Enemy Outside (Unseen Enemy Book 2) (7 page)

“Is someone in there?” he asked in a low voice.

She shook her head, her eyes wide. “N – n – no. There’s a gift on my bed.”

He paused. “A gift?”

“Yeah.” She swallowed. “A – a box with a ribbon. And a photo, I think.”

He met Selena’s eyes. “Get her out of here. Now.”

She took Olivia’s arm. “Come on, Liv. We’re going.”

Liv nodded and let Selena lead her back outside. Griff saw them come out, saw their faces, saw Selena’s drawn gun. He started the engine and the second the women were in the SUV, he took off without a word.

Liv crumpled in the back seat and Selena put her arm around the other woman’s shoulders. “It’s OK, Liv. You’re out.”

“But… Dallas…”

“Don’t you worry about Dallas,” Selena said. “He can handle anything. OK?”

“OK.”

Griff put his earpiece in and called Mark and Sully. They agreed to meet up back at the Solid Security offices, and Griff disconnected. He checked Liv in the mirror. She was pale and looked terribly shaken.

“We’ll be at the offices in ten minutes, Liv. You’ll be totally safe there, and we’ll wait for Dallas to contact us.”

“You really think he’s OK?” Liv said.

“I really do,” Griff said in a firm voice. “He’ll call as soon as he’s swept the house, and knows what the hell is going on here.” He ran a hand through his blond hair. “Now. Out of pure curiosity… what the hell
is
going on here?”

That was when Liv burst in to tears.

**

An hour later, Dallas arrived at the office to find a very frightened Olivia sitting on a sofa, wrapped in a blanket. Without so much as a glance at his staff, he went over to her and gathered her in his arms. She held on to him, still shaking.

He pulled back, searched her eyes. “You doing alright, baby?”

She nodded. He didn’t believe her even one bit.

“OK, sweetheart,” he said stroking her hair. “We need to talk.”

“OK.”

He gestured to the others to come over and they dragged chairs from the closest desks and sat. Dallas took a deep breath, let it out.

“On the bed, the guy left a box. Inside, there was a black silk teddy and some handcuffs.”

Olivia closed her eyes. Dallas hesitated, waited until she opened them again.

“The photo?” she asked. “What was it?”

“It was of you,” he said reluctantly.

“One of my modelling photos?”

“No.” He wondered if he should tell her the truth, realized that she’d find out anyway when the police talked to her. “It was of you sleeping in your own bed.”

She stared at him and a wave of dizziness washed over her. “But – how?”

“I don’t know,” he said, trying to sound calm. It was fucking hard to do, though, since all he wanted to do was beat the crap out of this guy.

He stood over her when she was totally vulnerable and snapped goddamned photos! Was I fucking sleeping right next door? How is this even possible?

“How did he get in tonight?” Mark asked.

“I found an open window.”

“What?” Sully said. “Which one?”

“The one that goes in to the laundry room.”

“Dallas,” Sully said. “I swear to you, I never left the perimeter. If that window had been forced open, the alarm should have been triggered… no way that it was.” He shook his head. “I physically walked around the whole house and checked every entrance not even twenty minutes before you got home. That window was closed.”

“I know.” Dallas ran his hands through his dark hair. “I believe you, man. This fucker is disarming selective parts of the security systems. He somehow got in to the house through the front door when Olivia had it all locked up tight, he disabled the cameras the night of the party. Now, he opened a window and crawled right in to the house without detection between your rounds.” He shook his head. “What kind of blocking equipment can he have?”

“Normally, the whole system is knocked out, though,” Griff said slowly. “I mean, disabling the cameras should have also knocked out the door alarm system, right? What kind of technology only knocks out specific parts of larger, entire security systems? From outside?

Dallas looked grim. “Only ones that are military- and national security-grade, that I know of.”

Liv shivered and he tightened his arm around her.

