by Beverly Bird
Why? She had made her feelings perfectly clear. But he was like a pit bull with a bone—he just wouldn’t give it up.
“How’s your back?” he asked.
“Go away. Don’t worry about it.”
He leaned one shoulder against the jamb, crossing his arms in front of him. “I can’t do that.”
“Why?” she demanded. “All you have to do is take a step backward and close your own door.”
“But you’d still be here and I’d still be there, and I’d keep thinking about that. I guess I could tell you that I want to find out what you’ve learned about that wolfman thing, but at the moment I really don’t give a damn about spooks and witches, so it would be a lie.”
The intensity of his quiet voice—and his honesty—finally had her moving back. She took a few small steps in retreat, then she spun about and paced the room.
His eyes followed her. She wore a green satin nightshirt. It fell to a point just above her knees. It was loose and flowing, with tailored trim. There was really nothing seductive about it, yet it drove a hot fist into him, just at the point where his ribs came together. Her thick hair flew angrily when she turned.
He stepped in after her, closing the door quietly behind him and throwing the lock. Ellen’s heart lurched.
“Don’t do that.”
“Okay.” He reached back and switched it again.
“Okay?” she repeated. He was making her feel dizzy—with confusion, with wanting, just because he was here, just because somewhere inside she really didn’t want him to go. Ricky. Think about Ricky, about what you’re doing here in the first place, she reminded herself, and the very big reason you have for not getting too close to this man, for not letting him get into your life.
“I won’t stay,” he explained, “but I need to ask you something first.”
“What?” Her eyes narrowed warily.
“Why are you fighting it, whatever this is between us?”
“I’m not.” It seemed safest to deny it. Then she shook her head, biting her lip. He wouldn’t let her get away with that. Why try?
“What’s between us is sex,” she snapped. “It’s just...chemical attraction. It doesn’t demand that I start peeling my clothes off and throw myself at every man I feel it for. I barely know you.”
His brows went up. “Every man? No, I get the feeling that this is as unprecedented for you as it is for me. And I’d say that knowing me has very little to do with it. I didn’t even like you when I crashed into you in that arroyo, but that was when it started.” But it hadn’t, he realized. It had started as soon as he’d found out that her body matched her voice, as soon as she had bitten her lip and run her tongue over it.
“If you don’t like me, then why are you pushing this?” she demanded.
“I didn’t say I don’t like you now. You just had me pretty ticked off at first. But you’ve got a few redeemable qualities.”
She swallowed carefully. Talk about a backhanded compliment. “Okay, if it’s unprecedented, then why are you pushing it?”
“Because it’s unprecedented. Because it confuses the hell out of me and I have this urge to tackle it and understand it.”
Ellen took a deep breath, closing her eyes a moment. Okay, she thought. Okay, this was good. They would talk about it and settle it once and for all, making their positions clear—perfectly clear—one more time. Then they could worry about Ricky with clear heads.
She looked at him again. “I can’t let this go anywhere, Dallas,” she said quietly.
“Why not?”
“There are some reasons that you just don’t understand and you don’t need to. But they’re...inflexible.”
He seemed to consider that, then he nodded. “Not the least of which is that you’re afraid of me.”
Her heart jolted. “Why do you say that?”
“Because your panic is clear in your eyes every time I get close to you. And you ran from the motel in Shiprock as if the devil himself were chasing you.”
She tried to shrug indifferently. It came off more like a sharp little hitch of her shoulders.
“Maybe that’s what makes the whole thing so damned tempting,” he went on. “So titillating. I have a few of my own reasons for wanting to stay away from you, so the attraction’s there, all wrapped up in a feeling of danger. That’s almost irresistible.”
In spite of herself, she was intrigued. “Your own reasons? They certainly don’t show.”
He seemed to think about it, seemed to be searching for a way to explain. “They’re not rational,” he realized after a moment. “But that doesn’t seem to ease the panic.”
She thought of her ruminations up on Beautiful Mountain while she had been waiting for Uncle Ernie. “No,” she whispered. “No, it never does.”
“Maybe I just have this sense that if I get involved...physically with someone else, then Mary is truly gone.”
Ellen felt her heart thump. “She is gone, Dallas.”
“Not from inside me.” But he knew as soon as he said it that it wasn’t entirely true. He was keeping her inside, and it was often a deliberate effort. Sometimes lately he couldn’t quite remember her face unless he looked at her picture.... But then all her mannerisms would come flooding back and it wasn’t just a flat photograph he was looking at. She would come alive again, laughing easily, smiling warmly.
Nothing was easy about Ellen, he thought. She was the most complicated woman he had ever met. And she seemed to save her warmth for a few special people. Mostly what he got was her temper and a cool, deliberate distance. Why did that intrigue him so? Was it just the sheer challenge of it?
Maybe, he thought, but not entirely.
“I’ve got an idea,” he said suddenly. “Why rush in where angels fear to tread, so to speak?”
“I wasn’t planning on it,” she reminded him dryly, but she heard her breath hitch over her words.
