Just as she’d been powerless to stop Rick all those years ago.
A sob tore from her throat and she clamped her jaw shut to keep another from escaping. Danbur was not Rick. Even if Danbur hadn’t already proven himself trustworthy by leaving when she asked him to, and not taking anything more than that one mind-blowing, scorching kiss, she’d only had to witness his care of Sera to know absolutely that he was a man she could trust. He was a man she would like to get to know—intimately—if only she could find the courage to let go of the past.
In that past she’d been a victim and there was nothing she could do to change that. She’d been young and unworldly, and Rick had taken full advantage. Somewhere along the line she’d realized she was not to blame for his actions that day. He was to blame. He was the one who deserved to be punished. She’d had good reason to be scared and timid and leery of men in the years that followed. No one could blame her for that. But now? Still? After all this time?
She scrubbed her face with her hands. God. How weak and spineless she’d become. What a terrible role model for her daughter. Bad enough that she was still haunted by nightmares, still suffered the stutter that had manifested in the aftermath of the attack. So much worse was realizing that for almost a decade she’d shut herself off from even the possibility of a healthy physical relationship with a man.
Rick didn’t know it but he was still terrorizing her, still affecting her every thought and action. Still winning. And wouldn’t the bastard love knowing that? She couldn’t keep living like this—cowed by her fears, denying her need for companionship, for intimacy. For a man’s touch.
For a moment she was giddy, tingling all over at the thought of Danbur’s big, capable hands tunneling through her hair to gently cradle her skull, his lips descending ever so slowly, tantalizing, teasing, drawing out the moment until they pressed against hers, coaxing her to open to him and surrender. For a moment she was caught up in a daydream so pleasurable that she didn’t want it to end. And then all her old fears—the ones that had convinced her to avoid men and the complications that went with them—reared their ugly heads and clamored to be heard.
What if she was reading too much into that kiss and Danbur wasn’t truly attracted to her? What if she discovered too late that she couldn’t handle anything more intimate than kisses? What if she was wrong about the kind of man Danbur was, and she begged him to stop but he wouldn’t? What if—?
Her mobile phone bleeped with an incoming text message and she fished it from her overalls pocket and peered at the screen.
Hey! How’s things? Want 2 catch up over coffee? Better still, dinner! Need someone 2 unload on. That cool with u? It’s Des, BTW.
Funny, she didn’t remember giving Desiree her mobile number. But she was immeasurably glad to see Desiree’s text because right now a sympathetic ear was welcome. Desiree had already encountered Danbur. She would understand the allure a man like him held, and why Opal was so conflicted about him. Desiree could help Opal get everything straight in her head.
More than cool, she texted back. Dinner wld be great. My place? She bit her lip, hoping Desiree wouldn’t suggest a meal out instead. The monthly budget might stretch to a halfway decent restaurant but the potential for embarrassment was off the scale. She’d probably end up too stressed to eat anything she ordered.
Sounds great. Sunday night? I’ll bring wine & dessert.
You’re on. Desiree was great. And Sera would be hugely excited to have a real live model turn up for dinner.
BTW I pretty much eat anything. Except offal.
Will keep that in mind :) She tried to imagine Desiree’s reaction to a heaping bowl of mac ’n cheese. Or meatloaf and gravy—another of Sera’s favorite meals. It’d almost be worth it.
As she saved Desiree’s number to her contacts list, a memory tickled her brain. Omigod, how could she have forgotten Desiree’s upcoming date with Roth? It wasn’t hard to guess why Desiree needed someone to talk to.
Warmth curled through her. It felt damn fine to be needed—to have a real friend. Not that Annie wasn’t a friend, but it was a little awkward because she was also a client. Whereas Desiree was just Desiree—not that a woman who looked like that could be described as “just” anything.
A smile tilted her lips at the prospect of a full on gossip session about men… which brought her full circle back to obsessing over Danbur again. How would he react if she headed on over to that shelter, demanded to see him, and made it very, very clear that she wanted more than a kiss this time?
A whole lot more….
