Page 17 of One Mistake

I wanted him. But that was nothing new. I could deny it when we weren’t together, but when we were in the same place, desire vibrated through me and I was weak for him. “Ryder…”

He pulled back breathing hard, forehead against mine. “You are too much to resist.” The need in his voice, the tremble in the hand he slid under the hem of my shirt just below my ribs, and the shallow, short breaths, mirrored everything I felt. “Stay with me tonight.” And as if I didn’t understand his meaning, he added, “All night.”

“Here?” Seeing his mom again might have been the one thing powerful enough to put the kibosh on my desire.

He laughed. “God, no. You can stay at the frat house with me.”

Oh, hell no. “Or there’s a nice bench in that little bus stop shelter on Main street in front of the diner.” And God, I loved his laugh. Loved it more when I earned it with a joke, which wasn’t the case at that moment. No way was I staying at the frat house with all of his frat friends and their frat beers and thin frat walls. “We could just stay at my place.” Beth wouldn’t care. She had plenty of overnight guests who apparently inspired her middle-of-the-night prayers.

“Beth hates me.” True. And maybe not a strong enough verb for what she felt. “Please stay with me.” And he kissed me again and again until I didn’t care anymore about anything besides waking up beside him in the morning.

7

Reese

Ten years disappeared in a blink. The time apart never happened. And here I was lying next to him, head on his chest, arm over his stomach like I’d always been here.

Ryder stroked my arm and kissed the top of my head. “Who would’ve thought?” The blanket smelled like him. I’d never be able to walk in this basement again and not see him. Fortunately, I wasn’t going to be able to afford to own the basement for much longer so seeing him wherever I looked wouldn’t be a problem.

I smiled because it was easy to smile while I was lying beside him with no worries about the world on my shoulders. “I certainly never dreamed when I kidnapped you that I’d end up…here.”

“Really?” He sighed. “My ego was all big and full, thinking you brought me here to make me your love slave.” Oh, the thought. “I mean, I wished anyway.”

The Ryder I’d known in college was confident to the point of almost cockiness. He was self-assured. Never humble. Seeing his vulnerability now made me wish we didn’t have the history we had. I wanted to make him feel better. To build him back up into the boy I’d fallen so hard for.

Instead, I snuggled closer, savoring this because the future, ours, mine, the future of our relationship, was uncertain. His arms tightened around me and neither of us spoke for a few minutes. “What are you going to do about the house?”

“You know, we almost didn’t stay here. If it wasn’t for your mom…” I knew he didn’t want to hear it. “When she hired my mom as her advisor, it changed everything for us.”

“Yeah.”

“This was the first place my mom ever hung a picture. Or bought a lamp. Isn’t that…” Strange. A weird family fact. But one that made letting go of this place harder than I thought it would be. But the fact was, I didn’t live here anymore. I didn’t have a reason to keep it. And Glouster wasn’t really a vacation home kind of place. Not that I had a job that allowed me to afford a vacation home.

“I never asked where you live now.”

“I live in California.” Might as well have been the other side of the world. “And I have to go back soon.”

He nodded. “I figured.”

“So it just makes sense to let the house go.” My heart ached. “I have a couple days left to pack it up. I can ship some stuff home and the rest I’ll donate or have hauled away.”

“Sounds like you have a plan.”

Not a good one. Normally, I loved California. The sun. The palm trees. The beach. The work. I didn’t live in LA. I lived in a small wealthy town. Worked in LA, but I was a detective. Had a desk and a good partner. But today all I wanted was winter and snow, to watch the sun come up over the ocean. To snuggle in front of the fireplace. With Ryder.

“Yeah. A plan.”

He sat higher in the bed, his back against the headboard, and I moved with him so we were sitting next to each other, shoulder to shoulder now. I took a moment to fawn over him before I smiled.

“Or you could still ransom me. You could get the money to keep the house and stay in it when you come back to visit.”

I wouldn’t be able to come back. Not often enough to sustain any kind of relationship. Although this one night was more of a relationship than I’d had since the first time I dated him. It at least involved conversation outside of your place or mine.

“What if your mom calls the cops? I could lose everything.” As someone who had been through that kind of loss, I would’ve thought he’d understand.

“Okay. What if I…” He shook his head. “I could ask my dad for the money. He’s always offering to give me cash.”

“I wouldn’t be able to pay it back. I live pretty close to the vest as it is.” California's cost of living was ridiculous, and cops weren’t the best-paid Californians.