Color of Forgiveness

by Madeleine Beckett

  CHAPTER 6

  AMBER, ENDEAVOR

  Pulling into her driveway, Myra frowns as she stares up at her house. She can’t believe how spooky it looks against the moonlit sky like it just came straight out of a horror film. She’s never been one to believe in ghosts, but there is something unexplainable going on in that house. It wasn’t there when Grampie was alive nor can she recall ever noticing anything unusual or feeling scared when she used to stay there. In fact… the strangeness only started after Grampie died.

  “Nonsense,” she mutters under her breath, shaking her head for letting her imagination get the best of her. No matter how frightening or intimidating the old house may appear, it is her home now and she’s excited to see it after being gone for so long, ghosts and all.

  She smiles when she hears the deep rumble of Dylan’s truck pull into the driveway behind her. She still can’t believe that he met her at the airport and followed her home. What really got to her was when he didn’t hesitate to let her listen to his and Sabrina’s conversation. That proved to her right there he meant what he said about not keeping things hidden from her anymore. It also helped to solidify his words that his past with Sabrina is exactly that, the past.

  Closing the car door, she walks around to the trunk and smiles as Dylan steps up to her. “Happy to be home?” he asks before pushing a stray lock of hair that has blown across her cheek behind her ear.

  “Yes. Very.”

  He rubs his thumb against her cheek before turning to pull her suitcases out of her trunk.

  “Thanks. I’ll just go unlock the—” she says before stopping in her tracks and gasping. “Oh my god…” She blinks several times to make sure her eyes aren’t playing tricks on her.

  She whirls around. “Did you… Did you do this?” she asks, waving her hand toward the new sidewalk.

  He watches her carefully. “Yeah… you’re not mad, are you?”

  “Mad? Of course not, it looks amazing.” Bending down, she touches the new concrete. Why would he do this? Didn’t he have other jobs he needed to work on while she was in Philly?

  She stands up. “I’ll pay you for this, I—”

  “No,” Dylan says forcefully, shaking his head. He sets the suitcases down and closes the distance between them. “When you were gone, I wanted to be here in case you showed up. I couldn’t do any work inside so I decided to work on the sidewalk. That way I could hang around and still get some shit done. I thought of it as kind of like… I don’t know… a gift?” He groans, running a hand through his hair. “Fuck. That sounded stupid. Who replaces a sidewalk as a gift? I’m a dumbass,” he mumbles, looking away from her and rubbing the back of his neck.

  Myra places a hand on his chest. “I love it,” she tells him softly.

  His brow furrows as he looks down at her. “You do?”

  She nods, smiling. “It’s probably one of the most romantic things anyone has ever done for me.”

  The corner of his mouth turns up. “Really?”

  “Yes,” she says as she grabs his hands and turns them over until his palms face up and begins to tenderly kiss the rough calluses on them. “I can’t believe you did that for me,” she says in between kisses. “You did all of that work, just for me.”

  “My lips worked hard too.”

  She giggles, looking up at him. “They did?” she asks, smiling as she stares at them. “What did they do?”

  He shrugs. “They were busy saying shit they shouldn’t have,” he says with a grin. But the grin disappears when she stands on her tiptoes and outlines his lips with her fingertips. Her hands cradle his jaw, gently pulling him down towards her. Ever so softly, she touches her lips to the corner of his mouth, pulling back slightly and letting her breath fan across his lips as she moves to the other side and softly kisses the other corner. She places a soft, gentle kiss directly on his lips… and another one before nibbling gently on his lower lip.

  With a groan, he pulls her body roughly against his and deepens the kiss. His lips are so soft, a deep contrast to the hard muscles of his body that she can feel pressed against her. His tongue sweeps across her lower lip, gently touching hers.