He crossed to where she was standing and he touched her again. She jumped—it was the one thing she couldn’t allow. But he only put his hands on her shoulders to turn her around. He stood behind her, running a thumb down her spine.
“What are you doing?” she gasped, trying to turn back to look at him.
“Compromising.” He turned her back again.
“With what?”
“You never answered me. Does your back still hurt?”
“Yes...no. I took some aspirin. It’s just a wrench. Muscular—” She broke off, flinching as he found the place that was sore. But his strong hands kneaded there and she could feel some of the stiffness ebbing reluctantly away.
“The way I have it figured is this,” he said quietly. “I want to touch you. I want it badly. I’ve been thinking about it all week. But you don’t want to touch me, I guess because you don’t entirely trust yourself. So we’ll each have our own way. Lie down.”
“No.” Her heart leapt, lodging in her throat, hurting there. He gave her a little push toward the bed and she stumbled. “No, Dallas. This isn’t a good idea. Ricky—”
“Is fast asleep. I could hear every move you made in here and it drove me crazy. So if he wakes up, I’ll know it almost before he does.”
“But—”
“You’ve got my solemn vow that I will remain fully clothed. Does that make you feel any better?”
What it made her feel like was a shrinking, fearful adolescent. Like a Victorian maiden, cringing from any violation of her so-sweet senses. Rigid, uncompromising and inhibited. She felt her skin heat again, but with embarrassment this time.
But she knew, damn it, she knew that going anywhere near that bed with him in tow was too risky, too dangerous, that if she laid down there and he touched her, even if it was just to rub her sore back, she would end up wrapped around him, giving in, not to him but to herself, to that dangerous ache that seemed to have invaded her life from the moment she had looked into his face outside the orphanage.
She dug her heels in.
“Okay,” he said a little roughly
. His hands fell away. She felt him leaving, moving back toward the door. She opened her mouth to stop him, but she couldn’t find her voice.
She was a woman in charge of her own destiny, she told herself. She had been for eight long years, since she had grown up too hard and too fast. So why couldn’t she just take a little pleasure for herself under set and agreed-upon terms? The fact of the matter was that she wanted him to touch her, wanted to feel again the way she had after the Kinaalda. And now he was leaving and there was nothing left but cold air where he had stood.
She took another slow step toward the bed. Then she hugged herself and kneeled upon it deliberately. She didn’t look back at him, but she heard something happen to the rhythm of his breathing. Then he was behind her, his hands on her hips. He buried his face at her neck, in her hair, and her heart thrummed wildly.
“This wasn’t...the deal.”
“Right,” he said tightly.
His hands found her shoulders and worked slowly, firmly down from there. She hadn’t thought she could relax, but the steady, rhythmic pressure of his touch had her head dropping forward and a sigh working up in her throat.
She didn’t know how long she kneeled like that, but then his touch changed. She sensed it on a distant level without being consciously aware of it until he slid his hands down to her thighs. Then they came up again, beneath her nightshirt, and she felt a frisson of heat jolt through her. She groaned at his touch, not exactly rough but so male, moving up slowly. His hands skimmed over the thin nylon of her panties, then around to her belly, up, up.
She arched back, no longer sure why she was supposed to wrench away from him. Then his hands found her breasts again, but so much more intimately this time, his fingers covering her bare skin.
“You...promised,” she managed to say.
“I promised I wouldn’t take my clothes off. I didn’t say anything about yours.” But he slid one hand out from beneath her nightshirt to pull her hair back from her neck. She thought that was better until his mouth touched her there, wet and hot, and sensation snaked through her, threatening her balance. She stiffened against it.
“Relax,” he murmured. “All our demons are safe. Yours and mine.” Whatever yours are.
For one brief, sane moment, he realized that she had never really told him. He had confided in her, but her response had been shadowy—not really explaining anything at all. It didn’t matter now. She was warm and pliant in his hands, seeming to melt once the tension went out of her again, and his thoughts became clouded with something that seemed red and hot and throbbing. He found the hem of her nightshirt and pulled it over her head suddenly, without bothering with the buttons.
She let out a little cry, but he pushed her down onto the bed before she could really react. He went with her, straddling her hips, his hands finding her shoulders again before she could protest. She groaned as he pushed his thumbs into twin spots on either side of her spine.
She lay with her left cheek pressed against the mattress, her eyes closed, and he watched her face change. The expression there. Such a range of it, he thought, so complicated. Her jaw was hard, then it softened as he rubbed little circles into her flesh. A cheshire cat smile pulled at one corner of her mouth.
“You’re good at this,” she murmured.
“I know.”
Her eyes opened. “Ego’s not one of your problems.”
“Not lately.” Not since I felt you wanting me back.
His knuckle found the hard ribbon of her spine and eased down it. She tensed where he touched her because it almost hurt, but the trail he left behind was liquid and boneless. He got to the small of her back and she shuddered.
He felt the response in his hands, trembling up and through him. He clenched his jaw in restraint. A promise was a promise.
But his had left a lot of gray areas.
He found the elastic at the top of her panties and eased them away from her, tugging them down. He thought she might protest, but her fingers only dug into the bedspread. It occurred to him to wonder just how far he could take this, just how much he could stand without breaking his word. He figured he only had to dredge up a mental image of Mary.
