Don't Forget Me Tomorrow (Time River, #2)

by A.L. Jackson

He dropped his forehead to mine. “You think I give a fuck about that money, Dakota? That I want it back?” I shifted so I was looking into his eyes, blinking through the disorder and the hammering that thundered from my heart. “Then what do you want?” I needed to know. I had no idea where we stood or what any of this meant. A ragged sigh rolled up his throat, and his entire body vibrated, rolling with uncertainty, before he peeled himself away and took a step back, his thick throat bobbing when he swallowed. “Go upstairs and change. Dinner will be ready in five.” I blinked. Caught in the whirlwind. No clue where it was going to spit me out.

I’d have thought things might have been awkward between us when I’d gone up and changed and come back down, but no, Ryder had shifted into that same role he’d stood in for years. My friend. Easy and light. Casual and teasing.

I wanted his body and that mouth and those hands. And I guessed I’d been staring up at him with all of it written on my face because Ryder’s teeth ground. “Warning you, Cookie. You don’t want to go looking at me like that.” “And what am I looking at you like?” I asked it as I mopped up the mess we’d made on the floor and stood with a pile of wet towels. I went to angle by him so I could go downstairs and put the load into the washing machine. Only Ryder’s hand shot out to stop me, landing on my waist, his mouth going to my ear. “You’re looking at me like you want me to wreck you, too.” “You wrecked me a long time ago.” I didn’t mean for the confession to whisper free, and Ryder looked like I might have hit him. Regret swam through his dark, dark eyes before he pulled away and turned back to my son. Blowing out a sigh, I hurried around him and went downstairs where I started the load of towels.

And I found I couldn’t move into the space. Found I was rooted to the spot, standing there in the doorway watching Ryder read my son a story, lost to the infectious laughter that rolled from Kayden as Ryder changed his voice with the different characters. Lifting it high and dropping it low, making the sound of a racing car and the beep of a horn. Lost to everything Ryder kept saying. To the greed that kept surfacing and the hidden shame that would shut him down. And I wanted to sink into it. Disappear into those hidden places. Dip my fingers in and invade. Understand where it was coming from and why. Show him it didn’t matter. Whatever he’d done, it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was the man in front of me.

Then Ryder swooped and soared him across the room until he was laying him in his crib. “Sleep tight, K-Bear.” “Night, my Rye-Rye.” Love crushed into the room. Pressing at the walls and pushing out. Or maybe it was just a landslide of everything that had happened in the last few days when Ryder slowly turned and was facing me. Because the air deepened, a shiver blowing through. An arrow of warmth and a quiver of need. And a second later, Ryder was coming for me.

In her expression was something I’d never dared allow myself to recognize before. Like she was imagining what it might be like if this was our truth. If we did this every night, and I didn’t have a lifetime of garbage strewn between us. They were obstacles that I should heed. What should have me diverging. Changing course. But I didn’t think there was a goddamn thing in this world that could keep me from her right then.

“Do you have any idea, Dakota? What you do to me?” There was a tiny shake of her head. “No. Not with you.” Hesitation brimmed before she shifted to meet my eyes, this fierce girl whispering her truth into the lapping night. “You were the one person I wanted to be something different for.” It fucking gutted me. Seared me through with the hot blade of a knife. “How could you ever think that?” A trembling sound rolled up her throat. “How could I not, Ryder? How could I not think that you didn’t want me? That you didn’t desire me? That you wanted something different? Because I spent a whole lot of years questioning, what was it about me that you didn’t want. What weren’t you attracted to. My personality? Because I was pretty sure you liked that. Or was it my body?” Pain leached into her voice, and she looked away when she asked, “Do you think I didn’t notice the type of women you went after?”

“Told you last night that you’re the one who’s had me on my knees, Dakota. A beggar at your feet. Do you get it now?” “Yes.” “Good.”

All that soft against all my hard. I wanted to bury myself in it. Get lost in it. And I knew I was treading a thin line. That I was teetering. Getting ready to fall off the side. But I couldn’t go on without her knowing what I saw when I looked at her. How I felt. That was the confession that threatened to erupt, and terror locked up my throat. It was an admission I couldn’t give. Not until I was sure I could promise her everything.

Standing fast, I cut her off before she could get out the plea because I knew what she was asking for. I picked her up by the waist and tossed her onto the center of her bed. Surprise left her on a gasp, then she giggled as she bounced, and God, she was a fucking sight. Mesmerizing. Entrancing. A dream I was fading into.

She pushed up onto her elbows, and she took me in the same way as I’d been watching her through the mirror. But unlike her, I had everything to hide. A reason to cower and cover. Except she was murmuring her praise like I wasn’t a monster standing in front of her. “I’ve never seen anything as beautiful as you, Ryder. You think it was me driving you insane? Couldn’t you feel it coming off me every time you came in the room? I don’t know how one man can make me shake the way you do. The way you make my heart race. The way I…” She trailed off, unable to say it. Confessions locked in the tension. Bound by the past. Because we’d be fools to go there when I’d already warned her that I wasn’t sure that I could stay. But I was still climbing onto the bed, a fiend crawling over her, hovering in all her heat. Getting lost in her warmth. In those eyes.

