“In that order I hope,” he joked, grinning.
I gently touched the scar on his face, but he quickly jerked his head away from my hand. He turned from me and put his mug down on the windowsill.
I placed my hand on his shoulder and gently urged him to face me.
“You have been so afraid of what I would think of this….” I touched his scar. “That you never once stopped to wonder how I feel about seeing you again. Did you ever realize that maybe this is killing me? I did this to you. If it hadn’t been for me you would never have had to suffer through any of this.” I ran my fingers down his cheek and gently touched the tracheotomy scar on his neck.
“Michael is the one who did this to me, Nicci, not you.”
“Maybe….” I hesitated and let my hand fall back to my side. “Maybe it would have been better for you if we had never met. I feel like all I’ve done is bring you nothing but pain.”
“Some pain mixed with a hell of a lot of happiness. I would not give up one moment I’ve spent with you to be as I was before we met. You were worth every sacrifice.”
A sudden rush of sorrow filled my heart. “But I’m not worth it now. I understand.” I turned away from him.
He clasped my hand, stopping me. “I can’t help but wonder if your time with Dallas has changed how you feel about me.”
I spun around to face him. “Do you honestly believe another man could ever possibly change what I feel for you? What I have always felt for you since the day we first met at Myra Chopin’s debutante party.”
He let go of my hand. “I didn’t realize you found me irresistible even then. As you can see, I’m not the same man you met at that party so long ago.” He placed his hands behind his back. “I’m still yours, if you’ll have me as I am.”
“What do I have to do to convince you that I want you as you are?”
He winked at me. “Use your imagination.” David strolled through the front door without so much as a second glance.
I followed him into the small carriage house, feeling a slight ripple of excitement. I gazed around the darkened living room and found no sign of David. My eyes traveled up the spiral staircase. At the top of the spiral staircase, the light of a single lamp shone down from the ceiling. I smiled, feeling all of my doubts suddenly stilled by my certainty. I wanted David at that moment. More than I had ever wanted anything in my life, I wanted to hold his body against mine. I wanted to smell the paint and sweat on his skin, to kiss his lips, and to feel…well, only the way David could make me feel. Emboldened by my desire, I went to the staircase and, one by one, slowly ascended the steps.
David was in his bedroom studio, sitting on a stool in front of an easel. Perched on the easel was an unfinished portrait of Jenny, dressed in black, reclining beneath the shade of a massive oak tree. Next to her was a small granite cross. It was the same granite cross that had marked David’s grave.
I slowly approached him. “I see you still like to stay up all night painting.”
“I don’t sleep very well these days. Painting helps pass the time.”
“Why don’t you sleep well?” I asked, coming alongside him.
“I haven’t slept well since the shooting.” He shrugged. “The truth is I haven’t slept well since I’ve been away from you.”
Standing from his stool, he reached out for my hand.
I tightly held his hand, never wanting to let go. “Do you know how much I have missed you?”
“Show me how much you’ve missed me, Nicci,” he demanded in a low voice.
“What can I say, David. There is nothing more I want right now than you.”
He pulled me into his arms and kissed me. I was instantly overwhelmed by the intensity of his kiss. I remembered how the same passion David had brought to his painting had carried over into our bedroom. And as his hands began to explore the hills and valleys of my body, I felt my desire for him consume me.
I anxiously pushed the robe off his shoulders, desperate to feel his warm flesh beneath my hands. He grabbed at his robe and placed it over the easel behind him. I let my fingers traverse every inch of his paint speckled broad chest, arms, and back. I laughed as I took in his paint-splattered body.
“You always reminded me of a walking Picasso.”
I kissed his scarred cheek and then my lips traveled down to the left side of his chest. I noted the long white scar over his lower ribs and tenderly kissed it. I covered his chest with kisses and when I reached his left nipple I bit down hard on the pink tender flesh. He gasped in surprise.
I closed my mouth over his and let all of the hunger inside of me free. He pulled my T-shirt over my head and tossed it away. I reveled in the feel of his hands against my flesh. I undid the buttons on the fly of his jeans. Eagerly, I pushed the jeans down and my hands explored his firm butt. I reached around and gently stroked his erection. He bit into my shoulder and I could feel the blood bounding beneath his skin. He unclasped my bra and began teasing my nipples with his thumbs. I was undone by the sensations he was awakening inside of me. David unzipped my jeans and quickly eased the heavy denim fabric from around my hips.
Naked before him, I closed my eyes as his hands caressed every inch of me. While I savored his touch, an unwanted image popped into my head. I saw Dallas’s slender hands traveling up and down my naked body in almost the exact same way.
I opened my eyes and pushed David away. “We have to stop.”
David’s eyes searched mine. “What is it?” he asked breathlessly.
I cast my eyes to the floor, ashamed of my behavior. I had offered myself to David, but I had not completely freed my heart of Dallas.
“I, ah….” I gazed into his bewildered eyes. “I shouldn’t have come. I can’t do this. I’m sorry.”
He sighed and ran his hands over his face. “I understand. Don’t be sorry. It’s my fault. You’ve been through so much and I should have given us more time. I just hoped….” He was silent for a moment. “Is this about Dallas? Do you still feel something for him?” he eventually asked.
