by Paula Graves
And any thought of chastity went right out the window.
Chapter Ten
Briar straddled Dalton’s thighs, sliding forward until he felt the soft heat of her sex settle flush against his growing hardness, flesh separated from flesh by a couple of layers of clothing. The sensation rocketed straight to his brain, exploding like fireworks and spreading molten pleasure to every part of his body. Convulsively tightening his trembling fingers in her tangle of curls, he flattened his other hand against the small of her back, urging her hips forward to increase the delicious friction building between their bodies.
He nuzzled his way down the curve of her throat, his lips brushing lightly over her skin. He kissed the skin beneath her jaw, the delicate curve of her chin, then lightly nipped his way back up to her mouth.
Her lips parting beneath the pressure of his own, she surged toward him, flattening her breasts against his chest. Her fingers skimmed his rib cage through his shirt, exploring the ridges as if seeking to map every contour. Her actions sparked a fresh surge of heat through his blood and fire along the path her fingers traveled, until his whole body felt on the verge of combustion. He didn’t even care when her gentle touches tugged the still-tender skin of his wounded side.
Somewhere in the depths of his desire-addled brain, he knew what they were doing was a mistake. But he couldn’t seem to quell the primal urge to bury his hardness in her soft heat, and her sweet, fierce response to his touch drove out what remained of his good sense.
So easy, he thought. So easy to bury himself inside her and forget about everything else. Forget the tatters of his life. The danger gathering like a firestorm outside the walls of their sensual cocoon.
So easy to drop his guard.
Just as he’d dropped it earlier tonight in the parking lot.
With another groan, he dragged his mouth from hers, his breath coming in harsh, rapid gasps. He caught her hips in both hands and moved her carefully away from his own hips. “Briar, this isn’t a good idea.”
She dropped her head forward, let it fall against his shoulder. Her curls whispered against his cheeks. “I know.”
For a long moment, they just breathed together, hitching, syncopated gasps that slowly ebbed into gentle sighs. Finally, she rolled away from his lap, slumping back against the sofa cushions. “I’m sorry,” she said.
Her words surprised him so much that he couldn’t stop a soft huff of laughter. “For what?”
“For...that.”
He couldn’t quite stop himself from teasing her a little. “For riding me like a cowgirl in a rodeo?”
She flashed him a look that made him laugh a little harder.
“Come on, Briar. We’re adults. No harm done, right?”
Except he wasn’t so sure about that, was he? He wasn’t a man prone to indulging his body’s urges without consideration and thought. His control, in fact, was damned near legendary, leading more than one woman he’d dated to accuse him of having ice in his veins instead of blood.
But no ice could have survived the flood of fire that had swamped his body at Briar’s touch. He didn’t know why she had evoked such an uncharacteristic response in him, but he couldn’t deny it had happened. And he had a bad feeling that if he gave it too much more thought, he wouldn’t find the answer reassuring.
But whatever his reason for losing control, he was certain of one thing: he would be a fool to let it happen again.
“I wasn’t expecting that,” she ventured after another moment of silence. “I don’t— This isn’t something I do. You know?”
“I wasn’t expecting it, either,” he admitted.
“I know it’s the twenty-first century and women are free to embrace their sexuality, but...” Her gaze lifted, finally, and settled on his face. “I just don’t do this.”
“Believe it or not, neither do I. Not out of the blue this way.” He hadn’t meant to admit that fact to her. He could have shrugged it off with jaded humor, as if he went about seducing women every day. Better than admit that her touch had damned near unraveled him.
“So we agree?” she asked.
He gave her a wary look. “About what?”
“That we don’t need to do this again.”
What he needed, he thought, barely tamping down a shudder of raw need, was to strip off those snug little jeans of hers and sink into the softness hidden between her sleek thighs. That’s what he needed.
Aloud, however, he said, “Agreed.” He pushed himself up from the sofa and looked down at her. “I need some sleep. I bet you do, too.”
She stared up at him, her eyes dark and liquid. The urge to seduce her all over again, to take her up to his bedroom and finish what they’d started, damned near overwhelmed him once more.
But she rose to her feet with steady, unhurried dignity and took a step away from him. “If you’ll make sure the alarm is set, I’ll check all the locks.”
Working in silent accord, they kept their distance from each other as they fortified their defenses against the danger outside. But as Dalton found his gaze straying toward Briar’s slim figure over and over, he realized there might be no way to defend himself against the unexpected danger of Briar Blackwood living under his roof.
* * *
TWILIGHT CAST A deep indigo gloom over the convenience store parking lot, broken only by the flash of cherry lights spinning atop the fire department emergency bus. A crowd had gathered, vultures circling a fresh kill. They stood in a writhing knot of anticipation near a pickup truck parked not far from the store entrance.
Briar made her way through the throbbing mass of onlookers, her pulse racing so frantically that she couldn’t make out individual beats, just a cacophony of terror building to incessant white noise in her ears.
