CHAPTER FIVE
In his youth, Nicolas spent weeks alone, fasting
in the mountains, waiting for the vision to come to him, to tell
him of his special gifts. His Lakota grandfather said he needed
patience, and Nicolas had done everything required of him, yet he
could not interpret his dream. The prophecy came to him when he
swayed with weariness, when he was sick or wounded, but it had
never come to him while he actually slept before. The vision made
no sense. There was nothing tangible to hold on to. It left him
frustrated and feeling inadequate, unable to live up to the
potential his grandfather had “seen.”
In his dream, there was the steady beat of the
drum. He smelled the smoke of the sacred fires. The healing lodge
opened for him, waited for him. He knew the words of the healing
chants, and he recited them over a man with the great wound in his
chest. He passed his palms over the wound, felt the cold breath of
death against his own skin.
Small hands covered his. Warmed his hands with the
breath of life. The small fingers held an object he couldn’t see,
but knew was important. His voice rose in the prayer of life. He
sang softly to the spirits, asking them to aid him in healing the
terrible wound. He felt the object pressed into his palm, felt it
grow warm as if gathering heat from an outside source to pass to
him. He saw the red-orange flames dance through his fingers. The
object was gone before he could identify it. Once again he placed
his palms directly over the gaping wound. The smaller hands slid
over his. A thousand butterflies took flight, wings brushing
against his stomach at the touch of skin against skin. His singing
rose with the smoke and drifted upward toward the sky. Beneath
their joined hands, all around the wound, flames danced a ballet,
and the wound slowly closed until the chest was unmarred.
He tried to see who aided him in the healing, but
he could never see beyond the smoke. He could never see whom he
healed. He felt the caress of those small hands sliding over his
bare skin and looked down to see a wealth of shiny black hair
sliding over his belly, gleaming like strands of silk, teasing and
taunting him until his body hardened with urgent demands.
Nicolas frowned and reached for her, determined to
know who she was this time. His fingers tunneled into the mass of
hair. He came awake instantly, aware his fists were bunched in
Dahlia’s hair and his body was as hard as a rock. Her head lay on
his stomach and she moved restlessly, fighting nightmares. He
suppressed an aching groan of sheer frustration. If he woke her,
she would be embarrassed. If he didn’t, her nightmare and his
discomfort would more than likely escalate. He lay motionless, his
hands in her hair when her breathing changed abruptly. He knew
instantly she had awakened.
Dahlia woke in the dark with fear choking her. It
was a familiar nightmare, one that never quite faded away. Shadowy
figures watching her. Always watching her. She needed open spaces
where she could breathe, and at the sanitarium she often crawled
out onto the roof. She lay perfectly still, listening to the steady
sound of Nicolas’s breathing, yet she knew he was awake. He lay in
the darkness, probably awakened by the movement of her body, the
way she tensed, the way her breathing had quickened. She was
certain he was that attuned to her. And she was that aware of
him.
It was only then that she realized she was wrapped
around him, her thigh carelessly between his, her head on his
abdomen. She moved away from him and felt her hair slip from
between his fingers. She lay in silence, unable to think properly,
wanting to apologize but not knowing how. In the end she took the
coward’s way out. Uncomfortable, Dahlia slipped off the moss-filled
mattress, careful not to touch him, not to make physical contact.
It was only an hour or so until dawn. She knew the night sounds of
the bayou. She was awake more often than asleep after midnight so
she knew each hour that insects, birds or frogs serenaded one
another.
Nicolas didn’t move, but she knew his eyes were
open, watching her as she padded on bare feet across the floor and
opened the door. She could feel the intensity of his gaze as it
burned over her. She was immediately aware of the thinness of the
shirt she was wearing. The tails covered her body, even went to her
knees, but she wore nothing beneath it. Her body felt hot and achy,
completely foreign. The cool night air rushed over her. She hoped
her face wasn’t glowing as hot as it felt.
Dahlia climbed onto the roof with the ease of long
practice. Few physical activities were difficult for her. She sat
carefully, tucking the shirt beneath her and looking up at the
clouds floating above her. So many times she’d spent the nights
looking up at the stars and wishing she could grab on to the clouds
as they passed overhead. The rain had ceased sometime in the night.
