Double Image

by Jaye Roycraft

  “I thought he was a friend of yours. I saw you talking together last night at the inn. I wondered how James knew to find me at the hotel, but he said you told him where I was.”

  “He was never a friend. And I never told him where you were. Do you believe that?”

  She answered with no hesitation, just a heartbeat to gauge his eyes. “Yes.”

  They both sat quietly for a few minutes while she busied herself with her food. A bit of chicken, a little bread, and a few grapes found their way to her mouth, but the rest of her food found itself merely arranged in a new pattern on her plate. “Dallas? Did you come to the cemetery for me or for St. James?” The sudden pounding of her heart was an unnecessary reminder of how important his answer was to her. She blinked, and when she opened her eyes, he was standing before the draped windows. He drew the drapes back and opened a French door that led to a veranda. Warm air blew through, flickering the flames on the tapers.

  “I came for you.”

  He continued staring out at the night, and she wondered if not meeting her eyes was an indication of the sincerity, or lack thereof, of his words. She waited for more.

  He let the drapes slide from his fingers. “I wasn’t sure why you went with St. James. I came as soon as I could. I wish it could have been sooner.”

  “What are you saying?” Had he just been jealous, or did he know she was in trouble? She hated to put words in his mouth, but it was suddenly important that she know.

  Dallas turned, picked up a cloth napkin from the table, and balled it in one large hand. “I know what St. James is like. I knew he’d hurt you.” He whirled and threw the napkin down on the table. “Dammit, Tia, I’m no better than St. James, no more real than St. James.”

  “Don’t say that. You’re not like him. I know.”

  “You don’t know me. You see what you want to see.”

  “No, you’re right. I don’t know a lot about you, but give me credit for knowing you’re not like St. James.”

  “You went with him.”

  That hurt her. “It wasn’t a date. I thought he was a friend of yours, and I thought it was going to be business, nothing more.”

  “Nothing more? Somehow I doubt that. What did he have you seeing that you wanted so badly?”

  “What?” Damn him. What kind of a question was that? Suddenly she was very tired. It had been a hell of a day. “Believe what you want to believe. If you don’t mind, I’d like to get some sleep. Thank Gillie for the dinner for me, would you?”

  He voiced no response, but his eyes were cold and dark in the candlelight. It was enough of a reply.

  SLEEP WAS VERY long in coming. The room itself was decorated in soft greens and beiges, but instead of being soothing, the colors reminded her of Dallas’ eyes. Men. If she had a hundred years she’d never be able to figure them out. Was Dallas really jealous because he thought she wanted more from St. James than a business deal? How could any man possibly be jealous after the way she had kissed him just minutes before? Did he think she kissed every man like that? Did he think she had kissed James that way? She had played too many games with Bret and the other men she had dated the past few years. Somehow she had thought that Dallas would be beyond all that. More mature.

  Well, she had gotten what she wanted. A night with Dallas Allgate. At least in getting her wish, she could now move on. She wasn’t a prisoner at Rose Hill. Tomorrow she would drive back to Jackson and arrange for a flight back home to Milwaukee. There was nothing to stop her plans now. Nothing . . .

  HER ASSIGNMENT WAS to patrol the City of the Dead. Alone. She cruised her squad slowly up and down the unrecognizable streets, each building a gray animal against night’s black cage. Lost souls stood in the street or crouched on porches, watching her. Sullen, hostile, waiting. Watching. She heard the sound of shots, dispassionate as far-off thunder, and she drove faster, not knowing where she was going. Shadows taunted her with movement, and the reflection of every eye caught in the headlamps burned with blind accusation.

  She got out of the car and ran, not seeing where she was going, as blind as the others in the night. The eyes around her became flashes of gunfire, and she fired back at the light. Light was life, and life was death, and death was all around her. She looked at the gravestones surrounding her, and the names screamed at her. She knew she should know the names, but she didn’t. She screamed back, unable to breathe, and a figure grabbed her so tight she knew it was death come for her, too . . .

