But lying there asleep, she looked so innocent, so untouched.... How could she look that way? How could she seem so untainted by Sebastian and all he stood for?
It wasn't like Dylan to be confused, but he was. And it sure as hell wasn't like him to admit that he'd done something wrong, but he'd screwed up by involving Elise Ramsey in this; he could see that now.
Revenge game. That was what she'd called it. More doubts seeped in. He tried to shove them aside, but he couldn't. It wasn't revenge, he argued with himself. It was justice. Justice.
It had seemed so simple at the time. The perfect solution. But he should have learned by now that nothing in life was ever simple. Or perfect.
Maybe he should take her back. No, he quickly decided, it was too late. The damage had been done.
And the truth was, he was finding it harder and harder to stomach the thought of returning her to Sebastian, harder to stomach the thought of Sebastian touching her, making love to her...
It shouldn't have mattered, but it did.
In her sleep, Elise shifted and sighed, flinging one arm out, the fingers of her hand relaxed, open. And on the delicate white skin of her wrist was a bruise. A bruise from the handcuffs.
He stared at it for a long time, unable to tear his eyes away. Earlier he'd promised he wouldn't hurt her. But he already had.
Self-loathing washed over him, and the reality of what he'd done, what he was still doing, hit him full force. He was no better than Sebastian.
The next day Elise cut back on the pain pills so that she was able to stay awake, although she was still something of a zombie.
Earlier, when she'd gone into the bathroom to take a shower, she'd found a box of tampons that had mysteriously appeared on a shelf. Dylan hadn't said anything about them, and she was thankful that he'd at least saved her that embarrassment. Yet she couldn't help but wonder where they'd come from. As far as she knew, Dylan hadn't left the island. Did they belong to Melissa?
Dylan checked on her several times throughout the day, trying to tempt her into eating, but the thought of food just made her stomach do somersaults.
"You don't have to bring me anything. I can get up. It's not as if I'm recovering from open-heart surgery."
But secretly-and to her horror-she found that she liked the attention he was lavishing on her. On the other hand, she was also embarrassed. She wasn't used to a man knowing her body's most intimate secrets.
For her, trips to the gynecologist had always been trips to hell. It took her days to get over the embarrassment. And now, here was Dylan.... It was almost as if they shared something personal and private. She found it unnerving.
Later, she was thinking about sitting on the porch when Dylan rapped on the door, then strolled into her room. He was wearing faded jeans, a white T-shirt and glasses. Reading glasses. His face was clean-shaven, and he was smiling a smile that was relaxed, almost teasing.
Self-consciously, her hand went to her wet hair. She didn't need a mirror to tell her how awful she looked.
This time of the, month, her eyes were always puffy and looked as if someone had given her a couple of shiners. To top it off, her clothes were anything but elegant. She was wearing the borrowed jeans, but instead of Dylan's oxford shirt, she had on one of his black T-shirts. It was too big for her, faded to gray in some places, and incredibly soft from untold washings. Best of all, it smelled like the ocean.
"I don't have billiards, so how about One Thousand Questions?" With a flourish, he presented a maroon gamebox. He sidestepped the foot of the bed, gave the covers a halfhearted tug, then plopped down on the mattress, one leg under him, the other stretched out long and straight, foot to the floor.
"What color do you want?" he asked, head bent, concentrating on setting up the board.
This was happening too fast. Elise didn't even know if she wanted to play. He hadn't even asked her. And anyway, he was her captor, she had to remind herself. She was his captive. You weren't supposed to play One Thousand Questions with the guy who kidnapped you.
"I'll make it easy. You be yellow, I'll be black." He began sorting out the game pieces, and as he did so, she watched his long, nimble fingers as they moved across the board.
"So, tell me," he said without looking up. "Are your periods always so bad?"
It was hard enough for her to talk about such things with her physician, but to have Dylan asking such questions...
When she didn't answer, he persisted. "Are they?"
It seemed as if the only way to satisfy his curiosity was to give him a, straight answer. She swallowed.
"Yes... usually."
He looked directly at her, and she noticed that his eyes were almost the same shade as his light amber eyeglass frames.
"Has your doctor tried anything to help you? I mean, besides the pills?"
"He, ah-"
She couldn't tell him that. It was too personal. She hadn't told anybody about the procedure her doctor had performed so that technically she was still a virgin, but physically... Well, it would be impossible to prove her untouched status.
When the procedure had failed to lessen the severity of her cramps, Dr. Todd had proposed an active sex life. She'd glared at him and he'd gone on to suggest that she have a baby. Or a hysterectomy.
Unsatisfactory answers all. Not that she wouldn't like to have children someday...
Dylan was looking at her, waiting for an answer.
"He said that as I got older, the cramps would lessen."
"Have they?"
She picked up her yellow gamepiece and pretended to study it. "Listen, if you don't mind, I'd rather not talk about this." She could feel the heat in her face, her neck.
He was quiet for a minute.
She didn't look up, but she knew he was watching her. She could almost feel his curiosity. She wondered what he must think. Sebastian's girlfriend, embarrassed about such a silly thing.
