Justice

by Piper Davenport

  “Good to know.” I guided her head further under the spray and rinsed the soap from her locks before conditioning and then rinsing again. “Your hair is incredible.”

  “Really?”

  “Definitely.”

  She wiped her hands down her face and looked up at me. “I was thinking about cutting it.”

  “No,” I said, frowning.

  “Is that an order?” she retorted.

  “Yeah, kinda.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Macey.” I sighed. “No, of course it’s not an ‘order.’ It’s just that only women who have given up cut their hair.”

  Macey let out a surprised snort. “Pardon?”

  “At the risk of sounding like a dick, have you noticed that the older women get and the more kids they have, the shorter their hair gets?”

  “Um, no, I guess I haven’t noticed that.” She giggled. “What about Nita? She’s almost bald and totally gorgeous.”

  “She’s the exception.” I leaned down and kissed her neck. “Think about it.”

  Macey hummed as I kissed her pulse. “I’ll think about thinking about it.”

  “So contrary.” I grinned.

  “Only to you.”

  “Promise me you won’t cut your hair.” I ran my tongue across her lower lip. “Not because I’m making demands, but just because you love me… and your only desire is to please me.”

  “Oh, honey, you picked the wrong woman if that’s what you want.”

  I chuckled. “No, I didn’t.”

  “You don’t think so?”

  “Absolutely not. You please me greatly.” I smiled, cupping her bottom. “Maybe you just don’t know you’re doing it.”

  “I won’t cut it.” She stared up at me and smiled. “For now.”

  “Wrap your legs around me,” I growled.

  She didn’t hesitate, and I positioned her against the wall, sliding into her and forcing myself to go slow. I dropped my head to her shoulder and took a deep breath. “You okay?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “Shit,” I ground out as I shifted. “Are you sure? I can stop if you need me to.”

  “You can stop asking me if I’m okay, Dallas. I will tell you if I’m not.”

  I stared at her, her face relaxed, her eyes hooded with desire. “Promise?”

  If she said she wanted to stop, I’d stop, but I was well past of the point of no return and if she stopped me now, I’d be in a hell of a lot of pain.

  “Promise.” Macey giggled. “Time for you to please me, baby.”

  And I did. Twice.

  Macey

  WE STAYED IN the shower until the water turned tepid and he’d kissed me one last time before grabbing a towel. He handed me one, but I’d forced him to grab another from the linen closet in an effort to keep my hair somewhat contained. I knew Brock had stopped by at some point to pick up the note, but had no idea if he was still here.

  Now, I stood in Dallas’s bathroom and attempted to blow-dry my massive amounts of hair. I got that he loved it, even kind of saw his point about women growing older and cutting their hair, but what he failed to see was that it was a total, complete, and utter bitch to dry. By now, Dallas had probably managed to dress, shave, prepare a four-course meal from scratch, even perhaps bake a pie, and I was still standing in front of the mirror attempting to dry my hair enough so I didn’t catch pneumonia from the cold.

  I caught movement out of my peripheral and turned to find Dallas leaning against the doorjamb with a stupid smile on his face. “What?”

  “Just admiring the view.” He waved a hand down my body. “This is a good look for you.”

  “Wife beater and granny panties?”

  He shook his head. “Tight white tank top that leaves just enough to the imagination to drive me crazy, and tiny cotton panties that barely cover that delicious ass of yours.”

  I giggled. “Wow, you make this sound so much sexier than I could have imagined.”

  “It’s the woman inside of it.”

  “Charmer.” I smiled and turned back to the mirror, dragging a brush through my hair. “Right now, I’m thinking of defying you. This monstrosity takes too long to dry.”

  Dallas held up a hand. “Hold that thought.”

  I leaned against the counter and stretched my neck as I waited for him to return. He walked in carrying one of his bar stools and set it in front of me. “Have a seat.”

  I sat on the stool. “I take it Brock’s come and gone?”

