Rock Bottom (The Gifted Realm #4)

by Jillian Neal

  “Really?” her brow knitted deeply. “You would do that?” She was unable to hide her disbelief.

  Dan began mentally lambasting himself, but he answered her question and decided to jump in with both feet.

  “Apparently, my reputation is worse than I even knew, but, Fionna, this is sort of all new for me. My asking you to come here with me is unlike anything I have ever done, but if you’ll give me a chance, if you’ll help me learn how to do this, I would really like to be in a serious relationship with you. There’s kind of a bunch of shit that would require, but can I just have this one week to try to prove myself to you? Please?” Terror filled his heart yet again as he awaited her answer.

  “Tell me what all of your tattoos mean.”

  His brow furrowed, until he suddenly realized she was testing him. His reply held the answer to his plea. If he blew her off and made something up about his ink, she would know, and that would tell her that he hadn’t meant what he’d just said about being in a relationship with her.

  She knew that his tattoos meant something very personal to him. They weren’t just random pieces of artwork he’d gotten drunk one night and had someone do. Each of them held a piece of his soul.

  “Ok,” he swallowed hard and pulled off the t-shirt he was wearing. “Uh, the one on my back is for Amelia, but you probably knew that.” He pointed to the large Celtic cross and vines of flowers over his right shoulder blade. Amelia’s initials and birth and death dates were intertwined in the roping on the cross and in the flowered vines.

  Fionna looked devastated as she placed her hand tenderly on his back, near the tattoo. “I really am so sorry for your loss.”

  He knew that she truly was. She didn’t want him to hurt. Her strength and honesty helped him to go on. He drew another breath.

  “Uh, this one,” he pointed to his left bicep, “is the Kanji sign for warrior.” He pointed to the symbol inside the circle of Latin words.

  She nodded and kept her hand on his back. He felt it. The hypnotic, intoxicating peace washed over him. Her energy permeated the skin of his back. She was giving him strength and peace. Her acceptance soothed his soul like nothing ever had.

  He panted. It was incredible. He wanted to strip her down and lay her out. He could think of little else but plunging her depths. He wanted to feel more, but he forced himself to go on.

  “Uh,” he breathed and tried to remember where he’d left off.

  “These are Latin,” he circled his finger around the words that encased the symbol of the warrior. She studied them intently like nothing had ever meant more to her.

  “What do they mean?”

  “Uh, these,” he pointed to the words over the symbol, “mean ‘relentless pursuit’, and these,” he moved his hand to the bottom of the ring of words, “mean ‘vanquish defeat’.” He studied her and tried to gauge what she was thinking.

  “Wow, I hope that’s not about another girl.” She grinned up at him. That heavenly smile lit the darkest places in his battered soul. The way she seemed to accept every piece of him was astonishing.

  “Relentless pursuit might just be about you, honey.” He watched as her smile stretched the width of her face. He glanced down at the tattoo on his chest and hesitated for a moment.

  “You don’t have to tell me anymore,” Fionna offered. “I think I know what that one means.” She could feel his terror and his sorrow. She could feel it all.

  He couldn’t keep anything from her. He knew in that moment, but with sudden realization, he also knew that he didn’t want to keep anything from her.

  “No, I want to tell you.” He was going to do this. He was going to let her in. “Uh, that snake is a Cascavel cobra. It’s one of the most vicious snakes in the world and the name one of Wretchkinsides top guys went by. He was the one who kidnapped Amelia, and he’s the guy I killed several weeks ago when we tried to rescue Samantha Peterson. He did some heinous things to the women he kidnapped for Wretchkinsides, hence the spear through the snake.”

  He forced the words from his lips, and felt the harrowing grief fight its way back into his heart and into his soul, but she felt it as well.

  She flooded him with warmth and the dizzying energy that made him feel the hope that vanquished the fear. She made him believe, for the first time in a long time, that life might really be worth living.