  Dylan’s hands move lower and he shuffles her backwards until her back hits the side of her car. He presses even closer, rubbing his hardness against her. Harsh pants leave her mouth as her hands reach up to run through his hair only to find the rim of his baseball cap. Grunting a little in frustration, her hands find the soft hair peeking out from underneath it, and she begins to run her fingers through it. His lips move to her neck. “Myra…” he hums against her skin. “I missed you so much... your skin, your smell. The way you taste right here…” he whispers, gently biting a spot right behind her ear before running his tongue over it and causing a shiver down her spine.

  “I missed you too.”

  “Tell me to stop. I can’t fucking control myself around you,” he groans as his lips and tongue drag down her neck. A gasp catches in her throat as his hips press close to hers.

  “Don’t stop,” she pants. “Please…”

  “You’re so sexy… so goddamn beautiful…” he mumbles before his lips find hers again, his tongue exploring her mouth.

  She needs to get closer. She wants him naked. Skin on skin, on top of her, inside of her…

  His frantic kisses slow and he rests his forehead against hers with his eyes clenched shut. “I need to stop…”

  “No. Don’t stop. Keep going…”

  He places his hands on the car and pushes back slightly, no longer touching her but effectively caging her in. “I shouldn’t be attacking you like an animal against the side of your car,” he growls. “I told myself I wouldn’t do this shit anymore, yet here I am doing it again. I couldn’t even wait until you got into your damn house. You deserve better than this—”

  “Stop it. Dylan, I want you. I like it when you do that… when you take charge. I like that a lot.”

  “You do?”

  She nods, too embarrassed to tell him what his actions do to her body.

  “Well, I just shouldn’t be doing this shit out here where anybody could see…” he says as his eyes dart around, and he looks towards the road.

  Myra’s eyes follow his. “There’s only Jackie…” she says. She frowns and her mouth drops open when she hears an engine start somewhere in the darkness immediately followed by the loud screeching sound of tires peeling rubber. A car with no lights hidden behind some trees tears off down the road.

  “What the hell?” Dylan shouts as he pushes off the car and runs towards the end of the driveway and into the street. Myra’s heart pounds as she chases after him. Her eyes search in the darkness after the vehicle, trying to catch sight of a make or model, but she can’t see anything. It turns at the end of the road and disappears into the night.

  Dylan looks at her. “Who the fuck was that? Was somebody watching us?”

  Myra swallows hard. “I don’t know…” she says before looking back down the now empty street, an ominous feeling growing in the pit of her stomach.

  * * *

  Standing in the kitchen, Dylan tightens his arms around Myra and rubs his cheek against her hair. He wants to just hold her and never let her go. Seeing that car take off like that really set him off, it just wasn’t sitting right with him. Once he’d gotten her suitcases inside, he’d insisted on checking every room in the house. After scoping the house, he found Myra sitting at the kitchen table with a worried look on her face and immediately pulled her into his arms.

  “Are you okay?” he asks softly.

  She pulls back slightly and looks up at him. “Yeah,” she says.

  Frowning, he pushes her hair behind her ear. “You sure?”

  She nods but he can tell she’s still shaken up.

  “I want to go check all of the locks. Will you be okay for a few minutes?”

  “Of course…”

  He studies her face for a moment and rubs his thumb against her cheek. “Why don’t you call Jackie and ask
her if she’s seen anyone hanging around here while I’m gone.”

  “Okay.”

  He kisses her softly on the lips before reluctantly letting her go. He checks the locks on both the front and back doors. The deadbolts seem to be secure, but Dylan decides to change both of them out with a newer model just to be on the safe side. He also plans to add a chain to both doors as an extra precaution.

  His mind races when he starts checking the windows. Myra lives on the outskirts of town with Jackie as her only neighbor. With her being so isolated just the thought of someone sitting in a car in the dark watching her house makes him want to throw her over his shoulder and never let her out of his sight.

  He steps back into the kitchen to find Myra still on the phone. She looks relieved to see him.

  “Um, Jackie?” she says. “Dylan’s back so I have to go.”

  Myra finally hangs up and shakes her head. “She’s so lonely,” she mumbles before looking up at Dylan. “She’s still at work; she was doing inventory. She said it’s been quiet around here and that she hasn’t seen anyone.”