“I want you to call Howard and Jill and have them wake up every single person on their team,” Dallas said to Mark. “Right now. Get them over to Olivia’s house, have them check what the hell is going on over there. They don’t leave until they have an answer that fucking makes sense.”

Mark nodded. “I’ll stay with them.”

“The rest of you?” Dallas said. “Canvas the neighbors… ask if anyone saw anything at all tonight. A car, anyone on foot, someone walking a dog. I don’t care – anything at all that puts anyone within fifty feet of Olivia’s house.”

They all got to their feet and headed in their respective directions, pulling out phones and checking their guns as they went. Dallas caught Mark’s eye and the other man nodded.

Dallas stood up. “I’ll be right back, baby. I forgot to tell Mark one thing to pass on to Jill and Howard. Alright?”

She nodded, still looking shocked. He felt the anger rise in him when he saw that the fear was back in her eyes; he’d hoped that he’d never have to see that again. It took a lot of effort for him to stamp down hard on his own rage – he knew that getting emotional wasn’t going to help her now, that she was counting on him to stay calm even as she fell apart.

He touched her hair gently and she looked up at him.

“It’s going to be OK, Olivia,” he said softly. “I’ll make sure of it.”

She gazed up at Dallas and he saw that she still trusted him completely. That faith in him staggered him: it was humbling and somehow beautiful. Dallas loved knowing that when she looked at him, she saw him at his best… strong, tender, capable. He’d give anything to kiss her right now, just take her to his bed and cover her body with his own, shield her from everything and everyone. Make her feel totally safe and fully loved.

She smiled now, and his heart jumped.

“I know you will, Dallas,” she said. “I believe you.”

He squeezed her hand, then walked to his office. Mark was waiting outside the locked door, looking serious. Neither man said a word until they were inside and the door was closed. They stared at each other grimly, knowing that they were both thinking the exact same thing.

“Maybe this asshole is blocking the security systems from outside,” Mark said. “But there’s one more way that he can be doing all this.”

“Yeah, I know,” Dallas said. “If he were
inside
the house.”

Mark nodded. “It would explain how he knew about Liv’s dress… he was
there
the whole time, watching and listening. He’d be able to sneak in to her bedroom and take pictures of her sleeping and drop things on the bed. He’d be able to casually open the front door or the window from inside before scurrying back to wherever the hell he’s holed up. He’d know what she was doing and where she was going. He’d know all the codes, have full access to her schedule. Everything.”

Dallas pulled out the floor plans of Olivia’s house. “I agree. The thing is, there is literally
nowhere
for a full-grown human being to hide for hours – or fucking days – on end without detection, man. I’ve been over every inch of that house on this plan and in person, but then again, I’m no architect or structural engineer. Any chance at all that there’s some hidden room?”

“Hard to believe,” Mark said. “Since even hidden space is always marked on building plans, for legal reasons.”

“Well, we need to check,” Dallas said. “We also need to find out where Abraham Castell has been for the past few hours.”

“I’m on it.” Mark hesitated.

“What?”

“I just – I don’t
get
it. If he’s had total access to her and he could have hurt her or attacked her at any given moment, then what the fuck’s he doing? Just – just
playing
with her? Trying to scare her?”

“I don’t know. If we’re right and he’s been in the house with her and us this whole fucking time, then it means that he gets off on the control part of it all… the all-knowing observation of someone who has no idea they’re even being watched. But now that we’ve removed her, he may well escalate again.”

“Yeah.”

“So be careful what you say in that house, man. Do not mention where Olivia is – tell everyone she’s booked in to a hotel, OK?”

“Roger that.”

Dallas sighed. “I’m going to take her to my place now, try to get her to rest.”

“Yeah, good luck with that,” Mark said. “If I were her? I’d probably never close my eyes again.”

Chapter Six

Olivia pulled the t-shirt that Dallas had given her over her head. Even though she’d just had a long, hot shower, she was still shivering. She pulled on Dallas’ socks then regarded herself in the bathroom mirror.

