The Strong, Silent Type

by Jule McBride

  Until he’d actually seen her.

  And she’d offered to let him stay with her...

  He’d felt completely powerless to say no.

  Now, with her body pressed to his, nothing about the past seemed to matter. He couldn’t resist her, no matter how many reasons he should ignore the urgent need overwhelming him. When her lips molded over his again, their fit was so perfect and hot that all the pain wracking his body fled.

  How could he have denied this feeling? Impossible, when kissing her did such funny things to his blood. It was racing, but slowing, too; thudding at his neck and flooding his loins while her scent made him pull her nearer. He wanted to share everything.

  “Alice,” he managed to say hoarsely. I’ve missed you.

  Her tongue’s caresses moistened his parted lips, then thrust deep inside his mouth. As her fingertips sought and rubbed at his shirt, she offered even more, pushing her tongue deeper, dipping and probing. The emotion of the kiss—and the lust he felt—tore a sound of need from him.

  But he had to stop. Because—God forbid, he thought with sudden panic—he could accidentally take her somewhere dangerous. Despite the warnings of his own mind, his arms swept around her, both palms pressing down her arching spine, forcing her to stretch against him. She felt warm and feline. So damn, groin-achingly sinuous. Moaning softly, she opened her legs for him.

  His palms moved hungrily then, roving unrestrained down the rest of her back to her bottom. Pressuring her backside, he brought her to his able heat. Just like his hands, his strong, hot, knowledgeable tongue moved in circles, cunningly swirling around hers as he backed her to the wall. Her shoulder blades hit it first, then her back. She gasped as he snatched up the hem of her dress. Slipping a hand between her legs, he sighed with pleasure.

  All night, he’d been aware of her legs—of the curves, of the luminous rose skin gleaming through the sheer stockings. Now a stockinged foot slipped from a high heel, and she used a foot to stroke him, her instep curling around his jeans-clad calf as she writhed against his hand.

  Heat shot into his groin. The scent of her natural musk overwhelmed him. Moisture soaked her panty hose, then his hand, making his heart beat erratically. Dammit, he swore silently. Alice had recognized him. He should have known she would. There was no way she could mistake him for someone else. Not after the things they’d shared. It was why she was giving herself so easily....

  And why he wanted, with a quiet, heartfelt desperation, to oblige. His mind was still reeling from the night’s events. Earlier, when his head cracked against the sheriffs windshield, he could have sworn he was going to die. Pain had exploded in his skull, bringing a flash of scary white light, the kind that said he was done for.

  But then he’d seen Alice again. He’d blinked, and she’d simply seemed to appear from nowhere, as if from a wonderful dream. For a second, he’d forgotten he was hurt. He’d been transfixed, staring at the stray strands of her light blond hair waving in the wind, seeing her uncertain eyes brimming with tears.

  “Dylan,” she’d said, her voice catching. “It’s Dylan.”

  Somehow he’d refrained from touching her. He’d longed to stroke her wind-cold cheek and fasten his lips on hers, and wrap his arms around her and hold her as he was now. But he’d stopped himself. Look ing into her cloudy, confused eyes had sobered him, bringing him back to earth and making him cognizant of their situation. Hell, he would have run then—he should have rolled away from her, gotten up from the wet, snowy driveway and brushed the shattered glass from his head. He should have clutched his bloody jeans, staunched the wound on his leg and fled as if the devil was on his heels. But he’d been in so much pain; he was bleeding. He’d barely heard the sheriff calling for help because his consciousness was fading. He’d had no choice but to let himself be carted away in the ambulance.

  And then he’d seen his mother at the hospital. Damn Alice for giving him such a shock, not that he blamed her. Oh, God don’t think about that, he decided now, his mouth still moving on Alice’s, his heart stuttering. And don’t think about the Lang Devlyn estate. Earlier, images of the fancy mansion had kept him riveted to the television screen...

  Coming to his senses, he tried to break his and Alice’s kiss. He couldn’t do this. He had to get busy, and find out what happened to his mother and who killed Jan Sawyer. But Alice clung to him all the more.