She loved the sound of rain, the continuous rhythm a lullaby that
sometimes aided her in sleeping. The roof was damp, the bayou clear
and crisp and fresh after the cleansing rain.
She refused to dwell on the fact that she had
awoken with her body tangled with his. It happened. There was
nothing she could do about it anymore than she could change what
Whitney had done to her. “Lily.” She whispered the name softly. Her
secret, pretend friend. Lily had kept her sane on more than one
occasion, yet Dahlia had been told there was no Lily. There never
had been a Lily. Lily was a figment of her imagination. Milly had
been her nurse for as long as she could remember. Milly had to have
known Lily if she were real. It was a small thing, but it was a
betrayal. Dahlia thought of Milly as family, as a mother. If she
couldn’t trust the things Milly told her, whom could she trust?
What could she trust?
“I should have searched for you, Lily. And Flame
and all the others. I shouldn’t have stayed here, a prisoner
really, and believed them all. I really thought maybe I was crazy.”
She stared out over the water and her vision blurred. “I should
have been there to stop them from killing Milly and Bernadette.
They never hurt anyone or anything in their lives. It just doesn’t
make sense.”
She didn’t hear the opening or closing of the door.
She didn’t even hear a noise as Nicolas gained the roof, but she
was aware of his presence the moment he came up behind her. She
rested her head on her knees, not turning as he stepped carefully
to the spot beside her, avoiding the cracks in the roof.
“I was late. I should have been there.”
Nicolas watched as Dahlia rubbed her face against
the collar of the shirt she was wearing. His shirt. It enveloped
her completely. He settled close to her. Close enough so that his
thigh touched hers. He felt waves of grief pouring off of her,
surrounding her. “Your being late is what saved your life, Dahlia.
They were there to kill you. That was a hit squad.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But they were there to kill
Milly and Bernadette and to destroy my home.” She looked at him.
“Why? After all this time, why would they decide to do that? Don’t
you think the timing is a bit coincidental?”
Her eyes gleamed with unshed tears. He felt a claw
tearing at his gut. “I considered that immediately. I think it’s
more than likely that Lily dug in the wrong places and tipped
someone off that she found you. She inherited everything.
The paperwork is enormous. She found the trust for
the sanitarium buried in a lot of legal mumbo jumbo only the lawyer
understood.”
“Is she happy?”
“She seems very happy. She’s married to a friend of
mine. Ryland Miller. They’re never very far apart.”
“I’m glad.” She looked up at the moving clouds.
“Someone needs to have come out of this sane and happy. I’m glad it
was Lily.”
“Don’t give up, Dahlia. There are things we can do
to minimize the effects of what Whitney did to you.”
She turned her head to look at him. “If there were
things anyone could do for me, why was I kept apart from the rest
of the world? Why was I raised alone in what was virtually a
prison? I could walk away, everyone always reminded me of that, but
I really couldn’t, because in the end, it was the only place I had
that gave my brain respite from the sensory overload. Now I don’t
have it anymore.”
Nicolas felt awkward. If she needed him to shoot
someone for her, he was her man, but comforting her was something
altogether different. He didn’t like feeling uncertain; it was
foreign to his nature. Men didn’t pat women like dogs, did they? He
put his arm around her, drew her closer to him. She seemed so
fragile he was afraid he might break her. She stiffened
immediately, but she didn’t pull away. “You might not have your
home, Dahlia, but you have the GhostWalkers. Not just Lily, but an
entire family of people just like you. We’ll work through it
together.”
Dahlia kept her face averted. She sensed how
Nicolas was struggling to find a way to help her and it was
endearing, the only reason she didn’t pull away from him and put
distance between them. She knew he was trying to comfort her, but
the thought of being around people she didn’t know, in a house that
was unfamiliar, was terrifying. Dahlia knew no other way of life.
The sanitarium and the bayou were her home. She forced down grief
and fear.
“I steal things.”
“You do what?”
She wanted to smile at the incredulous tone. “Is
stealing worse than killing? I thought it was all bad.”
“You just surprised me.” He didn’t flinch at her
candid assessment of what he did, but it bothered him—and people’s
opinions didn’t bother him. He had his own moral code, a code of
strict honor. It shouldn’t matter what she said . . . but it did.
She wasn’t accusing or even judgmental, just matter-of-fact and
perhaps that was what got under his skin. That she just accepted
what he was. One-dimensional, as if that was all he was. And
all he would ever be.