Despite the terror and general awfulness of the situation, she smiled a bit at her appearance. Dallas’ shirt hung off her slim body and covered her to almost her knees; the socks were about five sizes too big for her. But the clothing smelled of him, and she held the shirt to her nose and inhaled deeply, finding comfort in it. It felt like he was
right there
with her, and she immediately felt safe.

She heard a knock at the door and she jumped.

“Olivia? You OK?”

“Yeah,” she called back. “Be out in a sec.”

She tugged the t-shirt down as far as it could go and came out. Dallas was standing there and his eyes took her in. He was painfully, achingly aware of the fact that she was naked under his shirt and he tried very hard to not think about it. He failed in spectacular fashion.

“So what do you think, baby?’ he asked gently. “You hungry?”

She shook her head.

“You feel like you can get some rest?”

“No.” She looked down at the floor. “I’m – I can’t get past the idea of him watching me sleep…”

He reached for her then and she went to him right away, eager for his warmth and strength. Dallas wrapped her in his arms and she tried to relax. The thought of closing her eyes terrified her, even though Dallas would be between her and the door, with a gun.

This guy has shown that he can get to me even with people right outside, watching every door and window. How hard would it be for him to get in here, even with Dallas’ security system on the windows? Alarms and codes are child’s-play for this asshole…

He stepped back suddenly, held her away from him. “Olivia?”

“Yeah?” she said.

“You want me to stay in the room with you?”

She started, stared up at him. “What?”

His blue eyes were intense. “I can sit in a chair next to the bed with my gun. Watch over you while you sleep.”

The thought of him standing guard simultaneously touched and aroused her. Liv’s mouth went dry as she imagined herself totally vulnerable and helpless, Dallas’s huge body sitting next to her in the darkness, all through the night.

“Would you…” She cleared her throat. “You’d do that?”

He nodded. “Anything to make you feel safe enough to sleep, baby.”

“OK.” Her voice was so quiet, he barely heard it.

“Good.” He touched her cheek. “I’m going to have a shower and get cleaned up, so you wait right here outside the door. Five minutes, alright?”

“Yeah.”

He went in to his bedroom and grabbed some fresh clothes, then he headed in to the bathroom. She heard the shower turn on, and she imagined him naked, just on the other side of the door. She felt her breath come faster, shallower; her pussy moistened, her nipples hardened.

Oh, God, girl. You are in serious, serious trouble
.

Dallas stood under the hot spray, eyes closed, willing his hard-on to go away. His cock had hardened the second he’d held her against him with nothing but the thin t-shirt material between him and her curves. It had been a huge effort to move away from her, since all he wanted was to hold her closer, tighter. Lift her chin, kiss that sweet mouth, run his hands over her breasts and stomach. Gently run his finger along her slit, delve between her wet folds. Be inside her, hard and deep. Watch her beautiful face as she shattered around him.

And now you’re going to sit next to her all night long, watching her sleep. Fuck, man. You’re toast.

**

Olivia was curled up under the blankets in Dallas’ bed, warm and calm. Dallas sat next to the window, his long legs extended in front of him, the gun on his lap. Even in the semi-darkness she could see the outline of his body, his muscles curved and huge.

“Dallas?”

“Yeah, hon?”

She turned on her side to face him. “Can I ask about you?”

“Me?” He shrugged. “Sure. What do you want to know?”

“I don’t know. It’s just – you know every single thing about me, right? You know my Mom runs an apartment complex in New York that I bought her, and you know who I’ve dated, and you know my net worth, and you know what I eat for breakfast. And I feel kind of… weird about it.”

He was quiet for a few seconds. “Yeah, me too. We knew each other before, like as friends, so from the beginning, you weren’t a typical client for me. It’s been a bit… strange, I guess, to walk this line between personal and professional.”

“I know what you mean. So is it OK if I ask?”

“Shoot, darlin’.”

“OK.” She paused. “What’s your real name?”

He half-laughed and half-groaned. “Oh, man. You just go right for the jugular, huh, baby?”