The crowd seemed to go on for miles, rolling around her like waves in the ocean, prolonging the dread. But finally, she reached the center of the throng to look upon the spectacle that had drawn them.
He lay facedown on the dirty parking lot pavement, utterly still. Beneath him a river of red spread in lightly undulating waves, the ripples slowly dying away to nothing, the memory of his life pulse fading into stillness.
She tore her gaze away and looked at the ground beside him. A torn bag lay next to him, spilling its contents on the edge of his pooling blood. A jug of milk. A box of cereal. Both stained red.
And beside the torn shopping bag, a turtle-shaped backpack, straps severed, as if someone had ripped it off the little boy who’d worn it.
“No,” she moaned, but the words felt as if they stuck in her aching throat. She crouched beside the fallen warrior, heedless of the blood staining her hands. “Please, please—” She lifted a shaking hand to his pale face, touched his cold cheek.
His eyes snapped open. “Briar?”
She jarred awake, her heart rat-a-tatting against her breastbone. It was still dark outside, the only light coming from the open doorway.
In the rectangle of light from the hall, Dalton’s tall muscular silhouette stood over her. “I’m sorry to wake you,” he said quietly, glancing at the sleeping little boy by her side. “I have to leave for a while.”
She squinted at the travel alarm she’d set on the bedside table. Not even six yet. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s my father,” he answered. “He had some sort of attack. He’s in the hospital in Maryville.”
She pushed her tangled hair out of her face, the jangling sensation in her sleep-addled brain finally subsiding. “How bad?”
“He’s stable, but nobody’s been able to give me any information beyond that. I just didn’t want you to wake up and wonder where I’d gone. And maybe we should call Nix or someone to come stay with you?”
“No need to bother Nix. Those hillbillies can’t get to me here the way they can out in the woods. And if
they try, well, I’m armed and lookin’ for a little payback.” She pushed off the covers and rolled to a sitting position on the edge of the bed, relieved she’d decided to wear sweats to bed the night before. Of course, considering how close they’d come to getting naked together the night before, her attack of modesty was a little tardy. “Have you eaten anything?”
“No, but—”
She stood and wrapped her hand firmly around his arm, nudging him toward the door. “You can’t go to Maryville hungry. Not in your condition.”
He didn’t protest as she led him downstairs to the kitchen. He even sat quietly at the breakfast bar and let her take over. She darted a look at him as she searched the cabinets for his cookware, seeing in the glare of the kitchen light what the shadows of his bedroom had hidden.
He was in emotional shock.
She put down the frying pan she’d just retrieved and crossed to the bar, reaching for his hands. They were cool to the touch.
His haunted green eyes rose to meet hers. “I told him I was ashamed I’d ever called him my father. That’s the last thing I said to him.”
She tightened her grip on his hands. “So tell him you made a mistake.”
“What if he’s—”
“You just said he’s stable.”
“That could change. It could change before I get there.” He looked down at their clasped hands. “Briar, he could die before I get there.”
She wished she could go with him. Give him the moral support her friends had given her that night as she waited for word on her aunt’s condition. But she had to stay with Logan.
“Let me call somebody to go with you,” she suggested.
His gaze snapped up to meet hers. “There’s no one. Mother can’t—I don’t want her there until I know more.”
“There’s your brother. Or your sister.”
He closed his eyes. “I haven’t exactly given them any reason to want to hold my hand through this mess.”
“Family doesn’t need a reason.”
The vulnerability in his eyes when they met hers made her heart ache. “I can’t ask them.”
Maybe not, she thought.
But she could.
* * *
“IT WASN’T A HEART ATTACK.” The E.R. doctor had introduced himself as Dr. Treadway. He was a short stocky man in his early forties with thinning hair and a kind smile. “His blood pressure was elevated when he came into the E.R. and his heart rate was up. He was hyperventilating a bit, but we were able to get that under control with a sedative. We’re doing more tests to be sure, but the signs are pointing to an anxiety attack.”
Dalton covered his eyes with his hand for a moment, his body tingling with relief. “Can I see him?”
“There’s a guard posted outside his room. You’ll have to clear it with him.”
Of course. His father was still a prisoner. The judge in Barrowville had refused to set bail, considering Paul Hale a flight risk and a potential danger to Dana Massey.
But he didn’t look like a dangerous man, lying pale and groggy in the hospital bed. The guard turned out to be a man Dalton had met several times in his job as a prosecutor. He’d allowed Dalton into the room without protest.
Paul Hale turned his head at the sound of Dalton’s footsteps approaching the bed. Color flushed through his cheeks, driving out the pallor. “I didn’t expect to see you.”
Dalton pulled up a nearby chair. “I didn’t expect to be here.”
“They say I’ll live.”
“I’m glad.”
Paul’s gaze narrowed. “Are you?”
“I’m sorry about what I said to you before.”
“Which thing? You said a lot of things.”
Dalton felt a flurry of anger beating in his chest like bats flushed out of the dark bowels of a cavern. “You tried to shoot my sister.”