  “Yep. Note is now official business,” he said as he scooped my hair behind the chair back before picking up my brush and the hair dryer. For the next ten minutes, Dallas took on the role of hairdresser, or best man ever, as he gently dried my hair. When he was done, he leaned down and kissed the back of my neck. “Gorgeous.”

  I smiled up at him. “Best boy… I mean, man, ever.”

  “Never had one, so I don’t know.”

  I giggled.

  “What time do you have to be at work?” he asked.

  “Eleven.”

  He checked his watch. “Two hours.”

  “I can go in a little early if you have stuff to do,” I offered. “I could also drive myself.”

  Dallas frowned and shook his head.

  I smiled. “It was worth a try.”

  I followed him into the bedroom and he grabbed a pair of socks from his bureau. “I need to head into the office and talk to Matt for a bit, but that won’t take long.”

  “But it’s your day off,” I said.

  “I know.” He sat on the edge of the bed and donned his socks. “But it’s not yours and since I don’t have you to play with, I figure I might as well get some stuff sorted with this stalker asshole.”

  “To play with?” I repeated. “I’m your plaything now?”

  Dallas grinned. “You’ve always been my plaything, baby. You haven’t figured that out yet?”

  I closed the distance between us and pushed him onto his back, climbing over him in order to straddle his hips. “I’ll show you plaything.”

  “You want to play?”

  “Do we have time to play?”

  He chuckled. “We’ll make time. Don’t move.”

  I stayed put as he slid lower, keeping my body above him, lifting me slightly so he could slide my panties to the side and raise his face to my center. I gasped as he kissed me, running his thumb over my clit as he sucked and licked me into a frenzy.

  Somehow, he managed to flip me onto my back, keeping his head between my legs. I slid my fingers into his hair and he gently yanked my panties off before returning to his objective. I felt my climax build, but wanted it to last, so I forced myself to wait, but when he slid two fingers inside of me, I broke, crying out as an orgasm ripped through me.

  “Come here,” I rasped, and stared down my body. Dallas smiled and moved to lie beside me, but I shook my head. “No. Come here.”

  “You sure?”

  I nodded, and he raised himself up, pushing my tank top further up as he kissed my belly, then the undersides of my breasts. He slid my tank top from my body and stroked my cheek. “You okay?”

  “I just have one problem.”

  “What? Let me move.”

  “No, not that.” I held him tighter.

  “What baby?”

  “I’m naked and you’re not.”

  I shouldn’t have been surprised by how quickly he sat up and divested himself of his clothes, but I was no less impressed. He made love to me with a gentleness that overwhelmed me, but I managed to keep my emotions in check until after he’d made me come twice.

  “Hey,” he whispered, kissing my forehead. “Did I scare you?”

  I shook my head and burrowed my face into his neck. “No. That was incredible. I really… really thought I’d always be scared. You make everything okay.”

  “I do?”

  I nodded. “I feel safe with you.”

  “You are safe with me.”

  “Oh, I knew you’
d keep my physically safe,” I met his eyes, “but the way you make me feel…” I blinked back tears again. “Do you know how huge that is?”

  “Are you surprised?”

  “A little,” I admitted. “We just had such a tumultuous beginning, you know?”

  “Tumultuous?”

  “Hey, if you can use ‘ergo,’ I can use tumultuous.”

  Dallas chuckled.

  “Anyway, you could always drive me crazy like no one I knew, but I guess what I failed to see was that you’d protect my heart as valiantly as you’d protect my body.”

  “Babe.” He shifted in order to face me more. “Was I that much of a dick?”

  “Kind of. I mean, I thought you were, but looking back at it through this new filter, I see now that you were protecting me even then. I just didn’t realize or appreciate it.”

  “I wish I’d handled the Tommy situation better.”

  “In what way?”

  “I wish I’d broken his neck before he took what was mine.”

