[Copyright © 2013 A Deal with the Daredevil]

All rights reserved.

***

Ryder's POV

My eyes scanned the beach full of prospective lays. California was new territory for me, in other words; heaven. There were hot, sexy women here that I hadn't slept with and that once I did, I would never have to see again. It was perfect.

"I'm gonna fuck her, her, oh and her..." I heard Toby mumble beside me. He, Jonah, Oliver and I had decided to come down to the beach to scout out new talent. So far, it was looking good...really good. Turning my head towards him, I smirked in agreement. "Dude, this is like...like...like...vag heaven, yeah, vag heaven." He laughed at his own joke and we all gave him dull looks to which he responded to with a careless shrug.

Turning back around, I gazed out at the water, my eyes following after every girl that crossed my path. I sat up in the beach chair when my eyes fell on a brunette standing back on, a few yards down the beach. I felt myself become aroused as my eyes slowly traveled down her bikini-clad body. She had slender shoulders and a perfectly toned back, her spine straight with confidence. Her butt was perfectly round, just the right size to fit in my hands. As my eyes lowered past her butt and down long, slender legs, I almost moaned out loud. Fuck me. I could see those legs wrapped around me as she—

"Dude, check it out." I felt Toby tap my arm repeatedly and I teared my eyes away from the girl to glance at him with a scowl. He jabbed his finger in the beach's direction and I turned to look at what he was pointing at. My eyes landed on the girl I'd just been checking out. "Do you see how fine that bitch is?"

"You do realize how retarded you sounded just now, right?" Oliver drawled from his beach chair next to me and I laughed.

"Ryder, tell him how hot she is," Toby demanded when he noticed the hat over Oliver's face, barring his view of the girl. I rolled my eyes and turned to Ollie.

"As much as I hate to admit that the meat head is right, he is," I told Ollie as I turned to stare at the girl. "That girl is ho—Casey?!" My eyes bulged out of my head when the girl I'd been lusting at for the past few minutes, turned around. It was none other than Casey. My eyes lowered to her boobs, covered by her blue bikini top. Dear god. They were even more perfect than I imagined. My eyes slowly descended to her very toned, flat stomach and I arched an eyebrow in surprise. Never in a million years would I have guessed that Casey actually exercised. She just didn't seem like she did.

"What about Casey?" I heard Oliver ask beside me, snapping me out of my lust-induced haze. Tearing my eyes away from Casey, I reminded myself that she was off limits. Not only was Casey not the type of girl I would sleep with, she was also in love with that fucker. I was an asshole, but I wasn't the type of guy to take advantage of a girl, knowing she was hung up on her ex.

"It's Casey, dude, the hot chick is Casey Stratford, Drake's ex," Toby laughed excitedly, like he'd just been told that farting out the alphabet was a talent or something. He sat up in his chair and began to bounce in it like a little girl. "Oh my god, what the hell is wrong with Drake? Is that guy fucked up in the head or something? I don't care how boring she is, I'd fuck that girl to the moon and back." I couldn't help but agree.

Yes, Casey wasn't the next Ms. Universe, but she also didn't look like something that crawled out of hell. She could be bossy, frustrating, stubborn, and pretentious, but she was also thoughtful and she cared a lot about other people. And the best part? She had an amazing taste in music. Those were some of the reasons for not understanding why the fuckface broke up with her. I had a pretty big hunch it wasn't because he thought she was dull,—which she could be, sometimes—I was pretty sure he'd broken up with her because he wanted to whore around without her tying him down.

Toby burst out laughing beside me and I turned to him, my brow knitted together. The fuck was wrong with him?

Scratch that.

Everything was wrong with him.

"Toby...are you sniffing the white powder again?" I asked him and he turned to me, still laughing. Yep, he definitely was.

"Dude, isn't that Casey being attacked by seagulls?" he laughed harder as he pointed down the beach. Clutching his stomach, he doubled over in laughter when Casey slipped and fell to the sand. I bolted up and ran towards her just as Nissa got up from the towel she'd been laying on. I hadn't even noticed her until that moment.

"I put anchovies in her hat—I didn't realize so many of them would attack her." She was red from laughing as we ran down the beach towards Casey. I heard Casey scream as we approached her, making the birds wilder.