  “Ok,” she smiled up at him and swallowed down fear of her own. “Ok, I want to do this. I want to be in a relationship with you, but just me, ok? No strippers, no one else. I still don’t know what all this entails. You keep saying there’s other stuff, but you aren’t ready to tell me just yet. So, let’s just have an amazing week together,” she stated knowingly.

  Suddenly, he felt like she’d just made his entire world fall into perfect accord. Dan nodded. “Of course, Fionna. I don’t do the ‘more than one woman’ thing. I told you last night, honey, I broke it off with Bridgette when I signed the papers to get her out of jail on her prostitution charge.”

  She nodded, and tried not to look as disgusted as she felt, but she wasn’t able to hide it. He couldn’t blame her.

  While forcing out his mind’s badgering reminders that he wasn’t good enough, he instantly decided that he would find a way to make himself good enough for her.

  Dan pulled her to him and paused for a split second. He gazed at her lips, hungry to feel her again as he leaned and devoured her mouth.

  She slid her hands down his bare chest and let her thumbs drag over his nipples, and he groaned from the sensation.

  His reactions continued to shock him. His reactions to her weren’t calculated. She made him say, and do, and feel things he never thought possible.

  He didn’t make noises like that, noises that let women know he was turned on and wanting them. He made women make sounds like that. He would never have revealed even that much of himself to anyone, but somehow she was able to cut through all of the layers of pain and volatility, all of the fear and revenge, and find him underneath it all. To his utter shock, she seemed to like what she discovered.

  A low, delicious moan stuttered from her as Dan edged the knit shirt she was wearing up and slipped his hands to her waist. Suddenly he felt seventeen again, like he had no self-control whatsoever. He pushed her shirt up higher until he reached her bra.

  With a quick move, he lifted the tight shirt over her cleavage and pulled down the cup over her right breast. Her nipples throbbed. They pulsed for his hungry lips. He moved his mouth to her as a desperate moan sang from her soul.

  Her head fell back. She pushed what she wanted tended to in his face.

  His body began to ache for her in ardent need. He wanted the delicious drug that made everything between them perfect, and beautiful, and gave him peace. It was a sensation he couldn’t recall ever feeling before.

  “Tell me, baby doll,” he commanded as he huffed hot breath over her nipple, and closed his eyes. He caught the rhythms of her energy again as he began to understand more about being with her. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

  He let his fingers and thumb circle her nipple. He watched it pucker raw and beg for his attention. “I know what you need, sweetheart. I’m going to give it to you, but I want to hear you say it.” He felt her energy arc rapidly.

  “Please, please,” she whimpered. Her head shook as her body began to writhe in his arms.

  “I know it hurts, doesn’t it, baby doll?” He gently touched the cherry-red tip as her body flinched and tensed in her need. “And I know how to make it feel better. Just tell me.”

  “Suck me,” finally spilled from her lips, and a deep evulsive growl seared from his chest.

  He lowered his head and lapped his tongue over the swollen, puckered mound. Dan worked quickly. He pulled her breast deep into his mouth and sucked fervently. He had it. He could feel it wash over him again. It wasn’t as strong here as when he took her, but it was slightly stronger than when he kissed her.

  He pulled and sucked until she was quaking and moaning
from the sensation. The very essence of her moved through his mouth. Unable to stop himself, not even taking a moment to consider that some women didn’t like it quite so intense, he somehow knew that she would. He let his teeth slide tenderly along the swollen curve, and then nipped the most sensitive part of her breasts.

  She went wild. Her eyes flashed in heated desire as she pitched and writhed.

  He reached back, desperate for more, and popped the clasp of her bra with one hand. Her breasts spilled forward as he groaned in need.

  Dan moved his head to her left breast and began to lave that one as well. He bathed her nipple with his tongue and lifted their weight in his hands. He squeezed and groped her, and tended to the fevered swollen mounds of flesh as she cried out for him. She trembled for him. It drove him wild, but a moment later she backed away.

  “Dan,” she tried to catch her breath.

  “I wasn’t finished, baby doll. Come here to me,” he demanded. Her breath came in quick gasping pants as she nodded.