She giggled and he was happy to hear it.

“Yeah, well,” she said. “Emma said that you told her you don’t like your real name, so you use your nickname only. So… why don’t you like your birth name?”

“Well, mostly because it’s a family name, and I’m not close to my family.” He ran a hand up and down his jeaned thigh. “I’m named after my father and grandfather.”

She waited.

“OK, you’re not to tell anyone, hon. You swear it?”

“I do.”

“OK. My name is Scott Foreman the Third.”

She blinked. “You mean – your family is
that
Foreman family? The oil family in Dallas?”

“Yep.”

“And you’re not close to them?”

“Nope.”

“How come?”

“Because I decided to not go in to the family business, and I enlisted instead. I think they could have lived with that if I’d just been a soldier as a kind of casual thing, you know, done some training, seen a bit of combat, got it out of my system. But then I became a sniper, and never came home again. They had a hard time with all of that.”

“You don’t talk at all?”

“Barely. Dad gave me an ultimatum a few years ago: stop playing GI Joe and came on back to Dallas, or else he’d write me out of the will.” He shrugged. “I told him to go ahead.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. I had money from my grandfather’s will – a few million – and I hadn’t touched a penny of it while in Iraq and Afghanistan. When I couldn’t stand shooting people through my scope any more, I came back to the States and tried to think what kind of business to set up. Personal security felt like a good fit for me and my skills.”

She nodded. “I think you were right.”

“When I was a kid, we used to come out here to go skiing and I’ve always loved Denver. So I bought these two houses – one for me, one as a rental – and started a whole new life. That was almost three years ago now, and things are going pretty great. More clients than I can handle, actually, and I think Dad’ll come around, eventually, but he’s a stubborn son-of-a-bitch. Mom’s working on him, though. I talk to her once a month, I guess, and she’s damn proud of me. Says that my younger brother Michael is more than able to handle the business: he’s got his MBA and he likes the intricacies and intrigues of the oil industry. He’s much better at the job than I’d ever be, to be honest, and everyone says so, except Dad. He’ll see sense one day, though.”

“I hope so,” Liv said. “It’s sad when families can’t get along.”

“Yeah, I know.” He paused. “So you really haven’t had any contact with your Dad since you were four?”

She shook her head. “None. Mom grabbed me and ran one day, and that was the last contact we ever had with him.”

Dallas knew the whole story, of course: he knew that Olivia’s mother, Grace, had suffered horrible physical abuse and had received no real help from the police. Her escape with her daughter had been nothing short of an astounding act of self-love and courage. She’d fled from Helena, Montana on an overnight bus and ended up in Denver. Grace had cleaned hotels and private homes for almost fifteen years before Olivia hit the big-time modelling. Dallas knew that she now supported her Mom generously, and that the two women were still very close, even though Grace had moved to New York five years ago with her boyfriend.

“I was thinking, though…” Her voice trailed off.

“What?”

“Any chance at all that my Dad is my stalker?” she asked hesitantly. “I mean – I always thought it was weird that he never tried to contact me after I became so visible in the public eye. I thought for sure he’d come and ask for money at some point.”

“Greg looked in to that, baby, and I double-checked. Your Dad’s still in Montana and he hasn’t been out-of-state even one day.”

“You’re sure?”

“Completely. I spoke to his boss and landlord personally, and I had the police check his phone records and bank account.”

“Oh. So no chance it’s him.”

“None.”

She nodded and shifted on the bed.

“Olivia?”

“Yeah?”

“That safe house that you set up for the women and kids… you did that to honor your mother?”

“Yeah. We didn’t have a place like that to go to back then, and I remember sleeping on bus station floors and in apartment building hallways until she got a steady job and managed to find a place for us to rent. It was a hell-hole, but it was heaven after the bus station, you know? And as soon as I had the money, all I wanted to do – after I took care of Mom – was set up a place for women and kids who had no fucking choice but to run from the men who were supposed to protect them.”

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I think that’s great of you.”

