“Hey.” It was a murmur as she peeked up at me. She seemed to war for a second before she made the decision to start my way.
Slowly.
Carefully.
Her heels quietly clicking on the hardwood floors.
And there she was again.
A landslide.
Quicksand that immediately sucked me under.
No escape from her lure.
She stopped a foot away.
“How was Kayden?” she asked, keeping the words hushed.
“He was great,” I told her, doing the same so we didn’t wake him.
She let go of a tender smile. “Well, at least the house is still standing.”
Affection bloomed, and my lips tugged with it. “Told you he was no problem at all. We played until he pretty much passed out. I read him a story, brushed his teeth, then tucked him into bed. Kid was out like a light.”
Her teeth raked those shimmery pink lips. I did my best not to groan. “I really appreciate you doing it, even though it sounds like you two had a great time.”
“We did. Love getting that kind of time with him.”
Tension pulsed, curling and crackling through the dim light that closed us in.
Redness hit her cheeks, and she looked down. Apparently neither of us knew what to do right then.
“Do you want something to drink? Have a little of that wine left over from the other night.”
She only hesitated for a beat before she nodded, and I turned and headed for the cabinet, knowing with the way I was feeling, I should have let her climb to her room and lock her door the way I’d warned her.
But I wasn’t feeling so rational right then.
So I grabbed her a glass and emptied the bottle of wine into it, set it in front of her where she’d stopped at the end of the counter again.
“You’re always taking care of me,” she whispered. Cinnamon eyes glinted beneath the bare light.
So warm.
So real.
I’d gotten too close, and I was getting inundated with her scent. Sugar and vanilla and every fucking thing sweet.
I wanted to lean in and take a bite.
Desire hit me from all sides.
Lust gathered in my guts.
I needed to cool this fire before I did something stupid, so I sent her a grin and moved to the fridge and grabbed another beer for myself. I twisted off the cap and tossed it into the trash before I moved to lean against the far counter that ran against the back wall.
Ten feet separated us, but I could still feel her heat.
I took a sip, eyeing her over the bottle. “How was dinner?”
I shouldn’t torture myself this way, but I never said I wasn’t a masochist.
Another flush, and she dipped her chin for a second, not sure what to say, and fuck, I had to rough a hand through my hair to keep from demanding to know exactly what had gone down.
“It was nice.”
My brows lifted. “Nice?”
She shrugged one of those delicate, bare shoulders. “We went to Sully’s.”
Sully’s was an upscale steakhouse in town.
It was good he took her there. My girl deserved the best. But it still pissed me off. Made me cagey. A dull rage pumping through my veins.
“Let me guess…you had lobster scampi.” I kept it a soft prodding. A teasing like this was any another night and I wasn’t coming apart inside.
A light giggle rolled free, and she took a sip of her wine. “Am I that predictable?”
“No, Dakota, not predictable. I just know you.”
The atmosphere throbbed when I said it, taking us back to those years when it was just me and Dakota. Way it’d been so easy and right.
And there was nothing I could do but move across the open area and to the counter where she stood, though I made sure to keep three feet separating us. Leaning an elbow on the countertop, I shifted to face her.
The air stirred. Heavy and dense.
She peeked at me again, her gaze softening, the swirl of brown flecked with red and gold mesmerizing. “I guess you know me better than anyone else.”
It was quiet as it hit.
Issued like a secret.
“But that’s about to change, yeah?” Keeping the spite out of it was difficult. Somehow, I managed it, following the question with a long pull of my beer.
She blinked. “I don’t know what that means, Ryder.”
“It means you’re going to find someone who can treat you better than me. Someone you can get closer to. Someone you can fully trust.”
Someone who could completely give themselves. Someone who wasn’t about to end up dead or in jail.
Doubt puffed from her nose. “I’m not sure about that.”