by Lisa Rayne
He slid his hands into his pockets and watched her sleep. After a few minutes, he toed off his shoes and slid under the covers with her. He scooted close and spooned himself around her, draping an arm over her waist.
She shifted. Her sleepy voice croaked at him. “Dash?” She pulled at his hand, trying to dislodge it.
“Shh.” He resisted the pull of her hand and pressed his palm against her abdomen. “I just want to hold you for a little bit. Go back to sleep.”
She relaxed in his arms. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah. I’ll be fine.”
Naomi rolled over to look at him. He placed an index finger against her lips. “You can grill me later, madam journalist. Right now, you need some rest and so do I.”
She sighed audibly then snuggled against his shoulder. “You’re fully clothed.”
“Mmm. Makes it easier for me to keep my word.”
She glanced up at him, a question in her eyes.
“That I’m only going to hold you while you sleep.”
She closed her eyes, but not before a smile graced her lips. He pulled her snug against his hip with the hand of the arm she laid under and used the other to tuck her wild hair away from her face. He played with that hair for several minutes, listening to her breath. By the time her breaths evened out, his pulse rate had dropped considerably.
The scent of her hair wafted into his nostrils. The lump in his chest unwound slowly. He’d talked with Tatum for about forty minutes. It was strange having a brother after all these years and even stranger knowing that another human being shared the exact same DNA as him.
He’d never thought he’d have a family. To have this guy show up who had lived a charmed life with what Dash assumed was a textbook perfect family made him feel gypped. It could have been him except for what? A simple twist of fate? He had no way of knowing. No one knew how it had gone down but Tatum’s adoptive parents, and Dash had no interest in getting to know the couple who hadn’t wanted him. He’d skip having salt rubbed into a very old and very deep wound.
Tatum had been adamant that his adoptive parents couldn’t have known about them being twins. Dash didn’t believe that. His skepticism brought with it a bit of resentment. Tatum had grown up with two loving parents plus a brother and a sister. Dash hadn’t dreamed of such an Ozzie and Harriet nuclear family in decades.
From the time he’d turned eight, he’d let go of the dream. He’d accepted he’d have no other family besides himself. He’d been good with that, had accepted it. He’d thrived on the challenge of being on his own and he could think of no reason to change that now. Except … Except a curiosity niggled at him, a curiosity about Tatum and what manner of man he’d turn out to be.
“Dammit.”
Naomi stirred in his arms. He hadn’t meant to say the expletive out loud. He looked down to see if he’d awakened her, but she still slept.
She had been the only person he’d allowed to get truly close to him in his adult life. He was glad she’d been here with him when he discovered Tatum. Somehow, he felt she was keeping all the pieces of him from blowing apart. At a time when he should be focused on advancing to the next stage of his career, he had her pushing back into his life at the same time he found a sibling he’d never known he had.
An odd sense of displacement settled over him. As his mind puzzled with the emotional turmoil stirring in his heart, he began to doze. He fell asleep before he could find any peace within himself. He’d go looking for it when he met with Tatum in a couple of hours.
*
Naomi awoke ninety minutes later to find the bed empty beside her. The sheets smelled of the crisp cleanness of Dash’s favorite cologne, a scent he’d started wearing daily after she bought him his first bottle for his birthday the year after they met. She rolled over to the side of the bed he’d laid on and caressed her hand along the indentation he’d made in the sheet.
Lying in his arms had been wonderful and torture at the same time. She’d stirred several times long enough to be conscience of the feel of his arms and heat surrounding her. She wished circumstances were different enough that they could let go of these walls between them and be the couple they once were. She missed them together—the them that used to be confidants, the them that used to be best friends, and definitely the them that used to be lovers.
She hadn’t taken another lover after Dash. She liked to tell herself her life had been too busy to allow it, but she knew the truth. She wasn’t one of those women who could have sex with one man when she was in love with another.
Life sucked.
She should be over him by now. She had plenty of reason to despise him—the way he’d broken up with her, his refusal to hear her side of the story about the infamous article, his ability to ignore their unfinished personal business. She kept willing herself to move on so she could make room in her personal life, in her heart, for someone else—for the kind of man she deserved. Unfortunately, her heart didn’t seem to want to move on. Being here with Dash had only made things worse. The more time she spent with him, the more she wanted to be with him—in every way possible, including naked and horizontal.
Rolling out of bed, she got up to check his adjoining suite. He always left his side of the door unlocked. She knew it was because he hoped she’d give in to his seduction so they could rekindle things beneath the sheets. When she walked through the door to search him out, he was nowhere to be found.
Needing to catch up on a byline, Naomi went back to her suite and showered. Then, she settled onto the semi-made sheets she’d quickly tossed over the pillows and went to work on her laptop. Several hours passed and she came out of her work focus to discover she now sat typing in the dark. She stretched and clicked on the lamp. A quick check of the clock revealed the late hour. Surely, Dash had made it back by now.
