It wasn’t regret that I felt. It was the vestiges of the pain that had driven me that night.
How I’d felt so raw, and the only thing I could do was seek some kind of comfort. Unfortunately, it’d only left me feeling worse. Like I’d used myself up, trying to cover what I really felt with something else.
“Watching you with other women destroyed me, too.”
Remorse dimmed his eyes, and he brushed his thumb under the hollow of my eye. “I did my best to put as much space and history between us. Thinking one day, it would finally kill what I really felt for you. That one day I’d look at you and we’d really just be friends. But I don’t think that’s even possible, Dakota. There’s no chance of not feeling this.”
He curled his fingers deeper into my stomach. Clinging to me. Like he was terrified I might get away.
“Why don’t we know anything about Kayden’s father?” he pressed.
I knew this would be coming. Keeping that story a secret was a choice I’d made. I hadn’t wanted anyone else to have it, only because there was no chance anyone else would understand. But I wanted Ryder to hold it now. “I was blinded by how hurt I was that evening, Ryder, when I came to you and admitted how I felt, and you didn’t return it.”
My tongue stroked over my bottom lip. “I just…drove. For hours. Away. I ended up in Poplar at this crowded bar. I couldn’t be here in this town around anyone I knew, but I also felt like I couldn’t be alone. I met some random guy there. He was attractive, I guess, though I don’t know that I really even processed that. But he smiled at me, talked to me, and in the middle of my pain, it made me feel something other than the misery over you. So I had sex with him in his truck out in the parking lot. I never mentioned him because I barely caught his name.”
Regret dimmed those dark eyes, and I hesitated beneath the weight before I forced myself to continue. “Trey. We didn’t exchange numbers or anything. It wasn’t like that for either of us. We were both looking for something to make us feel good for a little while.”
Inhaling, I pressed on through the torment seeping out of Ryder. “When I found out I was pregnant, I went back to the bar where I’d met him. A bunch of times. I didn’t know if I hoped to find him or hoped that I wouldn’t, but I guessed in the end, I was relieved when I never found him. Thankful he’d been my comfort that once, and he’d left me with this little gift that I never anticipated.”
It’d been reckless, I knew.
But sometimes things worked out the way they were supposed to.
“I don’t regret it,” I admitted.
Affection slipped through Ryder’s expression, and a tender smile edged his mouth as he hovered over me and brushed back the hair from my face. “How could you regret that tiny tornado?”
“I couldn’t.”
Every part of Ryder billowed with intensity. “I love him, too. Love him with everything I’ve got.”
“I know that,” I told him.
It was the truth.
I’d always seen Ryder’s love for Kayden. I’d just missed out on what that love had really meant for me.
“So, it’s the three of us now.” He tipped up my chin with his index finger, staring down at me. A promise blazed in those midnight eyes.
“Is that what this is, Ryder?” I could barely speak.
“I told you that I’m fighting for this family. For you and Kayden. For us.”
Warmth spread, expanding my heart. I reached up and scratched my nails through the stubble on his jaw. “I always prayed you wouldn’t forget us.”
“Forget you, Dakota? That’s not possible.”
The smirk was back on his face, and he shifted so he was on his knees, the gorgeous man rising high, every inch of him on display.
He peeled away the sheet with a wicked grin pulling at his mouth.
A shiver rolled through me, and I could feel the flush cover my entire body.
Need consumed me in an instant.
“Cookie, what I’m going to do to you.”
Tingles spread, and my teeth raked my bottom lip. “I hope it’s good.”
He rumbled a low laugh before he shifted me onto my hands and knees, his mouth dropping kisses down my spine as he muttered, “Oh, it’s going to be.”
THIRTY-FIVE
RYDER
I sat up in bed just…staring down where she slept. Dakota’s soft breaths drifted into the wisping darkness of the room, and my fingers swirled in her hair as I struggled to process what had happened tonight.
Where I’d taken her to.
The promises I’d made, the confessions I’d given, even though they were shallow and obscured, and the belief and trust she’d turned around and placed in my hands.
My eyes traced every curve of her face. Her brow and her nose and her cheeks. Her jaw and those lush lips and that tiny dimple on the left of her chin that drove me to disorder.
Everything about her was a hook in my soul.
There was no not making good on that promise now. I’d known I was coming up to it. That I was finished with Dare. I had to find a way out of his snares, and there was no way I could continue cowering to his threats.
He’d manipulated me for years, and yeah, I might have been a dumb kid then, but I wasn’t close to being that same man now.
I had no idea what the consequences were going to be. If I was signing my own death certificate or where it was going to land me.
In jail, maybe.
Or maybe the reputation I’d carried like a false brand would be tainted, and I’d be shunned by Dakota and her family once and for all.
The only thing I knew was I was going to fight.
Ruin him, the same way as the bastard had ruined me.
Resolved, I eased off the bed, careful not to disturb Dakota, and I crept out into the hall with my cell in my hand. I dialed the number with my heart in my throat.
Ezra’s voice was groggy with sleep when he answered. “Ryder? Is everything okay?”
I blew out a sigh and pushed through. “Hey. Yeah. But I need to talk to you.”
THIRTY-SIX
DAKOTA
“Come back to bed.” The rumbly voice covered me from behind.
Redness flushed my skin in an instant rush of heat, and I shifted to look back at the man who was facedown, a single eye peeking at me just as I was starting to slide out of bed. He stretched his arm out over the mattress, hand reaching my direction.
I couldn’t do anything but shift around and get onto my hands and knees as I crawled to him. I had that sheet wrapped around me again, hugging it to my naked flesh.
At this rate, it was making a run for my favorite dress.
Ryder shifted and rolled onto his back as I came. The second I got close enough, his fingers dove into my hair, and I dipped down to press a soft kiss to his mouth.
He hummed against the connection, and I eased back, no stopping the tender smile that spread as I gazed down at him.
Reaching up, he caressed his thumb along my cheek. “Now this is exactly the way I want to wake up every morning for the rest of my life.”
Giddiness blazed through my veins, and my teeth clamped down on my bottom lip. “With my bed head and morning breath and mascara smeared on my face?” I teased.
A rough chuckle skated from his lips. “That’s right, Cookie. You think I’m scared of you raw? Uncovered and unmasked? Besides, you always smell like sugar and vanilla.”
He sent me a smirk.
That redness deepened, and my heart swelled so fierce and fast that I could feel it pressing at my ribs. “You think I smell like sugar and vanilla?”
“That’s right.” He angled up and pecked a kiss to my mouth. “Cookie.”
Oh.
“That’s what that means? I always thought it was because you liked my cookies.”
I could almost see the guttural sound roll up his throat. “Oh, I like your cookies, Dakota.”
Both his hands latched onto my hips, and he pressed himself against me.