"Do me a favor. After this is over, after I take you back, find another doctor."
She shifted uncomfortably. She'd considered it herself. But she hated the idea of having to start all over with a new doctor. All those personal tests. All those personal questions ...
And anyway, why should Dylan care?
A half hour later, the game was tied. They both needed one more correctly answered question to win.
Elise was surprised to find that Dylan knew so much about science. He, on the other hand, seemed surprised to find that she knew so much about literature: She'd almost blurted out that literature was what she taught in junior high school, but caught herself just in time. Sebastian's girlfriend probably wouldn't be a school-teacher.
Now it was Dylan's turn to ask a question. He'd gotten even more comfortable and was now sprawled across the bed, supporting himself with one elbow. He adjusted his glasses, careful to keep the card curled in the palm of his hand, the answers hidden, as if he expected her to try to cheat.
Rather a case of the pot calling the kettle black. But then again, he might have been doing it because she had done the very same thing to him.
"How many moons does Saturn have?"
All Elise needed to win was the science card. But science wasn't her strong point. Why couldn't it have been a true or false question, or something silly, like whether or not the moon was made of green cheese?
She groped, afraid she was going to end up saying something stupid. She'd never really liked this game. It made you look so dumb. At least he hadn't said this was an easy one. She hated when people said that.
The trick was not to let them know you were guessing, to give the answer with confidence. Then, if by some chance it was right, you could come out looking fairly intelligent.
"Three," she said with confidence.
He shook his head. "Way off. Seventeen."
He stuck the card back into the box, tamping it in with one finger. "You don't know much about astronomy, do you?"
"About as much as you know about literature."
"Hey, I'll hav
e you know I had a well-rounded education. Grew up on Captain Miracle and Spaceman Bob."
He rolled the die; then, head bent, lips moving, he silently counted out the squares.
It was the glasses, Elise decided.
They were such a contrast to his wild, shaggy hair. Such a contrast to the wild, shaggy Dylan. He didn't look nearly as rough. The glasses softened his features. Made him look more approachable, almost ... endearing.
He glanced up and caught her staring at him. Then, with a movement that seemed almost self-conscious, he combed his fingers through his dark tangled mane. "I need a haircut, I know. I have a tendency to forget about stuff like that living here."
Actually Elise was getting rather used to his hair. She kind of liked it.
"You live here all the time?" For some reason she'd thought the island was probably a place he visited only occasionally-whenever he kidnapped somebody.
"Yeah."
So this was his home. She thought about how empty it was, how there weren't a lot of personal things around. How it seemed almost monastic-perplexing for a guy who oozed sexuality. Was he hiding? And if so, from what, or whom? The law?
"I used to just come out here on the weekends, but for the past six months it's been permanent."
A little of the distance was back in his voice. And suddenly Elise was aware of something else, something she hadn't picked up on before, maybe because she hadn't been around him long enough, but now she could see that it wasn't just distance, but a hint of bleakness.
She thought about last night, about the way he'd looked as he stared out the window.
Alone.
And she thought about him telling her that he sometimes fought lions. Who were the lions he fought?
Suddenly she felt an urge to soothe, to make it all better. Suddenly she felt a need to reassure him in some way.
"I'll cut it for you."
"What?"
"Your hair. If you really want it cut, I'll do it." "You're offering to give me a haircut?"
Behind the glasses, his amber eyes were suspicious.
Then he smiled. And the smile was slow and sweet, like in her dream. "I'll just bet you would."
"I would. I'm not kidding."
It was a dare. Like when he'd talked her into taking the pills. More than a dare ... More than a challenge. It was a question of trust.
Chapter 10
Dylan ended up losing the game...
How was he supposed to have remembered that Ben Franklin had written Poor Richard's Almanac? He had more important things on his mind. Like whether or not Elise Ramsey was going to slit his throat.
They had moved from the bedroom to the front porch, and now he was sitting on a wobbly bamboo chair, facing the bay, an ocean-cooled wind teasing his wet hair, skimming across his bare, damp chest. She was standing behind him, scissors in hand.
And he was having serious second thoughts. Not to mention third thoughts. He couldn't believe he'd let her talk him into giving him a haircut. One minute he'd been thinking, no way was she getting near him with a pair of scissors; then, next thing he knew, he was jumping up to find a pair.
She's wrapping me around her little finger.
Directly behind him, near his right ear, he heard the ominous sound of stainless-steel blades sliding together. They were good quality scissors. Nice and sharp.
He couldn't stand it any longer. He reached up behind him and grabbed her wrist, lightly, remembering the bruise. He couldn't forget the bruise. He'd been carrying the image around in his mind for the last twenty-four hours. "You know anything about cutting hair?" he asked, stalling.
"Enough to give you a trim."
He kept hold of her wrist, wondering how he'd gotten himself into this, wondering how he could get himself out of it. "You've done it before?" he asked, stalling some more.
"You don't think I'd offer to cut your hair if I'd never done it before, do you?"
Under the circumstances, yes.
She tried to pull away. Rather than exert pressure on her wrist, he let her go, let her hand slip through his fingers. "A trim," he reminded her. "Nothing weird. I don't want one of the short, hot dog jobs."
