by Parker, Ali
Dallas really was an incredible man. Had someone told me in high school that this was who he would turn into, I never would have believed them. I also never would have believed that he and I would end up working together.
And to think I almost told him to take a hike.
“What are you thinking about?” Dallas asked as he slid into the driver’s seat and started the car.
I ran my hands down my thighs and then held them in front of the vents as hot air started blowing. “Nothing.”
“Liar.”
I smiled and shook my head. “I was thinking about how crazy this all is. How I’m where I never thought I would be.”
“With your writing career?”
“With you,” I said softly.
Dallas put his hand on my knee and squeezed. “Crazy is good, yes?”
I nodded.
He smiled and put the car in reverse. As we drove away from the lake, I admired the view one last time. Soon, the colors would fade, and all the leaves would fall. Everything would be blanketed in snow. The sky would be dark, and the ground would be frozen, and the brightest colors would be that of the Christmas lights in town.
I wondered how the holidays would go for me. So much had changed in such a short amount of time. What could the next month and a half possibly bring?
Dallas drove me home. When we parked outside my building and I unclipped my seatbelt, Roy stirred in the back seat.
“Perfect timing, kiddo,” Dallas said. “Elise was about to head up to her apartment.”
Roy rubbed at his eyes. “You have to go home?”
“I should get some work done,” I said sadly. “But we will see each other again soon, I’m sure. Right, Dallas?”
Dallas smirked. “Absolutely.”
“Can Elise come over for dinner?” Roy asked, leaning sideways so he could peer around the front seat at his father.
Dallas’s eyes flicked to the rearview mirror. Then he looked over at me. “Only if she wants to.”
“Please come for dinner,” Roy pleaded. “Pretty please?”
I bit my bottom lip and looked at Dallas. “I can’t say no to you, Roy.”
Dallas smiled and leaned his head against the headrest. “You don’t have to come if you don’t want to. We’ll understand if you have to work. We’ve already kept you from it all day.”
I turned to look out the windshield. “Well, Roy invited me, not you. Let’s go. I’m starting to get hungry.”
Even though I didn’t look over at him, I knew Dallas was smiling as he put the car in drive. Roy let out a victorious cry in the back seat and then started spewing ideas of what we could have for dinner.
Chapter 31
Dallas
Roy and I were cooking up a storm for Elise as she sat at the kitchen table, watching us work. She had offered to help, but I’d steadfastly refused. She’d cooked me dinner the other night, and I wanted to return the favor. Besides, Roy and I liked cooking.
Especially for pretty company.
Roy pushed his little stool around the kitchen to reach things that would otherwise have been out of his reach. He was pretty independent, and I trusted him to get things on his own. And to put them away.
As I slid a pan into the oven, I looked over at Elise and at the glass of white wine in front of her on the table. “Need a refill?”
She glanced at her drink. “In a bit. Am I allowed to know what we’re eating yet?”
Roy grinned at me, and I nodded. Roy went and climbed up on one of the chairs beside Elise. “We’re making a baked penne thing.”
“Wow,” she mused. “That sounds fancy. A baked penne thing.”
I chuckled and leaned against the counter. “It’s penne Alfredo with broccoli and parmesan.”
“Yeah,” Roy said, and then he tried to pronounce parmesan. He failed miserably. It came out sounding more like “pamesarn”. He shook his head and rested his chin in his hands. “How many people go to your Thanksgiving dinner, Elise?”
“Not many. Usually it’s just me, my sister Kate, and our parents.”
“And us?”
“And you guys this year. Yep.”
“Do you have cake after?”
Elise shook her head. “No, my sister always makes dessert. Usually a pumpkin pie and then something else.”
“Something else?” Roy asked curiously.
I went to the fridge and topped off my wine glass with more pinot grigio. I caught Elise’s eye, and she nodded, accepting the offer of more wine after all. As I filled her glass, she answered Roy.
“My sister loves to bake. So, every year, she brings the good old pumpkin pie standby and then something new. Like a cupcake or muffin or cookie. That way if it turns out to be no good, there’s still pie, and everyone is happy.”
“Your sister sounds wise,” I said.
Elise nodded. “She is. She learned the hard way. She didn’t bring the pie one year, and our father was very disappointed. It’s his favorite part of the whole meal.”
“Mine too.” Roy grinned.
Elise rubbed her stomach. “How much longer until we eat? All this talk about Thanksgiving dinner is making me hungry. And that pasta smells really good.”
“Fifteen minutes,” I told her.
Fifteen minutes was the perfect amount of time for us to do some damage on our second glasses of wine and set the dining room table. Elise lit a couple candles she found in one of the kitchen drawers. Roy asked her why she was doing that, and she told him her family always had a candle on the dinner table when she was growing up. She told him there would be some at Thanksgiving, too.
By the time we sat down to dinner, the whole house smelled like cheese and Alfredo. I watched Elise go in for her first bite. She covered her mouth as she chewed and closed her eyes.
“Oh, my goodness,” she said, nodding. “This is so good.” She pointed at her plate with her fork while she continued nodding. She swallowed and washed it down with some wine. “Wow. I might need this recipe. Not that I would stand a chance of making it even half as good.”
