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I believe Ami is a girl with typical trust and commitment issues, and despite her flirty behavior, is probably more conservative in her idea of a relationship. Meaning she's a prude if it's serious, but flirty if there isn't any important commitments.
She can't rely on people to associate with her postively unless it's her constructed self-image of her ideal persona.
She probably assumes men are only out to get her for her looks and many must be possessive perverts.
Having a stalker can badly mold a person's expectations of people. In this case, guys.
Though Kitamura gets a pass since he's a known quantity, and the connection between the two is probably more along the brother/sister line due to shared childhood. Kinda where Ryuuji and Taiga are at right now, familiarity but no romance.
When she first sees Ryuuji, she at least knows he associates with her child hood friend and a simple hurdle is made there. Expectation is he probably isn't terrible. So she assumes her fake persona and is even a bit flirty with Ryuuji, who acts a bit passive but is clearly flattered, maybe interested in her. She underestimates Taiga when they're alone and drops her persona and vents, acting in a rude manner, and probably actually being serious in toying with the idea of dating Ryuuji but in a uncommitted manner. Taiga calls her out on it with a slap.
Right there she gets Taiga as a nemesis and thinks Ryuuji can be a tool to act as a strike against Taiga. Luckily for Ryuuji, Kitamura warns him about Ami's bad side and even witnesses the scene. From there on, he brushes off Ami's advances.
At this point, Ami might find this a bit peculiar. I suppose she thinks Ryuuji is a bit shy for now, but will surely act like any despicable guy. The act continues on, but Ryuuji is now starting to not look the negative expectation she has of guys.
This resets her assumption of Ryuuji from being, just another guy from her POV, to having to reasses and take a testing, cautious approach with him to figure him out.
I feel like skipping all the details from there on, but in general, everytime I see her make a flirtatious pass at Ryuuji, I get the feeling she's "testing the waters" to see if he's genuinely a stand up good guy or not with these improper advances. From her POV, surely no guy can be that virtuous and TRUSTWORTHY.
Everytime he says no, she wants to know how much further he will stand, and all the while her not so serious idea of getting together with Ryuuji to act as a blow to Taiga is all the more appealing, maybe getting serious.
It's also important that occasionally when they are alone Ryuuji gets serious with her on trying to improve herself by not being so deceptive. Ami probably would love to not have to fret on putting on a fake act for once, but its an old habit, but hearing this is just encouraging if she's looking for someone who's sincere and genuine.
Her direction for character development is going to be trying to be herself, but before she can do that, she has to develop trust with others. Ryuuji happens to be a honorable and trustworthy guy, but it'll take time for her to settle on it.
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