I wrapped my arms around my naked body. “What I feel is…guilty.”
David placed his hands about my face. “Are you saying he does mean something to you?”
I removed his hands. “Of course he means something to me, David. I almost married him for Christ’s sake.”
“I thought you said you didn’t want to marry him.”
I rested my hand against his chest. “I know now I would have been content with Dallas, but I would never have been complete. He was not you. No one ever was.”
David took a step back from me. “I think Dallas suspected that.” He bent down and picked up his jeans from the floor.
“What makes you say that, David?”
“If he wanted to fight for you, Nicci, he wouldn’t have moved out of your bedroom,” he explained as he pulled on his jeans.
A twinge of remorse rose from the pit of my stomach. “I feel like all we have done since we have been together is hurt people. First Michael and now Dallas. It’s like we’re doomed or something.”
He buttoned up his jeans. “Michael was a nut job. Dallas knew how we felt about each other.”
“He never counted on you coming back from the dead,” I argued.
“No, but for a man seeing a long lost friend back from the grave, he didn’t act very surprised. In fact, he never showed any emotion at all.” He turned from me. “I guess I never realized before how much being Simon’s prized specialist had changed him,” he admitted over his shoulder.
He walked back to the easel and picked up his robe.
“He misses his old life,” I admitted, recalling my conversation with Dallas. “He told me how shadowing me the other night at the party excited him. It made him feel useful again. Building boats with his uncle has never been enough for him.”
David quickly returned to my side. “I got that impression, too.” He slipped his robe about my shoulders. “In the past, he always joked about wanting to take over Simon�
�s organization. I figured with you out of his life he would want more now than ever to get back in the game. That’s why I offered him Simon’s little empire. After we get rid of Simon, Dallas can take care of everything in New York. Leaving you and me to start a new life together.”
I pulled the robe closer. “You might have thought to ask me if I wanted to start a new life with you before you discussed it with Dallas.”
David lowered his gray eyes to mine. “All right, I’m asking. What do you want to do? Paint pictures with me or build boats with Dallas?”
I gawked at him “After what we almost just did, how can you ask me that?”
“That was sex, Nicci. I’m talking about love. Which one of us do you love?”
I already knew the answer to that question. I had always known the answer, but I had never once told David of it. In the short time we had been together, before Michael had intervened, I had never truly declared my feelings to him. I had always believed feelings were like wishes best kept locked away inside a genie’s bottle. Because once the feelings were proclaimed and set free, they could never be taken back. Those feelings would always be there between us, like an exposed truth that you hoped you did not one day live to regret.
“Then there is silence,” David commented. “Seems there was always silence from you whenever we got around to talking about your feelings.”
“Shouldn’t actions speak louder than words?”
“Here we go again,” David whispered. “Nicci, it isn’t that hard. Just tell me how you feel. Don’t you think after everything we’ve been though, I deserve to hear those words from you?”
I stared at him, feeling more hurt than angry. “What, are my words some kind of prize you feel you’re owed? You’ve come back from the dead for me and now I’m supposed to declare my undying love for you.”
“Undying or otherwise, I’ll take whatever I can get from you at this point,” he professed, shaking his head.
“This isn’t about love; it’s about trust, David. Since I have met you, you have done nothing but betray me and leave me. It’s just not that easy for me to start trusting you again.”
“You can trust Dallas, but you can’t trust me. Is that it?”
“I’m not in love with Dallas!”
“Well, if you’re in love with me, then you should at least be able to tell me, Nicci,” David said, raising his voice.
“Do you know what happens if I tell you how I feel. You’ll leave me…again. Once you let people in they leave you, David. Better to never give your heart to anyone and spare yourself the eventual betrayal.”
He waved a frustrated hand at me. “Your mantra has always been that you don’t trust anyone. Is that why you’re so afraid of opening yourself up to others? Because you think they will leave you or betray you?”
“Yes! Trust someone and they will leave you or hurt you or…die on you.”
“Nicci, no one chooses to die. It just happens.”
I shook my head and dropped my eyes to the old hardwood floor. “When my mother died, I was so devastated. I withdrew from the world and I felt safe until you came along. Then you went back to New York, and I was so heartbroken that I turned to that lunatic Michael Fagles to help me forget about you. And when I thought I had lost you forever, it was as if every fiber of my being had been ripped into a million tiny pieces. It hurt so much and I can’t ever….” I was silenced by the emptiness I felt surrounding me.
David placed his arms about me. “I’m not going anywhere, Nicci. I promise no one will ever tear us apart again.”
Images of David, and all the promises he had made to me in the past, rolled across my mind like a movie montage. He had promised to love me, to stay with me, to take care of me, but he had never kept any of those promises. I pulled away from him and picked up my jeans from the floor.
“You made a hell of a lot of promises to me in the past, David. None of which you ever kept. Why should I believe you now?” I asked, pulling on my jeans.
“Nicci, I never planned on leaving you. I damn near died after I was shot.”
I fought to zip up my jeans. “What will be your excuse this time to bail on me, David. Amnesia? How can I possibly trust you, and start over with you, when all you do is lie to me?”
