His Frozen Heart (31 page)

“
I picked something up for
you while I was out.”

“
A mocha latte?” I asked
hopefully.

“
I can make you one if you
want, but no.” He handed me a black sharpie marker. “In case you
wanted to cover up my ink.”

I shook my head, still loving that my
name might as well have been written in block letters over his
heart. “No, thanks.” Tossing the marker onto the little kitchen
table, “It sucks that it’s not summertime. I’d make you go all over
town with your shirt off today.”

Dave closed the distance between us as
his lips leaned down close to my ear, “I’d do it right now if you
wanted me to.”

He pulled my wet hair off of my
shoulder, then kissed the tender skin below my ear as his teeth
grazed my ear lobe and shivers rocketed through my body. His hands
slid under my t-shirt caressing the small of my back as tingles
erupted under his touch. My hands did the same thing to him,
sliding over his smooth skin as his lips found mine. My body began
pressing against his as heat rocked me to my core.

A satisfied moan escaped him as I
deepened our kiss. I gripped his shirt, much the same as I had last
night, but he didn’t try to stop me as I lifted the material over
his head and tossed his shirt to the floor. My hands greedily took
in his exposed flesh as his breath grew shallow.

Electricity erupted between us as I
pulled my shirt off and tossed it next to his on the floor. Dave’s
eyes took me in as he murmured reverently, “You are beautiful.” His
lips slowly skimmed the arch of my neck, down my shoulder, and
continued moving lower.

A tool clanged against metal
downstairs and onto the floor as the sound reverberated around the
quiet building. My breath hitched as I remembered we weren’t alone,
“Kravitz is downstairs.”

Dave’s lips returned to my ear, “Shhh,
it’s just you and me.” My heart pumped wildly in my chest trying to
convince my mind it hadn’t heard anything. He whispered, “I want
you.” His groin pressed into me, as his hands slid under my thighs
and lifted them up so my legs were wrapped around him.

My pulse pounded hard, its drumming
was all I could hear, beating a loud rhythm drowning out everything
else. Dave took choppy steps toward the bed, easily carrying me as
I clung to him. We needed to slow down, but my body refused to
listen to my mind. A hunger grew inside me that would be satisfied
with nothing short of the friction of his body against
mine.

Dave eased me onto the bed, the weight
of his enormous frame pressing against me. Our chests were bare as
his skin coerced me into an unfamiliar bliss. A sigh of pleasure
escaped me which made Dave’s eyes light up, “I love that sound. I
want to make that sound come from you over and over
again.”

Light tingles had morphed into an
outrageous desire. I pressed my lips to his ear as my teeth grazed
his ear lobe, much as he had done to me only minutes before. A
pained whisper answered my wordless invitation, “Don’t do that,
Candy, unless you’re ready to shed some more clothes.”

My fingers slid just under the
waistband of his jeans as I watched his eyelids grow heavy while a
lustful expression shone on his face. He held my hands in place
before I could make a move to make good on his warning. His eyes
snapped open as they looked directly into mine, “You want to do
this?”

Without hesitating, “Yes.”

He rolled over pulling me on top of
him. Sliding my hair to the side, I nuzzled into the crook of his
neck feeling every inch of his bare chest against mine. His voice
was low, as if he were arguing with himself, “This is too
fast.”

I chuckled at him, “Too fast? It took
you four years to make your move.”

“
Six,” he confessed with a
grin. Both his hands cradled either side of my face. His callouses
were rough against my jaw, while his dark brown eyes stared
directly into mine. I wasn’t sure what he was looking for until he
warned, “I’m not up for a fling.”

Had I heard him say the same words
last night, I would have been wounded, but after speaking to
Kravitz, I knew Dave wasn’t rejecting me. He was proposing much
more. I turned my head, kissing one of the hands that had been
holding my face, “I wasn’t offering one.”

Confusion shone on his beautiful face.
I could get lost in his eyes if I weren’t careful. He cleared his
throat and asked, “What are you offering?”

“
Popcorn, backrubs and the
remote.”

