Don't Mess With Texas (22 page)

He turned around and had his foot in midstep when he heard another gasp and a hiccup. How that little sound could cause such an impact on his conscience he didn’t know. But, accepting defeat, he took one deep breath, swung back around and walked right into the middle of an emotional storm.

“Hey.” He knelt behind her and put a hand on her shoulder. “You okay?”

She shook her head no, but didn’t attempt to answer. She didn’t even remove her hands from her face. Another sob sounded behind her fingers. Bud walked circles around her and, looking at Dallas, he whined as if to say:
Do something
.

But what?

Dallas sat beside her and cautiously put his arm around her shoulders. He wasn’t sure his help would be welcome. She twisted suddenly, and he thought she wanted him to let her go, so he pulled his arm up. But instead of yanking away, she pillowed her head against him.

Maybe he wasn’t so bad at this after all. He lowered his arm again. “I know it’s tough.” And boy howdy, did he know.

He saw her phone on the floor and wondered if a call had upset her. “What happened? Is Ellen okay? Is that what’s wrong?”

He heard her inhale. “No.” She hiccupped and eased away. “It’s my in-laws. Ex-in-laws. I forgot to call them yesterday. I can’t believe I forgot to call them. That was so insensitive of me.”

He studied her tear-streaked face. “You had a bad day yourself. Poisoned, found a body, had a friend of yours almost die, and then had your place broken into.” Bud tried to lick Nikki’s face. Dallas gave the dog a slight nudge.

“I still should have called them.” She dropped her hands in her lap, and they landed on the hem of her shirt. The scooped neckline of her tank top scooped a little lower and Dallas had to work to keep his eyes from soaking up the view of her cleavage.

“You really are hard on yourself.” He brushed her hair from her cheek. As emotionally hard as she was on herself,
she was just as physically soft. And being this close to all that smooth feminine skin was wreaking havoc on his insides. He wanted to touch, to taste, to bring all that softness closer.

“They… they think I killed Jack.” Pain thickened her voice and resounded in his gut.

Guilt for the direction of his thoughts pinched at Dallas’s chest, and he mentally shot down his libido. “I’m sorry.”

“I know your brother thinks I did, too. But he doesn’t know me. I don’t care what he thinks.”

He almost told her she should care. Because Tony was the police and what he thought mattered a hell of lot more than what her ex-in-laws thought. But then he remembered how it felt to realize that people you thought believed in you, really didn’t. People like Serena.

“They know me. I was… was part of their family for over three years. How can they think… I used to love him.”

The “used to” in her sentence stuck in Dallas’s head. He brushed a tear from her cheek and offered her the only words he could. “Your in-laws are hurting right now. They’ll come to their senses.” Most of them who’d doubted him eventually had come around. Serena had. What he didn’t tell Nikki was that it didn’t matter, because even if they decided they were on her side, she wouldn’t be able to forget or forgive their betrayal. At least he hadn’t.

She hiccupped. Dallas looked down at her bundled on his chest. He tightened his arm around her shoulders. She buried her face deeper into his shoulder and just cried. And he let her. Bud dropped down beside her and pressed his nose against her bare leg and occasionally gave the soft appendage a concerned lick of his tongue.

After a few minutes, she stopped crying. He felt her
coming to her senses. Felt her start to pull away. Oddly, enough, he wasn’t relieved. Holding her had been… nice. And that’s when the smell hit again. No, not her fruity sweet scent, but Bud’s…

“Damn.” He went to get up. With one knee still on the floor and one foot in the process of pushing up, he was off balance when Nikki bolted upward. She knocked him back then went to grab him and, instead of helping, she tumbled down on top of him. Right on top of him. Not that he was complaining.

Another sob left her throat. “Hey.” He wrapped his arms around her waist.

She raised her face and rested her chin on his chest, and that’s when he realized her last little noise wasn’t a sob. “What did he eat?” The laughter in her voice sounded so sweet. If that’s what it took to make her laugh, Bud might just be getting more people food after all.

Something about seeing humor in her eyes, her baby blues still moist with tears, made his chest feel tight. “I don’t know.” All he could think about was how perfect she fit on top of him. How happy he was that he hadn’t followed his first instinct and run off instead of being here. Because being here felt… right.

She shifted as if to move off him, and he wasn’t sure what provoked him to do it, but he raised his head an inch off the floor and pressed his lips against hers. It was just a kiss, he told himself. Probably wasn’t the wisest move, especially considering her knee had optimum placement and could achieve a direct hit. And yeah, stealing a kiss had actually gotten him kneed in his youth. A guy didn’t forget that.

But a little voice in his head said he probably should be
more worried about the direct hit to his heart. The second he tasted her mouth, he told the little voice to take a walk. Whatever happened, he wouldn’t regret this.

Especially when her tongue slipped into his mouth and stroked his, proving that he wasn’t the only one wanting here. Wanting to delve deeper into that sweet mouth of hers, he rolled her over without interrupting the kiss.

Not wanting to end it, he cupped the back of her head in his palm and leaned in to get closer.

Closer.

His mouth completely covering hers.

His chest against hers.

His thigh now tucked between her legs.

He was already hard—obviously his body hadn’t gotten his “just-a-kiss” memo. Then her hand moved to his waist and slipped under his T-shirt and traveled up his side. Soft fingers, gliding over his bare skin making him harder.

Obviously, she hadn’t gotten the memo, either.

Not that he was complaining. He’d never been fond of memos.

His breath caught at the feel of her touch sliding up to his chest. All he could think about was feeling her hand other places. And getting his hands on places—on her.

Getting his mouth on places—all over her.