“I want to feel you,” she wheezed. A pained groan rolled out of me because the only thing I wanted was to sink into her. My dick pulsing, raging with need. But I knew I’d already taken this too far. That she was going to hate me in the end. And still I was taking a little more, and I grabbed my cock and ran just the tip through the lips of her pussy, dragging it up until I was rubbing the metal ball of my piercing against her clit. Dakota bucked, and the sound coming out of her was so desperate that I nearly gave in and thrust into her. Instead, I started rocking over her like a teenager who was hunting down his first orgasm. Rubbing my dick in all her sweetness without fully giving in.

Flashes of colors and light as she clung to my shoulders as the orgasm tore through her. I could feel it rush like a flashfire across her skin. Consuming every inch. Right as everything inside me burst. Racing out. Flames that licked and blazed and incinerated. And I knew it was never going to be enough as I dumped my cum all over her stomach. That this ache was going to remain as she gasped and tremored. Knew it as I gazed down at the girl who had the ability to snatch my heart right out of my chest. I couldn’t give it. Not like this.

I grabbed her hand that she balled in a fist and pressed her knuckles to my lips, air wheezing in jagged heaves from my lungs. “Cookie.” Had to beat back the urge to confess it all right then. Just fucking tell her. Lay it out. But I couldn’t accept her rejection yet, not before I’d set it in motion and there was no turning back. I guessed I was a coward like that.

“I’m sorry,” I muttered, glancing up at her. “What are you sorry for, Ryder?” “That I’m not who I want to be. Not yet. But I promise you, I’m trying to be.” And I prayed it was enough.

He took a couple steps deeper into the bakery, part of himself warning him not to get too close, that he didn’t belong, while the other part couldn’t resist. Because he’d missed her.

He pushed out a heavy sigh. “Things change, yeah?” “Yeah, in ways I wished they didn’t.” Then she cleared her throat and sent him a big smile that panged through his chest. Because it was real and genuine and so much like the little girl he’d once known yet so different. Regret slammed him hard. She’d been like a sister to him. More than that, even. Someone who’d just gotten him the same way as he’d thought he’d gotten her. And now, they had all that fucking time lost. An ocean between them. No way to cross it or to get back to the way things had been. He didn’t know a thing about her anymore, and that was all on him.

One of them caught his eye, a dark chocolate cake already cut into slices and set on plates. It had three pieces of white chocolate candy in the shape of stars decorating each. “I’ll have one of those.” He pointed at it through the glass. Dakota giggled a shy sound and pulled one out, and she carefully placed it into a white pastry box. She closed the lid and carried it to the register where he waited. She surprised him when she leaned a little his direction, her voice held low. “It looks like you still have good taste, Ryder Nash. That’s my one recipe in that case.” “Really?” Satisfaction pulled at him. “Yeah.” Her smile was soft, and he thought some of that understanding they used to share was still there. And it reminded him that maybe he wasn’t fully gone. That maybe he could find his way back. “What do I owe you?” he asked, digging into his back pocket for his wallet. She bit down on her lip and pushed the box toward him, her words a whisper, “Love is on the house.”

“I heard it’s someone’s birthday.” Surprise jutted across her face, and redness splashed her cheeks. “You remembered.” “Of course, I remembered, Dakota. How could I forget about you?” Except for all those years that he had. Guilt clawed at his throat, and fuck, he wished he could take it back.

The asshole writhing on the ground spat blood in Ryder’s face. “Do you know who I am? You can’t touch me. I’ll destroy you for this. Over a fat fucking whore who’s terrible at sucking dick.”

Both doors on the SUV cranked open, and the sheriff on the driver’s side came around the front. He had his gun drawn and aimed at Ryder. “Slowly move to the side and lay down on the ground. Facedown.” Ryder complied, nerves clattering through him as he did. He’d always been so careful. So fucking careful. But protecting Dakota was worth any cost. Any consequence. Except he cringed when the second officer came into view. Ezra. His cousin who’d just graduated from the academy and had gotten hired on at the department two weeks ago. Shame poured down.

Ezra was the one who guided Ryder to the back of the SUV and forced him into the backseat. “What the fuck were you thinking, Ryder?” Remorse leached into his tone, and he kept his voice low so only Ryder could hear. “You know I can’t cover for this.” “I wouldn’t ask you to.” He would never get him involved in his mess. His attention skated to where Dakota numbly nodded at whatever the paramedic was saying. His chest pulled tight. Heavy with that feeling. And for the first time, he recognized what it really meant. “Even if it means you just landed your ass behind bars?” Ezra pressed. “She’s worth it.”