She was startled. “You do?”

“Yes.”

“Well, thanks. But it’s not something that many people know about, so don’t tell anyone, OK?”

“My lips are sealed.”

“Can I ask you another question?” she said.

“Of course.”

“Why don’t you date anyone seriously?”

He almost fell off the chair. “How do you know that I don’t?”

“Well,
do
you?”

“Uh. No.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, Olivia….”

“What’s wrong?”

Dallas was having a very tough time with himself, suddenly. “Well, it’s just that… it’s a bit hard to talk about.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“You didn’t,” he assured her. “It’s just…” He fell silent.

“Just what?”

“Well, after my time overseas, I found it difficult to… to be with anyone seriously. I was – a mess in lots of ways.” He sighed. “Being a sniper is so fucking traumatic, you know. I mean, I had extensive training and psych evaluations and counselling all the way through, but still. There’s something about taking a human life that way that’s just so – impersonal. It can fuck with your head, big-time.”

She nodded.

“When you start to see the whole world from a distance, and you keep your emotions in check all the time, and you have this power over life and death… I mean, I can kill someone from seven hundred yards away through a window, and I have. All those things make it fucking challenging to let anyone in. Dean and Chris and Jim were close and stayed close, because they were physically there, and they get it. But letting in anyone new? Outsiders and civilians? A girlfriend? It’s – it’s not easy to explain things to them.”

“I can see that.”

“So, I just didn’t date seriously. Or at all, really. I didn’t want to be close to anyone. Emotionally, I mean.”

“But now you do?”

He started. “What?”

“Well, you’re using the past tense, Dallas. You just said that you
didn’t
want to be close to anyone emotionally. So now you do?”

Oh, fuck, man. You just gave yourself away. Completely
.

“Um. Well, maybe.”

Say it, say it, you fucking coward. Tell her.

“Maybe with one person.” He took a breath. “Maybe with you.”

She stared across at him, her heart in her throat. “With me?”

“Yeah.”

The silence stretched out between them. Dallas was paralyzed in the chair, feeling so unbelievably fucking stupid that he wished for a hole to open up right in front of him. He’d dive in head-first and never come out again.

She spoke now. “Come here, Dallas.”

Slowly, he got to his feet and walked over to the bed, set the gun on the bedside table. He sat on the edge of the mattress, studied her in the dim light. God, she was just so fucking gorgeous, and he fought with himself to not touch her.

Not until she touches you first
. If
she touches you
.

Olivia sat up and crawled over to him. She climbed on to his lap and he closed his eyes in relief and disbelief as she settled herself there, her long legs wrapped around his waist, her hands resting lightly on his chest.

“Open your eyes, babe,” she said softly.

He did and she gazed up at him, those brown eyes warm and sweet.

“Kiss me,” she said.

With a groan, he cupped her face in his hands and lowered his lips to hers. She shuddered in response and he deepened the kiss, his tongue probing gently. She gasped, opening to him more, her fingers curled around his shirt, and he growled.

“You’re so sweet, baby,” he said. “You taste as good as I imagined…I just bet you’re that hot and sweet everywhere, aren’t you?”

At his words, her whole body went weak with desire. She couldn’t quite believe that she was kissing Dallas, after weeks of wanting to do just that. The man was huge and hard, and the tender way he touched her almost brought tears to her eyes. She moaned against his mouth and he kissed her again, harder and deeper, with more urgency.

Olivia pulled her lips away and he paused, wondering if she’d changed her mind. Then he saw her cross her arms in front of her body and pull his t-shirt up and over her head and he sucked in a breath. She was naked and gorgeous and all wrapped around him, and Dallas felt the heat of her even through his jeans.

“Olivia.” His voice was husky with want. “I’m going to make you feel so good, baby.”

She took his one hand in both of hers and pulled the index finger in to her mouth, gently sucking on it, then releasing it. Her eyes were bright with lust and his cock hardened as her tongue flicked the end of his finger, teasing him.