“That’s what I do. I ‘recover’ things. Is that a
better way of putting it? Data that has been stolen. I slip into
offices and retrieve data from private corporations or even small
businesses or anyone else that takes things they shouldn’t.”
“Whom do you work for?”
“Do you think all this time I’ve been working
against the government instead of for it?” She turned her head and
looked at him from beneath the impossibly long fringe of dark
lashes.
“It’s possible.” He tried to assess her tone, but
there was little inflection in her voice. She was very closed off
to him, making it impossible to read her thoughts. “If it’s a
splinter branch, they’re working outside the parameters. What about
Jesse? What did he say about them? He must have been in direct
contact with them.”
“His orders always came from someone in the
military. Jesse was a Navy SEAL. He would never, under any
circumstances, betray his country. He’s the ultimate patriotic gung
ho male.”
“If he’s military and was a SEAL, we’ll be able to
find out about him. I know he’s enhanced, yet he wasn’t part of our
unit when we trained together. I’d like to know where he came from
and where he trained. Lily suspects Whitney performed the
experiment first with the children from the orphanages, with us,
and with some others. She’s been working to find all the children.
Of course, they’d all be grown by now, and she’s looking for
information on whether or not Whitney experimented on
others.”
“It would make sense, wouldn’t it?” Dahlia looked
down at her bare feet. She bent to rub at a smudge on her toenail.
“If he believed in what he was doing so much, which he obviously
did, would he really allow so many years to go by between
experiments? He must have tried it on others.”
Nicolas was listening to the sounds of the bayou.
Frogs called to one another. Each group croaked louder than the
other, trying to outdo one another, calling for mates. The frogs
around the cabin were particularly loud, making a strange, off-key
music. Abruptly, the group somewhere out near the strip of land
leading to the channel went silent.
Nicolas immediately clapped his hand over Dahlia’s
mouth and pulled her backward over the side of the roof. He lay
flat, preventing them from being sky-lined. She didn’t struggle.
She was familiar with the sounds and knew immediately that
something had disturbed the frogs. Nicolas put his mouth against
her ear. “Slide down to the window and go in that way. I won’t let
you fall. Hand me my rifle. The pack is ready, just get your
clothes and be ready to move.”
Dahlia nodded and inched her way down the slope of
the roof. Her heart pounded overloud in her ears. The wood scraped
her bare thighs and dragged the shirt up over her skin as she slid
to the window. She tried not to think about her bare bottom exposed
to Nicolas. Surely he had better things to look at or think about.
She felt the color rising in her face as she managed to crawl into
the cabin through the window.
The rifle lay on the table beside the pack.
Everything was exactly as it had been before they entered with the
exception of her scattered clothes. She handed the rifle to Nicolas
through the window, careful to make no sound. Her jeans were damp
and uncomfortable, but she pulled them on just the same. She was
not traipsing naked through the bayou with only Nicolas’s shirt to
cover her skin. She didn’t bother with the wet underwear, instead
stuffed them in the pack. She picked up the belt of ammunition. It
was heavy, and the pack was even heavier. Dahlia eased both through
the window and onto the ground, hanging out so far she nearly fell
headfirst to keep from making a sound. She made a grab at the
windowsill, frantically trying to throw herself backward.
Nicolas caught her by the shirt and hauled her up
beside him before the weight of the pack had a chance to pull her
out. Dahlia closed her eyes in humiliation. She had rare abilities
when it came to physical stunts, yet so far, she’d looked an
incompetent ninny. Did women become helpless around men? If so, she
preferred a solitary existence.
Nicolas made no sound as he moved to the ridge of
the roof, rifle to his shoulder, his eye to the scope. Dahlia
thought she was quiet in her work, but it wasn’t just that he made
no noise, it was the way he moved. Almost as if he flowed
like water, so easily he couldn’t possibly draw the eye to him. She
watched his hands—rock steady. There was no change of expression,
no quickening of breath, no animosity. And then she realized what
she must be observing. Nicolas Trevane underwent a metamorphosis
with the rifle in his hands and his eye to the scope. He was not
completely human, yet not a machine, but something somewhere in
between. He closed off emotion and his brain and body functioned at
a rapid rate of speed.
