I thought I sustained whiplash every time we had a conversation.
This push and pull that tugged between us so fierce that I never could quite get my footing.
These were the times that made me think…maybe.
Maybe he did want me.
But then I remembered I needed to stop thinking of him that way. Let go of this fantasy that would never amount to anything.
It was pathetic, really, that I pined after him like he was the only man on Earth after he’d rejected me.
Paisley was right.
I did need to go on this date.
I needed to try.
I hit the bottom floor landing and crept across the living room and into the kitchen.
No question, I’d be paying for these rampant thoughts in the morning. Five o’clock would come early. But rather than tossing under the sheets, I’d decided to read to take my mind off things, and I’d allowed myself to get caught up in a love story that had pounded through my veins, the couple’s connection so fierce and hot it’d left me a panty, sweaty mess by the end.
I figured a glass of ice water would douse the lingering steam.
This distraction? It hadn’t helped. The only thing it’d done was make it disturbingly clear what I was missing.
What I needed.
My body throbbing and aching for something I’d gone without for so long.
I’d only gone and made it so much worse, unable to do anything but replace the hero’s face with Ryder’s, a masochist because my own kept slipping in, too.
And there went that dangerous fantasy.
Round and round.
A cycle I wasn’t sure I’d ever get free of.
But it made it extra difficult when he was in the room two doors away.
I kept moving, the planks cool on the soles of my feet. Only a faint glow illuminated the kitchen, and I went directly to the cabinet, pulled out a glass, and filled it with ice and water from the dispenser.
I guzzled it down like I was trying to put out a fire, then I took a couple clearing breaths before I started back through the living room.
Creeping slowly, I tried to keep the wood from creaking as I ascended the stairs, my hand gliding up the smooth railing as I went.
Then I stilled when I got to the top and heard Ryder call my name.
Low and grumbly.
Crap.
As quiet as I’d been trying to be, I’d woken him. He kept saying we weren’t a burden, but I had a hard time believing that when we constantly interrupted his routine. I shifted course so I could apologize.
“Ryder?” I whispered as my hand went to his doorknob, and I twisted it and pushed his door open.
Then I froze.
Completely froze.
Unable to move or form a coherent thought. Obviously, since the only logical one would have been slamming the door shut and running back to my room.
But no, I stood there holding onto the doorhandle.
My mouth gaping in shock.
Stomach tossed out somewhere on his floor.
Because Ryder was in his bed, a dark king where he was propped against black pillows and laid out on an expanse of black sheets.
No shirt, his chest bare.
He was still wearing the same pair of dark jeans he’d had on earlier, only the fly was open and they were shoved down enough that his cock was freed.
His enormous cock that he had fisted in his tattooed hand. He rode it up and down the stony, hard flesh.
Arousal flooded me, and my knees went weak, my heart beating so hard and fast I felt it like a storm battering the room.
Pulse running jagged, and my mind bending as I tried to process the sight.
His cock.
I was looking at his cock.
The head fat and purpled and pierced at the tip.
Some logical part of me was shouting to turn and go. To shut the door and pretend like I had not stumbled in on this.
But I was chained.
Held captive by those gunmetal eyes that watched me like he’d fully expected me to be standing there. As if they’d conjured me. Compelled me to this spot.
Lured and hypnotized.
He didn’t stop stroking himself, he kept jerking his hand up and down his rigid length, his stomach bowing and flexing as he thrust up a little to meet his fist.
That gaze remained on me the whole time.
My pussy clenched in a pulse of need, and heat flash-fired over my skin, flames so intense and hot I wasn’t sure how I hadn’t combusted right there in his doorway.
“Dakota,” he grunted.
It was the sound of his voice scraping through the air that finally jarred me out of the stupor.
What sent my eyes going wide and my mouth flapping in horror. “Oh my God, Ryder. I’m so sorry.”
I pushed my hand out in front of me like it was a shield, obstructing my view, when I was pretty sure this moment was going to be emblazoned in my mind forever. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to just barge in…I just…I thought I heard you calling me…I thought…”