He threw his hands into the air. “Christ, you’re impossible!”
I struggled to remove the robe from around my shoulders. “First you betray me and then you die on me. Now you come back in my life and get me involved with men like Greg Caston and Simon La Roy.” I threw the robe on the floor.
“You got yourself mixed up with those two without any help from me.”
I snapped up my bra and T-shirt from the floor. “You’re the reason I got mixed up with them in the first place. If you had just stayed out of my life, David Alexander, I would probably be happily married to a nice, normal guy and living a quiet, espionage free life.” I struggled to clasp my bra. “Three hours ago I was telling Greg Caston that his lost David Alexander’s are forgeries when they are really genuine works painted by you to entrap the guy. How screwed up is that?”
David’s face fell. “You told Caston the paintings were forgeries?”
I pulled my T-shirt over my head. “Yeah!”
“Do you realize what you’ve done? Nicci, you’ve put yourself in danger. I was supposed to be the one to tell Caston about the paintings, not you. I was going to set up a deal with him to get him to go after Simon. If Simon finds out—”
“I really don’t give a shit about any of this spy crap anymore!” I shouted, making a beeline for the spiral staircase.
“Where are you going?” David roared.
“Back to Val’s.”
“No, Nicci!” David came running up to me. “It’s after three in the morning; you can’t walk home at this hour.” He held my arm. “You have to be reasonable.”
I shrugged off his arm. “Get away from me, David!”
He held up his hands, trying to soothe me. “All right,” he said in a calm voice. “You need to stop and think about this. I know you’re angry. But you can’t go marching out of here halfcocked and put yourself in harm’s way. I won’t let anything happen to you.” He ran his hand through his hair and sighed. “Look, why don’t you stay up here and I’ll sleep downstairs on the couch. In the morning, we can talk.”
I threw my hands up. “I don’t want to talk anymore, David. Every time we talk I feel like we are just going around in circles.”
“Tomorrow morning, I will make us a nice breakfast and we will sit down and calmly straighten everything out. For now, just try and get some sleep, Nicci. You’re never rational when you’re tired,” He started down the staircase. “I’ll leave you alone, but I’ll be right downstairs if you need me,” he added, pointing down the stairs.
I stomped my foot on the floor as I watched him disappear down the steps. I didn’t want to stay, but I knew I shouldn’t risk walking home at such an hour. Alone in the large bedroom, I studied all the Jennys standing against the wall. I stared into the face of each and every painting and tried to find something of me. Unfortunately, the longer I stared, the less I saw of Nicci and the more I saw of Jenny. I wondered when I had stopped being me and had turned into the face in the portrait. And for the first time since David had come into my life, I longed to be the girl I had been before all the intrigue and betrayal had changed me. And as I lay down on David’s bed, I thought about the kind of woman I might have been if I had never met a man like David Alexander.
***
I awoke to streams of light shining in my face. I rose from the bed and was startled by my unfamiliar surroundings. Then, I remembered David’s bedroom studio and the fight we had left unfinished the night before. I got up from the bed and quietly walked over to the top of the spiral staircase in the corner of the room. I peeked down into the living room and saw David asleep on the couch. I crept down the stairs until my feet landed on the living room floor. I looked over to make sure David was still soundly sleeping be
fore I quickly tip toed across the living room to the front door. Once I had firmly pulled the front door closed, I ran as fast as I could across the courtyard, down the alleyway, and out into the street. I ran all the way back to Val’s, wishing that I could keep on running until all the pain and confusion inside of me disappeared.
Chapter Seventeen
I emerged from the shadows of the gate entrance to find Dallas pacing back and forth in the middle of Val’s courtyard.
“I told you never to leave without telling me. Did you see if you were followed? That was a foolish thing to do, Nicci,” he bellowed as soon as he saw me enter the courtyard.
“I’m not an idiot, Dallas.” I marched up to him. “I did just as you taught me. I doubled back and checked behind me. I stopped twice along the way and looked to see if anyone was there. I was careful. Now just get off my back.”
“What in the hell is the matter with you?” He gave me an uneasy going over with his eyes. “I take it your evening with David didn’t go well.”
“How did you know I was at David’s?”
He folded his arms over his chest. “Where else would you go at two in the morning? Next time you’re going to take off in the middle of the night, take your cell phone with you.” He pulled my cell phone out of the front pocket of his jeans. “You’re father has called about a dozen times. It seems you missed your nine o’clock appointment with Dr. Appell this morning.”
“It’s after nine? Shit! What did you tell him?” I took the cell phone from his hand.
“That you left early this morning to go shopping at the French Market and probably forgot about it. You should call him and tell him you’ve squared everything away with the shrink. We don’t need him showing up here, wanting to drag you off to the nearest psychiatric ward.”
“You know damn well there’s nothing wrong with me.”
“Yeah, but your father doesn’t know that. So you’d better call him.”
I shook my head. “No, I should go and see him before he goes to work. He can be soothed better in person than over the phone.”
The Nicci Beauvoir Collection: The Complete Nicci Beauvoir Series Page 76
