Protect Her

by Chloe Fischer

  When he returned moments later, Cleo was still standing in the same spot, looking a little shell shocked. He grabbed her hand and pulled her quickly towards the stairway leading to the back of her building. She followed closely behind until they slipped out the back door and crept hurriedly around the side of her building. Once there, Dallas helped her get into his car. He reached across, buckled her seatbelt, then quickly jumped into the driver’s seat and sped off.

  --

  Dallas had never known Cleo to be this quiet. I should have tried kissing her to shut her up before. He still didn’t know why he had kissed her back at her place. Yeah there was no denying that he was attracted to her, but damn, that hadn’t been the smartest thing he’d done this week. Blame it on the adrenaline rush, he told himself. Or maybe blood loss. He snickered inside his head. He could tell himself all the lies he wanted, but he knew the real reason. He just flat out wanted her. She was sassy, and tough, and beautiful as all hell. And he had to get these thoughts out of his head right fucking now. She was Mark’s baby sister. That meant hands off. Period.

  They walked into his small studio suite and he threw his keys on the counter. Cleo lightly closed the door and just stood there, clutching the backpack.

  She threw it on the couch and walked over to Dallas. “Look, I can’t tell you how sorry I am about all of this. I’ll tell you everything you want to know, but please, can we just make sure you’re all right first?” Cleo implored.

  Dallas looked down at her. “Fine, but don’t think you’re going to get away without telling me the whole story. As long as you’re not selling or stealing drugs, I’m going to help you fix whatever is going on. I owe it to your brother.” Dallas was pretty sure he added that last part about her brother just to remind himself to keep his hands off her and his cock in his pants. He couldn’t believe that even with the blood loss he was suffering, he could still picture bending her over the couch right now and tossing up her stylish blue skirt, just to see if her panties were as pretty as he was imagining.

  Just as he had that thought, a wave of dizziness passed over him and he had to grip the counter behind himself. “I need to have some water to increase my blood pressure, and get a look at this arm. Can you go into the bathroom and grab the first aid kit that’s under the sink?”

  Cleo hurried off to grab the kit. When she came back, Dallas was trying to cut his left sleeve from the cuff to the shoulder. Doing it one handed, however, wasn’t going well. He scowled at his arm, as if it was the offending factor here.

  Cleo walked over and grabbed the scissors out of his hand. “I’ll do it for you, but wouldn’t it be easier to just take the shirt off over your head?”

  “If you’re going to help me with it, then yeah. I wouldn’t be able to do it one handed.”

  Cleo hesitantly slid her hands under the hem of his shirt to lift it up. She could feel the contours of the muscles lining his stomach and diaphragm. His stomach clenched as her fingers trailed upward. Her breath hitched, her eyes flying up to meet his. They stayed that way for a moment until Cleo inwardly shook herself and continued to lift his shirt so he could slip his right arm out of its sleeve, then she gently lifted the shirt over his head, making sure she was stretching it enough that he didn’t have to raise his left arm. When she started to peel the shirt down his left sleeve, she couldn’t contain the gasp of alarm. Blood had soaked through his shirt and down into his pants on that whole side of him. The gash that the bullet had left was deep and angry looking. The six inch long furrow was still seeping blood steadily.

  Dallas looked over the bullet wound, as much as he could see. “The bullet isn’t in there, but I’m going to need stitches to stop the bleeding before we do anything else.” He glanced up at Cleo. “How’re your sewing skills, brat?”

  "Hold up. I don't think that's the best option here. I can't just.... you want me to... I don't – you've lost a lot of blood. Clearly you aren't thinking properly." She stammered through her sentence, trying her best to dissuade him. "Maybe if we just --"

  "Cleo, listen." Dallas reached out and took Cleo by the hand. It shot a pulse through her and for a second she forgot where she was and what she was doing. For a second, her mind was completely focused on that hand, wrapped around her own. "You’re going to have to do this. Okay?"

  “No way. I’ll get the needle ready for you, but I’m not stitching you.”

  She pulled her eyes from his hand, finding his eyes instead. They held her stare, boring into her. They were so intense and so beautiful at the same time.

  “Fine. Get the needle and thread it."

  Cleo nodded. She picked up the needle and thread and attempted to thread it through. Her hands were shaking so violently that she just couldn't do it. She tried again, and again, and continued to fail. She could feel tears brimming in her eyes.