"Oh my god, are these fucking birds on crack or something?" she screeched, angrily batting her arms around trying to get them away from her, but she was only stirring them up. The sight really was funny and I couldn't help but laugh. She looked like a crazy bird woman, who lost control of all her little friends.

"Casey, stop moving," I instructed in between laughs. She turned to me and glared, her eyes shooting angry daggers.

"Are you insane? If I stop moving, they are going to pluck me up into the air and feed me to their evil leader." She began turning around in the spot, swatting her hands at the birds. One of them quacked and bit her on the leg, making her yelp in pain and turn to it with tightly coiled fists. "You're an evil little bird, you hear me? Evil!"

I bent over in laughter as she stomped her foot on the ground and huffed, completely forgetting that she currently had a flock of birds swarming over her head, every now and then swooping down to pick at the beach hat she was wearing.

"Casey, take off the hat and throw it towards the beach," I shouted over the squabble of the birds, she turned towards me and gave me a puzzled look. Cupping my hands around my mouth, I tried again, "Throw the hat towards the beach." She gave me a dubious look but did as I instructed. The birds immediately abandoned their previous position and followed after the hat as it bounced up and down the sand towards the beach.

"What the hell was that all about?" Casey inquired, her face full of confusion as she stared at the retrieving birds. I turned to Nissa and she quickly shook her head with wide eyes.

Turning back to Casey, I shrugged. "They probably liked the color of your hat."

She huffed out a breath, blowing a strand of hair off of her face. Her hair had previously been neatly combed back into one of her famous ponytails, but now it was a complete mess with strands all over her face, and the ribbon that was holding it up, was halfway down her hair. For some odd reason, she never seemed sexier to me.

"Oh well, at least this is one for the books," she said distractedly and I smiled. At least she was seeing this in a positive light. That was a good thing; it meant I was making progress with her. Being positive about a flock of birds plucking at her head, meant she was beginning to step out of her box. The fact that she wasn't over-analyzing the situation also said a lot.

"I can see it now, 'Loose your hat, or lose your head,' coming soon to a theater near you." She laughed and I couldn't help but grin.

"'Attack of the seagulls,' this January." She laughed at her own joke and I shook my head with a crooked smile.

"You two are making me uncomfortable—I'm going for a swim," Nissa interject, giving us both a bemused smile. Casey and I glanced at each other and shrugged. Nissa rolled her eyes and proceeded to pull off the t-shirt she was wearing, revealing a bright green bikini underneath. My eyes ran down her body in an appreciative way. Nissa was definitely hotter than I'd thought. Had I slept with her yet? Hmm...

"Never gonna happen," I heard Casey say as Nissa ran off to the water, snapping me out of my thoughts. I turned to her in confusion and she sighed impatiently. "Nissa is my best friend, I won't let her become another notch on your bedpost." I rolled my eyes with a smirk and she narrowed her eyes threateningly.

"Okay, fine." I raised my hands in surrender and she nodded. "You coming or what?" I asked as I pulled my t-shirt off, remaining in my swimming trunks only. I smirked when my eyes fell on Casey. Her eyes were wide and fixed on my toned stomach, her breaths short and shallow. Deciding to have some fun with this, I slowly walked over to her, waiting for my movements to snap her out her trance, but they never did.

When I was only a breath away from her, I reached up and pulled out her bottom lip from between her teeth. Casey believed that I did that for her benefit, truth was, that small little action made me hard as fuck. All I wanted to do when she did that was kiss the hell out of her. Something that freaked me out.

Staring down at her, I watched as her head slowly rose and her dark brown eyes met my blue ones. I took the time to really study her, to really look at her. The first thing I noticed were her eyes, which at the moment were wide, her pupils dilated. Her eyes were a dark chocolate brown, framed with thick, long eyelashes that rested on her cheeks for a millisecond when she blinked. What really drew me to her eyes, was the emotion reflected in them. Sadness. Looking into her eyes, you could see an entire story, a story that you wouldn't see behind the smile she always wore. I wanted to know that story, I wanted to hear every bit of it. I wanted to know what she was hiding.