She leaned on the doorframe of Peter’s house, fanning her flushed face. Minutes ticked by before the heat washing through her body faded and she felt composed enough to rap on the door.
Chapter Eleven
The dull repetitive thuds drifted to Danbur’s ears, jerking his focus from the little girl kneeling on the stool clutching a block of cheese. He tensed and cocked his head, listening intently.
“Please see who’s at the door, Danbur.” Pieter tossed the words over his shoulder while he furiously whisked the contents of the pot. “I can’t leave this sauce or it’ll go to lumps.”
“Lumpy mac ’n cheese? Yuck!”
Sera’s crinkled nose brought a smile to Danbur’s lips. The child was a rare delight—all the more perhaps because she was an unknown quantity. On his home world, as far back as Danbur could remember all newborns had been male. Without exception. It had been an unexpected side-effect of a spell cast by prideful men attempting to tamper with the natural order. Hence the need to steal females from other worlds—a drive that had become paramount when it became clear that once on Styrian sands, those women, too, birthed only male infants. And thus the confrontation that had provoked Pieter to curse Danbur… and brought him to this time and place.
“Yuck indeed,” Pieter said. “Which is why I refuse to countenance any lumps in this sauce. I’m almost ready for that cheese, Sera.”
“I’m almost done grating, Mr. Stone.” Sera paused to tuck a springy lock of hair behind her ear. It behaved for a breath or two before falling into her eyes again. She audibly sighed, and contented herself with pursing her lips and puffing a sharp breath to shift the misbehaving hair from her eyes.
Danbur observed Pieter’s lips curving upward in a fond smile. “I must insist you call me Peter,” the old man told Sera. “‘Mr. Stone’ makes me feel old.”
Sera giggled. “But you are old, Mr. Stone.”
“Peter,” he said. “And you’re right of course. In fact, I do believe I am the oldest person you’ve ever met.”
Danbur couldn’t help his snort and quickly disguised it as a cough to clear his throat. Out of the mouths of babes….
Sera giggled again.
“The door if you please, Danbur,” Pieter said. “Preferably before whomever it is wanders off and you are forced to chase them down.”
An order, however politely couched. And since the aroma of melting cheese was making his mouth water, and he did not wish to miss dinner, Danbur stalked from the kitchen to do as the old man bid.
As he crossed the living room he heard Sera say, “I hope it’s not Mommy already, ’coz I reeeally wanted to stay for dinner.” He didn’t catch Pieter’s reply. He lengthened his stride, his body buzzing with anticipation, thoughts of Sera’s mother swarming through his brain and shunting aside all other concerns.
He yanked open the door, and was greeted by a raised fist… that rapped smartly on his chest. Not quite the way he’d imagined this woman touching him but he would take what he could get. He cupped her fist in his, pressing her hand to his heart, patiently waiting for her to realize he’d replaced the door… and strangely content to stand here all night if that’s what it took.
Opal blinked up at him, her mouth forming a soft O of surprise. His gaze fastened on her lips. The way her tongue darted out to moisten those lips told him she was not unaffected by his gaze. Lust, a primal need to take and plunder, coursed through him, but it wa
s tempered by something softer, yet even more powerful. Something unexpected. Something that he instinctively batted away because a core part of him recognized that if he grasped it, gave in to it, the pain of losing her would be his undoing.
“Wh-wh-what h-h-happened to y-y-your f-f-face?” she asked. “Are… are y-y-you okay?”
He was very much not “okay” but there was little point in revealing the truth when she hadn’t believed his previous explanations. Little point in expending further effort to convince her, either. He would be gone soon enough, leaving her to resume her life. Such as it was.
Regret—sharp as a finely honed belt dagger—pierced him. ’Twas a crime for a woman like Opal to hide away, fearful of living life to the fullest. If she were his woman he would treasure her, care for her, gently encourage her to spread her wings until she finally understood her own worth. But she could never be his. He knew that. Just as he knew that if he pushed her too hard, tried to make her see he wasn’t unbalanced, and that everything he’d revealed was the truth, she would banish him again and deny him the two things that kept him from falling on whatever passed for a sword in this world: herself and her daughter.
