No shirt, his chest bare.
He was still wearing the same pair of dark jeans he’d had on earlier, only the fly was open and they were shoved down enough that his cock was freed.
His enormous cock that he had fisted in his tattooed hand. He rode it up and down the stony, hard flesh.
Arousal flooded me, and my knees went weak, my heart beating so hard and fast I felt it like a storm battering the room.
Pulse running jagged, and my mind bending as I tried to process the sight.
His cock.
I was looking at his cock.
The head fat and purpled and pierced at the tip.
Some logical part of me was shouting to turn and go. To shut the door and pretend like I had not stumbled in on this.
But I was chained.
Held captive by those gunmetal eyes that watched me like he’d fully expected me to be standing there. As if they’d conjured me. Compelled me to this spot.
Lured and hypnotized.
He didn’t stop stroking himself, he kept jerking his hand up and down his rigid length, his stomach bowing and flexing as he thrust up a little to meet his fist.
That gaze remained on me the whole time.
My pussy clenched in a pulse of need, and heat flash-fired over my skin, flames so intense and hot I wasn’t sure how I hadn’t combusted right there in his doorway.
“Dakota,” he grunted.
It was the sound of his voice scraping through the air that finally jarred me out of the stupor.
What sent my eyes going wide and my mouth flapping in horror. “Oh my God, Ryder. I’m so sorry.”
I pushed my hand out in front of me like it was a shield, obstructing my view, when I was pretty sure this moment was going to be emblazoned in my mind forever. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to just barge in…I just…I thought I heard you calling me…I thought…”
God. I was an idiot. A blabbering idiot.
I finally got my bearings enough that I backed out, stumbling as I went, and I slammed his door a little harder than I meant to. Then I dashed down the hall and into my room, where I slammed that door, too. I leaned against the wood, trying to catch my breath, to rein in the sense I’d lost somewhere in his room.
“Oh God,” I whimpered. That horror began to thrum. It surged through me as I realized that I’d stood there watching him pump himself. For God knew how long.
I squeezed my eyes shut in an attempt to block it. The only thing it did was cause it to become even more vivid.
The way he’d said my name kept rolling through my brain, trembling through me in wisps of seduction that I knew better than to feel.
I’d misinterpreted it.
I had to have.
I blamed it on the stupid book. On the fantasy that I’d been a fool to give myself over to.
But knowing the truth didn’t stop the tingles that raced. Did nothing to stop the flames that licked beneath the surface of my skin. Every cell in my body pulsated with need. With this desire I’d tried to subdue for years, and there it was, stronger than it had ever been before.
I shuffled to my bed and laid down, breathing hard as I stared through the darkness at the ceiling, praying I could tame what was stampeding out of control.
But it was too heavy and dense, and I was so turned on that my panties were drenched.
My hand was shaking when I gave in and let it wander down my stomach to slide under my sleep shorts, and I whimpered as my fingers grazed over my clit. As engorged and swollen as Ryder had been.
I had to suppress the moan that rolled up my throat when I began to rub myself, my fingertips swirling over the nub. Pleasure glinted, glowing behind my eyelids as I decided to fully give myself over to the fantasy.
Just one more time and then I would let him go.
It took all of five seconds for an orgasm to whip through my body. All I needed to do was imagine Ryder’s head between my legs, black hair tickling the inside of my thighs as he ate me into oblivion.
I bowed with the moment’s ecstasy, and I turned to the side to bury my face in a pillow to cover his name that whimpered from my tongue.
To hide it.
To pretend like I didn’t want him anymore. Like he didn’t matter the way I feared he would always matter to me.
Trembles rolled and reeled, this skewed rapture that continued to flicker through my limbs.
I startled when my phone lit up on my nightstand.
I grabbed for it probably a little too eagerly.
Ryder
Did you like watching me fuck my hand, Dakota?
A new shock of lust burst in my blood, so intense I could hardly think or see. I wanted to answer but was terrified at the same time. Another text came in before I could fathom how in the world I was supposed to reply.
Ryder
Did you touch yourself thinking of me when you got back to your room? With those sweet hands that are way too clean to get dirty with me?
Ryder
You were a fucking vision standing in my door.
Ryder
Like you’d been manifested in my dreams.
I blinked, staring at the words.
Sure I had to be reading them all wrong.
Or maybe I was just dreaming.
Maybe I’d been knocked dumb by the sight of the man jerking himself on his bed.
The more likely possibility was that I’d made up the entire thing.
Except another text came through.
Ryder
Think it’d be a good idea for you to start locking your door, Dakota.
My heart clattered against my ribs, and I strained to hear any movement or sound.
My breaths shallow.
This confusion so thick the room was filled with a haze.
Everything enclosed, the air and this tension that expanded in the space.
A whirring hum that echoed in the room.
Or maybe it was seeping in from the outside.
In it was this lingering need.
A call from down the hall.
If I followed it, I knew it would lead to his door.
A lure.
A trap.
My spirit ached to give it heed.
To give into the tugging that pulled at the center of me.
To see if this was real or if it was all a figment of my imagination.
Self-preservation kicked in.
I knew better than that.
Ryder would never really want me. Not the way I wanted him.
He’d told me, and I was a fool to believe anything else.
A fool to respond and beg him to make good on the last text.
So I forced myself to lie back in bed and ignore his messages.
Both terrified and thrilled by the exchange.
But I needed to remember that just looking at Ryder broke my heart.
And I could only imagine what would happen if he touched me—even if it was only once.
TWENTY
DAKOTA
“Mom, it’s only a dinner date. You’re acting like the man asked me to marry him.” My voice was hushed as I spoke to her on the phone and hurried around the kitchen getting Kayden’s things ready, trying not to second-guess the choice I’d made to agree to this.
It was for the best.
Getting the heck out of this house before I completely lost my mind seemed like a really good idea right then.
“Well, he might not have asked you yet, but he seems like the kind of guy who is looking to settle down.” My mom was as caring as they came, and there wasn’t a mean or vapid bone in her body, but she also seemed to know all the gossip that made it through town. When Brad had moved into Time River, he’d been quite the topic of interest.
Suffice it to say my mother was most definitely interested now.
I sighed. “It’s one date. That’s all, so don’t you start planning any weddings.”
My nerves were rattled as it was.
My insides shredded from whatever had happened with Ryder two nights ago. All my edges frayed.
I didn’t need her feeding anything else into the chaos.
Yesterday morning, neither Ryder nor I had mentioned the night before. We’d gone about our routine like everything was normal while a sticky tension had strained between us.