Don't Forget Me Tomorrow(3)

Softness radiated from her as she gazed down at me, that sweetness that was always lingering beneath the surface riding from her tongue. “You know I can’t call you every time some little thing goes wrong in my life and expect you to come running, Ryder. You’ve already done enough for me. Too much.”

Gratitude tinged with unease infiltrated her tone, her eyes dropping for a beat. I knew exactly where her mind had gone.

The money I’d given her to help start her business.

I released the jack and stood. There was nothing I could do but take her by the chin. More tender than I should. I towered over her, searching her face like there was a way I could get her to understand.

“That’s where you have it wrong, Dakota. You can. I expect you to call me. Whatever you need. And there is no such thing as too much when it comes to you. Do you understand?” The words left me like a tumble of stones. A plea and a demand.

Because I’d wanted to give her everything I had, but the only thing I had been able to do was give her the one gift that I could.

She viewed it as a debt. Like something she needed to repay.

She could never understand that what I’d given her was my heart.

Those pink lips parted, and fuck, greed twisted through me like a hurricane, cock pushing at my jeans like I might be able to possess the one woman I could never have.

“I don’t want you to waste your time on me,” she whispered. “I know you have your own life. Things you need to take care of.”

A puff of disbelief escaped between my lips. “You could never be a waste, Dakota Cooper.”

The air thickened. Growing dense and pushing in. Heavy and hot. A dragging pull between us.

My phone pinged in my pocket, and both of us jumped back like it was a warning going off that we were about to cross a line we couldn’t cross.

Blowing out a steadying sigh, I dug into my pocket and thumbed into my phone like it was the most important thing in the world, then my chest clutched with the reminder of why I could never get too close to Dakota.

Why she’d hate me if she knew.

Dare



Where the fuck are you? You’re late.





Swallowing around the barbs in my throat, I looked up at the woman who stood three feet away shifting on her feet.

Innocent and right and every good thing in this life.

I roughed a hand over the back of my neck, attention on my boots when I said, “I need to get going.”

I felt the weight of her nod. “Yeah, I need to get to my mom’s and pick up Kayden before they get worried.”

I hoisted up her flat tire, opened her trunk, and tossed it in. Dakota came to my side, her presence close to overwhelming as she placed the blanket she’d had on the ground on top of it.

For a second, we hovered in each other’s space. So close but where we could never belong.

Lost to a beat of greed.

The kind I could never give into.

I pushed the button to close the hatch then took a step toward my bike. “Be safe, Dakota.”

Cinnamon eyes watched me like they could see through to my sins. “You, too.”





TWO





DAKOTA





Ryder strode back to his motorcycle.

I watched.

Unable to look away as blinding rays of sunlight slanted through the sky, riding in from the edge of the horizon where the sun melted away.

The man was lit in a backdrop of vibrant pinks and purples and blues.

He was midnight in the middle of it.

Black hair that shone like silvered onyx, shaved all the way around on the sides before it faded into the longer, wavy pieces that angled forward in the front.

He wore black jeans, a worn leather jacket, and boots, even though it had to be close to a thousand degrees outside.

Shoulders wide and his chest hard and packed, the rest of him sinewy and lean, so tall he cast a shadow wherever he went.

The man was chiseled strength and constrained danger.

Hotter than any sin I’d ever dream of committing.

He had to go and do it all with a sly smirk on his gorgeous face, so cool and casual you’d think he didn’t have a care in the world.

I wondered if I was the only one who noticed the disorder that writhed beneath his blasé exterior.

If they felt the current of goodness laced with corruption.

If I was the fool who always looked too close, wanting to sink inside and disappear when he was the last guy on the face of the earth I should want.

I’d been in love with Ryder Nash since I was nineteen, probably earlier than that if I was being honest with myself.

I was working on getting over that, though.

Moving on.

Because I cherished the friendship we had. This closeness that I didn’t share with anyone else.

I couldn’t imagine there would ever be a day that a part of me wouldn’t hang onto the fantasies of him looking at me the way I looked at him. The part that would get tripped up when he got close to me, the way he just had.

When the air seemed to shimmer with light and the edges of my consciousness got pulled toward his darkness.

When I got stuck in something that felt like the swelling of need.

A blaze of something that could scorch me to the bone.

The part of me that couldn’t help but wonder if he felt it, too.