  That doesn’t make Dylan feel any better. There’s only one person that he can think of that would be stalking Myra’s house. Derek Marshall. Dylan thought he did a good job of giving that fucker a clear message to leave Myra the hell alone when he kicked his ass, but he must be a little unclear about some things. Dylan decides he might need to give Derek a reminder… with his fists.

  * * *

  Myra frowns as she watches Dylan pace back and forth in her living room. From the moment he saw that car take off, he’s been in a panic. She likes the fact that he seems to care about her and wants her to be safe, but at this point, she thinks he’s overreacting. Jackie hasn’t seen anybody and besides, who would be watching her house?

  “What’s wrong?” she asks. “You said you were going to replace the locks on the doors so what’s bothering you?”

  He stops pacing and rubs the back of his neck and takes in a deep breath. “All of your windows are shit. They’re so old anyone could pry them open with a damn screwdriver. But to replace them all… that’s a huge job. I’d have to special order most of them and—”

  “Come here,” she says as she pats a spot on the couch beside her.

  Dylan’s brows pull together and she can clearly see his reluctance, but he finally comes over and sits down. She grabs his hand. “Thank you for checking the locks and being so concerned, but I’m not going to replace every window in my house just because we saw one car outside. It could’ve just been some kids or something. I love that you’re being protective of me, but you have to stop worrying. I’m sure it was nothing and—”

  “If Marshall shows up again…” Dylan growls.

  Myra frowns. “You think it was Derek?”

  “I don’t know but he’s a prime fucking suspect in my mind.”

  “Well, I’m a cop’s daughter and I can take care of myself. Derek just took me by surprise that day, but I do have a gun license and I know how to use one. There’s a gun sitting right over there by the door,” she says with a nod of her head. “I keep one close by at all times.”

  Dylan continues frowning at her. “Don’t go to that store of his without me. I’ll take you when you need to go.”

  “Okay…” she says as she rubs her thumb over his knuckles, “if it makes you feel better.”

  “If anything ever happened to you…” he says, trailing off. She stares into his eyes and sees so much emotion there. Fear, anger… and something else she can’t quite define. He shakes his head and looks back down at their hands. “I can’t even fucking think about it.”

  Reaching up, she tenderly touches his cheek. “Nothing’s going to happen to me,” she whispers. He looks into her eyes again before his gaze drops to her lips. His hand finds their way into her hair and he brings her towards him, kissing her lips hard and urgently. She climbs into his lap, straddling his hips, eager to eliminate the distance between them. The brim of his hat proves to be an annoying obstacle so she pushes it away and her fingers begin to run through his hair while their mouths never leave each other’s. She can’t get close enough to him; not even when she lets her hands move lower and graze along his abdomen. His breath hitches and his stomach muscles twitch under her fingertips. But it’s still not enough.

  She’s only spent one night with this man. One incredible, mind-blowing night filled with lust and passion. But so much has changed since then. She feels like she really knows Dylan now. She knows so much more about him; knows his heart and the pain that he carries.

  Her hands make their way under his shirt, skimming over his hard muscles, feeling the strength in them. She can’t imagine anything happening to her while in his arms. He shrugs out of his flannel shirt and leans forward, giving her access to pull his shirt up and over his head. Her skin heats when she catches sight of his bare torso so toned and lean from years of hard work.

  Dylan's mind seems to be on the same track as his hands reach out to grasp the bottom of her sweater, carefully pulling it up and easing it over her head. He discards it somewhere on the floor, his eyes travel over her lace-covered breasts. Lifting his hand, he strokes the pads of his fingers from her collarbone down to the top of her breast, sending little shivers down her spine.

  Myra doesn't have the patience right now to go slow. Nimbly, she reaches behind her back and undoes the clasp of her bra, watching with delight the way Dylan's eyes widen when the fabric falls into her lap.