Barefoot, she dismounted the bed and padded to her side of the door adjoining their suites. When she opened the door, silence surrounded Dash’s room. The only light spilt from the lamp lit behind her. She took in the flawlessly made bed and lack of movement in the room. She hadn’t heard Dash return, but she sensed his presence. Creeping further into the room, she glanced through the open bathroom door. No Dash.
“Out here,” his deep, rich voice called lazily to her. He stood on the balcony with his back to her.
She spun towards the sound of his voice. “Are you okay?”
He didn’t answer.
She moved outside and stood behind him. “Dash?”
More silence followed before he started speaking. “When I was twelve, I developed pain in my right leg so bad I couldn’t walk on it. I hadn’t done anything in particular. One minute, I was playing with my foster brothers in the backyard and the next, I was rolling on the ground moaning in pain. My foster mother at the time questioned me repeatedly about what had happened, but I couldn’t tell her because I had no clue. She got angry with me. Accused me of making a scene to get attention.”
Naomi stepped closer to him, but didn’t say a word. She sensed what he had to say held great significance for him.
“It happened two days before my thirteenth birthday. I remember the date clearly because I was looking forward to that birthday. See, this foster mom was a bit of a tyrant. Not a new experience for me. But, birthdays? Birthdays she made special. She baked a whole cake just for the birthday kid, and we got a present. The other boys had gotten new sweatshirts on their birthdays. Not hand-me-downs or something from the thrift store, but brand new sweatshirts no one had ever worn before.
“I’d never been in a foster home that gave you new clothes or a birthday cake all to yourself so I was really excited that my birthday was only days away. Turns out my excitement was wasted. When I couldn’t give my foster mother a reasonable explanation for why my leg hurt so bad and didn’t stop complaining about the pain, she decided I should be punished.”
Naomi put a hand on his back. “Oh, Dash.”
He still didn’t turn. “Yeah. She punished me by taking a
way my birthday celebration. No cake. No present. So, no new sweatshirt.
“The next day, the pain had dulled, but it took two full days before the pain went away. I never understood what had happened. Just considered it part of the crap that was my life. A way for the universe to remind me that I’d been dealt a bad hand in life and that nothing good ever happened to a kid nobody wanted.” His torso expanded as he pulled in a deep breath then contracted with its release. “Tonight, I finally understood.”
She rubbed light touches across his back. “What happened tonight to change things?”
“Tatum.”
She didn’t say anything, simply continued to rub his back.
“He told me tonight that when he was twelve, he broke his leg. They set it the first day, but he had trouble with the painkillers they gave him. They made him sick so it wasn’t until the next day under a different painkiller that he got any relief. When I asked him if it had happened two days before his birthday, he was startled but admitted that it had.”
He gave a harsh laugh. “It’s funny. Every time I used to see one of those documentaries about the weird connection between identical twins, I’d dismiss the absurdity of it all. I thought it nothing but a bunch of psychobabble mumbo jumbo not far off from those people who talk to the dead or make psychic predictions. I guess the joke was on me. All these years, I could have been a case study for one of those stories. I just didn’t know it.”
He dropped his head and gripped the balcony rail. Even in the dark, she could see his knuckles blanche. His posture was so taunt she was afraid he’d blow a blood vessel or pull an aneurysm.
“God, Naomi, I’m a grown man. How can I be hurt by something that happened when I was nine months old?”
She wrapped her arms around his waist from behind. “Because that nine-month old is still in here.” Her palms flattened against his chest. “And he’s only now learned what he’s missed out on all these years.”
He didn’t respond for a long while. “I don’t wish the childhood I had on anyone, but I have to wonder how they decided.”
“How they decided what?”
“How they decided which baby to keep. Why’d they pick him instead of me?”
“Don’t do this to yourself, Dash.” She stepped around him and pulled one of his hands loose to slide between his body and the railing. “It wasn’t about you personally. You were just a baby.”
“But it was personal. What? Did I lose a coin toss? Did I cry too much?” He stepped back from her.
She could feel the pain radiating from him. It hurt to see him this way. She wanted to take the pain away. She wanted to make him feel complete and okay again, not the lesser choice, but he was retreating into himself. He was good at that. When the emotions got to be too much for him, he closed himself off and went to a place no one could reach.
She grabbed his wrist. “Don’t pull away. Talk to me. Or, don’t talk to me if you prefer. Just don’t pull away. You don’t have to go through this alone. I’m here for you, Talon.”
Chapter 11
The sound of his given name crossing Naomi’s lips stirred Dash. She was the only woman he’d ever been with who called him by his real first name.
The first time she’d done it, she’d surprised him. He’d tried to get her to stop, but she’d been adamant. They’d been on their second date. She’d said Dash was his stage name, and she wanted to get to know the man beneath the professional football persona.
No woman but her had ever cared about the man beneath the football player. He’d fallen half in love with her that night and hadn’t truly wanted any other woman since.
She didn’t use his given name all the time, and never when they were in public, but she pulled it out when she wanted to put their roles aside. When they’d finally become a couple, she’d explained that sometimes she didn’t want them to be the pro quarterback dating the sports reporter, but rather just a man and a woman.
Just a man and a woman. He desperately wanted that right now. “Naomi, I …” He broke off. The emotion glutting his voice made him self-conscious.
