“I know, I’m an ass,” he murmured into my cheek.
I pulled myself away from his lean body. “No argument here. And I am not some soldier who signed up for this sort of thing, so stop barking orders at me.”
“I’m sorry. I get a bit…”
“Dictatorial?” I offered.
He gave me an awkward glance. “I was looking for something more like curt, actually. I promise I’ll try to do better.” He paused for a moment as he gazed about the property. “Nicci, when this is over, will you continue to stay here? It’s very isolated and a woman alone, well, I don’t care where you live, but it isn’t safe.”
I looked down at the hammer in my hand. “I already made up my mind before we came out here to sell the place. I’m ready for a fresh start.”
“That’s good. When I head back to New York, I would have a difficult time knowing that you were still staying out here on your own.”
I started back to the garage. “I’m sure once you’re back in New York you’ll have forgotten all about me,” I said over my shoulder.
He laughed behind me. “Wanna bet?”
I stopped and took a breath. I slowly turned around to face him. “Don’t do that. Don’t lead me on and make me think you’re interested when we both know damn well you’re not.” I moved to walk away.
His hands were instantly on me. “I’m tired of you getting under my skin,” he declared as he pulled me into his arms. “I want you out of my system.”
His lips came down on mine. I let the hammer fall from my hand as the warm rush of desire surged through me. I molded my body against his as I reached up and buried my hands in his short-cropped hair. His kisses burned against me and my skin tingled with excitement. I could hear my breath coming in short gasps as his kisses traveled down my neck.
He stopped kissing me and looked into my eyes. “We have to finish unpacking. Later, when we have settled in and the house is secured,” he kissed my forehead, “I’ll do this the right way.”
Standing beside us, I saw the house where David and I had shared so many happy memories. I knew what it was like to feel wanted and loved in that house. I didn’t want to go backwards in my life. I was worth more than a few nights of meaningless sex. I pulled away from his embrace.
“And when this is all over? Then what?” I asked.
Dallas said nothing. His eyes remained focused on the field behind me.
“You’ll go back to New York and I will just be another notch on your gun belt.”
“Nicci,” he sighed. “Why are you making this more complicated than it is?”
I picked up the hammer from the ground. “Because I want more, Dallas. More than you’re obviously willing to give.”
Tightening my fingers around the hammer in my hand, I turned away from him. And without saying another word, I headed to the garage and the unfinished window.
* * *
For dinner, Dallas wanted steak and eggs. He prepared the simple meal on the old kitchen stove while I made myself a light salad. I had lost my appetite ever since his kiss earlier that day. Suddenly the prospect of choosing a meal from our stocked pantry became too much of an effort.
We were sitting at the antique round oak dining room table silently eating our food. I could feel his eyes on me as I rolled around a cherry tomato on my salad plate.
“You need to eat more than that,” Dallas insisted. “You have to keep up your strength.”
“Yes, Dallas,” I answered automatically, not really paying attention to what he said.
He stabbed at his steak with his fork. “I’ve sealed off that sunroom with the extra plywood you had in the garage. It’s not very sturdy, but someone will have to make some noise to break through.” He paused as he sawed a piece of steak off with his knife. “I want us both sleeping downstairs. You can have the sofa and I’ll sleep on the floor next to you. Only use the upstairs for taking a shower or changing clothes, and even then, I want you to come and get me when you go up there. You are never to go upstairs alone without me, understand?” He placed the lump of steak in his mouth.
I said nothing. His eyes turned from me and inspected the portrait hanging on the wall behind me. It was the painting David had done of me sitting at that very table, typing away on the refurbished typewriter he had bought for me.
Dallas nodded to the painting. “When did he do that?”
I looked down at my plate. “It was the last painting he did.”
“But you sold or gave away most of the others, why keep this one?”
I pushed my plate away. “It’s what David wanted for me. He wanted me to write.”
“But you are a writer.”
“Not before I met David. He made me realize I was a writer and not a nurse. He believed in me and taught me to believe in myself. He changed everything for me.” I turned and inspected the painting. “That will always be a reminder of what he did for me. He brought me to my senses.”
Dallas chewed furiously on his steak as a few minutes of uneasy silence passed between us. He suddenly threw his knife and fork down on his plate, shattering the quiet in the room.
“What the hell is the matter with you?” he yelled.
“Nothing,” I said, avoiding his eyes.
“Bullshit! What is it?”
I leaned back in my chair and folded my arms over my chest. “You kiss me and then talk of going back to New York. How do you think that makes me feel?”
He took a deep breath as the realization hit him. He put his hands on the table before him and peered down at the remainder of his steak. “It was a kiss, Nicci. Not an engagement ring. There can be no happily ever after with a guy like me. You need to understand that.” He looked up at me. “I’m just saving you from a lot of frustration.”
“Who in the hell do you think you are? And where do you get off thinking that you can just kiss me and walk away without ever asking me how I feel or what I think or what I want?”