  It feels like she has electricity running through her veins. Every nerve in her body is on edge, waiting for his touch. When his fingers brush over her nipples, goose bumps break out and spread over her skin. An embarrassingly loud moan leaves her lips, apparently giving Dylan the encouragement to lean forward and press a kiss against her breast.

  The feel of his stubble across her skin is intoxicating. He kisses and sucks against her flesh until she's putty in his arms, panting from desire. The wild look of lust in his eyes when he glances up at her leaves her breathless and wanting.

  A soft moan slips out of her as he sucks her nipple roughly, grazing his teeth across the tip. She squirms in his lap, feeling a deep ache for him between her legs. If she has to wait another second, she's going to explode.

  "Dylan...” she moans, wanting to beg him for more but unable to find the strength to form a complete sentence.

  At the sound of his name, his hands reach up into her hair and he tugs her face down meet to his. His kisses are rough and harsh against her lips; she feels his desperate need for her in every touch.

  With frenzied hands, she begins to unbutton his jeans. It’s harder than it should be with her hands trembling. Dylan must read her anxiousness as something else because he grabs her hands, stopping her. “We don’t have to…” he says his voice rough and husky. “We can wait.”

  “I don’t want to wait,” she gasps, still out of breath. “I want you, Dylan. Please.”

  He groans and his lips are on hers again. “You’re making this so fucking hard on me,” he mumbles in between heated kisses. His hands are on her skin, everywhere. “I care about you… so much…”

  “Me too,” she says, but it feels like a silly understatement in light of her recent epiphany. For a moment it crosses her mind to tell him, but those three simple words lie silent on her lips. She can’t say them yet. Dylan’s not ready, and for that matter, neither is she. But she can show him. She can love him with her touch. She can paint on his skin the words that are in her heart.

  She rains little kisses over his collarbone and across his chest, smiling against his skin at the feeling of his speeding heartbeat.

  “Fuck,” he whispers, his eyes sliding closed.

  Finding his zipper again, she expects him to stop her, but this time he doesn’t. She makes quick work of his jeans and boxers, pulling them off all at once. Within moments, the rest of her clothes are on the floor. He sits back down on the couch, completely bare, waiting for her to make the first move. It's impossibl
e to keep her eyes from greedily trailing over his naked body. Dylan is by far the most beautiful man she’s ever seen. His lean, muscled frame has the perfect amount of hair on it to make him incredibly masculine. The structure of his face and the expressiveness in his eyes brings out an other-worldly beauty in him. When she catches his eyes moving up and down her naked body, it causes a rush of warmth to spread across her skin.

  Her eyes trail further down, her heart racing when she sees his length lying against his stomach hard and ready for her. Crawling back onto his lap, she straddles him, rubbing her wetness against his erection and letting him feel what he does to her. A deep, throaty groan escapes his lips as his fingers dig into her hips. She leans forward a bit more, letting his tip nestle against her warmth. Dylan's forehead falls against her shoulder, all of his breath leaving his mouth in a huge gust.

  “Fuck,” he moans as she slides down, taking him all the way in.

  She begins making love to him, hoping that every touch she gives him, every kiss, every stroke can express what she feels. He's so, so close to her while her heart pounds like drums in her chest. He must feel it… how can he not? A shuddering breath escapes her lips as she lets her face fall into the crook of his neck.

  His hands run over her breasts, along the curve of her waist and down her back. They’re gentle and soft but full of want and need at the same time. He meets her, thrust for thrust.

  “I… I can’t hold on much longer,” he grunts as he presses a hand between them and begins rubbing against her.

  She can't hold on much longer either. “Oh, god,” she whispers in between pants against his neck, and within moments, she shatters and falls apart around him.

  “Oh, shit,” he mumbles as his fingers dig tighter into her hips. Unable to keep her pace as she rides out her orgasm, she falls against his chest, but Dylan increases his thrusts going faster and harder. His skin feels hot against hers. Her mouth lingers on his collarbone, kissing and softly biting it. At last, he tumbles over the edge, grunting and pulsing inside of her, mumbling curses into her hair.