Chapter 50 Ryder
RYDER
It had been twelve years since I’d touched a woman.
Twelve years since I’d felt anything close to what I felt tonight.
And never—never—had I felt a connection like this. Not even close.
Not with the woman I’d once planned to marry. Not with the ones I’d known before, or the ones I tried to forget after. What I felt with Louise was different. Raw. Unnerving. It didn’t sneak up on me—it slammed into me like a freight train.
Like I’d been waiting for her in every dream I couldn’t remember.
When I looked at her—really looked at her—I felt like I knew her. As if her soul had brushed mine in some other life, like my hands had already memorized the curve of her waist, the sound of her laughter, the wild heat in her eyes when she challenged me.
She didn’t just get under my skin. She was already in me.
And that terrified me more than anything else ever had.
Because once you’ve lost everything, the thought of losing something else—someone else—can unravel you. And I was already hanging on by threads.
We made love twice more that night, slow and deep.
Every time she pulled me in, every gasp, every whisper, every breathless arch of her back.
.. I sank further. I needed her like oxygen.
Like salvation. I needed her in a way that scared the living hell out of me.
Because once I let myself feel that kind of closeness, there was no turning back.
She’d fallen asleep on my chest, one leg hooked over mine, her hand resting over my heart like she belonged there. And maybe she did.
Maybe that’s what scared me the most.
As she slept, I stared up at the glass ceiling above us, at the stars in silence. The same stars I used to stare at from behind bars, wondering if I’d ever be free again. Wondering if I’d ever feel again.
And now here I was. Free. Feeling everything.
My mind spun with questions I didn’t have answers to.
Would she leave? Would she stay? If she stayed, could she ever truly accept my past? I was a convicted felon. A murderer. A monster. The former fiancé of a woman who’d died a tragic death.
Did that scare Louise?
Could she live with someone who planned minute to minute so they wouldn’t have to think about the past?
On top of all that, I wondered if Louise could handle all the looks and whispers we’d get every time we went into town. Would it get old, and she’d leave me?
Hell, I wouldn’t touch me with a ten-foot pole.
Looking back at the lives I’d taken while working for Astor Stone—my targets—and at the life I took as revenge for my unborn baby, I realized those events weren’t what short-circuited my brain.
They weren’t what broke me. It was having my freedom stripped away.
Living in an eight-by-eight cell, locked in a cage like an animal with no privacy.
No freedom. No escape. Claustrophobia had nothing on those ten years.
I hope your circumstances won’t continue to define your life. Louise’s words echoed in my head as I lay next to her.
My circumstances had undoubtedly shaped me into the man I was.
When I got out of jail, I continued building walls around me in the form of my house, my land, my space. By restricting human interaction as much as possible. Why? Because I didn’t trust anyone. Not even myself.
I wondered… would she see a future with me… or just another story she’d survived?
I wanted to believe I could be more than my past. That I could build something with this woman who somehow made the world feel new again. But doubt clawed at me like it always did. Louise still had her fire. Her fight. Her hope.
And me? I was still clinging to control. Still organizing life into safe, predictable boxes so I didn’t lose it all again.
I didn’t know who I was anymore—just that I didn’t want to be the hollow-eyed ghost she’d caught on camera at the lake. I wanted to be the man she saw when she looked at me now. The man who made her laugh. The one who held her through the night.
Could I be that man?
Could she really love someone like me… once the nightmares returned? Once the past crept back in?
Or would I lose her, too?
The thought alone made my chest ache.
So I held her tighter, burying my face in her hair, breathing her in. Trying to memorize the moment. Trying to believe that maybe—just maybe—this time, I wouldn’t be left behind.
Because for the first time in years, I wasn’t just afraid of losing control.
I was afraid of losing her.