"Don't worry."
There was laughter in her voice. She was getting a real kick out of this, which annoyed him.
She stepped closer-moving in for the kill. He felt something touch his scalp and jumped, then relaxed when he realized it was only the comb. He could feel its stiff plastic teeth sliding across his scalp, through his wet hair. Flecks of water fell on his chest and shoulders, trickling down his back to the waistband of his cutoffs.
The comb hit a snag.
"Youch!"
"Sorry. The ends are tangled. I don't think a swim in the salty ocean was the best way to get your hair wet. And the cut pieces are going to stick to you."
"I'll just jump back into the water when you're done." If I'm not bleeding from any major artery.
The comb slid through his hair over and over until the tangles were gone. Then he felt her fingers on his scalp, separating a section of hair. Her body shifted as she moved to stand near his elbow, her breast brushing against his shoulder.
Maybe this hadn't been such a bad idea after all.
"Now hold still."
Clip, clip.
"Your hair is so thick."
Clip, clip.
"I'm just taking off about an inch and a half. Is that okay?"
"Fine."
He hadn't slept much the past several nights, and suddenly a warm, languid drowsiness washed over him. His eyes drifted closed.
This was kind of nice. Homey. Ma and Pa Kettle visit the Keys.
Dylan had never thought he'd want a woman disrupting the solitude of his island. Melissa had been here a couple of times, and she'd hated it-which had secretly been fine with him.
To him, the island was like an addict's fix. Whenever his job at the police force had become too much, when other people's tragedies pressed down on him, he'd needed the island.
But it was too rustic for Melissa, too far from lights and noise and people. She had never understood. She'd been jealous of an island, of sand and sky and ocean.
More often than not he would get back to their apartment and Melissa would be waiting. And usually their apartment would be full of people he didn't know. Her impromptu parties had ended one night when he'd found a naked couple in his bed, smoking dope. He'd shoved his badge under their noses and they'd scrambled, leaving a trail of clothes all the way to their car.
Dylan had stood in the doorway, observing their departure. "You all come back now, you hear?" he'd shouted after them.
Melissa had cried and raged that he was scaring all of her friends away. He'd pointed out that those kinds of friends she could do without.
She'd threatened to leave, the way she always threatened to leave. But she'd stayed, the way she always stayed.
She should have left.
Behind his eyelids, Elise's shadow shifted as she moved to stand directly in front of him, bringing him back to the present, to the smell of the ocean, the feel of the sun, the sweet scent of Elise, the feel of her hands in his hair.
"I'll just kind of layer the top and sides."
He sensed that she was moving closer; then he felt a slight pressure against his leg. He kept his eyes closed, trying to guess which body part was touching him.
A thigh? Yes. Definitely a thigh.
He opened his eyes and found himself staring at the front of his black T-shirt. The wind was making small ripples in it, gently molding the worn, thin fabric around the soft swell of her breasts.
"That happens to be my favorite shirt you're wearing."
She paused and looked down, hands poised above his head. "It's comfortable."
He didn't have to think very hard to remember how her breasts had felt under his hands, how they had filled his palms. He shifted, and the chair creaked under him.
"Sit still. I'm almost done. I just have to check to make sure it's even."
He could feel her fiddling around with his hair, lifting this strand and that, checking.
A mental image popped into his head. He couldn't seem to help it. He pictured her hands moving over hiss body, feeling, testing, checking...
To top off the wonderful torture, her hands actually did start moving over his body, tracing feather-light trails across his damp skin,, brushing hair from his shoulders ... his back ... his chest ...
He just sat there enjoying it, forcing himself to breathe lightly so she wouldn't know just how much he was enjoying it. If he'd known how sexually stimulating a hair-cut could be, his hair would never have had the chance to get long.
Suddenly she stopped. Her hand stilled, then drew away.
He opened his eyes and looked up at her inquiringly. In her face he read sexual awareness mixed with confusion and uncertainty-and that strange innocence.
"All done?"
"Yes...."
He reached up to feel his hair. "You didn't take off very much:"
"No... I kind of like it...." Her words trailed off, as if she'd suddenly realized she shouldn't like anything about him.
He stood, and she backed up a step. He took the scissors and comb from her and laid them on the table. Then he grasped her by the shoulders and turned her around so that her back was to the ocean. He made a careful study of her eyes; then his gaze shifted to the ocean and back.
"No, not the same," he decided. "Your eyes are bluer. Clearer."
She was looking at him with a slightly baffled, bemused expression.
Yes, this had turned into a real mess. So what was new?
It wasn't all that many months ago that he'd gone through what he now termed as his unsure phase. It had happened after the psychiatrist had determined him to be unpredictable and, therefore, unstable. After that, Dylan would sometimes catch himself wondering if maybe he wasn't a little off center. But he'd gotten over that paranoia.
Anyway, this was different. When he'd kidnapped Elise, he'd known it was wrong, known it was against the law-there hadn't been a shred of doubt in his mind. It was simply something he had to do.
He just hadn't expected to like her, and now everything had changed.
Theresa Weir - Iguana Bay Page 10