  Trying again, she finally managed to get the thread through the needle. She let out a sigh of relief.

  "Okay, now what?" Cleo asked, feeling slightly more confident.

  "You're going to stitch me up," Dallas said simply.

  “Uh, no. I’m not.” Cleo said with conviction.

  “Yes. You. Are.” Dallas insisted.

  Cleo's hand began to shake. She looked down at the wound, with the threaded needle hovering just over it. The blood was congealing.

  Dallas lifted her chin with his thumb. “Look at me, Cleo,” he said softly. When she raised her eyes, he said, “You can do this – just pretend you’re sewing up a sock.” She sniffled, took a deep breath and seemed to straighten her back, setting her shoulders back.

  “Yeah, a stinky gym sock,” she grumbled.

  Dallas grinned, “That’s my girl.”

  With her hand shaking uncontrollably, Cleo pierced his skin, then pulled the needle up, feeling the thread drag through the skin. When it reached the end of its length, it went tight as the knot pulled on the skin. And Cleo felt the bile rise in her throat. Oh God, she couldn’t do this!

  She snapped at him, “Distract me! Tell me a story, or something.”

  “A story? Like what? I don’t do bedtime stories, Cleo.”

  “Tell me about your last girlfriend. Did she dump you because you’re an ass? How long were you together? Just talk, dammit!”

  And again, she paused.

  "Fine.” Dallas said suddenly. As he did, he guided her hand again and pushed the needle through.

  "We met while I was training to be a SEAL. Fell in love, that whole --," he grimaced as the needle pierced him. He let go of Cleo's hand completely. She continued to sew without his hand guiding her, not even noticing.

  "Sorry."

  "That's fine. You're doing great. Anyway, where was... oh yeah. She was in JAG, so I only saw her on weekends and holidays when she could come over to my base. A little over two years ago I was involved in an incident, a training exercise that went wrong. My fault, I was arrogant and a little brash --"

  "You?" Cleo joked. She was working him by herself now, getting the hang of it.

  "Hard to believe, right? Well my girlfriend was also aware of this and she knew that the incident was most likely my fault. That was fine, until she was ordered to investigate and bring charges, if she saw fit."

  "And she charged you?"

  "No. But that didn't matter. The damage was done. I was in Hawaii at the time and she had come from San Diego for the trial. We fought, broke up and she took a ferry back to the mainland – the early one. One she shouldn't have been on." He paused.

  There was pain in his voice as he spoke, and she got the impression that it was about more than a simple break up.

  "There was a storm that day, the worst I'd ever seen," he continued. As he did, Cleo noticed his right fist clenching hard. She knew it wasn’t the pain from his wound, that hand had been relaxed before he started telling his story. "When the ferry was capsized and the rescue team went out to save them, I tried to get on the chopper. They wouldn't let me of course. They promised that... that they would bring everyone b
ack, alive. But it was a promise they couldn't keep..."

  Cleo finished stitching his wound, but she didn't say anything. She was staring at him in shock. The story was heartbreaking. It was so raw and honest. She couldn't believe how open he was being. It was a side she hadn't seen before, or even knew existed.

  "I left the SEAL team after that. It was my fault she was on that ferry. It was my fault she was in Hawaii in the first place. I was young... an idiot. I was…” he paused, Cleo waiting patiently for him to go on. Then suddenly he seemed to notice that she was done. “Well…all done." He said suddenly, jumping up from the stool he was sitting on, not meeting her eye.

  Cleo knew he had started the story just to take her mind off of what she was doing, and it really had worked, but damn that was a heartbreaking story!

  "Oh... oh yeah," Cleo said absentmindedly. She stared at Dallas, unable to process what she had just heard and how it made her feel.

  It was more than just sympathy for a man who had lost his love. It was more than just sympathy for a friend too. What she was feeling transcended the simple. Dallas was her brother’s best friend, and she knew that what she was thinking was wrong on every level, but her attraction to the ex-SEAL was undeniable.

  Cleo had always been strong and independent. But with Dallas it was different. She liked how he made her feel safe. It was funny how she felt like she could lean on him if she needed to.

  She had never felt that way about anyone before. She knew that her brother would always help her if she needed it, but it wasn’t the same – her brother treated her like she was still a kid so of course Cleo wouldn’t ever ask for his help. That would just prove his point.