“It’s easy,” Roy said.
“Is it?” Elise asked, and then she looked to me for confirmation.
I nodded. “It’s not hard.”
The three of us enjoyed our meal. Roy continued to ask more questions about Thanksgiving dinner, and Elise answered them all for him. When our plates were practically licked clean, Roy slid off his chair and gathered the dishes to walk them to the sink.
Elise smiled as she watched him put the salt and pepper shakers away. Then he grabbed our cloth napkins and put them at the end of the kitchen counter for me to take upstairs and put in the laundry hamper. She met my eye as she took another sip of wine.
After the dinner was cleared, the three of us moved into the living room. Roy got comfortable beside Elise, and after talking for about half an hour, I could see that he was starting to doze off. He leaned sideways until his eyes closed, and he was using Elise’s thigh as a pillow. I wasn’t sure if she was aware of it or not, but she was resting her hand on his back, and every now and then, she would rub it in slow circles.
He snuggled up tightly to her, and she and I talked for a bit longer before I stood up. “I’m going to put him to bed. He’s had a long day.”
Elise nodded and watched as I gathered Roy up in my arms. He didn’t stir. I carried him upstairs and pulled his blankets back in his bed before putting him down. He instantly rolled to his side, facing away from me, and I pulled the blankets up, tucking them under his chin.
I closed my hand over his shoulder. “Sleep tight, kiddo. Thanks for being a good wingman today. Your dad needed the extra help.”
After running my fingers through his hair and double checking that his blankets were tucked around him just right, I slipped out of his bedroom and made my way back downstairs.
Elise was still exactly where I’d left her. She was sitting with her legs curled under herself in the corner of the sofa. Her wine glass was empty and sitting on
the side table beside her as she picked at a loose thread at the hemline of her royal blue sweater.
I picked up my wine glass from where I’d left it on the coffee table. “What do you say? Should we finish off the bottle?”
“I can’t think of a good reason why we shouldn’t.”
“Then it’s settled.” I took her empty glass and went into the kitchen, where I poured the rest of the pinot grigio equally between our glasses. I brought them back into the living room and sat down in the opposite corner of the sofa from her.
She drummed her fingers softly along the side of her glass. “Dallas?”
“Mm?”
“Does your father know I’m the writer you and Winzly recruited yet?”
I shook my head. “He doesn’t.”
“Are you going to tell him soon?”
“I’ll tell him when the time is right.”
“And when do you think that will be?”
I frowned. “I can tell him sooner if you’d like. I just don’t want him to, you know, pull a Jansen.”
Elise tipped her head sideways. “Pull a Jansen?”
“Yeah, you’re familiar with them. It’s when us Jansen men act like total dicks and bail on someone who is good for us.”
Elise turned a bright shade of red and looked away from me. “Oh.”
“My dad never outgrew that side of himself, the side that is consumed with self-preservation and success. All my dad knows how to do is be better. Work harder. Cut dead weight. No matter who or what that weight may be.”
Elise licked her lips. “Is that why you left me all those years ago? Because I was dead weight?”
“No. Hell no.” I slid closer to her, closing the space between us on the sofa, and put my hand on her thigh. “Elise, I was a dumbass. I can say it without a shred of doubt. I made a huge mistake walking away from you when we were kids. Huge.”
“What happened?”
I sighed. “At the time, I think I just felt trapped, like I couldn’t breathe. Like all the walls were closing in on me and everyone in my life was making all my decisions for me. My dad. You. My teachers. My coaches. Everyone. I needed to find a way to breathe again, and I thought—wrongly I might add—that if I didn’t have you to worry about, I’d be able to figure out what I really wanted. Who I was. But it didn’t go how I thought it would.”
“What do you mean?”
I scratched my jaw. “I didn’t like who I was when I wasn’t with you.”
She blinked and turned even redder.
“And leaving you didn’t help me figure it out,” I said. “I just ended up following the path my father laid out for me. I don’t regret it, per se, because I’m happy with where I ended up, but I didn’t always feel like things were going to work out. For a long time, I thought my life wasn’t going to be mine anymore. I thought I would live it all in the service of him. That’s why I married her.”
“What was her name?”
I hadn’t spoken my wife’s name aloud in a long, long time. Years probably. “Beth.”
Elise nodded. “Do you think she felt the same way as you? Trapped?”
“I know she did. She told me after she found out she was pregnant.”
“That is a sad way to feel after finding out you’re going to become a parent.”
I nodded. “It was hard. And in that moment, I thought she and I were doomed to be together but never be in love. I thought better things were out of my reach because now, my whole existence was going to be dedicated to this human who didn’t even exist yet. Little did I know, he’d be the best thing that ever happened to me.” I drained the rest of my wine glass. “And the worst thing that ever happened to Beth.”
Elise closed her eyes. “I’m sorry for what you’ve been through, Dallas. Truly, I am.”
“Thank you.”
“And there’s something you should know about everything else,” she said slowly. “About high school. And us. And how it all ended.”
“Yes?” I asked.
She looked into my eyes. “I forgive you.”