He gave off such low levels of energy because he
didn’t feel anger when doing his job. He turned everything off. It
wasn’t an act of violence, it was something far deeper. Dahlia
struggled to understand. Controlling energy was everything to her.
Violence always created energy. Even the buildup of anger in
a person created the violent waves that often made her ill. Nicolas
didn’t have those harsher emotions roiling inside of him. There was
no fear. She didn’t even catch a stray swirl slipping toward her.
He waited calmly, his heart and lungs working steadily.
Dahlia knew the moment Nicolas spotted the assassin
stalking them. She was so aware of him, she could almost catch his
thoughts. There was no sudden spike in his breathing, but his
finger moved along the trigger. One stroke, almost as if testing to
insure it was exactly where it was supposed to be. The movement was
slow and deliberate and it fascinated her. Although she was
watching him, she was still shocked when he pulled the trigger and
immediately slid down the side of the roof. He reached out and
caught the back of her shirt, taking her with him.
He dropped her to the ground, signaling for her to
run in the direction of the boat. She did as he indicated,
sprinting through the swamp, staying low as she followed the path.
The boat was tied up to a cypress tree. Dahlia waded out into the
water to ready the boat. She couldn’t help the way her heart
pounded when she saw Nicolas coming toward her out of the heavier
foliage. He looked a warrior of old, tall and strong and fierce. He
didn’t hesitate, but waded straight into the water, pushing the
boat into the channel where the reeds grew the highest and could
shield them as they made their getaway.
Dahlia expected a rush of violent energy to
overtake her. She even braced herself for it, but there was nothing
but cool morning air as Nicolas took the oars and drove through the
water with long, smooth strokes. “You missed him,” she said.
Somehow it didn’t seem possible. He was so sure of himself, almost
invincible in his manner.
“I hit what I was aiming at,” he answered quietly.
“We have to keep moving. I’m hoping I slowed them down, but we
can’t count on it.” He forced the oars through the water with his
powerful arms and the boat shot through the channel toward open
water.
“I didn’t feel anything.”
His gaze brushed her face, an odd little caress she
felt all the way through her body, just as if he’d touched her with
his fingers. “I wasn’t aiming at you.”
She caught the fleeting glint of his white teeth in
what could have been a brief smile. One dark eyebrow rose in
response. “Has anyone ever told you your sense of humor needs a
little work?”
“No one’s ever accused me of having a sense of
humor before. You keep insulting me. First you accuse me of
missing, and then you try to tell me I have a sense of
humor.”
His face was made of stone, his tone devoid of all
expression. His eyes were flat and ice cold, but Dahlia felt
him laughing. Nothing big, but it was there in the boat between
them, and the terrible pressure in her chest lifted a bit.
“And it needs work,” she pointed out. “Get it right.” She
even managed a brief smile of her own to match his.
The boat moved silently through the water, taking
them through a labyrinth of channels until they were in open water.
At once Nicolas started the motor. “You know the area much better
than I do. Keep us away from the island where your home was and
away from the cabin. You need a route that takes us under cover if
possible. They’ll have spotters. We don’t know how well equipped
they are, but if we hear a helicopter or small plane, I think it
best to avoid them.”
“I may steal things for them,” Dahlia admitted,
“but I’ve spent my entire life in a sanitarium. Even if this all
came out, how much damage could I do to them? I’d be labeled crazy.
And the sad truth is, I couldn’t go into a courthouse and be in
close proximity with so many people and not have a meltdown. None
of this makes sense to me.” She pinned him with her dark gaze.
“Does it to you?”
“I’m giving it some thought,” he replied
mildly.
She shook her head in exasperation at his steady,
unshaken manner and turned her attention to guiding them, at top
speed, through the bayou.
Nicolas looked at her. She was very small-boned,
but perfectly proportioned. The more he was around her, the more of
a woman she seemed to him instead of the child he first thought
her. And that was becoming a problem. He wanted his mind fully on
keeping them alive, not on the fascinating fact that the shirt she
was wearing was soaked and nearly transparent. Although small, she
had beautiful breasts, and he couldn’t keep himself from looking at
them. He could see the darker outline of her nipples through the
wet material. She had knotted the shirttails around the waistband
of her jeans, and it called his attention to the curve of her hip
and the memory of the brief, enticing glimpse of her bare butt as
she slid down the roof. He had to admit, the glimpse had distracted
him and he’d thought far too much about that particular part of her
anatomy, not the smartest thing when on the run.