Her heart crashed against her ribs when she saw the shape of the silhouette sitting on their favorite branch. Black hair waved in the slight breeze that whispered through, and she gathered her nerves and weaved farther down the path. How she knew he would be there, she didn’t know. It’d been years. Years since he’d met her there, but she’d been unable to fall asleep, her body alive with an awareness that had kept her tossing in bed. A lure that had pulled at her. Tugged at that place that had always been reserved for him.

“I brought you something.” She mumbled it into the dense stillness that echoed around them, and she popped off the lid. Ryder choked a disbelieving sound, though there was the softest tug at the corner of his lips. “Of course, you did.”

Ryder reached in and took one. He groaned as he took a bite. Dakota couldn’t do anything but watch him chew. Eyes tracing the rough contours of his jaw, the way his throat bobbed as he swallowed. How powerful and broken he looked.

“I’m not sorry, Dakota.” Her attention remained focused ahead while she felt the weight of his gaze burning into the side of her face. “I’m not sorry for what I did last night.” She finally gathered the courage to look at him. And it was like she was looking at midnight. Falling into it. Getting lost in it. A storm raged through his expression, and he scraped the back of his hand over his mouth like he was wiping away a bad taste. “I won’t apologize for hurting him when he hurt you.” His teeth ground. “I would have ended him if that’s what it required. Gladly.” Then he blew a puff of air through his nose as he admitted, “Hell, it took everything in me not to hunt him down and do exactly that after Cody bailed me out this morning, asshole thinking he could touch you when you didn’t want him to.” A disorder blustered through her senses. Gratitude. Fear. That fluttering in her belly that had risen all the way up to infiltrate her chest.

“It’s me who should apologize. You’re the one who got arrested for me.” He scoffed. “A small price to pay for putting that fucker in his place. He needed to know if he ever comes around you again, things aren’t going to land in his favor.”

Dakota kept studying Ryder from the side. Carefully. Any ease they’d found in the last few weeks was hard to find tonight.

“Why do you do that to yourself, Ryder?” Broaching it felt insurmountable, pushing into his darkness. He wavered in it, pain rolling through his body, shadows haunting his eyes when he finally looked at her. “It was easier. Not feeling it. The hole my mother left.” The words hitched in his throat, and he sniffed like he was trying to hold back the grief, but Dakota felt the shockwave of suffering, anyway. “It hurt so fucking bad that I just…” His head dropped in shame. “I just couldn’t, Dakota. I couldn’t. It’s like I’ve spent the last six years terrified of loving and terrified of never feeling it again.”

“I would have been here for you. I…I waited here for you. For years, I waited out here for you.” She refused the embarrassment at the admission. Low-pitched anguish vibrated from his chest, and he scrubbed both hands over the top of his head as he bent over. “It was better I didn’t come, Dakota. You couldn’t reach me then, and the last person you should have been around is someone like me.” Contempt huffed from his nose. “You still shouldn’t be. You learned the proof of that last night.” “I don’t care.” He laughed a hollow sound, and he looked up through the branches at the star-speckled night. “You should, Dakota. You should.”

God, it hurt just looking at him.

“Don’t forget about me while I’m gone?” she couldn’t help but call to his retreating form. He stalled, and he looked back at her through the wisps of the night. “No, Cookie, I could never forget about you.”

Heat saturated my flesh, his strength seeping into me where he held me from behind, and his deep, slumbering breaths puffed into my hair. I felt hedged in a sanctuary. Shielded by a fortress. It was a comfort that I’d craved for so long. One that I wanted to trust in. To believe would still be there tomorrow. That he wasn’t going to steal away the way he’d done before.

His hand tightened on my hip, fingers dipping in, like he was terrified of letting go. His nose burrowed into my hair at the back of my head, and his rumbled words glided through me like a dream. “Love you.” Emotion cinched down so tight around my heart, a desperate squeeze that contracted before it expanded out and unfurled with the truth. And I felt entranced by it. By the deafening quiet and the roaring that shouted in my heart and in my ears. I love you. I love you. My soul chanted it. Demanded it.

A pained breath left me at the sight of him asleep on my pillow, on his side facing me. It’d always hurt looking at him.

Sparks zapped at the contact, and Ryder’s hands flew to my hips as those gunmetal eyes snapped open. Shocked. Wild. One second later, they darkened with greed.

I felt his dick twitch, hardening even more, and his fingers dug deeper into my waist, close to painful as he warred with restraint. But I didn’t want that between us anymore. Restraint. Walls. Boundaries. I wanted to crush them all. Lay them at our feet.

A sound so needy it was almost embarrassing got free when I shifted so I could watch myself taking him in. Inch by inch of him spreading me. Filling me. A pleasure so close to pain that I cried out with it, and a tremble rocked through when I had him to the hilt. I felt ripped apart. Sewn together. Pierced. Healed. Whole. So much. Everything. Never enough.

He left a trail of fire, the man the flame. The one who held the power to leave me nothing but ash.

“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.”

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.

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.