  And he let her. His own fear and pain only served to heighten his need. He wanted the warmth and assurance of her body; he wanted to cherish the lust coursing through him. He felt alive again. Loved. The loneliness he’d battled for so long was gone. His tongue circled her lips and plunged again.

  Gliding his palm up the front panel of her stockings, he pulled the fabric down—her panties, too— and then pushed his finger deep inside her. Her hips slammed forward and he bit back a cry when her hand slid down from his belt and closed tight over his erection, her fingers molding to him.

  He broke the kiss. Wrenching his head around, he thought of going to a bedroom. And then unbelievable need called his lips back to hers. Her mouth was delicate, smaller than his, and as his tongue met hers again, emotion and desire melted into each other. He pulled her panty hose farther down, to her knees, as she undid his belt. As she kicked a leg of the hose away, he ripped down his jeans zipper. The second his shorts were pushed down, their bodies crashed together. He was hard and hot, rising between her legs. Nudging her, the smooth head of him pressed the damp opening.

  No protection.

  Damn. This moment wasn’t exactly something he’d prepared for. No, he was supposed to stay away from Alice. Not that he could. Now he swore to himself that he’d pull out before he came. But he knew he never could. He wanted to come deep inside her—to fill her. How could he want anything other than that? He loved her.

  “Dylan,” she gasped.

  She was ready, so he didn’t bother with talk, just entered her fast. Her legs rode up, wrapping his waist. Inside, she was sweet and moist, thirsty. With every thrust, he begged her to drink even more. One of her feet—the one that was bare—slid across his backside, eliciting a shared shudder. Everything felt so damn good it hurt—her toes curling against the back of a thigh, how she bucked against him with both of them so ready to explode. Just the dig of her heel into his thigh made him so weak he thought he’d die from it. His mind raced. What are you doing? If you don’t stop this, we both might die. Someone had threatened to kill her, for God’s sake!

  But Alice didn’t care about anything right now except loving him. And he didn’t care, either. Life without her wasn’t even worth living. Shutting his eyes, he buried his face in her neck. He was registering the dampness there, the soft-smelling perspiration, when he felt the sudden clutch of her thighs.

  “Darlin’,” he whispered, just the way he used to.

  And then she let go, the surrender shaking her, and he was taking his own, pushing inside her. Once more. Then twice. And again.

  But it wasn’t enough—he’d never get enough of her! “Please,” he whispered raggedly, his voice raw. Come. Pushing hard, he felt her rise to him, and then he flooded her with a release so complete, he knew this would make them a baby.

  Our baby!

  He’d dreamed about a family. Their family. Little boys who’d catch snails, and little girls who’d look just like Alice. He’d dreamed of how his and Alice’s story would end. With the kids asleep. With him and Alice safe and sound, living in one of these guest cabins while he worked the ranch.

  But those are just dreams, Dylan. Visions you’ve used night after night, to keep yourself going. To pretend you can have a future with her.

  This was reality.

  And reality held the bad things. Danger and death. The murder of Jan Sawyer. The attack on Dylan a year and a half ago, in the church. The attack on his mother. And the cold hard fact that Alice had been about to marry Leland.

  As Dylan finished melting inside Alice, he knew he never should have come here tonight. How coul
d he have forgotten that acting like this could get Alice killed?

  Even now, he could remember how his lungs had burned, and his terror when the attacker had pulled the suffocating plastic over his head. Even now, he could remember how the tip of the knife blade felt as it teased his neck, how the unseen hand had snatched off the medallion he’d worn.

  I’m gonna cut your sweet little wife. She’ll think it’s you who’s killing her, Dylan Nolan. I’ll make sure of that Damn sure.

  Instinctively, his arms tightened around Alice as her legs uncurled from his thighs and slid slowly down. As she found her footing, he felt torn. He wanted to tell her everything, starting with how he’d fled the church in terror a year and a half ago. How, since then, he’d done everything he could to disguise himself, including getting plastic surgery, so be could return to Rock Canyon unnoticed and clear his name. He had to do so without Jan Sawyer’s killer recognizing him, too—or the man who’d attacked his mother.