Nicolas couldn’t stop looking at her with her head
thrown back, her thick, black hair streaming in the wind, her body
perfectly balanced as she guided the boat. With her head back, he
could see her neck and the outline of her body beneath the shirt,
almost as if she wore nothing at all. His body stirred, hardened.
Nicolas didn’t bother to fight the reaction. Whatever was between
them, the chemistry was apparent and it wasn’t going to go away. He
could sit in the boat and admire the flawless perfection of her
skin. Imagine the way it would feel beneath his fingertips, his
palm.
Dahlia’s head suddenly turned and her eyes were on
him. Hot. Wild. Wary. “Stop touching my breasts.” She lifted her
chin, faint color stealing under her skin.
He held up his hands in surrender. “I have no idea
what you’re talking about.”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
Dahlia’s breasts ached, felt swollen and hot, and deep inside her,
a ravenous appetite began to stir. Nicolas was sitting across from
her, looking the epitome of the perfect male statue, his features
expressionless and his eyes cool, but she felt his hands on
her body. Long caresses, his palms cupping her breasts, thumbs
stroking her nipples until she shivered in awareness and
hunger.
“Oh, that.”
“Yes, that.” She couldn’t help seeing the
rigid length bulging beneath his jeans, and he made no effort to
hide it. His unashamed display sent her body into overtime reaction
so that she felt a curious throbbing where no throbbing needed to
be. She grit her teeth together. “I can still feel you touching
me.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “I consider myself an
innocent victim in this situation,” Nicolas said. “I’ve always had
control, in fact I pride myself on self-discipline. You seem to
have destroyed it. Permanently.” He wasn’t exactly lying to her. He
couldn’t take his eyes or his mind from her body. It was an
unexpected pleasure, a gift.
He was devouring her with his eyes. With his mind.
A part of her, the truly insane part—and Dahlia was beginning to
believe there really was one—loved the way he was looking at her.
She’d never experienced a man’s complete attention centered on her
in a sexual way before. And he wasn’t just any man. He was . . .
extraordinary.
“Well, stop all the same,” she said, caught between
embarrassment and pleasure.
“I don’t see why my having a few fantasies should
bother you.”
“I’m feeling your fantasies. I think you’re
projecting just a little too strongly.”
His eyebrows shot up. “You mean you can actually
feel what I’m thinking? My hands on your body? I thought you
were reading my mind.”
“I told you I could feel you touching me.”
“That’s amazing. Has that ever happened
before?”
“No, and it better not happen again. Good grief,
we’re strangers.”
“You slept with me last night,” he pointed out. “Do
you sleep with many strangers?” He was teasing her, but the
question sent a dark shadow skittering through him. Something dark
and dangerous stirred deep inside of him.
Her eyes jumped to his face. “What is it? What’s
wrong?” She looked around quickly. “Should I cut the engine?”
Nicolas sat up a little straighter. She was so
tuned to him, even that smoldering jolt of jealousy was noticed.
“We’re fine.” But he was uncertain if it was the truth. He was
beginning to be alarmed at how they seemed so aware of one another.
Nicolas didn’t experience emotions such as anger and jealousy. He
had fine-tuned his mind to filter out such things, yet Dahlia was
shattering an entire lifetime of conditioning.
“Tell me what’s wrong. I know I’m not the average
person, but I’m an adult, and despite having lived in a sanitarium
and having a nurse raise me, I’m not completely insane. I don’t
want you treating me as less than an equal.”
Nicolas studied her expression. Her dark eyes were
spitting fire at him. Maybe that was the problem. She was melting
the ice everyone said flowed in his veins. “When I figure it out,
you’ll be the first to know. I don’t believe I’ve treated you as a
child or as if you were insane, nor less than an equal. And it
wouldn’t matter what you thought, if you care to know the truth. I
do what I think is right, and I’m not going to worry about what
you’re thinking.” His words surprised him more than they did her.
Was he stating a hard fact or striking out at her? Nicolas rubbed
his jaw with the heel of his hand. Facing death was easier than
talking to women any day of the week.
“Well that’s good, because I’m exactly the
same way. I guess we understand each other.” She turned her head
away from him, nose in the air, looking a bit like a drowned
princess.