  “I’m sorry?” I leaned away from him. “What exactly was yours?”

  “You were mine.”

  “Dallas,” I admonished.

  “No, I need to say this.” He frowned. “I fucked up, Macey. I was crazy in love with you and thought the best way to get you to come running into my arms was to make you jealous and play the big fucking deal on campus. You were out of my league and I thought I’d never get you if I wasn’t “on” all the time.” Dallas ran his thumb over my bottom lip. “If I’d taken five minutes to think, or had listened to Brock, I would have told you how I felt and gone from there. Instead I made backhanded dickhead comments and drove you right into his arms.”

  “You were crazy in love with me?”

  Dallas laughed. “Here I am pouring my heart out, and my woman picks that out of the whole thing.”

  “Absolutely,” I said without hesitation. “And I pick it out because I had no idea.”

  “That I loved you?”

  I nodded. “And you were out of my league, not the other way around.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “You were this super-hot jock with über rich parents, and I was this chubby red-head with braces and freckles.”

  “You were never chubby.”

  “I was chubby.”

  “Who the hell told you, you were chubby?” he demanded.

  “It doesn’t matter. It was true.”

  His body locked. “Did Payton tell you, you were chubby?”

  “No! She would never say something like that,” I said. “If you must know, it was Whitney.”

  “Styles?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you believed her?” he asked in surprise.

  “Well, yeah. I guess I did. She was gorgeous, Dallas. And she had you.”

  “She never had me.”

  “Yes, she did.”

  “Uh, no she did the fuck not.”

  “She didn’t?” I sat up. “Ever?”

  “Never.”

  “But you went to prom.”

  Dallas sat up and frowned. “We didn’t go to prom, Mace. We hooked up at prom because you shot me down.”

  “I shot you down because you asked me as a joke.”

  “What? No I didn’t. I asked you because I wanted to go with you.”

  “What?” I jumped off the mattress.

  “Who told you I asked you as a joke?” he asked.

  “That lying, conniving, bitchy, whore-y slut face!”

  “What did I miss?”

  I let out a frustrated growl, the pain and embarrassment I’d felt back in high school now replaced with unadulterated rage.

  “Mace?”

  “Whitney and her posse followed me into the bathroom the day before you asked me to prom. I hid in the stall and, since they didn’t harass me, I thought they didn’t see me.”

  “They harassed you?”

  “All the time,” I said. “But said it super sweet like to my face so I didn’t realize I was being insulted. You know?”

  “Ah… sure?”

  “They were talking about prom and she was going on about how you had asked her, and she’d booked a hotel suite and you guys were totally going to do it, and she’d bought sexy lingerie, because that’s obviously what you do when you’re a senior in high school,” I snapped sarcastically.

  Dallas shook his head, his expression one of amusement.

  “She told Katie that you’d told her you were going to ask some junior girl just to mess with her, but had every intention of not showing up on prom night.”

  “What the hell? Seriously?” He dragged his hands through his hair. “I couldn’t figure out why you were so mad when I asked you. I was a little bummed out when you said, ‘I wouldn’t go to prom with you, even if you were the last man on earth.’”

  I bit my lip. “I’m sorry, Dal. I shouldn’t have believed her. I wanted to ask you about it, especially when you looked disappointed, but then I thought you were just a really good actor.”

  He held his hand out to me and pulled me between his legs. “Whitney really was a lying, conniving, bitchy… ah… what was the rest?”

  “Whore-y slut face,” I finished.

  “Right. Whore-y slut face.” Dallas laughed. “She kind of still is.”

  “What? How do you know?”

  “I’m not sure I want to answer that.”

  “You stayed in touch?” I tried to pull away, but he held firm.

  “Okay, first, let me clarify what I meant by ‘hooked up.’ Brock, his date, me, and Brock’s date’s best friend, I don’t remember her name, all ended up sitting next to Whit and her crew. Whitney was super sweet, like she could be, and we took a few pictures together. She kissed me, I kissed her back… once… but that was it. I couldn’t get you out of my head at that point, so I begged off and went home.”

