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And upstairs, Crista was waiting in his bedroom. Pissed off and probably feeling just as betrayed as she had every right to feel.
He should just let her go. He owed her that much. But he couldn’t do it. Everything inside him howled in protest at the thought of letting her go. He had a hold on her now, a way to keep her in his bed if nothing else. A chance to figure out why she had haunted him for eight fucking years.
She wasn’t the only woman he had fucked in his life that he couldn’t remember. For a few years there, there had been more than a few. But she was the only woman who had ever lingered in his head to the point that the thought of her nearly drove him insane.
Seducing her wasn’t going to be easy. He didn’t just want her body; he wanted more, and he was man enough to admit to it. Just fucking her would never be enough. He needed to capture the elusive sense of something more that was so much a part of her.
He rubbed his jaw as he considered that one. Hell, he had never courted a woman a day in his life, especially not one he knew he could fuck. He could walk upstairs to that bedroom and within a few hot kisses, have her ready and willing. For the moment.
But she would resent it. She would eventually hate him for it, and that wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted her sweet smiles, her soft touches. He wanted her to be his lover, not just a bedmate.
He’d never really had a lover.
Dawg frowned at that. He was thirty-two years old, yet he had never had a steady lover, a woman he wanted in his bed for more than a night or two. And he couldn’t figure out why.
Oh, he had considered it once. Eight fucking years ago. When he had been trying to get Crista into his bed, he had known then that he wanted more than a few nights with her. A few weeks, a few months, maybe.
Something tightened in his chest at the thought, something akin to regret, a knowledge that even a few months might not be enough.
One step at a time, he thought tiredly. Tonight, he’d just sleep with her. Just hold her. See how that went. That was something else he had never done, just held a woman through the night and felt the warmth of her against him.
Rowdy swore that some nights, it was better than sex, just having Kelly next to him, soft and sweet.
Would it be like that with Crista?
He glanced back at the stairs, his mind filling with the memory of her sweet scent, the warmth of her delicate body. Maybe, for one fucking night in his life, he could sleep without dreaming, if he were holding her.
He pushed himself to his feet and moved through the houseboat. He checked the windows, the back deck door, and the security alarms before moving up the stairs. When he stepped into the bedroom, he stopped in surprise.
He expected her to be awake and ready to shoot him. She had been madder than hell when she flew up that metal staircase. Instead, she was curled beneath the blankets of his king-sized bed, the covers pulled up to her nose, sleeping like a baby.
And she wasn’t just on the edge of the bed. She was in the middle, where he slept. A slow smile curled his lips as he stripped silently, leaving the small, dim light, which sat on the corner table on the far end of the room, turned on. He moved around the bed, slid beneath the blankets, and carefully, very cautiously, he eased in beside her.
She muttered something not so nice. A drowsy little comment about cold feet, but she settled back to sleep as his arm came over her and he drew her against him.
She didn’t awaken.
His frown deepened. A woman who slept alone was always aware when a man slid into bed beside her.
Crista was used to sleeping with someone.
Had that someone held her through the night and kept dreams of Dawg at bay? The bastard. He gritted his teeth at the thought of any other man holding her like this.
She belonged here, curled against his chest, snuggled into his body, keeping him warm.
It was…interesting.
He was still harder than hell. Hornier than he could remember being in years, but there was no need to hurry. No race to satisfaction so he could be alone.
His eyes closed as she muttered something again. Something about Alex and the electric bill, and he grinned. Female fluff stuff that Rowdy always teased Kelly about.
Hell, this was nice.
His eyes drifted closed, his arousal pounded between his thighs, but the edge was tempered with exhaustion and a slow easing of the tight sense of cold anger that had gripped him for years.
He buried his face in Crista’s hair, breathed out slowly, and let the darkness have him, for a few hours at least.
FIVE