He started lowering his kiss to her neck, nipping at the tender skin. Anticipation, eagerness, and need all came together in a big ball of hot want in his chest. He hadn’t felt this much need, this much want, in ages.

T
HIS ISN’T GOOD
. Gotta stop it
.

Those words repeated in Nikki’s head. But they just weren’t getting through. Or maybe they did get through and she just didn’t agree with them.
This is good
. It felt so… right. And so… delicious.

How long had it been since she’d had delicious? Too long.

So she went with it. Let it happen. And when just letting it happen wasn’t enough, she encouraged it. She deepened the kiss and savored the texture of his masculine abs. The desire to move her touch downward brushed across her mind. But lower seemed hasty, a bit bold. She wasn’t bold. So she let her fingers sweep all the way up to his chest. Over the hard, sculptured ribs to the tight little nubs of his nipples. She could feel his heart pumping and her own matched his.

The taste of his mouth still lingered in hers as his lips glided down, down her neck. Then he came back up to her lips. His mouth melted against hers, going from soft to firm, and then from slow to passionately fast. It was so… seductive.

She hadn’t been kissed like this in a long time. Jack had stopped kissing her like this shortly after they’d been married. Stopped kissing her like he wanted to kiss her, and started kissing as it were just a chore he had to do before he got her naked.

Who wanted to be a chore? She wanted to be… savored. She wanted to be desired. And that’s what she felt right now. Desired. Oh, yes, Dallas knew what he was doing, but there was just a little something that said he really wanted to do this right. As if he waited for her to give him the slightest sign that it was okay to move onward.

And then he did it. His kisses moved downward again, past her neck to the top of her breasts. Pure delight.

That’s when her sense of reason first hit. She had to stop this! She didn’t need…

“Cupcakes!” Temptation. She couldn’t give in.

He muttered something, but the words were lost to her. His lips continued moving lower. His hand moved up under her shirt, a slow sweep upward of his palm on her bare stomach. A sweep that brought her shirt up with it.

She had to stop him.
Didn’t she?

The brush of soft cotton against her ribs tickled. Her nipples ached with anticipation. His hand found her breast, gently passing his fingers over tight nubs. He took her shirt up over her breasts and rose up on his elbow to see what he’d uncovered.

“Beautiful,” he whispered. Then his lips melted back against her neck and continued downward.

She waited. Waited to feel his lips where his hands now explored. His pelvis lowered ever so slightly against hers. She felt the hard bulge behind the zipper of his jeans. The sweet ache tightened between her thighs. It was that
deep, hot sweep of desire that jolted her into rethinking the wisdom of letting this happen.

“No cupcakes.” She caught his face in her hand right before he took a nipple into his mouth.

The heat of desire brightened his eyes. He blinked. Swallowed—his Adam’s apple shifted up and then down.

“I can’t… We shouldn’t,” she said. Releasing his face, she yanked her shirt down. He rolled off her and lay back on the floor. She sank back onto the floor herself, wishing she could slip between the cracks of wood and disappear. “Sorry,” she said. “I just… can’t.”

“Okay.” His one word came out sounding deep and rusty. He was still so close. His shoulder touched hers. The heat of his body oozed into her arm. Neither of them spoke. The silence grew louder.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have… done that,” she said.

“You didn’t do it. I did.”

“But I didn’t stop you.”

“True,” he said. And they both turned their heads at the same time to look at each other.

Their gazes met—held. Neither of them spoke for long seconds. Then she said, “I… need to get to the hospital.”

He nodded and his brow crinkled. “No cupcakes? What did you mean?”

“I said that?” Her chest instantly tightened with embarrassment.

He nodded.

She blinked. Her face grew hot.

“What did you—”

“Nothing. I just like cupcakes.”

Confusion tightened his eyes. His gaze shifted to her chest. “So do I.”

Did he think… “No. I wasn’t calling…” She grabbed her boobs. “I didn’t mean…”

His gaze shot to her hands that were giving her boobs a Wonderbra lift.

Now on complete overload of embarrassment, she let go of her girls and sat up. Her skin prickled from his continued stare. “I… I must be hungry,” she lied, because she didn’t want to talk about temptation.

Bud came over and butted her arm with his nose. She petted him, avoided looking at Dallas, and tried to find the right words to say. Finally, she took a deep breath and looked at Dallas. And boy howdy, did he look good. “I don’t think it would be good if we complicate things by… doing that.” Once again she envied Nana’s say-it-like-it-is approach. Being diplomatic was hard.

“It didn’t feel complicated to me.” He ran a palm over his face.

“I’ve got too much on my plate right now.”

He sat up and tugged at the legs of his jeans as if they were uncomfortable. She had to fight the urge to look and see how uncomfortable.

“I’m just not—” She swallowed hard.

“I get it.”

“It would confuse things,” she said.

He closed his eyes and pulled at his pants legs again. “You don’t have to explain.”

While his tone didn’t sound angry, it was short and tense. He stood up and walked to the door.

Unable to stop, she blurted out, “It’s not that—”

“You said no. Let’s leave it at that, okay?” He shut his eyes again and then opened them. “I’m sorry. It was a mistake. A bad idea. I understand.” The annoyance level
in his tone had lessened. He said the words with conviction. And she didn’t like it.

His understanding was nice, but calling it a mistake… Then again maybe she was confused. Who was she kidding? She was completely, over-the-top confused. She reached for her phone. “I’ll call my grandmother to pick me up.”

“No!” He inhaled. “I mean… we still need to talk about things. Tony came by earlier and I told him I’d bring you to the police station at three.”

Her mouth went dry. “Is he going to arrest me?”

“No. He needs to go over a few things.”

“Then I’ll borrow Nana’s car and drive—”

“I’d like to be with you when he talks to you. It might give me insight into the case.”