The realization that Opal had come to mean as much to him as her daughter was shocking. Giving one’s heart to a child was easy. But loving a woman? A surefire way to confound and distract a warrior… and get him killed.
Opal cleared her throat, and he realized he hadn’t answered her question. His commander, Lord Keeper Wulf, would have clouted him over the head for woolgathering. He could almost hear the man’s cold, merciless voice saying, “Get your idiot head on straight before you lose it. The gods-damned immunity spell doesn’t make you immortal.”
He mentally shook himself. “A miscommunication with a door,” he said blandly. “You should see the door.”
If the way she was looking at him was any indication she didn’t appear to believe his lie, but all she said was, “Wh-wh-why are you… h-h-here?”
Perhaps best Opal that remain blissfully ignorant of her daughter’s role in securing him this abode. If Sera had been his child, he would be furious about that trip to the shelter. ’Twas no place to bring a little girl. “I am good with my hands. The old man has some tasks that need doing, and offered me his spare room. So we are to be neighbors for a short while.” A partial truth, at least.
“Oh.”
A flare of heat, heavy with whispered promises and offerings of pale silky skin, flashed across her eyes. That heat suggested she wanted him. Badly. If he wasn’t mistaken, that was. And he didn’t think he was mistaken but then, stranger things had happened. Such as traveling through a portal to another world. Falling afoul of a powerful sorcerer. Being cursed to a crystal… and being called from it, only to learn his chance at redemption had been torn from him through no fault of his own. Given what he’d suffered, what he’d endured, how could he rely on his judgment?
He’d never forgive himself if he misread the signals she was giving out. But what was he to think when she was staring at him, eyes wide and gleaming with excitement, like she expected him to sweep her into his arms and carry her away? She licked her lips again, and this time those lips parted on a breathy, feminine sigh that shot sensation straight to his cock. And suddenly he was so damnably hard it was all he could do not to groan.
Now her eyelids drifted slowly down until her beautiful green eyes were half-shuttered and all sultry feminine invitation, and her fingers, still captured beneath his hand, kneaded his chest. Her stance seemed to soften, as though her body had given up trying to fight the attraction and was surrendering. As though she invited him to ravish her right here, right now, where anyone passing by could witness their coupling.
Gods, he was sorely tempted. But not with Sera and the old man a mere room away. Not when his control balanced on a dagger’s edge.
He fought to keep his muscles relaxed so as not to alarm her in any way. And he wondered how he would resist her if she offered herself to him here, now. He wondered if he could resist her when memories of her body cleaving to his might be all that kept him sane once the crystal took him again.
A sobering thought, that. And if carnal memories of Opal’s willowy blonde beauty were all that he had left to sustain him in the unending darkness of his crystal prison, he would prefer their coupling not be quick and rough and lacking finesse. No. Rather he would take his time with her, show her, teach her. Bury nightmares of the past beneath new memories. And to do that, to show her how good coupling could be for a woman when a man cherished her, he needed Opal to trust him enough to lower her defenses. He needed her to choose him, not merely capitulate and allow him to choose for her. He needed more of the one thing he didn’t have: time. So it was both a relief and a torture when he heard the patter of feet.
Danbur released Opal’s hand and took a step back, distancing himself. He watched her hand flutter and then fall to her side, watched her blink and flush a becoming shade of pink, and then scramble to shake off the sensual mantle she’d wrapped about them both.
Sera barreled up beside him. She peered out at her mother. “Mommy, you’re home already? But dinner’s nearly ready!”
Pieter must have heard that wail of protest. “There’s plenty to eat,” he called out from the kitchen. “I made extra. Tell your mother to come in, Sera. She’s been on her feet all day and she must be exhausted.”
Pieter’s last word echoed strangely in Danbur’s head and, as if a signal flag had been dropped, Opal’s face paled and she sagged, as though her legs could no longer hold her upright.
Danbur’s heart somersaulted in his chest. Instinctively he surged forward and scooped her into his arms. She stiffened, and then with a sigh, relaxed against him. And, gods help him, she felt right there, in his arms.
“What’s wrong with Mommy?” Sera tugged on the hem of his shirt as he carried her mother inside.