  “I know… but….” she swallowed down her own need and desire. “Aren’t we supposed to go out to lunch with Emily and Rainer?” She didn’t appear to want to leave anymore than he did. All thoughts of food had been replaced with a voracious hunger for everything that resided inside of her.

  While biting back the string of curse words that threatened to spew from his mouth, Dan drew a deep breath. He shook his head slightly, and forced himself to think with the head above his belt line.

  “I’ve really never been on a vacation, other than my parents dragging me to the Outer Banks every freaking summer growing up, but I will say, the next time we go on a trip I think I would prefer to travel without Lawson and Ms. Haydenshire, if it’s all the same to you.”

  Fionna giggled. She shook her head at him. After giving her a wry grin, he joined in her laughter.

  “I’m not certain if I’m more astonished that you’ve never been on a vacation, or that you’re already planning our next one,” she admitted hesitantly.

  With a quick glance at his watch, Dan smiled and winked at Fionna.

  “Actually, I’d say Lawson has about five more minutes of groveling before Emily gives him back his all-access pass.”

  He reveled in Fionna’s adorable laughter. “And how exactly do you figure that?”

  “Well,” he laughed, “as I believe I heard her say that he actually said the words, ‘those are mine, you are mine, and no one else will see them ever,’ then yeah, I’d say that’s another good five minutes.”

  Vindico shuddered over Rainer’s horrible choice of verbiage. Fionna nodded as they both cracked up at the rather chauvinistic declaration.

  As she giggled, Fionna hemmed. “He’s really so sweet to her. He’s just very protective. You should have seen him when she was getting her tattoo. He was a mess. It was kind of adorable. He really, really loves her. You know?” she lost all sense of teasing in her realization.

  Dan studied her for a long moment before nodding his understanding.

  “Yeah, I do know, and I would have to say that the over-protective thing tends to come with the Predilect.” He watched her eyes close, and hoped she caught on to what he was insinuating.

  “That a warning, Officer Vindico?” she turned her inquisitive eyes back on him.

  “Yeah,” he paused. He was taken aback again by her tender beauty, and the way she understood him as he concluded, “it is.”

  With a broad grin, she drew a deep breath. What he’d said had made her happy. He could feel it suddenly; the energy he’d drawn from her breasts still resided inside of him.

  “Good,” she breathed, “because I think I could really get used to that.”

  Dan moved back to her and brushed a kiss across her forehead. He inhaled the sweet scent of her hair. The vanilla and coconut musk filled his lungs and then his soul.

  “Good,” he husked, “because Lawson and I have a lot in common,” he commented with a cocky grin, but she didn’t return the smile. She studied him more intently.

  “Dan,” she eased. He didn’t reply verbally. He simply raised his eyebrows. “Uh, I know that this is kind of moving really fast, and I guess I sort of knew you in school, and I graduated with Kara and everything, but….” She seemed to try to weave her feelings into a tapestry of words.

  “I guess what I’m trying to say is that I understand if you aren’t ready to talk about it yet, but I know that you tried to save Governor Peterson’s daughter and you killed that guy.” She gestured to the snake on his chest. She hemmed again as pain etched her expression and her voice. “Everything leaves its mark, Dan, and if you ever want to talk about it, then I’m here.”

  She offered without expectation that he would immediately delve into the hellish abyss that was Cascavel. It was a patient offer, one that would remain standing until he was ready to accept it.

  Dan swallowed down the emotion that had come on him so suddenly. He tried to navigate his way back to the incredible woman standing before him. The long, confusing paths seemed too much to navigate alone anymore.

  “I may just take you up on that.”

  He couldn’t do it, not yet, but with stunning realization, he understood. Until that endless moment with Fionna, he’d never even been willing to consider talking about it with anyone.

  She seemed perfectly fine with his reply. She gave him a smile that he swore could light the entire world, and then reached and handed him his shirt.

  With a wry grin, he chuckled. Very few women ever asked him to put his shirt back on. He considered everything she’d just said.

  “So, you graduated with Kara?”

