Peeking at him, she chewed at her bottom lip. “That’s good, Ryder. You deserve a good life. I want you to have one. Even though I know it hurts, thinking about your mom. But not remembering her will be the biggest regret of your life.”
He stared at her with an expression that knotted her stomach in fists. “I have so many regrets, Dakota. But I’m going to stop adding to them.”
He kept watching her for the longest time before he took her by surprise when he suddenly hopped off the branch. Standing on the ground, he turned his gaze up to her, and he crept so close that she felt his heat seep into her bare legs.
“I’m leaving soon.” Why it shot out of her like a desperate plea, she didn’t know. All she knew was it felt necessary. Like she was begging him for something.
“I know, Dakota. It’s good that you are. I want you to go to college. Gain all those experiences. Chase after everything that makes you happy.”
She wanted to go, too. Was excited for it. She had so many dreams, and she was going to own that bakery one day, but she needed the skills to make it come to fruition.
Plus, she craved those experiences, too.
But there was something that held her in this hesitation, the buzzy sensation that fluttered in her chest. She felt hinged on this boy that she’d hardly begun to know again.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
Air huffed from his nose. “Get clean. Maybe pursue this welding thing. Find a way to buy back my mother’s house.”
The last wheezed out of him like he was afraid of voicing his own dream.
“She’d like that,” Dakota whispered.
Ryder raked his teeth over his bottom lip. “Yeah. I think she would.”
Ryder shifted in indecision before he looked back up at her, and shivers raced through her when he slowly lifted his arms and planted his hands on the branch on either side of her body. He leaned in so close to her that she was inundated.
Inundated with his aura.
Warm leather and deep, decadent spice. She wondered if she could recreate the flavor in the kitchen. Box it and label it.
But she doubted there would be any way to reproduce this feeling.
The urge she had to drag her fingers through his hair.
“What that bastard said to you last night?” He let the implication trail off.
Mortification threatened to close off the flow of air. Her entire life people had made those comments. Jabs at her just because she didn’t fit into their perfect mold.
But lately, she’d started to feel different about them. They didn’t pierce so deep, and they didn’t hurt so much. And she figured if they didn’t like her for who she was, then fuck them. There were plenty of people who did.
Her mother called it healing, but Dakota thought it was growing.
That she was coming to recognize who she was.
But all those old wounds throbbed inside her right then.
Because Ryder had heard it.
She hated that it stung.
That it made her want to cover herself up and hide.
“He’s a fool, Dakota. A fucking fool. You’re beautiful. Everything about you. The inside. The outside. That smile and the way you light up the room. Don’t fucking listen to anyone who ever tells you otherwise.”
Heat blistered through her at his words, lighting her insides in a full glow. It pulsed where it met with the vibrating in her chest and became something so profound it was difficult to breathe.
Her throat felt thick, sticky with the tension that pulled between them. The man so close, she could feel the hammering of his heart.
She gasped when he suddenly stepped away. “I’ve got to go.”
Warily she nodded, and she murmured around the thickness of her tongue, “You’re a good person, Ryder. Don’t fucking listen to anyone who ever tells you otherwise.”
A small smile quirked on her mouth when she returned his words, and Ryder’s split into a full grin.
God, it hurt just looking at him.
“Deal,” he said as he backed away with his hands stuffed in his pockets, then he spun around and started for the trail that cut through the woods.
“Don’t forget about me while I’m gone?” she couldn’t help but call to his retreating form.
He stalled, and he looked back at her through the wisps of the night. “No, Cookie, I could never forget about you.”
THIRTY
DAKOTA
Light barely leaked in through the window, sending a haze of glittering gold through the room and pulling me from sleep. Heat saturated my flesh, his strength seeping into me where he held me from behind, and his deep, slumbering breaths puffed into my hair.
I felt hedged in a sanctuary.
Shielded by a fortress.
It was a comfort that I’d craved for so long. One that I wanted to trust in. To believe would still be there tomorrow. That he wasn’t going to steal away the way he’d done before. Not that things had ever been like this between us before.
But after everything he’d confessed last night, how he looked at me, how he saw me, how he’d wanted me for all these years, I realized there was a part of me that had always known.
A part that had felt something so much bigger between us. Something I’d seen in his eyes and felt in his care.
The way I sensed him when he came into the room, my axis tilting a fraction each time, drawn toward something that he’d fought to keep hidden.
He couldn’t hide it now.
Not with the tattooed arm he had wrapped around my waist, keeping me snug against his body.
Both of us were still naked, and I relished in the press of his bare skin.
After he’d tended to me last night, he’d pulled back the covers and ordered me to get in. It’d only shocked me a little that he’d climbed in behind me, and he’d tucked me close and pressed a tender kiss to the back of my head and murmured, “Sleep.”
Now, he grumbled from the depths of it, and his hand glided down from my waist to take a handful of my hip. He tucked me even closer, and his hard, rigid cock dug into the small of my back. The sting of the cold metal against my skin was a shivery contrast to the flames that burned from him.
And those flames leapt when he muttered my name. “Dakota.”
His hand tightened on my hip, fingers dipping in, like he was terrified of letting go. His nose burrowed into my hair at the back of my head, and his rumbled words glided through me like a dream. “Love you.”
Emotion cinched down so tight around my heart, a desperate squeeze that contracted before it expanded out and unfurled with the truth.
And I felt entranced by it.
By the deafening quiet and the roaring that shouted in my heart and in my ears.
I love you. I love you.
My soul chanted it. Demanded it.
I slowly shifted around. A pained breath left me at the sight of him asleep on my pillow, on his side facing me.
It’d always hurt looking at him.
A blade driven through to the spot that had always been reserved for him. Each time, it had carved it out. Scored it deeper. Only this morning, it throbbed with something new.
Something beautiful as my eyes caressed the sharp contours of his face. The man a perfect sculpture with the faint glimmering of light caressing his features.
Everything about him harsh and severe.
Midnight in the breaking day.
And that truth shouted louder, clamoring through the room, bouncing against the walls and ricocheting back.
Shoving off any insecurities, I shifted to straddle him. Sensing me in his sleep, he followed the motion and rolled onto his back. A rumbly groan filtered between his full, red lips.
I kept most of my weight on my knees, and I eased down just a fraction. Enough to rub myself against his cock that was hard between us, so long that the tip nearly touched his belly button.
Sparks zapped at the contact, and Ryder’s hands flew to my hips as those gunmetal eyes snapped open.
Shocked.
Wild.
One second later, they darkened with greed.
They dragged over me where I hovered over him, my hips barely moving, but it was enough to stoke the friction that flamed.
“Cookie.” It was a grumble. So rough and low that it sent chills racing my flesh. “What are you doing?”
“I need you.” It was a gluttonous sound that curled in the air. The connection tugged hard between us.