” I could hear the smile in her voice.
    “In case I need a buffer. Something tells me Ryker may show up.” The thought of him being at the bar made my stomach tense.
    “I get free drinks, right?” she asked in a hopeful voice.
    “Yeah, you get free drinks.”
    My dad was happy when I called him an hour ago to ask if he could keep Victoria tonight. He told me he was gonna feed her full of junk food and teach her how to spit. I hoped not in that order. When I mentioned Ryker he didn’t sound surprised. Which made me believe my father and I needed to have a little talk later.

    It was a quarter after eight, and my nerves were on high alert. I had been watching the door all night. Every time someone came in, I felt a pang of disappointment that it wasn’t him, followed by relief that maybe I’d be able to hold my shit together for one more night.
    Just before nine the crowd got a little thicker, and Greg looked like he could use some help behind the bar. Rachel was too busy shaking her tits in the face of any man who showed interest, and I knew she was hopeless. If she hadn’t been one of my momma’s best friends growing up, I would have convinced my father to fire her by now.
    I was so engrossed in the drink orders that I nearly dropped a bottle of beer when my best friend drunkenly screeched, “Well, look who decided to grace us all with his presence.”
    I looked up to see Ryker approaching the bar, and my throat tightened. If I thought he looked good earlier, that had nothing on his appearance tonight. Jeans that seems to mold to his lower half showed off his narrow waist and thick thighs. And I was ashamed that the way his Henley showed off his chest affected me the way it did. Suddenly the room felt warmer and a whole lot smaller.
    I noticed I was staring when my gaze reached his and he grinned knowingly. That and the fact the cup I’d been filling from the tap was now overflowing with beer that was pooling on the floor at my feet.
    “Shit,” I mumbled as I grabbed a towel and started cleaning up the mess I’d made.
    “Hold it together,” Elle, Liz’s sister and our part-time waitress, whispered as she walked past me, trying to remain discreet.
    If only being in Ryker’s presence didn’t make my body hum the way it did, her suggestion may have been possible. As he continued to move toward the bar, I chose to busy myself once again with customers. But the moment he sat on the barstool next to Liz, my suggestion that she be my buffer came back to haunt me. What the hell was I thinking when I asked her to do that? As if there was anyone out there that could possibly keep my mind off the man my heart still belonged too.
    “You sure aren’t giving up easily, are you?” She bumped shoulders with him, and he smiled at her. “Oh my, and still he has that pretty-boy smile. Only it’s backed up by all this yummy goodness.” She squeezed his bicep and faked a shiver. “And he smells damn good too,” she added, then took a deep breath and let her eyes flutter shut.
    Ryker’s chuckle made my stomach flip. I was going to beat the snot out of my useless best friend.
    “Still the same fireball of fun, I