A weight I was completely unaware of had been resting on my shoulders, but as soon as those words left her lips, I felt suddenly lighter. “Are you sure?” I whispered.
Elise smiled, reached up, and stroked my cheek. “Positive. You know me. I wouldn’t say it unless I mean it. And I wouldn’t mean it unless you’d given me good reason to trust you. To see the real you.”
I closed my hand over hers. “I don’t deserve it.”
“You do,” she said. “I promise.”
Chapter 32
Elise
The stubble on Dallas’s cheek and jaw tickled my palm. He turned his face into my hand and kissed it. “I’m glad Winzly brought me back to you,” he whispered.
“Agent by day, matchmaker by night.”
He chuckled and let go of my hand. I let it fall to the sofa between us as he leaned in close and gave me a sweet kiss, followed by another, and another.
“I should go home,” I whispered.
This felt too intimate. Sure, we’d already done this, but here in his house, I felt like I was out of place. Like we were crossing a line we could never uncross. A lot of that feeling of foreboding probably had to do with Roy sleeping upstairs.
“Stay,” Dallas said.
“But Roy might—”
He shook his head. “Roy will sleep through the night.”
That didn’t ease my concern. Roy had been through a lot in his five years. He had lost his mother and never even been lucky enough to meet her. I had no clue what sort of damage that had done to him. “What will he think if he finds out about us being more than business partners?”
“He’d be happy.”
I frowned. “Really? Why?”
“Because he likes you, Elise,” Dallas said, like he was pointing out the most obvious thing in the world. “He’s perfectly at ease with you. That’s rare. Trust me.”
I bit my bottom lip. “I still feel like it’s asking too much of him.”
Dallas put a finger under my chin and lifted my face. “I wouldn’t subject my son to something I thought would harm him, Elise. I’m not making a bad call here.”
I nodded. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I was making assumptions.”
“You were looking out for my son,” he said. “I appreciate that. Hell, it makes me like you more.”
I giggled, and he put his finger vertically across my lips. “Hush now. Let’s go upstairs.”
Dallas rose slowly from the couch and offered me his hand. I took it, and he entwined his fingers with mine as he pulled me along behind him across the living room floor and up the stairs. One of them squeaked under my feet, and I paused, hoping it wouldn’t wake Roy.
Dallas chuckled and shook his head at me. “That’s not going to wake him up. Don’t worry. The kid could sleep through an earthquake.”
We reached the top of the stairs and slipped into Dallas’s bedroom. He closed the door behind us and turned to face me as I crossed the cool hardwood floor and stood in the middle of the room.
It was much more elegant than I’d expected.
“Your room is nice,” I said as I looked around.
It was the sort of room I would very much like to sit in and write. The walls were a cool, pale gray, and sheer white curtains framed the massive bay window on the far wall. Dallas paced over to the window and closed the blinds, plunging the room into darkness. I could barely make out his silhouette as he went to his nightstand and flicked on a small lamp, which cast an orange glow around the room.
His bedding was white with light blue pillow cases. At the opposite end of the room from the bed was a closet wall unit where I suspected all his suits were kept. Small drawers probably hosted a fancy watch collection. I’d noticed the ones he wore and how many he had. Different ones for days, like when we went to the lake compared to the flashy one he had on at the Treo Thanksgiving party.
In the far corner was a dark gray chair tucked in beside a books
helf and a lamp that hung over the seat from behind. A nice little reading nook. He was much more sophisticated than I gave him credit for.
“I didn’t expect this,” I said. “I would never leave if—”
I was cut off by Dallas wrapping an arm around my waist and cupping the back of my neck with the other hand as he kissed me. Our lips crashed together, and his tongue plunged into my mouth. I trembled for a moment in his arms, pressing my hands flat against his chest as he leaned into me, arching my spine but holding me upright with one hand.
His strength turned me on. So did the fierceness of his kiss. It was all fire and need. Nothing about it was gentle. And I didn’t want it to be.
He turned me around and walked me backward. I went where he guided, and soon, the backs of my knees were resting against the edge of his bed. He pushed me down by my shoulders, and I fell on my back upon his fluffy white duvet. I giggled and stretched my arms over my head as he pulled my pants down my hips, over my thighs, and off my ankles. He tossed them aside and ran his palms up my legs. I was glad I’d shaved this morning.
Dallas smiled as he snapped the straps of my thong on my right hip. “Cute panties.” He chuckled.
I was wearing a neon yellow thong that said “Heels over Head” on the front. I blushed. “I didn’t think anyone would be seeing them today.”
“I like them,” he purred, bending over me to kiss the cotton front as he worked the lace straps down. He pulled my panties off like he had my pants and kissed my pussy. “I’ve been thinking about this all day. About your body. About tasting you.”
I licked my lips as he went to his knees at the end of the bed and pushed my legs apart. My whole body began to hum. Desire wove up my legs and arms and collided in my center, making me feel hot and heavy and somehow empty, like I needed to be filled.
He kissed me between the legs again. Then upon the inside of my thigh. Then my lower stomach.
“Are you teasing me?” I asked. My voice trembled. My breathing was uneven. The glasses of wine made my head fuzzy and warm.