  “No! No, let go of me!” She got the words out, but couldn’t get enough air in. She was suffocating.

  “Tia, listen to me! Wake up! Do you hear me? It’s only a dream.”

  Strong arms seized her, and she tried to fight back, but the force that pinned her was overpowering. She fought harder to breathe. She didn’t want to die.

  The iron grip released her, and the room flooded with light. The brightness hurt, and for a moment she didn’t know where she was.

  Then a familiar low voice rumbled in her ears, and a hand held her face. “Tia, it’s Dallas. You’re all right now. It was just a dream. Look at me, Tia, and slow your breathing.”

  Dallas? She blinked and found herself falling into a dark green well. So deep, so impenetrable. So beautiful.

  “Tia. Say my name.”

  “Dallas . . . ”

  “Good. It’s over now, understand? I’m not going to let anything happen to you. You’re hyperventilating. You need to relax and slow down your breathing. Do you understand me?”

  She nodded.

  “Say the words. Tell me you understand.”

  “I understand,” she breathed, but it was hard to do as he commanded. It was but a differing scenario of the same dream she had had almost nightly for years now. This one was more frightening than most, but she was used to the dreams.

  She wasn’t used to having a half-naked man in her bed holding her the way he was. The skin of his face and smooth chest was pale in the lamplight, relieved only by the day-old stubble shadowing the planes of his face. Long, thick twists of hair tangled around his ears and looped over one eye. One large hand still cradled her face while his other held her by the shoulder. Heavy biceps and triceps weighted each arm. What she saw in his eyes was too beautiful to bear.

  The dreams were her reality. Why couldn’t her dreams ever look like this?

  “Are you all right now?”

  She shook her head. “No.” It was the truth. She fought to hold back sudden tears. She hated crying in front of a man. He slid into the bed and gently drew her head to his chest. She let him. The heat of his body put the Mississippi summer night to shame, and the steadiness of his heartbeat soothed her.

  “Was it St. James?”

  “No, it was the cop dream.”

  “The ‘cop dream’?”

  “Ummm. I started getting them when I worked the street. I thought when I became an ID tech they’d go away, but they didn’t. They just got worse. Even after I quit the job . . . it’s been two years and I still have them.”

  “What happens in the dream?” His soft voice was corrosive and ate away at all the defenses she had erected since Bret.

  “It’s always the same. I’m alone, I’m on patrol, and then I’m running and firing my gun. It’s never resolved. I never shoot anyone, and they don’t shoot me, but . . . ” She had never told anyone about her dreams, not even Bret. He hadn’t wanted to hear them.

  “Mistress Death is always there.”

  How did this man know? “Yeah. I think that’s it.”

  “Are you afraid to die, Tia?”

  “Of course. Isn’t everyone?”

  “Not quite everyone. To some it’s a release.”

  She shivered in the warmth of his arms. To have found someone after all this time who understood how she felt . . . Someone who was strong and who
was willing to talk about life and death, not just computer games, football, and deer hunting. And someone so sexy that just a glance from his eyes could make her body melt the same way his voice was dissolving her mental defenses. He was her fantasy come true.

  She turned in his embrace until her mouth was just inches from his, and twined her legs with his. He had on black sweatpants, but her bare limbs could feel his heat and hard muscles with incredible ease.

  “Are you afraid of death, Dallas?” she whispered.

  His eyes opened to hers for a long moment before he answered, and she thought that for a moment pain floated in the green eyes, pain greater than any she had ever known. He blinked, and the soft look was gone, replaced by the glittering hardness she was better acquainted with.

  “No. Not tonight. Tonight both of us will see only what we want to see, yes?”

  She furrowed her brow just a little at the strange words, and her lips parted with a question, not a reply. He laid a finger on her mouth to still her question and drew the pad of his fingertip across her lower lip.