He threw his hands in the air. “You know what I am! Do you think we could ever have a life together? Come on, Nicci, you know what I do. Do you think someone like me could just—”
“I know what you are,” I cut him off, “and what you do, Dallas. But that doesn’t mean you have to continue being that man.” I paused and waited for his reaction. After several seconds, it became apparent that my words had not hit home. “My cousin was right about you,” I finally said. “You’re afraid. Afraid of being with someone again.”
“You’ve got me all wrong, Nicci,” he argued, his voice taut with anger. “In my line of work, I can’t need anybody.”
“Oh please! Don’t you think you’re taking yourself just a bit too seriously? It’s not like you work as a secret agent for some foreign government. You could leave Simon, you could go work with your uncle, or you could go off and sail around the world. You have options.”
“I’m not David!” he screamed as he jumped from his chair. “I’m not going to give up everything to run away and paint pictures with you!”
He stormed off into the kitchen. I rose from my chair and followed behind him.
“I know you’re not David,” I said calmly. “I don’t want you to be David.”
He stopped at the kitchen sink, spun around, and stared at me. “Then what in the hell do you want from me?”
“I want you to be you, Dallas.”
He laughed. It was a cruel sound that I had never heard from him before. “Be me? I’ve been in so deep for so long I don’t even know who that is anymore.”
I watched him standing by my kitchen sink and suddenly the man I had known for the past few weeks disappeared. A tormented stranger filled with all the self-doubt that years of loss, lies, and cruelty can inflict looked back at me.
“You told me once you would leave before this job took too much of your soul. I think the time has come for you to start thinking about a career change. You’re on the brink, Dallas, and if you do this for much longer you won’t have any soul left to save.”
He sighed and shook his head. “And what makes you such an expert on saving souls?”
I walked over to him. “All my life I have watched people sell their souls to attain money, power, or great social standing. And you’re beginning to look like them, sound like them, and even act like them.” I gazed up into his dark blue eyes. “People like Sammy and Michael have nothing left to save, Dallas, and I don’t want to see you end up like that.”
“Stay out of my life, Nicci,” he growled and then made his way back to the table. He sat down and started ripping into what was left of his steak.
I stayed back in the kitchen, smiling to myself. I had won the battle. Now all I had to do was survive the war.
Chapter 23
Over the next two days, I avoided being around Dallas as much as possible. He was always there, however, giving me orders about doing this for him or doing something to make our little fortress more secure. I tried to stay in the living room most of the time, sitting by the stone fireplace and reading from the assortment of books I had kept at the house. Dallas was usually close by, staring out of the window, cooking in the kitchen, continually checking the perimeter of the house, or pacing back and forth in front of me. It was like living with a frustrated soldier who was teetering on the edge, eager for a good fight, but also eager to avoid one.
Every afternoon, we would go outside and Dallas would give me shooting lessons on a target range made up of some old cans.
“Keep your feet apart and let your breath out when you fire the gun,” he instructed one cloudy afternoon. “Don’t breathe in when you pull the trigger. And never take your eye off the target,” he added as he started placing some more bullets in the chamber of my hammerless .38. “Not even after you’ve hit someone. Make sure they are down, and never lower your aim on them. Kick any gun they have near their body away, far away, so they can’t reach it and shoot you.”
I nodded and watched as he finished loading my gun.
“And always remember, Nicci,” he said, handing me back the loaded firearm. “If you ever have to shoot at an intruder in your home, you empty the gun into them first, then ask questions later.”
“And after I have killed my intruder, then what?”
He cocked his head slightly to the side. “What do you mean?”
“How do you deal with killing someone?”
“You don’t.” Dallas shook his head. “You just know that if it’s a question of you or them, you will always choose survival. Trust me, Nicci. It’s instinct.”
“And have you ever killed anyone?”
He looked past me to the makeshift target he had set up about fifty yards away. “I’ll just go set up some more cans.” He turned back at me. “Keep that gun pointed at the ground until I get back,” he ordered and then he grinned. “I know just how much you would like to use that thing on me.”
After target practice, we would usually walk around the property to stretch our legs and relieve the tedium of the day. Dallas would complain about the isolation of the place and would swear every time an insect floated by him.
“I hate bugs,” he mumbled one afternoon while swatting at a passing fly.
I laughed at him. “Bugs? You?”
He turned to me and scowled. Something he seemed to be doing a lot lately. “Everybody hates bugs.”
I grinned, happy to find a weakness in his armor plating. “I would have thought a spy boy like you wouldn’t let anything as insignificant as a bug bother him.”
“I live in New York, Nicci,” he shouted. “Men with guns and knives I can handle. Flies and mosquitoes are another story.”
Whenever we went upstairs to shower or change, he would wait discreetly outside the bedroom door. Gone were his words of encouragement and his endearments. As the distance between us grew, I would often reflect on all the things he had said to me, all the meaningful glances, the tender moments, and wonder if any of it had been genuine.
* * *
After five days in our self-imposed prison, the tension between us had reduced our relationship to a series of cold stares and grunts of disapproval. It was only a matter of time before one of us snapped. That night, I discovered how dangerously close to the edge Dallas had been pushed.
Dallas was standing by the window gazing out into the darkness. I sat on the couch deep into a mystery novel.