“I’m fine,” Opal said, but her voice was weak.
“When did you last eat?” Danbur knew his tone was little more than a growl but he was too concerned for her wellbeing to care how he sounded.
“Does dipping a finger into a bowl of vinaigrette to check the seasoning count?” she asked.
“Absolutely not.” Pieter stood at the doorway. He pointed imperiously at the nearest couch and waited until Danbur had lowered Opal to the cushions. “And neither do those snack bars you mistakenly believe serve as an adequate noonday meal. Sera and I will bring you a tray with your dinner.” Addressing Sera, Pieter said, “Your mother will be fine once we’ve gotten some proper food into her.”
Opal immediately grabbed the arm of the couch, tensing as if to rise to her feet, but Danbur was having none of it. He placed both hands on her shoulders and gently but insistently pushed her backward. “Stay. Rest.”
“I’m not a dog,” she said, scowling, but she did as he bid her. Just as well. He didn’t believe she would appreciate being held in his lap like a naughty child. Not to mention having her firm, sweetly rounded arse perched across his thighs would test the limits of his control.
“What are you smirking about?”
He plunked onto the couch, throwing up his hands in a gesture of surrender.
“Mommy!” Sera clapped her hands. “You’re not stuttering!”
Shock pooled in Danbur’s belly. He mentally rewound the last few minutes. Gods. The child was right. He cast a speculative glance at Pieter, wondering if the sorcerer had worked some magic to cure Opal of the affliction.
The old man met his gaze and shook his head.
Hmmm. Interesting. Danbur focused again on Opal, now slouched in her seat, arms folded across her chest, a defiant gleam in her eyes. “Stop looking at me like that,” she said.
“How am I looking at you, exactly?”
“Like I’ve been putting on this stutter to fool people. It happens, okay? Sometimes the stutter disappears for a bit but it never lasts. It always comes back. Always.”
She sounded so defeated he wanted to snatch
her into his arms and comfort her with platitudes and lies—whatever it took to wipe that desolate expression from her face. Instead, he folded himself into the seat next to her, taking care not to encroach on her space.
“Come, Sera,” he heard Pieter say. “Let’s dish up. We can serve Danbur’s portion on a tray, too. I think he and your mother need some private time, don’t you?”
“Are they gonna kiss and make up?” Sera’s question shocked everyone to silence.
“It depends,” Opal finally said, and then her eyes widened and a hand crept to cover her lips—as though she couldn’t believe such provocative words had issued from her mouth.
Danbur couldn’t believe she’d uttered them either—those two words that changed everything. Or nothing, depending upon what she chose to do next. Vaguely he registered that Pieter had ushered Sera into the kitchen, and now it was just Opal and him. Alone. With a challenge to be answered. And though he dared summon hope, he didn’t possess the courage to speak and risk it shattering so he stayed mute and still.
The silence grew. As did the tension that prodded the woman seated next to him to clasp her hands tightly in her lap.
She hadn’t dared look at him yet. She kept her gaze firmly on her hands. But it mattered not how long it took for her to work up the courage to speak because while she struggled with how best to respond, the suggestion that they “kiss and make up” hadn’t been rejected out of hand… and the promise of what could be, hung bright and powerful between them. Too, her downcast gaze gave Danbur tacit permission to gaze at her and fix her more firmly in his memory—that delicate curve of cheek and vulnerable nape exposed by the band confining her hair, those slender arms and work-roughened hands, that enticing length of thigh hinted at beneath the worn and faded piece of clothing called an “overall”.
He knew what he’d like to do with that piece of clothing. He imagined leaning over, moving slowly and deliberately, giving her time to fully comprehend and accept what he was about to do. He imagined curving his palm about her nape, stroking the sensitive skin beneath her earlobe, urging her to meet his gaze and see everything he felt, everything he wanted to do to her and with her. Only then he would lower his mouth to hers, kiss her senseless while he unclasped the buckles at her shoulders to peel down her overall, unwrapping her like the gift that she was.
Opal's Wish: Book Four of The Crystal Warriors Series Page 17