AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“It may have started that way,” Dawg allowed. “When we were much younger. The problem with letting Johnny in on the fun was that he tended to carry tales. Rowdy was pretty safe from it; Uncle Ray didn’t have a heavy hand. Natches and I paid enough times for Johnny’s inability to keep those secrets, though. So we kept our distance from him. ”
She grimaced painfully. “Fathers should be understanding,” she whispered. “A heavy hand only breeds resentment. ”
“Or hatred,” Dawg pointed out cynically before shaking his head and staring through the windshield to the metal side of the lumber store. “It’s not worth discussing at this point. I’m just sorry you were dragged into it, Crista. ”
“He did it to hurt you,” she said, drawing his gaze back to her. “He impersonated me, drew me to the warehouse, and then walked into that detention center dressed as me to ensure my arrest. He did it just to hurt you. ”
Dawg had already figured that one out, but he found himself hurting because she had realized it.
His chest tightened, and his heart actually ached.
Reaching out, he let the backs of his fingers caress her jawline, feeling the warmth of her flesh, seeing the acceptance in her gaze.
“I wouldn’t have had you arrested,” he finally said softly. “If you had walked out the night I blackmailed you, I would have let you leave, Crista. I had the note you left in your car. I knew you were innocent. ”
“Do you think I don’t know that?” She caught his hand and held it to her cheek. “I always knew that, Dawg. Maybe I just needed the excuse to step out of the past and reach for what I wanted. ”
He pulled the glasses from his nose and laid them on the dash, all the while staring at her, memorizing her features and the emotions that filled her gaze.
It was love. He could see the love. It was the same look Kelly gave Rowdy, the way Maria stared at her husband Ray. Inviting, dark, filled with acceptance and with some emotion that defied description.
Love was such a tame word for what he felt and for what he saw in her eyes.
Dawg swallowed convulsively, suddenly uncertain, thrown off balance by her. Hell, she had always managed to do that to him, even eight years before. Made him feel like an inexperienced kid who didn’t know how to get a girl.
“I want to give you another baby. ” He grimaced as the words tore past his lips, and her eyes widened in surprise. “No, listen. ” His fingers covered her lips as they parted. “I know you’re not ready right now. I want to marry you, Crista. I want my ring on your finger. I want you by my side. But I want to give you another baby, too. I––” He broke off, his lips tightening at his own inability to put his feelings into words.
Hell, he wanted to bind her to him; it was that damned simple. He wanted to make certain she could never walk away from him again, that she never wanted to walk away from him again.
“Dawg,” she whispered, her hand reaching out to him, lying along his cheek at he stared back at her, desperate for all the things he had lost after she left town. “I won’t leave you again. Ever. ”
Something inside him loosened at her words. As though a coil of dread had been tightening in his chest, her words released it, lifting a part of his soul that he had never known was restrained inside him.
Heat rushed through him. Not just arousal and lust, but emotions that swamped him, that dazed him.
He was harder than he had ever been in his life, and yet inside, the hard core of anger, cynicism, and regret was melting.
There was nothing he could say. There was only one way to combat the unfamiliar morass of emotions tearing through him now.
He reached for her. His arms surrounded her, pulling her across the console until her rear rested in his lap, her head at his shoulder, and his lips were covering hers.
An inferno of hunger exploded in his veins. His flesh prickled with heat, and his kiss grew ravenous. He couldn’t get deep enough, couldn’t taste her or touch her enough.
Her lips parted for him, took him, as his fingers threaded through her hair and cupped the back of her head to hold her in place. Not that she was fighting the kiss. Hell no. Her hands were in his hair, tugging and pulling, as her tongue met his, licked and stroked and drove him crazy with the fierce, passionate battle they were waging.
She was summer lightning, striking hot and swift to the center of his soul. She was a hot summer day and a cool, easing breeze all at once.
“God, you make me crazy for you,” he groaned, his lips moving over her jaw to her neck. “I forget where the hell I’m at and don’t give a damn who’s watching. ”
And he didn’t. The employees’ parking lot was fairly sheltered, but it was in no possible way private. Dawg was a desperate man, though. The emotions welled inside him, the hunger for Crista that he knew would never be sated, and his hands couldn’t touch her enough.
His head lifted, his gaze lowering as he pushed his hand beneath the hem of yet another of those damned snug tank top things she wore. The ones that smoothed over her breasts and skimmed over her belly just a little too snug to make grown men comfortable.
He watched as the rough, dark flesh of his hand touched her smooth, creamy belly above the low-rise jeans she wore. Crista wasn’t bone skinny, rather nicely rounded, and those curves made him crazy.
His hand moved up her belly, pushing her shirt farther up until he could cup one lace-covered mound of her breast.
“Cameras,” she suddenly moaned, shuddering as his fingers gripped a hard nipple and tugged at it slowly.