But he couldn’t find her.
He panicked and his hands got rough. One went to the hollow of her back where she had hurt herself, but the other went to her thighs. He kneaded there, then his hand slid up to mold the shape of her bottom and he heard her groan again. This time the sound shot through him. He lowered his face to her neck again so he could use his mouth there.
She had known. She had known his touch would feel just like this. She had told herself she could accept pleasure without relinquishing control, but a demanding ache slid through her and it wouldn’t listen to reason. She could no longer care if it was safe, if it was sane. She tried to roll over to find him. He wouldn’t let her.
He couldn’t let her. Mary was gone and he would think about that later, but because she was gone he had to keep his promise. He had to do it for himself now, because he had the sense that he was barreling ahead, out of control, into regions murky and unknown. The only clear thought in his head was that if he undressed, if he allowed himself to sink into her, if he ended this hard, urgent pain that was suddenly filling him, then everything would change. His neat little world would be gone, altering him and everything in it.
He pushed her legs apart anyway and ran a finger up her thigh, knowing it was not gentle but urgent.
The air touched her first, cool and provocative. She had one flash of disbelief—how had she come to be lying naked beneath this man she was supposed to be keeping her distance from? Then there were his fingers, sliding, seeking and she wriggled a little to help him find just the right spot.
She cried out. He wasn’t keeping his promise, but it didn’t matter now, nothing mattered but the sensation shooting through her and his strong hands, gentle, giving, even as they were demanding and relentless, making her lose control, making her feel things, want things she had never intended to want. The heat built and built and rained through her, stealing her breath. She needed so desperately to roll over and hold him, but he kept one hand flat against her back as the tremors rocked through her and left her sated yet depleted, oddly empty.
“Dallas...” She felt his lips against her temple and his weight ease off her legs and her eyes flew open again. “What are you doing?”
“I’ve got to go,” he said hoarsely.
“That’s my line.”
“Not any more.”
She sat up quickly as he left her, hugging herself, watching him disbelievingly. He yanked open the door a little too hard, but when he stepped through into his own room he did it very slowly.
Ellen let her breath out dazedly. A moment later, she heard a rush of water in the walls and she scowled.
Then she understood, and it only brought more confusion. He was taking a cold shower.
* * *
She had barely fallen into a light, fitful sleep when she heard commotion through the walls again. She sat up groggily, looking at the cheap illuminated clock on the nightstand. She had to push her hair back and squint to see the hands clearly.
Three-thirty.
There was a loud thump from next door and she thought she heard Dallas swear. What was going on over there?
She hugged herself against a warm-cold chill as everything that had happened earlier came flooding back to her. Should she knock, see if everything was okay? Or had things changed so much that she really had to stay away, to pretend somehow that the previous night had never happened?
What had happened? How was she supposed to classify that?
She groaned, rubbing her temples, then Ricky’s howl of fear decided her. Her head snapped up again. Ricky. Something is wrong with Ricky. She flew out of bed and ran to the door, leaning against it even as she pounded at it with her palm.
Dallas yanked the door open so suddenly she fell inside. He caught her, steadied her, but there was no time to consider the strength
of his hands as he gripped her arms. Her gaze flew across the room until she found Ricky in his own bed, pressed up against the headboard as far as he could go. His eyes were huge.
“What happened?” she gasped. “What’s going on?”
Dallas wore an odd look, half-shaken, half-angry. He had pulled on a pair of shorts, but the button at the waist wasn’t fastened. He ran a hand through his sleep-mussed hair, looking between her and his son. “Damned if I know,” he said roughly. “I was just coming for you.”
“For me? Why?”
“Because he was dreaming and I couldn’t get him out of it.”
“I wasn’t dreaming!” Ricky cried.
She crossed to him on shaky legs. Ricky didn’t look at her. He was staring past her to Dallas, and her head spun because he looked angry and accusing as well.
What was going on here?
“You saw, Dad! You saw her, too!” His chin trembled. “I wasn’t asleep. You saw!”
“Saw what?” She put a hand to his forehead to see if he was feverish.
“Mom.” And he started crying.
Ellen’s hand froze. For a wild moment, she thought he was calling her that and shock flew through her. Then she understood and something sank inside her fast, something nauseating and cold.
“You saw your mother?” she whispered. No, no, please, no.
Ricky finally looked at her, wiping a hand under his nose. “Right there, where Dad’s standing now. I mean, I was dreaming at first, but it was scary, so I woke up and she was there and she was talking—but only her mouth moved so I couldn’t hear anything. And then I got real scared, so I hollered for Dad and he woke up and he saw, too! You did, Dad. Why won’t you admit it?”
Dallas came very slowly to the bed. She felt him move up behind her and sensed rather than saw that he was struggling with something. He knelt next to her, at the side of the bed.
“Listen, Sport. It’s been three years since Mom died. You never dreamed—” He broke off at Ricky’s mutinous look. “Okay, you never saw her before in all this time. So how come she’s back now? What’s going on?”