  He squeezed Alice even tighter. Dammit, she and his mother were everything in the world to him. And someone wants to kill them.

  Pressing his cheek against Alice’s, Dylan squeezed his eyes shut, holding back his emotions. He’d seen Alice again. He’d touched her and loved her. Come deep inside her. Maybe even if he couldn’t clear his name and had to leave this fool town again, she’d have his baby to remember him by.

  Maybe.

  But now, after he got a little sleep, he had to leave her again.

  IN THE DREAM, Dylan was swinging. He was staring down, flying toward the ground, the dew-wet, fresh-cut grass rushing up. The spring breeze cooled his cheeks, flapped in his ears and whisked his golden-blond hair straight back, away from his face.

  “You get everything,” the voice beside him shouted. “I don’t get anything. They hate me.”

  “Do not,” Dylan said.

  “Do, too.”

  “Do not.”

  Turning his head toward the other swing, Dylan looked at the boy who’d spoken. But he saw only himself—his own soft brown eyes and fine, straight golden hair. He was wearing a paisley button-down shirt that was tucked into black corduroy slacks. Squinting, he wondered how he could be swinging and, at the same time, be watching himself swing.

  The other boy, who also seemed to be Dylan, said, “Push off now,” and somehow, even though the words weren’t menacing, the tone sent a chill through Dylan. Curling his hands tightly around the chains linking the swing to the bar above, he held on tightly as the ground came closer. Vertigo made his heart race. Stretching his dangling feet, he ran along the ground—one step. Two steps. He pushed off again, his calves tensing as the swing lifted him toward the cloudless, cerulean sky. Then he stopped—right in midair—feeling weightless.

  And whoosh.

  He was falling back down again, moving backward through tunneling air, his hair blowing into his eyes. And then he saw the unbroken, dark surface of the lake.

  The lake!

  Suddenly everything changed. He wasn’t swinging anymore. He was plunging into the water. A hand splashed beneath the surface, grabbed his neck and pushed him down.

  He tried running along the lake’s bottom—the water was shallow—but he only stirred the sandy bottom. Sand particles and pebbles swirled up. He was freezing—icy cold—but he managed to thrust a soaked shirtsleeve up, above the surface of the water. As it came back down, the sleeve filled with air, ballooning as he clawed at the viselike hand around his neck.

  The person wouldn’t let go.

  His lungs were burning. The icy water was flooding his lungs. The hand on his neck tightened. And tightened. A strange calm descended. Through the water, Dylan saw sunlight Foliage, too—a lace canopy of treetops.

  And a face. Above him, eyes stared curiously down. And then the face swam closer, almost to the water’s surface, until it was only inches away.

  But that face—the face above him that connected to the hand that clutched his throat—was his own face.

  Dylan’s eyes fluttered open. His heart was pounding, and his mind was flooded with dream-images. With concentrated effort, he stilled his body, slowed his breathing and relaxed his muscles. His eyes slid across the bed, to where Alice slept. He barely remembered them coming in here. He’d kissed her as they’d come up the steps, and then they’d collapsed. Now he felt exhausted—from the day, from missing her, from their lovemaking.

  Damn. He’d sworn to himself he wouldn’t sleep long. But the deep slumber had taken him, coming as silently as still lake waters. It slipped over his consciousness, submerging him in darkness. At least he hadn’t awakened Alice. The nightmare must have made him toss and turn, but she’d remained as still as a painting, lost to her own dreams.

  Or memories.

  His still-naked body was drenched in sweat, though the room was cold. Downstairs, the fire in the wood burner was probably low. It was nearly light outside. Through the window, barely visible shapes—leafless tree branches—moved like talons, clawing at the emerging gray, snowy morning. He couldn’t see any lights from the main house through the trees.

  He glanced at the bedside clock. Only seven. It felt later. He felt as if he’d slept for years. Glancing at Alice again, he hated himself for what he’d just done. He never should have left the hospital with her. Oh, he loved her. Always had, always would. He still wanted her, too. He’d like nothing more than to pull her warm body close and love her again.

