He touched me everywhere, gripping my curves, riding up my sides, cupping my breasts, the rough pads of his thumbs rubbing circles on my nipples before he grabbed me by the bottom to drive me harder onto him.
He left a trail of fire, the man the flame.
The one who held the power to leave me nothing but ash.
He watched me the entire time, his eyes on my face, his lips parted as praises tumbled from his mouth. “Look at you, Dakota. Do you have any idea what I see when I’m looking at you? A goddess in the morning. The light breaking inside me.”
And those words glided as deep as the ones he’d admitted in his sleep, and I jolted when he began to swirl his thumb over my clit.
Sensation rushed.
Building and glowing.
I threw my head back as I gave myself over to it.
To everything we’d both needed for so long.
Overwhelmed and overtaken.
Bouncing on him, taking him so deep and hard that each thrust forced a pleasured cry out of me, and Ryder was grunting and pushing me down as he bucked up.
The sound of us meeting filled the room.
Pants and groans and the slapping of skin.
And it grew so intense. Wild and frantic as we clawed at each other.
My nails raking into his skin. His abdomen. His shoulders. Dragging over the broken clock he had tattooed in the middle of his chest.
And I refused to let it hurt. Refused the old pain.
Instead, I stared down into those molten eyes.
Believed in what they said.
And it gathered like a swirling storm.
Swooping in.
Pleasure.
A rapture I knew I could only find in Ryder.
It stirred the glittering gold that held fast to the air.
“Ryder, it’s so good. So go—”
Ryder suddenly shot up, bringing us chest to chest, and with the change in the position, that bar on his cock hit me somewhere deep. The band stretched so tight inside me snapped.
Pleasure splintered apart.
An inundating rush.
Ecstasy.
Wave after wave.
I clawed at his shoulders as bliss kept rolling through me, and Ryder was burrowing his face in my throat to bury the roar as he came apart.
A current rocked through his body as he throbbed inside me.
Sweat covered us as we remained like that, plastered together, our arms wrapped so tightly around each other that I didn’t think we could ever let go.
It was Ryder who eased back a fraction to meet my face, and he reached up and tucked a lock of my hair behind my ear, his fingers trembling as he did. “Dakota.”
The roaring in my heart and in my ears shouted louder.
The chant of my soul.
I love you. I love you.
“I love you, Ryder.” There was no stopping it from seeping out and crawling into the air. No hesitation as I found the courage to finally voice my truth.
I loved him, and I always had.
Gunmetal eyes flashed.
Possession and devotion.
But the guilt in them was so much greater and turned everything grim.
That sliced through me, sharper than any knife.
“Dakota.” My name shook with fear, even though he tried to play it off like a warning.
“Tell me you feel it, too,” I demanded.
He didn’t say anything, he only swallowed with that halo of shame dropping his head between his shoulders.
Hurt disbelief echoed through that vacant spot, and I rushed to climb off him. I yanked the sheet free, wrapping it around me before I slid off the side of the bed, hugging it as I turned to stare at him.
But it wasn’t me who was covering.
“You’re a coward, Ryder. A coward. And I don’t need one of those in my life.”
I started for the door.
“Dakota.” My name grated behind me.
A plea.
I only stalled for one second before I opened the door and walked out.
Because I knew what I needed. What I deserved. And if he couldn’t meet me there? Give me his truth?
Then I was only setting myself up to get destroyed.
And I didn’t need that kind of destruction.
THIRTY-ONE
RYDER
TWENTY-TWO YEARS OLD
Ryder crept down the hall, agitation fizzing through him as he walked toward the back office of the run-down dry cleaners that sat in a seedy part of the city that was an hour outside of Time River. Ryder had dragged the filth of this place back into his small town for the last five years.
Guilt gnawed at his conscience.
He was finished with it.
That didn’t mean he wasn’t shaking, and the first real fear he’d felt in years brimmed inside him when he saw Lenny and Pete, the two assholes standing guard outside the door today.
Anxiety slicked his skin with sweat and pounded his heart in frantic beats.