My answer did nothing to remove the
confused expression he wore, so I elaborated. “I love going to the
movies and eating buttery popcorn. After a full day of leaning over
cars, your back must kill you – so a backrub might be something to
look forward to. As long as you don’t choose sports every time we
sit in front of the television, I’ll let you pick what you want to
watch at least half the time.”

Dave still wasn’t making the
connection, so I drew it out for him, “You are who I want to sit
next to while I’m eating my popcorn. I’m volunteering a backrub
every evening if you want it because I seriously like the way your
muscles feel under my touch. I promise not to make you watch
chick-flicks every time we hang out in front of the television.
That’s the best offer I can make right now.”

“
You don’t have to be my
girlfriend because you’re in fear for your life. You can stay here
as long as you want. No strings.”

“
I’m not here because I
don’t have anywhere else to go.” That was debatable. “I’m here
because I want to be with you. You’ve changed a lot since we were
friends in school. I liked you back then, but I. . . really like
who you have become.”

Another tool clanged against metal
downstairs, as if Kravitz were reminding us that he was still here.
The bell on the front door of the lobby sounded. I asked, “Do you
need to see who that is?”

Dave shook his head, “Kravitz can take
care of it.” He pressed his lips hard against mine. When he pulled
away, he looked thrilled. “So, you want to go find a
latte?”

“
You just said the magic
words.”

I began to ease off of him to retrieve
our shirts when I remembered what I had been agonizing about before
he distracted me. “Wait. I need to tell you something.” Dave’s eyes
searched mine, still sexy in a playful way. “Last night, before I
came back to your apartment, I drove by Bank Shot.”

He grinned, “We can find a pool table
today if you want. I’m not bad.” He made a motion with his hands
like he was taking a shot with an invisible pool cue.

I rolled my eyes at his offer. Pool
hadn’t been a game for me in a long time: it was more of a
part-time job with Libby. “No. I mean, maybe another time. When I
was there. . .” my voice trailed off. I didn’t know how he would
take it, but he needed to know I’d seen his brother. “Mark was in
the parking lot.”

“
What?!” he roared. He
stood up quickly from the bed. “Why didn’t you tell me? Did you
talk to him? Where is he?”

Hurt registered on his face, and I
knew anything I shared with him could only make that look
intensify. “I talked to him. I told him I knew you.”

“
You did?” The hurt change
to hopefulness as his eyes held mine. “What did he say?”

“
He thought you were dead.
I had trouble getting him to believe me at first. He wants to see
you, but said he had to take care of some things first.”

Dave looked at me with a wild gaze.
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this last night?” He walked over to
where our shirts were lying on the floor and grabbed his angrily,
pulling it hard over his head and shoving his arms through the
holes.

“
He made me promise not to
tell you I’d seen him. I was going to tell you anyway, I swear I
was. When I got here, we started talking, the candles were lit, I
got lost in the mood, and I just didn’t think about it.”

“
You saw my brother. I told
you I’ve been looking for him forever. You didn’t think I’d want to
know that you saw him?”

Biting my lower lip, I waffled about
how much to tell him. I didn’t know how accurate Tony’s information
had been, but Mark had done nothing to dispel anything Tony had
said when he choked me and shoved me to the ground, then threatened
to run me down with his car. Tentatively I answered, “I think he
might be involved in some bad stuff.”

My accusation hung in the air. Dave
watched me, waiting for me to clarify. When I didn’t respond right
away, he asked, “Bad stuff?”

I picked up my shirt off the floor,
put it back on and took a seat on the sofa. I told Dave everything
Tony had said, about my trip to talk to Officer Brown, and how I’d
threatened to go to the media if the charges against him weren’t
dropped, then everything that had happened in the Bank Shot parking
lot.

When I was done speaking, Dave sat
beside me with a blank look. I offered, “Tony says he didn’t know
what Mark was involved in, and it’s not like I trust Tony. He could
have been wrong.”

Dave’s voice was hollow. “He didn’t
want to see me?”