  Fionna nodded, and checked her makeup in one of the mirrors that hung on the living room wall.

  “That’s good. That way, you missed most of Lindley’s insanity when she was at Venton,” he sighed as he tried to piece together his life in relation to hers.

  Fionna giggled and seemed to recall Dan’s youngest sister.

  “I was, however, there the day she came to class with no clothes on, senior year, the day the Angels were coming to see me challenge, actually,” she informed him wryly.

  Dan shuddered. He shook his head. The tales of his sister’s antics were known far and wide, and the embarrassment she’d brought his family infuriated him.

  Fionna grabbed her purse and put on a little bit of lip gloss. She grinned at him as she considered.

  “I always sort of thought of Lindley as being misunderstood.”

  “Well, people who are insane can be difficult to understand,” Dan quipped.

  Fionna giggled heartily. He could sit and listen to her laugh for hours. The thought frightened him momentarily. ‘Don’t screw this up, Dan.’ Governor Haydenshire’s words lit in his mind, and his determination to do this right reaffirmed itself.

  Fionna bit her lip hesitantly as she stared at Dan. She wanted to ask something.

  “Go ahead.”

  Fionna hemmed and then shook her head.

  “Come on; although, I will say that if it’s about my sister, then it’s probably true.” He took Fionna’s hands and pulled her to him. He wanted to feel her body next to his. She buried her head in his chest and let him cradle her tenderly.

  She seemed unable to keep herself from his tender care. The motion soothed Dan’s weary soul.

  “Did she really offer to give Chancellor Wilshire a blow job every day if he wouldn’t make her go to her classes her senior year?” The question seemed to have spilled from her beautiful lips without her permission, but he wanted her to ask anything she wanted to know.

  “Yes,” Dan shuddered as he recalled that phone call.

  “Wow,” Fionna stunned.

  “Yeah.”

  * * *

  A distraction came in the form of Rainer and Emily knocking on their door.

  Dan linked his hand with Fionna’s. Walking in the bright sunshine with her beside him felt like heaven. He wanted to live in the light and the warmth of her. No one on the streets of Sydne
y paid them any attention at all. It was blissful perfection.

  They didn’t have to walk very far until they’d stumbled upon a sandwich and soup shop, just a few blocks from the hotel.

  Dan was extremely pleased that Fionna held his hand the entire walk, and talked to him more than she talked to Emily. But once they were seated, she and Emily sat beside one another and jumped back into an animated conversation.

  The frustration must have been evident on his face, because Rainer chuckled.

  “It’s going to take more than one day,” he whispered so quietly that the girls didn’t seem to notice he’d even spoken.

  As they perused the menu, Dan slid his right hand under the table and squeezed Fionna’s thigh. She gave him that grin again, the one that was somehow sexy as hell and sweet as heaven, all formed on one set of luscious lips.

  They discussed options of things to try and, after they’d ordered, everyone joined in a conversation about the things they liked.

  Dan watched Rainer feed Emily bites of the rice salad that went with his soup and sandwich.

  He also took in Fionna’s reaction to what Dan considered slightly over the top doting, but Fionna smiled sweetly and plunged her own fork back into the selection of local fruits that she’d ordered as a side.

  As the waiter returned to provide them with ice cream menus and to collect their lunch plates, Fionna’s eyes goggled. Dan turned all of his attention to her, but she leaned toward Emily, placed her hand in front of her mouth, and whispered in Emily’s ear for several seconds.

  Emily grimaced slightly and then bit her bottom lip in concentration. Her eyes lit, and she leaned back in to whisper a quick response in Fionna’s ear.

  Fionna nodded and then Emily leaned back in, but this time Fionna shook her head. Emily considered again. Then with a nod she continued the conversation.

  Fionna looked relieved as she nodded and hugged Emily. Whatever Emily’s solution to Fionna’s problem was, Fionna deeply appreciated it.

  Rainer had watched the entire exchange, as well, along with Dan’s reactions. He took Emily’s hand and smiled at her.