  “You did not.”

  “I did, honey.”

  I bit my lip. “Well, that’s not what she told me and everyone else.”

  “Well, it’s the truth.” He leaned forward and kissed my collarbone. “I wish I wasn’t such an idiot back then.”

  “We were kids, Dallas. We tended to believe what people said. I doubt you would have guessed she was so manipulative. Guys typically didn’t.”

  “Well, she’s on her third marriage in six years, so you might be right,” he said.

  “About that. How is it you keep in touch?”

  “We don’t ‘keep in touch,’ as much as she sends me emails and Facebook messages that I actively ignore.”

  “Block her.”

  He chuckled. “Yes ma’am.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “You’d seriously do that for me?”

  “If you want me to block her, baby, I will block her.”

  “I love you.”

  “Prove it,” he challenged.

  I did.

  Macey

  I STOOD AT the nurse’s station and went through the charts I hadn’t had a chance to file on my previous shift. I was floating today and had been assigned to the E.R., which meant I got to work with Alec again. I had a fleeting notion that Dallas might have made that happen, but quickly shoved the thought aside when we got the call that a multiple car accident meant victims were on their way in.

  “Macey and Vicki, you’re with me,” Alec said. “Kelly and Marci, you’re with Dr. Kellar.”

  The rest of the day passed in a blur, dealing with six patients at once, all with varying levels of injury. By the time I sat down for my dinner break, I thought my feet might fall off. All in all, however, the day had been a great one, especially considering there were no fatalities.

  Alec walked into the staff lounge and smiled. “Great job, today.”

  “Thanks.”

  He handed me his cell phone.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “It’s Dallas.”

  I rolled my eyes and put the phone to my ear. “Hi, honey.”

  “Where the hell is your cell
phone?” Dallas snapped.

  “Probably in my locker.”

  “I have been trying to get hold of you for two hours.”

  “Dallas, I’m working. You know I don’t carry my cell phone with me on the floor. You could have called the nurse’s station.”

  “I did, Macey. I left four messages. If Alec didn’t pick up, I was gonna come down there and fucking drag you out of there.”

  “You were not.”

  He didn’t respond.

  “Dallas, are you being serious right now?” I ground out. “I have a job. You can’t go all cave man on me because I’m not at your beck and call twenty-four, seven.”

  “Macey, there is someone stalking you. I need to know that you’re okay.”

  I frowned when Alec stepped outside to obviously give me some privacy. “No one is stalking me at work, Dallas. Alec is close, and by the way, don’t think I don’t know you made that happen. I have been alone so far for all of six minutes in order to eat something, so I’m fine.”

  “I’m not arguing about this with you, Macey. Get your phone and keep it on you.”

  He hung up.

  The fucker just hung up on me!

  I let out a frustrated growl and rose to my feet. Pulling open the door, I handed the phone back to Alec with a huff. “Your brother is a pain in the ass.”

  Alec chuckled. “He certainly can be.”

  “Sorry you got stuck in the middle.”

  “I facilitated a phone call, Mace. It’s not a problem.” He guided me back into the break room and poured himself a cup of coffee. “What’s this about a stalker?”

  “Some jerk left a note on my car.” I sat back in my seat. “Not sure it is a stalker yet, or if it’s just someone messing with me. You know Dallas, he jumps to the worst-case scenario.”

  Alec wisely didn’t say anything as he sat across from me. He took a sip of his coffee and then pulled his phone out of his lab coat pocket and read the screen. “Dallas would like me to remind you to get your phone.”

  I dropped my face into my hands with a groan. “Just ignore him.”

  Alec chuckled as he fired off a text. “If only that were an option.”

  “Macey Gilbert, please call the fourth floor nurse’s desk.”

  “What now?” I complained as I picked up the phone in the break room.