“
He did. I’m sure he did.
But whatever he’s involved in, maybe he didn’t want to drag you
into it. He said he’ll find you after he takes care of a few
things.”

Dave stood, his face emotionless, “I
need to go.”

I grabbed my purse and stood up,
“Okay.”

He shook his head at me. His voice
sounded distant, “Sorry. I need to go somewhere by myself for a
while. I don’t know when I’ll be back.” Without so much as a glance
in my direction, he disappeared down the steps. Whoever had walked
into the lobby was talking to Kravitz.

I heard Mr. Kravitz say, “Dave, you
got time to look at a Camaro?”

Dave didn’t answer him, but I heard
the bell on the door clang from Dave’s departure. A few seconds
later his truck started up outside. Peering through the window, I
watched Dave drive away. Muffled voices spoke in the lobby for a
minute or so, then the bell on the door sounded again as the
customer departed.

Kravitz yelled from the bottom of the
steps, “What happened? What’s wrong with Dave?”

I felt awful. Why hadn’t I told Dave
last night? I knew how badly he wanted to see Mark. It should have
been the first thing I said when I arrived last night. The hurt on
Dave’s face wasn’t just because of what Mark had said, the hurt was
there because I hadn’t told him right away. I scanned the little
apartment. My backpack lay up against the wall outside the bathroom
door. I threw it over my shoulder, went downstairs and grabbed my
coat off the hook at the bottom of the steps. How had I screwed
this up so royally?

Chapter 23

Friday night I returned to Dave’s
garage. It didn’t look like there was a light on anywhere in the
place. I couldn’t see the flicker of a television from any of the
second floor windows. His garage doors didn’t have any windows to
peep through, so there was no way to see if his truck was
inside.

He hadn’t called or texted me all day.
A little neurotically, I had checked my phone every five minutes
all day long until I had almost killed my battery. Libby was still
unconscious, but her doctor said the swelling had gone down. They
planned to wake her up tomorrow if her condition continued to
improve. Larry and I sat in the waiting room together for hours
this afternoon. It was difficult trying to make conversation. The
only thing we had in common was Libby, and as much as I didn’t want
to, I started to remember why he had never been one of my favorite
people. Before I could get seriously annoyed with him and say
something I’d regret, I stood up to go visit Libby.

Donning the visitor scrubs again, I
stood by Libby’s body. Her face was pale. The stuffed turtle still
peeked out from behind the curtain on her table. I was pleased no
one from the staff had stashed it away. “So this is your last
night, Sleeping Beauty. Doc says tomorrow’s the day.” I reached
down and squeezed her hand – it felt cool. I slid her hand under
the covers, then did the same thing with her other hand. Her hair
on the side of her head that hadn’t been shaved laid against her
cheek. Reaching into my purse I pulled out a clip and pulled her
hair out of her face for her. “I haven’t found him yet – the guy
who did this to you. I saw that freaky Teddy last night. The cops
almost got him.”

I stared at her, hoping to see some
indication that she had heard me. “Dave Brewer has a brother.
Remember when we were at Bank Shot and thought we saw Dave? It
wasn’t. That was his brother Mark. They’re hard to tell apart.”
Still nothing. “I kissed him. Well, technically I kissed both of
them. I don’t think kissing Mark counts, because I thought it was
Dave at the time. I know what you’re thinking, but Dave is
different. He’s not shy or awkward anymore – he’s sexy.”
Conspiratorially I added, “I spent the night with him the last two
nights.” My cheeks flushed, “It was G-rated both nights, well,
maybe PG, but I don’t think it’ll be that way for long.”

I pulled a chair over and sat down
next to her bed. Even though I had placed her hand under the
blanket, I put mine over the lump where I knew her hand was. “He
has a tattoo. He tried to hide it from me because he worried I
would think it was creepy. It’s a tattoo of a heart holding a candy
cane.” I checked again to see any reaction – nothing. “Can you
believe it? It sort of made me want to melt. He told me he’s had a
crush on me since high school.” I couldn’t make the goofy grin on
my face subside even if I tried. “I can’t wait for you to see
it.”