My eyes lowered to her small nose, and high cheekbones. Her cheekbones would make any woman jealous; they were perfect, almost as if they were carved to be perfectly symmetrical. A ghost of a smile appeared on my lips when a light shade of red tainted her cheeks. My eyes shifted to her lips and I found myself inwardly groaning. Her lips were cherry red, like she'd just applied lipstick on them. They weren't plump or pouty in a sensual way, they were average, but still I found myself clenching my hands at my sides to stop myself from grabbing her and crashing mine on them.

"Casey? Casey Stratford?" I heard a squeaky, high-pitched voice say from behind Casey. Casey's eyes widened with horror, before she squeezed them shut and cursed. My eyes darted behind her to land on a short blond.

"Please don't be Makayla, please don't be Makayla," I heard Casey whisper, her eyes closed tightly. Her hands were raised and her fingers were tightly crossed. I tried not to laugh, since she was clearly not happy about bumping into this person. I stepped away from her as she slowly turned around to face the blond behind her. She cursed under her breath when the blond's face came into her view. "Makayla!"

"Wow, look at you!" The blond girl—who I now knew was named Makayla—ran her eyes down Casey's body with a small condescending smirk. I noticed Casey shift from foot to foot, obviously uncomfortable under Makayla's scrutiny. Why? I had no idea. This girl had nothing on Casey. She was short, flat-chested and looked more like a boy than a girl. "I gotta say, Caypug," Caypug? "those diets your mom would always put you on, finally paid off, huh?" Casey's mom had her on a diet? Why on earth would Casey need to be on a diet? Her body was toned as fuck.

I watched as Casey's spine straightened and her shoulders broadened, her posture rigid. She flashed Makayla a fake smile, before answering, "I guess they did. And I must say Makayla, it looks like the doctors finally decided there was nothing they could do with...all of this..." She motioned at all of Makayla's body with her hands and I snorted. Big mistake, since it only drew Makayla's attention to me.

"Well hello," she smiled, batting her eyelashes and I fought the urge to roll my eyes. One thing I hated was amateur flirts. Everyone knew that batting your eyelashes did not make you look sexy, it made you look retarded. "I'm Makayla Dashwood, of the Dashwood family," was that supposed to mean something to me? "it's a pleasure to meet you."

I raised my eyebrows and crossed my arms over my chest. "I'm sure it is." I heard Casey snort next me. While I smiled, Makayla glared.

"Playing hard to get," she smirked, her eyes running down my body. For the first time in my entire life, I actually felt uncomfortable under a girl's gaze. The way her eyes leered at me with lust made me want to shiver in horror.

Regaining my composure, I cleared my throat to get her attention. Glancing up at me, she gave me a haughty look. "Trust me, if I was interested, I would make it very clear." Her eyes narrowed angrily as she drew back in shock. I was guessing she was a spoiled brat who usually got what she wanted. Her eyes cut towards Casey when she laughed and I watched them sharpen dangerously.

She shifted her gaze back towards me and gave me an arrogant smile. "Don't tell me you're associated with a Stratford, sweetie. A little advice; where there is a Stratford, there is murder." I heard Casey gasp next to me before she lunged at Makayla. Quickly wrapping my arm around her waist, I raised her off the ground and pulled her into my chest before she could tear into the bitch.

"You fucking bitch! I'm going to pull those fake lips off of your face and shove them up your ass!" Casey screamed as she trashed in my arms, trying to grab hold of Makayla.

"See what I'm saying? How can there not be murder around her?" Makayla smirked like she'd just won the lottery and strutted away. Casey screamed obscenities at her back, her fist raised in the air. When I felt like she'd finally calmed down and wouldn't go after the girl's fake lips like she'd threatened, I lowered her to the ground and let her go. She stomped her feet on the ground and marched off the beach in the hotel's direction before I could utter a word.

"Was that who I think it was?" I heard Nissa gasp from behind me and I turned around. Her hands on her bent knees, she panted like she'd just ran a marathon.

"If you're thinking, Makayla the bitch, then your thinking could not be more right," I replied and she nodded, straightening, she jogged past me and went in Casey's direction.

What the hell had just happened?