“You read too damn much,” he grumbled.
I frowned at his back. “I have a brain and I like to use it.”
“That’s your problem, you think too damn much.”
“Anything else?”
He turned away from the window and scowled at me. “You’re driving me crazy just sitting there every night like some zombie.” He paused. “Why aren’t you writing?”
“I can’t concentrate on my novel with you hovering around me all the time like some depraved warden.” I returned to my book, eager to avoid his hostile stare.
“Isn’t there something else you can do?”
I put the book down in my lap. “What would you suggest I do, knit?”
“Why, you impudent—”
“Impudent implies disrespect,” I interrupted him as I picked up the book in my lap again. “I never respected you to begin with, so how could I possibly disrespect you now.”
He came toward me, his dark blue eyes fuming. “You little…” He grabbed me from the couch and pulled me up to face him. “You like playing games with me, don’t you?”
I tried to wrench myself free. “I’m not playing games, Dallas. You’ve been acting like some deranged psychotic, attacking me with every glance or with every word you utter, and now you accuse me of playing games?” I finally shirked off his arm.
He spun away from me and threw his hands in the air. “You’re driving me crazy!” he yelled.
I threw the book down on the couch. “Me? What in the hell have I done to you?”
He turned to me and then I saw it. The muscles in his body tensed while the frustration in his face was almost too painful to witness. His eyes started taking in my body like a starved man seeing food for the first time in days.
“I see,” I said, suddenly aware of the power I held over him. I slowly stepped closer to him. “I’m disturbing your concentration, is that it?”
He moved away from me and took up a position in front of the stone fireplace. He ran his hand over the back of his neck and then grabbed for the old oak mantle in front of him. I saw how his knuckles shone white against the dark wood.
“Damn right you are.” His voice sounded strained and unsteady. “And I have had just about enough of it.”
When he turned to face me again, his eyes were filled with a disturbing heat. The intensity of his gaze frightened me, but before I could step away, he was on me. He threw his arms about my body and pulled me to him.
I struggled to free myself, but he held me even tighter. “Dallas, stop this,” I pleaded.
“Every time I touch you, kiss you, you think of him, don’t you?” He moved his face closer to mine. “Well, tonight I’m going to make sure you think only of me.”
His lips were instantly on mine. My willpower was retreating by the second as the smell of him, the feel of his body, and the taste of him filled my senses. I forced myself to think of David. This was our house, and Dallas was intruding on our memories here. But as much as I concentrated on the image of David in my mind, my body fought back, dissolving David’s face behind a cloudy wave of overwhelming desire.
“You’re not going to shut me out anymore,” he whispered against my cheek. “For once, forget about your damned principles and just give in to me.”
He kissed the nape of my neck and then when his teeth sank into my flesh, my body shuddered. I tried to reason with myself that this was a mistake, that we were going nowhere, and that I was a woman who needed more.
I opened my eyes and looked into his face. I thought I would never see his cold blue orbs warm for anything, but at that moment they were on fire, for me. I reached up my hand and
ran my fingers along the curve of his cheek and down to his lips. I let the passion flowing inside of me silence my doubts.
“You win, Dallas,” I sighed. “I can’t fight you anymore.”
“Now you’re finally being reasonable.”
He pushed me over to the couch as his lips desperately explored my face and neck.
“We can’t go to the bedroom,” he said breathlessly as he pulled my sweater over my head. “We need to stay down here.” He tossed my sweater to the floor and then quickly removed my bra. “Damn, I don’t have any protection!” he cursed, his voice filled with frustration. “I didn’t—”
“Dallas,” I silenced his words as I ran my trembling fingertips over his lips. “Stop being so damned practical.” I hungrily pulled his mouth back down on mine.
He unbuttoned his shirt as he kissed me. He threw the shirt to the floor next to my sweater. I ran my hands up and down his muscular chest. As I stroked his flesh, he fumbled with the zipper on my jeans and then slowly wiggled me out of them. His lips explored my naked body, tempting my skin with tender kisses. His mouth came to settle over my right breast. As his teeth bit down hard on my nipple, I bent my head back and let a satisfying groan escape my lips.
I pulled at the zipper on his jeans and eagerly helped remove them. Once free of our encumbering clothes, I let my fingers travel every inch of his lean, hard body. I reveled in the feel of his flesh against mine, the smell of his skin, and the touch of his anxious hands. He shuddered when I reached down and gently stroked his erection.
“You’re gonna drive me crazy doing that,” he whispered into my cheek.
He teasingly ran his fingers along the tender folds between my legs as his mouth clasped over my left nipple. A guttural cry emanated from me as the waves of pleasure pulsated throughout my body. And when the orgasm finally ripped through me, his mouth found mine, silencing my scream.
While still throbbing with satisfaction, Dallas spread my knees apart and repositioned himself over me. I eagerly lifted my body in anticipation. He reached behind me and grabbed my buttocks, slamming his hips into mine.
“I can’t wait,” he murmured against my lips.
The Nicci Beauvoir Collection: The Complete Nicci Beauvoir Series Page 54