  “Don’t fear the night, Tia,” he whispered, lowering his mouth to within an inch of hers. “Don’t let your mind trap you in this realm of terror. There is an escape, if you will but allow your mind to see it.”

  She saw the escape in the spell of his eyes, but hesitated before their depths of darkness.

  “Hanging on to your fear is not the same as being in control of your life. Free yourself, Tia, and take what you want. Trust in your wish, and the fear will disappear.”

  No one had ever spoken to her like that, and it scared her. How could he know her so well? She closed her eyes against hot tears she could feel building again, and when they threatened to spill, she fought in vain to hold them back. His lips touched her eyelids like a hot-press, smoothing the conflict that tore at her. She wrapped her arms around his neck, clutching his thick hair as if it were a lifesaving handhold.

  “Don’t fight it. Just let it go.” The sound of his voice was a throaty purr against her skin, yet she heard the words. They willed her to surrender, not just to him, but to the promise of freedom—freedom from all the facets of her nightmare. His lips slid down her cheek, and when he kissed her, she tasted her own tears on his mouth. Each deep kiss was a summons, commanding her to let go, and she couldn’t resist any longer. A shudder wracked her body, and she moaned with the release he mandated with his mouth. Her fear fled, and into the void crashed waves of physical pleasure that swelled until she felt she could stand no more.

  His mouth freed hers at last, and she heard his heavy breathing in her ear. For long moments he simply held her close, easing his hold at last just enough to smudge away the remnants of her tears with the pad of his thumb. He turned his wrist and brushed the back of his hand down her face, sweeping her long hair away from her neck. He examined the small bandage still in place. “Does it hurt?”

  She shook her head, and her hair fell back in place. She felt him dust the other side of her throat with his finger, his hands asking the question, his eyes, shifting between her neck and her own eyes, waiting for her answer. She concentrated on accepting his touch and found herself reveling in it. This wasn’t St. James. She reached behind his head and pulled him down to her, giving him his answer. She wanted more than a kiss, more than a haven from her nightmares. He hesitated briefly, and she felt his hot breath tease her neck before he finally burrowed his mouth into the heat of her skin.

  Somewhere in the back of her mind, questions rose. Did she know what she was doing? Is this what she truly wanted? Sex with a beautiful stranger? No answer came forth, only the response that ignited in parts of her body she had little control over.

  He groaned, and his lips drew on her skin, moving from just below her ear to the hollow at her throat, searching, until he groaned even deeper. She felt his teeth against her skin, smooth and hard.

  “Your wish is granted, love.” The words vibrated against her throat, so low she felt her body tighten.

  She felt his teeth rake the length of her neck to her collarbone, and it was as though her past were being swept away, like dead leaves before a strong wind. A tremor shook her body, and she wondered if she had orgasmed. His response was a moan more animalistic than human, and he tore his mouth from her neck, only to bury it in her hair. Twisting her body beneath him, she twined her legs around his waist, not caring that the hem of her satin nightdress rode up her hips.

  He spoke no more with words, but she felt a wave of energy, his energy, immerse her. More than just the physical electricity of arousal, it was a swell of thoughts and images that washed over her and engulfed her. She felt it on the tiny hairs on her arms, felt it on the sweetness she tasted on her tongue, felt it in the rising temperature of her blood. Memories flowed to her of people and places unrecognizable, but they comforted her, and she tried to share her own with him, like a young lover eager to return hungry kisses.

  Unlike a young lover, though, she felt no guilt. In relinquishing her fears to him, she felt a freedom and passion she had never felt with any other man. This was no stranger. He understood too well what she needed.

