He gave it a slight tug. “Suck me like a good girl, Dakota.”
A frenzy of nerves skittered, a rush of that energy that glowed, and I took him in as far as I could take him, his cock so hard and heavy in my mouth, so big it took everything in me not to instantly gag, the cool metal of the barbell piercing at odds with the heat that filled me.
A grunt drummed through his body. “Cookie. Fuck. Your mouth. So good, baby. Always knew you were going to wreck me.”
I rode back up, picking up a rhythm, hoping I had a chance at giving him the kind of pleasure he’d ruined me with.
Because it wasn’t me who was doing the wrecking.
It was the man who started to drive his hips forward with every stroke of my mouth, pressing in deeper like he wanted to overpower me.
Consume me.
But he’d already done it a long time ago.
So I was giving into it wholly.
I took him deeper with each thrust, and I wrapped both hands around the portion I couldn’t take.
He hit the back of my throat each time.
And he was yanking harder at my ponytail, so hard it pricked at my scalp.
And I liked it.
God, I liked it, the way he was handling me.
Arousal spread through me again, slicking my thighs where I was on my knees, and I was pressing them together as he started to pound into my mouth.
“Look at me,” he demanded. He tugged at my hair. “Look at me.”
I did, and it tilted my head back, changing the angle, and his cock drove deeper into the back of my throat as he pushed in slower than he had been.
“Never thought I’d see something so perfect, Dakota. Look at you. So fucking gorgeous with my cock in your mouth.”
I whined around him, and he sent me one of those smirks that sheared through me like a knife. Penetrating to the deepest places.
I vibrated with need. With joy. With the pleasure of what I was giving him.
And for a flash, his expression went tender.
So tender that it hurt to even look at him.
Then he touched the edge of my mouth. “Harder, Cookie. Show me how good you can give it.”
He let go of my hair and took me by both sides of the face, and I angled up higher on my knees, holding on to the outside of his thighs as he took over, driving himself in deep, hard thrusts.
I felt it when he came apart.
When the glistening on his flesh somehow illuminated.
A flash of light.
A thunderbolt.
He rasped and grunted as he throbbed, as he poured into my mouth, holding me by both sides of my face while I swallowed around him, taking him deeper than I had before.
Ragged pants echoed from him, and he slowly withdrew.
Only he kept ahold of my face.
Big hands gentle.
Gunmetal eyes gazing down.
He ran the pad of his thumb over my swollen lips.
“Cookie,” he whispered.
The faintest bit of shyness worked its way into my conscious. “Was that okay?”
I was a whole lot of years out of experience.
He didn’t smirk, though.
He just pulled me up and onto my feet, curled an arm around my waist, and brushed the lock of hair that had gotten free from my face.
We were chest to chest, the fabric of my dress the only thing separating us as he held me to the heat of his body. “It wasn’t okay, Dakota,” he murmured. “It was more than I should ever ask you for.”
He held me there for a minute before he blew out a sigh then stepped back to snag his underwear where they were wound in his jeans. He tugged them on, and I tried not to ogle him, but I couldn’t help myself.
It was the first time I felt like I could really look at him without feeling like I was stealing something that wasn’t mine.
That I wasn’t creeping on what would forever be out of reach.
It still felt like gluttony.
Like decadence.
I remained in that spot while he wandered over to where he’d left my underwear on the floor, and that time he was smirking as he made his way back. “Never going to be able to look at you again without imagining these panties under your dress. You tryin’ to wreck a man?”
A disconcerted laugh slipped off my tongue. “I do hope you imagine I change them every once in a while.”
I was shocked that I was joking with him as he leaned down to help me back into them.
He stood, and he hooked his index finger under my chin, one of those grins playing all over those red, red lips. “Guess I’m just going to have to take a peek every now and again so we can be sure of that.”
Butterflies went wild, flapping in my belly, way too excited by the prospect that we might do this again.
Only it made all those questions swirl to the surface.
Ryder’s expression went soft, like he could read every one of them. “Would love you every day of my life if I could, Dakota.”
“Why can’t you?”
Dragging his fingers through his hair, he looked to the floor. His words were close to a mumble. “Your brother would kill me for one.”
“My brother doesn’t get to say who I can date or love or how I spend a single day of my life.”
“No, but he will do everything he can to protect you from the monsters in this world.”
Confusion drew my brow together.
Ryder dragged me back to him again, his arm around my waist and his heart banging at my chest. It wasn’t tender that time, though. It was rough and powerful and filled with his grief. “Mean it when I tell you I’m not good enough for you.”
“How could you ever say that?”
“Because it’s the truth. You don’t know the things I’ve done.”
“I don’t care.”
Disbelief puffed from his nose, and he stared at me through the wisping darkness that curled through the kitchen. Right then, I wished all the lights were on so I could fully make out his expression.
“You would if you knew what they were.”
Before I could assure him that he could tell me, trust me with it, he dragged me closer and mumbled at my neck, “And I’m the bastard who doesn’t know if he can stay away from you.”
“Then don’t.”
He pulled back, and his hand cinched down on my hip. “I don’t want to hurt you, Dakota.”
He seemed to swallow back whatever he was going to say before he turned to grab the rest of his clothes from the floor. “Come on, we’d better get some sleep. That tiny tornado is going to be up before you know it, and you have a long day at work tomorrow.”
He took my hand.
A buzz rushed up my arm, and he squeezed like he’d felt it, too.
Slowly, he led me upstairs, through the shadows that played like ghosts on the walls of his house. Silence washed and shivered around us, an understanding without comprehension waving through the night.
He walked me to my bedroom door. He paused there, uncertainty in his eyes. “I don’t want you to regret what happened tonight.”
“I couldn’t.”
There was no chance.
“I should, but I don’t think I can, either,” he said.
“Maybe we should have been doing this for a long time.”
That sweet wickedness gleamed in his eyes. “You are playing with fire, Dakota Cooper.”
“Maybe I want to burn.”
Greed hardened his features to stone, and he wavered before he brushed his fingertips down the edge of my face. “Go to bed, Dakota.”
I couldn’t say anything as he moved to his door, though I finally found my voice when he was turning the latch. “Your past doesn’t define you, Ryder. No, I don’t know the full circumstances, but I know you lost yourself after your mom died. I would never blame you or judge you for that.”
I knew he’d gotten mixed up in some bad things.
When I’d been afraid he would forget me that night of her funeral, he had. Everything had changed after that.
For years, he’d detached himself from our family.
Had become reclusive.
A ghost.
The rumors had run rampant. The poor orphan who’d lost himself. The one who’d started hanging out with a rough crowd in the next town over.
I had seen it in the demons that had played in his eyes the few times I’d seen him during that time. The way his stare was too distant.