by I. T. Lucas
He did, and the pain subsided immediately, as well as some of the frenzy. As she felt him reach for the loose knot holding her wrap dress together, she grabbed his hand to stop him. “Wait—”
“I can’t—” He pushed his groin against her and rubbed, pulling his hand out of her grasp at the same time and going for the knot again.
She gave him a shove. “You have to stop.”
He didn’t move an inch, his wide chest heaving, but he forced his hand away.
“We are giving the guys in security one hell of a show,” she whispered.
“I don’t care.”
“But I do. Now move so I can do something about it.”
Reluctantly, he took a tiny step back, just an inch or so. “What now?” he hissed through his protruding fangs.
“Go to the bathroom and stay there while I handle this.”
“Like hell, I will. I’m not going to make love to you on that bathroom floor, and have no doubt, this is going to happen even if I have to do it with them watching.”
“Don’t be an idiot, Dalhu. I have no desire for bathroom floor adventures either,” she whispered. “I just want to keep you out of trouble. You need to stay out of it while I spray paint the camera lenses and order the guys to turn the audio off. I want it to be clear that you had nothing to do with it.”
That shut him up, though he didn’t move and was still crowding her.
As she tried to duck to the side, he stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “Do I look like the sort of man who hides in the bathroom while his woman takes care of business?”
“Well, no, of course not. But you’re on my territory, and I expect nothing more than a scolding for my actions. You, on the other hand, are a captive. And Geneva Conventions not only do not apply to you but are nonexistent here.”
She might have not spoken at all as far as he was concerned. With a mulish expression on his handsome face, he extended his hand. “Give me the spray can. I’ll take care of the cameras while you take care of the audio.”
He was offering her a compromise.
There was no way Dalhu would do as she said, and anyway, he was taller and could probably spray the lenses without the benefit of a chair to stand on.
“Okay.” Amanda reached into her tote and rummaged until she found the can all the way at the bottom. “Here, take it.” She handed it to him.
“I’ll start with the bedroom.” Dalhu took the paint and headed for the door to the other room.
Amanda ambled to the center of the living room and glanced up at one of the camera lenses attached to the ceiling.
“Steve, I hope you’re there, and if not, whoever is in charge, please listen carefully. From now on, I’ll be staying down here, with Dalhu.”
Up until that moment, she hadn’t realized she’d already decided that she wasn’t leaving. If Dalhu couldn’t come live with her at her penthouse upstairs, she was going to move in with him down here.
The phone on the coffee table started ringing.
Fates, she was so stupid not noticing it before and making a fool of herself—talking to the ceiling.
She grabbed the receiver. “Is that you, Steve?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She couldn’t decide whether he sounded amused or worried. “Good, now listen and do as you’re told. Surveillance of clan members’ private quarters is not allowed, and as I consider this my personal residence from now on, I demand that all audio and video recording from inside this apartment be turned off. The cameras in the corridors will have to suffice as far as security goes.”
Assuming an akimbo pose, she glanced at her wristwatch before narrowing her eyes at the camera. “Make no mistake, later on, I intend to make sure that you guys complied with my demand, and I will check if the recording stopped, starting five minutes from now. Noncompliance will result in severe consequences. Do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am. I will turn everything off momentarily, but I have to notify Onegus.”
There was no way to prevent him from doing so, but perhaps she could convince him to delay his report. “Listen, Steve, I know you have to, but could you wait a little? Like a couple of hours? I’ll owe you big time…”
“I’ll do my best.”
“That’s all I can ask for.”
Hopefully, this would do the trick. But just to be on the safe side, painting the lenses black was a good precaution. She preferred being extra careful than later finding porn flicks of her and Dalhu circulating the keep.
Spray can in hand, Dalhu emerged from the bedroom. “That area is done.”
“You can go ahead and spray these too.” Amanda pointed at the three cameras near the ceiling. Maybe she was paranoid, but she couldn’t help a suspicious glance at the large TV monitor. Grabbing two of Dalhu’s creations from the corner they were propped against, she carried them over to the screen and attached them with the adhesive tape Dalhu had been using to hang those he couldn’t fit on the walls.
Fates, there were so many of them. He must’ve been drawing like a madman to produce so many in such short period of time. True, they were done in charcoal, some in simple black and white and others in full color, a medium which was not as time-consuming as oil paint or even acrylic, but still, the sheer number of them and the quality were awe-inspiring.
And humbling.
Not that she’d doubted Dalhu’s love for her before, but it was more as an almost philosophical concept, she hadn’t really internalized how fully he was consumed by it.
Would she ever be able to love him like this? Even if she found a way to forgive him about Mark? Was she even capable of feeling so much?
That was the problem with feelings. If she were to let go of the protective numbness and let the good ones bloom, the bad ones would inevitably emerge as well. And there was no way she could deal with those without the protection of a thick mental buffer.
She wasn’t ready to discard her Teflon suit yet.