The sun was climbing into the sky and definitely
providing a backlight. His gaze once again dropped to her breasts
thrust against the thin material of his pale blue shirt. The shirt
had become an instant favorite. He ran his tongue over his teeth,
wishing he could do the same to her nipple.
Dahlia’s breath hissed out of her throat. Slowing
the boat, she swung back toward him, glaring. “What is so
damned fascinating about breasts? If I show them to you will you
stop?” Her hands went to the buttons of the shirt as if she might
really rip the material open. There was color in her face and her
breath came too fast. “I once heard that men thought about sex
every three minutes but you must be setting some sort of
record.”
“It isn’t just any breasts, Dahlia.” He reached for
the canteen of water. His hand was shaking. Actually shaking. Just
the thought of her opening her shirt sent his body into a painful,
hard, unrelenting ache.
“Well I have them, okay? Just like any other woman.
They’re there. I can’t do much about it.”
Nicolas took a long pull of water and nearly choked
as she angrily unbuttoned the shirt and allowed the edges to gape
open all the way to her waist. Her breasts were fuller than he’d
first thought, jutting forward to tempt him more.
She was beautiful. Her skin was amazing. He
swallowed hard. “I don’t think that was a good idea.”
Dahlia realized instantly she’d made a terrible
mistake. His black eyes went from ice cold to a raging fever. His
hand gripped the canteen until small dents appeared. Energy leapt
between them, fierce and passionate, feeding on him, feeding on
her, threatening to consume them both. At once she was hot, her
clothes too heavy, too cumbersome, her skin too sensitive. She
wanted to rip the shirt away, feel his hands, his mouth, sliding
over her skin. She wanted things she’d never dreamed or thought of.
Had no idea she even knew of.
The distance between them melted away. His body
touched hers, his bare chest rubbing against the tips of her
breasts. His hands tunneled in the wealth of her silken hair,
fisted, holding her still while he bent down, his gaze as fierce
and intent as the energy surrounding them, holding them captive in
its burning center. He dragged her head toward his. His mouth
fastened on hers, took possession. Fire leapt from her to him,
raged between them. The kiss went on and on. It wasn’t enough. It
would never be enough.
His tongue slid into her mouth, danced a long,
sensual tango. His mouth moved over hers, demanding. Urgent and
wild. The back of her head fit nicely in his palm and he held her
to him, kissing her soft mouth, her chin, her throat and back to
her mouth again. The roaring in his head grew. His body hardened
and grew until he thought his clothes might split. He had to
have her. Had to make her his.
Her skin drew him. Soft, softer than anything he’d
ever touched. It was impossible to think or reason with her tongue
teasing his, her teeth biting at his lips and his chin, her breath
moving in his lungs. He tasted her neck again. Nibbled his way to
her throat. Felt the gasp as he lapped at her nipple. Heard her
breath explode from her lungs as he fastened his mouth on her
breast. She made a single sound, inarticulate, but her hands came
up to cradle his head.
He feasted, devoured her. Something in his gut
clawed for more. Heat rose until he thought he might catch fire. He
did catch fire, somewhere in his belly—it roared, a conflagration
out of control. He yanked at the knot on the shirt, desperate to
get to her, desperate to have all of her.
Dahlia felt his mouth slip off of her breast, felt
his tongue lap at her skin, teasing her every nerve ending. Both of
his hands went to the knot at her waist. Her head was spinning,
dizzy with need, with hunger. There was so much heat and pressure,
she could barely stand with wanting him. Dahlia drew in a deep
breath of air, closed her eyes, and shoved him away from her—hard.
She turned and dove into the water, away from the boat. It was the
only way she could save them both. He had no idea what was
consuming him, but she knew. She’d dealt with it all of her
life.
She went deep, letting the water cool her heated
skin. It hadn’t occurred to her that such a thing could happen.
She’d never been physically attracted before. Jesse certainly
wasn’t attracted to her, nor had she been attracted to him. She
hadn’t been prepared at all for the explosive chemistry between
Nicolas and her and she handled it all wrong. She’d actually kissed
him back. Not just kissed him, she’d practically eaten him for
dinner. The thought of facing him was more than she could
bear.