  Ravenous for more, she relaxed her legs and released his waist, trying to give him the mobility to access the rest of her body. He responded, dipping his hands to her sides. There was a rustle of fabric, and she saw him pass his hands over her, as if he were a magician and she an illusion to be performed. She suddenly knew she was naked, and yet he was motionless above her, only the rapid expansion and contraction of his chest evidence of his desire. She looked up at him, and he was beautiful in his masculine sensuality. His long hair, glinting with chestnut highlights, tumbled over his face to his shoulders, and only a gleam of reflected light off his eyes told her he was looking at her as well. A sheen of sweat made his skin glow like ivory silk, and shadows from the lamplight defined muscles that were both modest in the perfection of their sinuous curves and overt in the rawness of latent power. He divested himself of his sweatpants in the blink of an eye, and there was nothing modest in what she now beheld.

  But before she could admire him further he bent low over her, and the curtain of his dark hair was all she could see. She felt his hands fan over her rib cage and his tongue touch one nipple like a wand. If she had been on the ground instead of on a very solid bed, she would have melted into the sodden earth. Instead, she bowed against him, her head thrown back and her hands roaming over his shoulders and arms, as if to remind herself he was real, and not a mirage.

  His mouth suckled her, drawing desire from deep within her, just as his kisses had previously called forth her fears. Unlike her vanishing fear, however, the desire brought to the surface blossomed and grew, pushing her to both take more from him and give more to him. His lips and tongue petitioned her with silent invocations, and she answered with a demanding arch of her back and thrust of her breast against his mouth. His hands slid to the small of her back, then lowered to cup her bottom from behind. He pulled her flush to him, and she gasped at the feel of his hardness pressed to her bare skin.

  Her hands streamed down his body from his shoulders to his waist and lower still to either side of his hips, and she felt the hard muscles contract and stretch under her fingers. She lifted her legs and wrapped them around his hips again, opening herself to him. Her desire pooled low in her body and transformed itself into an ache that was almost painful in its yearning for more. She squirmed against him, trying to maximize the contact of her body with his.

  “Dallas . . . ”

  “Shhh. Not yet, love.” He loosened the grip of her legs and pushed her higher up on the bed, still holding her thighs apart. She saw his head lower and felt his tongue on her inner thigh. The jolt of pleasure invoked an involuntary spasm, but his hands on her held her still. He licked the sensitive skin, his mouth unhurried in its journey upward to the juncture of her thighs. Her craving clawed at her with every touch of his lips
and tongue, and she writhed with the want, but he held her fast and tarried even more in his voyage. When his mouth reached its destination at last and greeted its host with long strokes of his tongue, she could stand no more. The wet fire lapping at her most sensitive spot set off more convulsions, and her hands tugged at his hair.

  “Dallas, please . . . ”

  He lifted his head and pulled her back down to him. Holding her top leg, he readied himself, pausing long enough to torment her one last time with waiting. Then, just as she thought she would go mad, he was one with her, a completion, but also the beginning of another journey. He started slowly and deliberately, so that she felt every inch of him stroke every part of her, filling her with a wonder that two beings so completely different could be in such harmony with each other. His speed gradually quickened, though, and every deep thrust tightened the coil of desire inside her until individual sensations melted together in a plea for release. Her fingers dug into him, she heard the sound of his name and felt his response in the increasing speed and hardness of his thrusts. They assailed her body, destroying the last vestiges of her control. She let go, and he slowed his rhythm, only to begin the journey anew after a moment.

  Images unlike any she had ever seen before flashed before her mind’s eye. The silver of day and the black of night strobed around her, faster and faster until, like a pinwheel, the contrast blurred together into a single shade of gray. Night held no darkness, day held no blinding light, and strangely, she was at peace. He drove her to the ragged edge of control again, and this time when her release came, she felt his as well, a final deep plunge followed by a shudder that shook his entire body.

  It was over. He was very still, except for his hard breathing, which didn’t seem to ease. He had climaxed, there was no doubt about that, and yet his breath came in labored gasps, as though he were still aroused. Either that, or he was going to have a heart attack. Great. The best sex of my life, and he up and dies on me.