Lines creased at the edges of her green eyes, and she angled in farther, attracted to the secret. “Well, something hit you off.”
A war went down inside me. I’d kept my feelings for Ryder a secret for so long that admitting them somehow felt like a betrayal, but I didn’t think I could physically keep the confession from Paisley.
Not after the way he’d made me feel.
I could still feel his touch burning through my senses.
I glanced down the hall before I returned my attention to her, voice so quiet I wasn’t sure she could even hear. “Something happened with Ryder last night. After I got back.”
“What?” She screeched it so loud I was pretty sure everyone clear out in the dining room had heard.
“Would you be quiet? I don’t need the whole town to know.”
“Right, right, sorry. But what do you expect me to do when you just hit me with that juicy detail from out of nowhere?”
“Well, it was definitely from out of nowhere.”
“What happened? I am dying right now, Dakota.” She flapped my arm all over.
I hesitated for a beat before I began to explain.
“I walked in on him the other night while he was…” I widened my eyes and tipped my head to the side twice, which I was pretty sure was the universal sign for masturbating.
“Oh my God, did you see his dick?” At least she kept that low enough that the entire restaurant didn’t hear.
Heat rushed to the surface of my skin, and I yanked my arm away from her hold and covered my face with both hands, peeking at her through my fingers. “It’s pierced, Paisley. Like, oh my God…how was I even supposed to handle it?”
She choked and grabbed me by both wrists that time. “I told you that you needed to go dick-hunting, and you landed yourself a prized stag? There is no handling that. No one could blame you for anything that happened after.”
“Well, I stood there staring at him like a moron for about five minutes before I gathered my wits and went running back to my room. But then he texted me…and asked if I liked watching him.”
“Holy crap, Dakota. I knew it. I freaking knew it. I knew that man has been dying to get in my Doodle-Boo.”
“He acted like nothing happened the next day, but there was a tension between us that hadn’t been there before. Like…I could just feel it. And after I got back from my date—”
A man who was unfamiliar and was giving tourist vibes rounded into the hall, and I clapped off my explanation, grinning wide as he passed like I wasn’t over here confessing my most sordid secrets to my bestie in the middle of my restaurant when I should be working.
Paisley sent him daggers like he’d walked by with a pin and popped her balloon.
He hurried, quick to duck into the swinging door of the bathroom, and I giggled. “You’re going to get me a bad review. Food is great but watch out for the trolls loitering outside the bathroom.”
Her grin was manic. “Um, tell me a bad review isn’t worth this?”
“It’d be worth a thousand bad reviews.”
And that was a problem. What I was willing to give for him. But I’d been willing all along. I’d wanted to share this life with him, and we had, in a way, but so different than I’d hoped it would be.
I’d spent the last years thinking I’d been a complete fool. A lovestruck little girl with stars in her eyes who didn’t get it.
One who wanted something far above her reach.
But now…
“So…you looked crazy hot, just like I knew you would, because hello, my bestie is a stunner, and you came back, and he was crazy jealous, and he hauled you upstairs and ravaged you the entire night with that pierced dick?” Paisley urged, tugging at my arm again, supplying all the details like she’d been there.
A needy wash fluttered through my belly.
God. I wished.
I was also kind of terrified of it at the same time.
The little that had happened had left me unanchored.
Still, I laughed a low sound, shaking my head. “No.”
“Then what?” she whined. “Tell me I don’t have to gut him and bury him in a shallow grave out on the ranch. Because I will if he left you wanting.”
Flames licked. “He didn’t leave me wanting.”
Truth was, I’d always be wanting…but still.
“He set me on his table and he…” I did that whole tipping my head thing again. Apparently, it worked for all sexual acts.
She squealed and flung my arms all over. “Yes! Thank God. It’s about time my Doodle-Boo got herself the yummy O that wasn’t compliments of her own hands. Now it’s time for the good D.”