She pressed herself against him, reached up and palmed the side of his face. “Don’t pull away from me, Talon. Let me be here for you.”
He rubbed his evening-stubbled jaw against her palm. He closed his eyes and his voice shook as he said, “You don’t know how much I want to lose myself in you right now.”
He pushed her hand more firmly against his jaw then turned his lips to press a kiss into the center of her palm.
She turned his head back so he could look into her eyes. “I’m here for you.”
Her voice slid warm and soft through him. She was offering him a soft place to fall. At a moment when his life had shifted off-kilter, he sensed only she could keep him from teetering off the edge. He wanted—needed—her and that.
He scooped her into his arms and strode back into the hotel suite. His bed greeted them at close proximity, but he wanted her all night and he didn’t want to give her a convenient reason to leave him in the middle of the night. So, he decided to bypass his bed for hers. First, he approached the nightstand in his room and dipped her so she could open the drawer.
She looked up at him perplexed.
“There’s something we need in there unless you’re prepared to forego protection.”
Naomi hesitated a moment before reaching down and sliding open the drawer. A box of condoms peeked up at her. She picked up the box. He noticed the wave of relief that flooded her when she realized the box had never been opened.
She tucked the box of condoms to her chest, and Dash pulled her back up against him. He followed the faint trail of light spilling from her suite. Funny. When he’d originally made plans to get through that door for just this purpose, the circumstances had been different. The reasoning had been different. He no longer wanted her simply to prove a point or to exorcise her from his system. He wanted her to fill him up. The hollowness inside him needed her, and only her, to fill him. He understood that now. He couldn’t go on without knowing the true heart of her. Where her loyalties truly lied.
He’d thought she’d betrayed him once. But had she?
He’d never given her a chance to explain. He needed to know so he could carve out the uncertainty cluttering his heart. But what if Naomi’s explanation didn’t change things? Maybe he’d been right all along and she’d betrayed him like he’d always thought she had.
Then again, what if he’d been wrong? And maybe that’s what scared him the most.
He’d find out.
After.
After he killed all his demons by losing himself in, on, and under her naked body.
He placed her on the bed. The skirt of the simple blue sundress she wore slid up, revealing her long sexy legs. His hand went to her thigh, fingertips brushing lightly over her beautiful brown skin.
He reached up with his other hand and removed the scrunchie from the messy bun-thingie she’d improvised on top of her head. He loosed the waves with his fingers, spreading the thick mass around her shoulders. He loved the feel and smell of her hair. He’d missed that smell after they’d parted. He pulled a loose lock to his face, inhaling the scent of coconut and shea butter from the shampoo she used. His groin tightened.
She pulled away from him to turn off the lamp.
He reached for her hand to stop her. “I want to see you.”
“Open the curtains,” she said as she switched off the light.
“Naomi—”
She pressed the fingers of one hand against his mouth. “Shh, Dash. Don’t talk. Just open the curtains for me … please.”
He nodded in the darkness before walking to the window and sliding the curtains wide. The moonlight over the water reached into the ocean-side suite, making a soft glow reminiscent of blacklight blue.
He turned back towards the bed and his breath stalled. She positively glowed in this pale ethereal light. She rose from the bed like a sea nymph enticing a sailor. On her knees before him in
the sinking mattress, she reached up to slide down the top of her sundress.
“Don’t.” The gruff whisper rattled from his throat, but didn’t sound like his own voice.
Her hand stalled. She watched him confused.
“I want to do that.”
On slow footsteps, he approached the sea nymph with reverence. A wayward sailor on his way to Delphi, he sensed this creature might prophecy his future. Blood rushed through his ears, a sanguine musical accompaniment to an arousal that would play from his soul until he made her body dance.
She’d offered herself to him as comfort. Part of his mind wondered if this was strictly a case of mercy sex, but he pushed back that darkness. He refused to let those demons edge his brain from the beauty before him into a disjointed world of insecurity and mistrust. He vanquished the doubt, not letting himself care about her motive for bringing them to this moment. He only cared about how they ignited each other from this minute forward.
He stripped her slowly, teasing himself with each new reveal of skin and curves. She relieved him of his clothes in tandem. An item of his clothing dropped on top of one of hers. An item of hers topped that one. And so the play alternated until both rested naked before the other.
His fingers caressed her flesh, sliding over a peaked breast, glancing over a firm stomach. The feel of her skin beneath his hands tightened his flesh and his heart. The cardiac muscle swelled when she began to run her hands over his chest, stopping at erogenous places along the way. The play fueled him, leading him from grateful taker to quiet giver.
He kissed her long and thoroughly, one hand behind her head, the other cupping a buttock he pressed to draw her to him. The pleasure of her mouth urged him to linger, and he lingered until she grabbed his shoulders and pulled him closer. His hands returned to her breasts, rubbed and massaged until the taunt peaks became too tempting not to taste. He finally slid his mouth from hers to communicate intimately with a nipple. He rolled the peak against the flat of his tongue until she purred in ecstasy then he grasped the nodule between his teeth and applied gentle pressure until she squealed.