Did he expect me to stand after that?
I reached in and scooped up some water and tossed it his way. Only a few droplets made it to the mark of his face.
“What was that for?” He didn’t attempt to stop the smirk lighting all over that mouth.
“For teasing me.”
A coarse chuckle vibrated out of him. “You’re in trouble for that, Dakota.”
“How much trouble?” I wheezed it.
God, and I was, in so much trouble as that dark, hungry gaze dragged over me.
“Give me a minute and you’re going to find out. Now give me that kid.”
“Me!” Kayden giggled and kicked his feet in the water that by then wasn’t deeper than an inch.
Shivers rocked, head to toe, and my arms were shaking as I picked Kayden up and passed him to Ryder who wrapped him in the towel. Kayden squirmed all over as Ryder sat him on the counter and dried him off then helped him brush his teeth.
The whole time, I could feel the man cutting his attention to me, sneaking peeks while I leaned into the tub and pulled out the plug.
His heated stare devouring me.
“Sight of you right now.”
Butterflies flapped, and the man was doing stupid things to my heart as I looked back at him, on my knees and bent over, my shorts so short I was pretty sure he was getting an eyeful.
He groaned. “Trying to wreck a man.”
And still, I played it off like this hadn’t become very real between us. “I guess I’m nothing but a troublemaker.”
I kept telling Paisley that I didn’t need this kind of trouble in my life, but how much I wanted it right then.
I wanted the teasing and the tempting and the playing.
I wanted his body and that mouth and those hands.
And I guessed I’d been staring up at him with all of it written on my face because Ryder’s teeth ground. “Warning you, Cookie. You don’t want to go looking at me like that.”
“And what am I looking at you like?”
I asked it as I mopped up the mess we’d made on the floor and stood with a pile of wet towels. I went to angle by him so I could go downstairs and put the load into the washing machine. Only Ryder’s hand shot out to stop me, landing on my waist, his mouth going to my ear. “You’re looking at me like you want me to wreck you, too.”
“You wrecked me a long time ago.” I didn’t mean for the confession to whisper free, and Ryder looked like I might have hit him. Regret swam through his dark, dark eyes before he pulled away and turned back to my son.
Blowing out a sigh, I hurried around him and went downstairs where I started the load of towels. By the time I’d climbed back up, Ryder had taken Kayden into his makeshift room. He had him sitting on the bed and was dressing him in a pair of pajamas printed with monster trucks.
Kayden was making a bunch of engine noises, pointing at each one. “Dis and dis and dis.”
“I like that one, but I think I like the red one even better,” Ryder told Kayden.
“I wike bwue,” Kayden told him in his sweet slur.
“Blue is super cool.” Ryder finished tugging on his pants. “Alright, little man, story time.”
Ryder grabbed a book from the stack, and he climbed up onto the mattress beside him and leaned against the headboard.
Kayden curled up at his side, tucked in the crook of his arm so he could see the pages.
And I found I couldn’t move into the space. Found I was rooted to the spot, standing there in the doorway watching Ryder read my son a story, lost to the infectious laughter that rolled from Kayden as Ryder changed his voice with the different characters. Lifting it high and dropping it low, making the sound of a racing car and the beep of a horn.
Lost to everything Ryder kept saying.
To the greed that kept surfacing and the hidden shame that would shut him down.
And I wanted to sink into it. Disappear into those hidden places. Dip my fingers in and invade.
Understand where it was coming from and why.
Show him it didn’t matter. Whatever he’d done, it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was the man in front of me.
When he turned the last page, he picked up Kayden and carried him over. “Tell Mommy goodnight.”
“Night-night, Mommy!”
Kayden threw his little arms around my neck, though Ryder still held him, and I squeezed him tight and whispered, “Goodnight, sweet boy. I love you so much.”
Then Ryder swooped and soared him across the room until he was laying him in his crib. “Sleep tight, K-Bear.”
“Night, my Rye-Rye.”
Love crushed into the room.
Pressing at the walls and pushing out.
Or maybe it was just a landslide of everything that had happened in the last few days when Ryder slowly turned and was facing me.
Because the air deepened, a shiver blowing through. An arrow of warmth and a quiver of need.
And a second later, Ryder was coming for me.
TWENTY-EIGHT
RYDER
Restraint wasn’t exactly my strong suit, and I had none of it then. Every ounce of it obliterated when I turned around to Dakota standing in the doorway.
Wearing black sleep shorts made of thin sweats material and a matching pajama top that kept falling off one shoulder.
Still soaked from her son’s bath.
In her expression was something I’d never dared allow myself to recognize before.
Like she was imagining what it might be like if this was our truth. If we did this every night, and I didn’t have a lifetime of garbage strewn between us.
They were obstacles that I should heed.
What should have me diverging.
Changing course.
But I didn’t think there was a goddamn thing in this world that could keep me from her right then.
“Dakota.” Her name left me like a plea, and my hand was going to the side of her face and pushing up into her hair as I backed her out of the doorway and into the dim-lit hall.
A short gasp left her, and she blinked at me. Cinnamon eyes swirled with so many things.
Confusion and need and questions I didn’t know if I had the strength to answer.
“I keep trying to stay away from you. Don’t think I know how to do it any longer. Don’t think I can.”
I spun her into the hallway wall, pinning her back to it. My nose went to the slope of her neck, breathing her in.
Sugar and vanilla. The sweetest thing.
“Cookie,” I murmured into the night.
“Who said I wanted you to stay away from me?” The challenge was back, her chin lifted.
Guilt constricted, and I let my fingertips wander the angle of her jaw. “I keep trying to do the right thing, Dakota. Keep trying to be the good guy, but I don’t want to be him right now.”
A glutton stealing more. Taking what I shouldn’t have all while knowing she should have belonged to me.
Cody’s warning kept rolling through my mind. Hitting me on a circuit. Because I knew he was right.
But I was stuck on this girl who had me on a hook.
“And who do you want to be?”
“I want to be the guy who’s pleasing you. The one who’s making you come. Over and over again. I want to make you beg my name.”
A flood of desire coated the atmosphere. Dakota released a wispy breath, and her fingers curled in my shirt, needing something to hang on to.
“Want to be the one who’s showing you how gorgeous you are,” I murmured as I wound my hand into her hair. “How beautiful you are. The way you steal my breath every time you walk into the room.”
She exhaled, shaky and long as I pulled her head to the side to expose her neck. I pressed my mouth there, to the silky, smooth skin, and I rolled my lips along the delicate slope. “Do you have any idea, Dakota? What you do to me?”
There was a tiny shake of her head. “No. Not with you.” Hesitation brimmed before she shifted to meet my eyes, this fierce girl whispering her truth into the lapping night. “You were the one person I wanted to be something different for.”
It fucking gutted me.
Seared me through with the hot blade of a knife.