Dahlia surfaced a distance from the boat, treading
water while she fumbled for the buttons on her shirt. She was still
so sensitive even brushing against her skin sent shock waves
through her body. She didn’t want to think how he’d be feeling. The
boat was headed her way, and he didn’t look very happy. She waved
him off. “Go. Get away from here, Nicolas. Take the boat and go.”
She was trying hard to save him, but she could see from the
harshness on his face that he didn’t want to be saved.
Nicolas stopped the boat beside her. There was no
ice at all in his eyes, rather a raging fury. “Get in the boat,” he
said, his voice grim.
“Get away from me. Do you think it’s going to
stop?” Angry, she hit the water, sending a plume splashing over
him. He didn’t even wince as the droplets settled over his head and
chest and ran down to the waistband of his jeans.
She ducked her head beneath the water on the
pretense of slicking back her hair. Dahlia used the brief moment to
force her mind away from where those drops were heading. What the
droplets would touch as they raced down his belly to his groin. She
broke the surface, her heart pounding. “I know the bayou. I’ll be
fine. Take the boat and get out of here.”
“Damn it, Dahlia, I’m not asking you again. Get in
the damned boat. I’m not a filthy rapist. You were right there
along with me, feeling the same thing.”
She saw it then, his shame at his lack of control.
His fear that he’d frightened her. His sexual frustration that must
be every bit as bad or worse than her own. She reached for the rim
of the boat and held herself there, tightening her fingers until
her knuckles turned white. “Nicolas, it wasn’t you or me. Not like
you’re thinking. I’m all about energy. Even sexual energy. You were
throwing it out there. I was too. We were both feeding it, and it
swallowed us. We can’t be together. We just can’t take the
chance.”
Nicolas sat very still just watching her. What he
wanted to do was yank her back into the boat and weld their mouths
together. Their bodies. He craved her like he would a drug.
He made himself breathe. In and out. He could read the desperation
in her eyes, the fear. Not of him, but for him. The tight
coil in his belly began to relax. Not giving her time to argue or
think, he simply caught her small wrists and lifted her into the
boat. “We’re adults, remember? Now that we know it can happen,
we’ll be more careful.” He managed a quick, teasing grin. “Until we
don’t want to be careful.”
Dahlia swallowed hard. She had courage, he had to
give her that. Respect for her grew with every moment in her
company. She didn’t back away from him, but held her ground. They
were both standing up, and she had a long way to look up. “It could
happen, Nicolas. You’ve never seen what pure energy can do, but I
have. I generate heat when it happens and fires start. People get
hurt.”
“Have you ever made love to someone, Dahlia?”
His voice was so low she had to strain to hear him.
She felt the surge of darkness, of danger, something lethal and
deadly emanating from him.
“No, I’ve never wanted to get that close to
anyone.”
“Until now.” He wanted to hear her say it. At least
give him that much. He needed that much.
“Until now,” she agreed.
Nicolas stepped away from her, sank back into
position. “Thanks for not pushing me into the water. You must have
thought about it.”
“Don’t give me too much credit.” She made her way
to the motor. “I wasn’t certain if I shoved, you’d fall.” She sent
him a quick grin before turning to the task of speeding across the
water.
Nicolas stared toward the thick brush and heavy
trees and tried not to think about the taste and feel of Dahlia. He
made it a mental exercise, clearing his mind, allowing the thoughts
to enter without dwelling on them and letting them go out again on
a tide. He was certain of only one thing. He knew Dahlia was part
of him. How and why didn’t matter. Nothing, no one, had ever thrown
him before. She mattered to him. What she thought, how she felt.
And he wanted her.
It was nearly noon when Dahlia eased the boat along
a rickety pier. “This is where we get off. We’ll have to catch a
bus or hire a taxi from here.”
“I’ll have to break the rifle down. Even so, the
two of us look memorable in these clothes. And your shirt is
transparent. I don’t think I can take a bunch of men ogling you.”
He didn’t look up as he took his rifle apart and carefully wrapped
it before putting it in his pack. The ammunition belt followed,
along with every other visible weapon.
Dahlia gasped and crossed her arms over her
breasts. “You could have said something.”
“I didn’t want to embarrass you.” This time he did
look up, only a small glance.
She had the impression of a fleeting smile. She
caught the shirt he threw her and hastily put it on. “Next time,
I’m pushing you in,” she vowed.