What she wondered, though, was how Dalhu had managed to shed his much thicker protective armor, one that must’ve grown over his nearly eight hundred years in the Brotherhood to the size of a nuclear-bomb shelter.
Evidently, he was much braver than she.
CHAPTER 25: DALHU
After the last camera had been dealt with, Dalhu tossed the can into the trash bin and turned toward Amanda.
He was so proud of her. She’d dealt with the guys in security as effectively as an attorney, and he doubted they would dare disregard her orders. After all, if what she’d said about the mandatory exclusion of private clan members’ quarters from surveillance was true, her case was perfectly valid. And he had no reason to doubt that Amanda knew what she was talking about. It was obvious that she’d come well prepared to wage war.
And what a fearsome warrior she made.
A tigress.
He could still feel the sting of the deep furrows she’d left on his back.
What a wildcat.
Apparently, he’d been wrong to think that she’d succumbed to her brother’s diktat and had abandoned him without a fight. Amanda had done the smart thing, taking her time to devise an effective strategy for them to be together.
“I’m so proud of you.” He pulled her into his arms and kissed her forehead.
“For what?” She regarded him as if she had no idea what he was talking about.
“For this.” He waved his hand at the cameras. “For fighting for us.”
She shrugged. “It’s no big deal. All I wanted is some damn privacy, that’s all.”
Slowly, he was becoming aware that there was something off about Amanda’s demeanor. The woman he had known would have been laughing and joking about her successful stunt, or even better, ripping off his clothes. But there was something dark clouding Amanda’s expressive blue eyes, some sort of weariness or worry—he couldn’t decipher her odd mood.
Was she afraid of her brother’s reaction? Not that it was unwarranted. The moment Kian heard about this, he wou
ld come storming down here and all hell would break loose. Except, Dalhu had gotten the impression that other than a cold shoulder there was nothing Kian would or could do to her. At least not as long as Amanda had her mother’s unwavering support.
“What’s wrong?”
Amanda looked up at him as if he was missing a screw. “What’s right? Is a better question.”
“What do you mean?”
She sighed. “Sit down, Dalhu.”
Why had it sounded so ominous? As he sat on the couch, Dalhu felt his whole body coiling up with tension, and a heavy, uncomfortable sensation was settling in the pit of his stomach.
Amanda walked over to the bar and opened the doors. Inspecting the small selection, she muttered, “Figures, nothing to make a margarita with. How about gin and tonic?” she asked.
“Whiskey, straight up, in a tall glass, please.” He had a feeling he was going to need it.
She poured them both a drink and came to sit next to him on the couch. “Here you go.” She handed him his drink.
He was relieved that she sat beside him and not across from him.
For a while, Amanda just swished the ice cubes in her tall, clear drink, then took a small sip before setting it down on the coffee table.
She seemed nervous, which wasn’t like her, and he felt a chill of foreboding rush up his spine.
“Just spit it out. Whatever it is can’t be as bad as this damned suspense. You’re killing me.”
“Funny that you would phrase it like that.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“My nephew, Mark, you were the one who ordered his murder.”
That heavy, uncomfortable sensation in his gut had just turned into a dark, bottomless pit of dread. He’d known that at one point or another Amanda would put two and two together and come to this rather obvious conclusion, but he’d hoped that by then she would be too deep into the relationship to just get up and leave. But nothing had gone down as he’d been hoping it would.
The way things had unfolded, he should be grateful for the few moments of grace he’d been granted with Amanda.
“Is that why you left?”
“Yes.”
“I thought Kian forbade you to see me.”
She snorted, “He did, but he can’t order me to do anything unless it has to do with safety issues. I can do pretty much as I please.”
“But you came back.”
“Yes.”
What did she expect him to say? That he was sorry? That he’d been following orders? Or maybe try to deny his part? There was absolutely nothing that he could do or say about her nephew’s murder that would make it less painful for her, or less damning for him.
Still, she was back, and it looked like she had every intention of staying, so she must’ve come to terms with the knowledge.
Otherwise, she wouldn’t be here.
“I can say I’m sorry, and believe me, I am. But it would not change a thing. So tell me what you want to hear me say, or just scream at me, or scratch my eyes out. If it makes you feel better, I’ll welcome it.”
She chuckled. “You know me so well it’s scary. I don’t know what I want to do first, punch you in the face or screw you until we both see stars.”
He raised two fingers. “I vote for the second one.”
“I bet you do.”
He took her hand and she didn’t object—a good sign. “I will do whatever it takes, but you need to tell me what’s going on in your head.”
She sighed. “A big mess, that’s what’s going on.” She reached for her drink and took a few sips.
“Somehow, you’ve managed to get under my skin, to penetrate the protective shell I’ve built to keep emotions out. I wasn’t aware of how much I grew to enjoy the intimacy we shared, and I’m not talking about the sex, although that too, until it got literally blown away by Kian and his rescue team. At first, I refused to give it up just because of my brother’s conviction that Doomers are the worst filth to walk the earth. Not that I disagree with him, necessarily, but you’re different, and he wasn’t willing to give you a chance.” Amanda paused to bring the drink to her lips and kept drinking until there was nothing but ice cubes left at the bottom of the glass.
