5 #2
She shakes her head. “No. I’m fine.”
I frown at the strain on her face. She’s not fine. Her dark eyes dart around the kitchen like she’s looking for an exit, and there’s a slight tremble to her shoulders. Something has her on edge.
“Can you bake with one arm?” I ask in a low voice.
Dakota glances toward the steel countertop. Another wave of rage crashes over me at the sight of her bruised jaw.
“I don’t know,” she says in a small voice. “I haven’t tried.”
I place a palm on the cool countertop, making a mental note to get this kitchen clean for her. “You could try here.” I want that spark of fire back in her dark brown eyes. “This giant kitchen’s empty. Waiting for your chocolate cake.”
She shies away from me. “I changed the recipe. It isn’t as good.”
“Bullshit.”
I never eat sweets. But with Dakota, I remember every pastry, every cupcake, she ever brought me. Her sweets are legendary.
She flinches. “I get the cast off in six weeks. I’ll try then. When I’m in my own place.”
Alarm speeds through my senses. Whatever happened to her took place in a kitchen. I’m 100 percent sure of it.
I search her eyes, hating the shame I see there. Hating how she’s acting like I’m a stranger she can’t wait to shake.
Still, tonight’s not the night to press the issue. She needs sleep. Her body needs to heal from the hell she’s just been through.
“Upstairs,” I tell her, pointing at the stairs just off the kitchen. “This way.”
Her shell-shocked eyes clear and without speaking, she follows me upstairs.
The attic isn’t as much of an attic as an entire living space.
We renovated it our second year at the ranch, when I was sick of living in dust and disrepair.
It has a kitchenette and an island in the center of the room, with two bedrooms on opposite sides.
Built-in skylights across the arched, planked ceiling let in the Montana sky.
“This is…uh, where I stay.”
“You live up here?” Dakota roves her eyes around the space. “Like a permanent Phantom of the Opera?”
I bite back a smile. “Ever since we opened.”
She tilts her head. “And it’s just you here?”
I rough a hand over my scalp, trying to ignore the tug of her plump lip between her teeth. “Just me and Keena.”
“Oh,” she whispers, her gaze dropping from mine to hit her toes.
“Don’t worry, Cupcake. I’ll tread quietly.” We stop outside of her room. “This is yours.”
I swing the door open, revealing a mirror image of mine—a wooden bed, faux-fur throws, wool carpet, and simple white- painted walls. There’s a freestanding clawfoot tub in the room’s corner beneath exposed timber rafters.
I stand like an idiot in the doorway, watching as she inspects her room, like crossing the threshold will automatically have us both undressed.
Her in her room, me in mine, is as far as it will ever go. She’s mine to protect. A temporary tenant. A dangerous temptation.
She eyes me for a long beat. “And you? Where will you be?”
“Down there.” I grunt and point down the hall. The ten-foot distance between our rooms is going to be the death of me. Not to mention my cock.
“Towels are in the bathroom. Make yourself at home. If you need anything, you let me know.”
Stubbornness pulls through her expression. “I won’t.”
“Dakota,” I order, frustration getting the best of me.
Glancing over her shoulder, she gives me one of those half-annoyed, half-amused looks. “You growling at me, Hotshot?”
“Do you remember what I told you that night?” My voice lowers, husky, full of the past.
Tell me you remember.
Although, if she does, I’ll have a whole other set of grievances. I step forward, planting my forearm above the door over her head, staring down into those gorgeous gunpowder eyes. “The night before you left for San Antonio. What did I say?”
She’s silent for so long. An eternity. And I think of every goddamn way I can fill the cursed silence.
Kiss her.
Fuck her.
Beg her.
Crush my lips onto hers, soft, hard, whatever she wants, and back her up and into the bedroom. Kiss her because I can’t remember what she tastes like. Kiss her because it’s all I’ve wanted to do for the last six years.
Still, I get myself under control, hands fisting at my side to keep myself from touching her. “Dakota.”
She stares up at me with that unflinching, gorgeous face of hers.
She doesn’t remember.
But then she opens her mouth and whispers, “‘I will always come for you. No matter what.’”
“Always,” I repeat.
A tender vulnerability paints her face. “That was a long time ago, Davis.”
The tightness in my chest warms. “But I meant it. I still do.”
Dakota leans into me, stretching out her hand to brush against mine. An electrical charge explodes across my skin. An ever-present awareness that she is here, back with me, where she belongs.
Easy. So easy to pick up where we left off. The spark. It’s still there. Living, humming in my veins every time we touch.
And that’s when I fucking see it.
My dog tag looped around her neck.
After all these years, she still wears them.
The sight ricochets through my heart like a bullet.
But before I can say a word, she’s plucking her duffel bag from my hand.
“It’ll be okay,” she says. “It’ll all be okay.” Her black, haunted eyes flick to mine. “Goodnight, Davis.”
The door shuts on me before I can say another word.