  Instead, he shuddered. Silently, he crossed his arms over his powerful chest, and wondered what to do. For years, that damn lake had haunted him. He’d seen it in dreams and nightmares. At odd times, visions of it would drift into his mind. He’d see those swings, the still lake’s surface and the oleander.

  But he’d never thought it was real. Not until tonight. He still couldn’t believe how he’d felt when he’d seen it on TV—both relieved and scared. After all these years, he’d realized that his dream-place wasn’t a figment of childhood imagination.

  And it was a murder site.

  A warning chill crept down Dylan’s back, and he tried not to imagine how Lang Devlyn had fled his killer. He’d trailed blood from one room to the next, the newscaster had said. Dylan took a steadying breath. At least he now knew the property was real, and that it belonged to Lang Devlyn. Had belonged to him, anyway.

  Dylan looked over at Alice once more. As he watched her sleep, his mind slipped back to years ago, when he’d first met her. He remembered being outside the general store, sitting in his mother’s beat-up Chevy, humming along with Sugarloaf’s song, “Green-Eyed Lady.” At nothing more than the fullness of the memory, his heart pulled. The day had been so pretty, so warm. And despite what had happened to them since, he could still marvel at the innocence he’d felt back then. Not to mention the faith that everything would come out right in the end.

  “Hey,” Alice had said, trying to talk without exposing the new braces on her teeth, which had so obviously embarrassed her. “Did anybody ever tell you you look like Lang Devlyn?”

  Lang Devlyn.

  Dylan did bear a striking resemblance to the man. Staring into the dark. he wondered what his life had to do with Lang Devlyn’s. What, if anything, was his connection to the murdered man? Had Dylan really been to the estate he’d seen on TV? Or had he just seen pictures of it in a book about Hollywood?

  And if he did have a connection to the music producer, did he also have a connection to the man’s murder? Hell, Dylan’s memory of the last year and a half was so disjointed. Everything had been nuts. As they said, truth was stranger than fiction. He’d felt so foggy sometimes that he’d actually lost days. He’d chalked it up to fear and depression. After the trauma of being attacked in the church, he’d been living in a haze, totally cut off from everyone and everything he’d always known and loved, making plans to return and set things right.

  Which was why he had to leave Alice now, even if it broke his heart. Silently, he drew back the covers and slipped from bed.

  For a long moment, he
stood there naked, gazing down at her. He tried memorizing her face, as if he didn’t already know every inch of it—its creamy skin, her eyes with their sparse lashes and sandy eyebrows. Gazing at her, feeling the aching tug of his emotions, he realized again that he’d never actually told her it was him.

  It’s all right. She knows.

  That was his last thought as he turned to go.

  Chapter Seven

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Alice asked, wondering how Dylan could come to the cottage, offer her no explanations about the past, make love to her and just leave. Stopping him in the living room, she summed up all her unspoken questions by saying, “How could you?”

  “Please.” His voice was deceptively soft. His hand was on the doorknob, his eyes holding more dispassion than she could stand. “Just let me go.”

  “Just let you go?” she echoed, feeling uncharacteristically irrational and ready to go to any lengths to keep him there. “You’ve only got a few dollars—” Her voice trembled. “No place to go.”

  “Don’t worry about me.”

  That he didn’t want her to made her feel even shakier. So did his brown eyes, which held new resourcefulness, watchful determination and an almost criminal hardness. That wasn’t all that was criminal, either. No woman in her right mind could keep her eyes off his body.

  An hour later, after the exchange, Alice was still thinking about Dylan’s wanting to leave. Somehow—how she’d never know—she’d gotten him to stay, and now he was in the shower. No doubt, he’d want to leave after that.

  When the doorbell rang, she glanced anxiously from the closed bathroom door to the stairs. In the wintry silence, she could still hear the shower running. Surely she could leave him long enough to answer the door. But maybe not. Maybe he’d somehow sneak out of the house.