“I’m not stupid, and the connection between you and Mark’s murder wasn’t something that I could’ve missed or not realized. But subconsciously, I must’ve repressed it. It shouldn’t have come as a big shock when Kian shoved it in my face and forced me to acknowledge it, but it did. I had to get away. And I seriously thought that I could forget about you because there was just no way I could consort with my nephew’s murderer…Trouble was, I couldn’t stay away.” She looked down at the melting ice cubes in her glass.
A pregnant silence stretched between them as Amanda gathered her thoughts. He gave her hand a squeeze for encouragement and she squeezed back. “The truth is that I need you, and I hate myself for it,” she whispered, while avoiding his eyes.
“I’m not strong enough to sever this connection between us. And my only smart conclusion is that wishing for a perfect solution is futile. That real life is full of compromises. That I will have to learn to live with you and with my resentment.”
She chuckled. “For a moment, I even considered asking my mother to tinker with my head and make me forget about Mark, but that would’ve been the ultimate betrayal, and disrespectful to his memory.”
Lifting her head, she looked up at him—her beautiful eyes gleaming with unshed tears. “As things stand now, I can’t give you my heart, only my body and my company. But, perhaps, in time, my resentment will fade enough to release my heart.”
She turned her head and glanced at the walls. “I know that you love me. Looking at all these pictures you drew of me, it scares me how well you’ve gotten to know me. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same. I still have a lot to learn about you, and maybe what I’ll discover will help me forgive you, but it might not. Right now it’s the best I can offer you.”
“I’ll take it, even if you’ll never return my love. To go on without you is a worse fate than death for me. I have to believe that my love for you burns strong enough to sustain us both.”
Amanda smiled and wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her dress. “I knew you were going to say this. I must know you better than I thought I did.”
CHAPTER 26: AMANDA
“That predictable, ha? Must be boring…” Dalhu teased.
She felt lighter after getting that little speech off her chest. Dalhu had taken it actually better than she’d thought he would. Instinctively, he must’ve realized that trying to excuse his past would do him no good. After all, she had been well aware of the cold facts and nothing he could’ve said would have been news to her.
It hadn’t been personal.
Dalhu hadn’t known her, or even of her, or Mark. He’d been doing his ugly job for an even uglier organization—following a cause he’d no longer believed in and taking orders from superiors he’d despised.
He should’ve left the Brotherhood long before he’d met her. But prior to that, he’d lacked the impetus to make such radical change. He’d known nothing else, had believed in nothing at all, and had cared about no one.
In a way, she’d given him a new lease on life, a chance for an existence that wasn’t as meaningless—bleak. For now, his love for her was like a floatation device in an ocean of hostility and indifference. But in time, maybe, her family would accept him and he’d become part of the force for good. And the meaning he’d attach to his life would expand beyond his love for her to include a sense of belonging and purpose.
She winked at him. “You compensate in other departments.”
He got closer, his hand resting innocently on her bare knee. “Yeah? Which ones?”
The hand traveled a little north, and the wrap dress parted further, exposing her thighs to a little below her panties. An inch higher and they would be on full display.
She placed her palm over his large hand, halting his prog
ress. “No more bathroom floors and no more couches. Take me to bed, big boy.”
“With pleasure.”
For such a large man Dalhu moved incredibly fast.
She was up and cradled in his arms before the second word left his mouth. Relaxing into his warm chest, she wrapped her arms around his solid neck as he carried her the few feet to the bedroom and kicked the door closed behind him.
With infinite care, he lowered her to the bed then climbed up and straddled her hips with his knees.
“May I?” He reached for the knot holding her dress.
“Yes, you may.”
Dalhu gave a gentle tug and it unraveled. Slowly, he parted the dress—a look of reverence spreading over his harsh features.
Leaning back, he rested his palm on her soft belly—his large hand hot and heavy on her skin. For a moment, he didn’t move, just looked at her—his eyes betraying his thoughts. The smoldering desire, the love, the unmistakable ownership his hand on her belly symbolized.
There was no question in his gaze, it was a statement—a claim he knew she wasn’t ready to hear but was true nonetheless.
She wondered if he could read the truth in her eyes—that deep in her soul she’d known it from the start—from when she’d first seen him at that jewelry store. For a suspended moment in time, before her mind had taken over and the chasm of reality had opened between them, she’d reacted to him as a female would to her chosen male. And yet, she was still miles away from admitting it even to herself.
It seemed that he had known exactly what she’d been thinking. His harsh countenance softened, and the hand on her belly lightened and moved in a gentle caress—as if to say that it was okay, that there was no pressure, that he was going to wait for as long as she needed him to.
Damn, the man was reading her like an open book. She doubted even her own mother knew her so well. Amanda was just too good at putting up a show.