His father’s gaze snapped up to meet his. “Your sister.”
“That’s what she is.” The words flowed easily over his tongue, surprising him. But he felt a glimmer of freedom in saying the words aloud.
“I’ve never heard you call her that.”
“I haven’t called her that before.”
His father’s expression shifted to curiosity. “Why now?”
“I guess because I’ve had enough time to accept the truth of it. She’s my sister. Doyle Massey is my brother. Tallie Cumberland gave birth to me.” And your father-in-law stole me from her and gave me to you and your wife. And then made sure Tallie didn’t live to tell me the truth.
“Tallie Cumberland wasn’t your mother.”
“She wasn’t given the chance to be.”
Paul shifted restlessly in the hospital bed, the movement rattling the cuff chaining him to the bed. “That was your grandfather’s doing.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“Have you talked to the old man?”
Dalton shook his head. “I don’t expect to. He’s not talking to anyone but his lawyer.”
“How’s your mother? Does she know?”
“About your being here? No. I’ll call her later this morning to let her know.”
“Don’t let her come here. I don’t want her to see me this way.”
“She knows you’re in jail. Seeing you shackled to the bed won’t come as a surprise.”
“She trusted me to be her protector. Her rock.”
And he’d failed her, Dalton thought, trying not to think of his own near failure the night before. Trying not to remember how close he’d come to letting the man with the knife rip Briar Blackwood’s life into shreds.
“I can’t stay here long,” he said, reaching out to straighten the rumpled edge of the sheet covering his father.
“Late for work?” His father’s tone wavered between self-pity and a hint of admiration. Paul Hale had been enormously proud of Dalton’s work as a prosecutor. Ironic, really, given his current state of legal woes.
“I’m working from home today.” He didn’t elaborate. He didn’t quite trust his father enough to share Briar’s problems with him, or his own part in trying to keep her and her son alive. “But I have things to attend to.”
“I see.” His father’s chin lifted, vestiges of the old Hale pride evident in the set of his jaw and the steely coolness of his eyes.
“I’ll visit you when you’re out of here.”
“Back in jail, you mean.”
Dalton sighed, more disappointed than angry at his father. Progress, he supposed. “You did a terrible thing. Regardless of your motives, you could have killed Dana. She didn’t do a damned thing to deserve it.”
“She was going to rip us apart. She has ripped us apart.”
“Grandfather ripped us apart. With your help.” Dalton rose to his feet, needing to leave this room, to breathe something besides the poison of his father’s self-pity. “I’ll see you soon. I hope you continue feeling better.”
“I love you.” Paul’s voice followed him to the door.
Dalton paused in the doorway, turning slowly. “I love you, too. Dad,” he said.
And meant it.
In the hall, two people were waiting. They looked up at him warily through green eyes very like his own.
“Briar called us,” Dana Massey said, breaking the tense silence. “She said to tell you she was sorry for interfering.”
“But not sorry enough not to do it?” He wasn’t angry with her, he realized. He was actually rather glad to see his brother and sister waiting for him. Otherwise, he might be feeling pretty damned alone about now.
“If you want us to go, we’ll go,” Doyle said. “But we thought you should at least have the option of having someone here with you for this.”
“I don’t want you to go,” Dalton admitted.
&n
bsp; Dana lifted one hand to his arm, her touch tentative. “There’s a good coffee shop down the street from here. I discovered it when Doyle was in the hospital after his truck flipped.”
The accident his grandfather had caused, Dalton thought with grim dismay. But neither Doyle nor his sister seemed inclined to hold him responsible for his family’s crimes.
They had treated him far more kindly than he’d treated them.
He covered her hand with his, giving it a light squeeze before he let go. It wasn’t much, he supposed, as far as brotherly affection went. But it wasn’t nothing, either.
“You’ll pay, right?” Doyle asked, shooting him a grin.
Dalton couldn’t stop a laugh.
“Younger brothers,” Dana murmured as they fell in step, heading for the elevators. “Such mooches.”
Brothers and sisters, Dalton thought as he followed them into the elevator alcove. He guessed he had to get used to having them.
Chapter Eleven
Waiting for Dalton to return had proved a more nerve-racking experience than Briar had expected. She’d been afraid he’d changed his mind about working from home and had gone to the office to get as far from her as he could. But a call to his secretary had established that he hadn’t gone in to the office.
Neither had he called, not once in the four hours since he’d left the house. The drive to Maryville took twenty minutes. Had he stayed with his father the rest of the time?
Had his father’s condition deteriorated?
She had tried to fill the hours with the business of Johnny’s murder and how it might tie into the recent threats against her and her son. He’d died months ago. So why had it taken Blake and his cohort this long to make a move? Had something changed?
Dalton had changed, she realized with a flash of insight. The upheaval in his personal life had led him to attack the Cortland crime organization investigation with additional zeal. She wasn’t certain of the timeline, but he’d spoken of the lumber yard bookkeeper he’d interrogated as if she was a recent contact. A new lead in the investigation.