  "Okay," Dallas said, not noticing the way she was looking at him. “We need to talk.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  As Dallas grabbed her hand and led her over to the couch, he tried to focus on what was important here. The backpack. The drug dealer. The dead bodies piling up around them.

  But for some reason he could not stop thinking about her.

  Earlier at his apartment, when she first slipped through his grasp, he had been furious. At the time he thought that anger was directed at her, for putting him in that situation, but really he knew the anger was directed at himself, for letting Cleo get herself into trouble. When he realized this, he assumed he felt that way because he had let Mark down.

  But now... now he wasn't so sure. When he had been fighting that giant, a gun pointed at his head and seconds away from being shot and killed, he hadn’t been concerned for his own life. He had been more concerned about what would happen to Cleo if he died. And when she had saved him by distracting the goon, but was thrown against the wall in the process, he could feel a caged beast inside of him roar to life – pure anger swept through him and drove him hard, until the thug was dead and he could make sure that Cleo was safe.

  And then finally, as she stitched him up and listened to his story, he realized that all these feelings he had weren't that of an older brother. He had spent such a long time wallowing in his grief, convincing himself that his heart was broken, that he hadn't even realized it had healed. Time really does heal all wounds, Dallas thought to himself.

  The story he had told her was one he hadn't told anyone before, not even Mark. He had kept it bottled up inside of him, thinking that was the best way to heal. But as he told her what had happened, he could literally feel the weight of the past falling off him.

  “So what’s in the bag, Cleo?” Dallas asked.

  Cleo, who had just taken a seat on the couch next to Dallas, reached behind her and grabbed the backpack. She passed it to him, and said, “Here. Go ahead and look.”

  Dallas unzipped the bag and slowly looked inside. He glanced up at Cleo quickly, disgust in his eyes. “So, it really is about drugs?” he sneered. “I can’t believe you’d let your brother risk his life to help you—“

  "No... it's not like that..." Cleo attempted. Her face was ashen. “It's not like that," she said again, with a little more force this time.

  "And what's it like? Tell me, please." He wanted to believe her, but fuck, the evidence was right there in his hands. He felt so foolish. He couldn’t believe he had started having feelings for someone who was so selfish. So shallow.

  "The bag belongs to Stan," she said quickly. "He’s a friend. I mean….he was….a friend. I was visiting him the other day and... and a cop turned up. I took the bag so that the cop wouldn't search it. But the cop recognized me and forced me to come with him. I couldn't give the bag back with the cop right there so I... I kind of had to climb in the car with the bag and let him drive me home."

  "And why didn't you take it back to Stan later? You must have known what was in it? You must have known how dangerous it would be to keep?"

  "Of course I did, I went the very next day." she said. She looked away from Dallas, ashamed. “But it was already too late. Stan was….gone.” A tear fell from her lashes. She still couldn’t believe that people had died. And it was her fault! And she was still in the same boat as before – drug dealer trying to kill her, brother in danger, no money to help her friend who was going to be deported soon.

  Dallas watched her closely. He knew she was telling the truth, but he also knew she was holding back. “So why were you visiting a “friend” in that part of town, Cleo?” he questioned.

  Cleo considered lying, but she took one look at his implacable expression and knew it wouldn’t work. "Okay...look, I was seeing Stan to ask for a loan. I need money for friend of mine. Her visa is about to run out and she's going to get deported. I know some guys who can get her one, fast, but it's expensive. Like really expensive. So…I thought Stan might be able to help out. He was just about to agree to loan me the money when that cop pulled up.”

  "How much?" Dallas asked.

  "How much what?"

  "How much do you need?" He didn't know why he asked. That was probably the most irrelevant part of the whole story. But he was touched by the story, and relieved that she had a good excuse for what she had done. Whether it was true or not was another matter. But he knew it wouldn’t be hard to prove one way or the other. Later.

  "Five thousand dollars. I was going to ask Mark but I didn't want him to have that over me..." she trailed off, not knowing if Dallas would understand the dynamics between brother and sister.

  "I'll tell you what," Dallas began. "When we get through this, I'll help you out. I have some money I can lend you –."

  "Are you serious?"

  "Of course."

  "That's... thanks," Cleo said softly. For a moment, their eyes met, pausing on one another. But it was brief and a second later Cleo looked away as if nervous.

  "Right now we need to -- what's that?" Dallas hadn't noticed before, but just then he spotted a small trickle of blood smeared down Cleo's thigh. She was wearing a flowing blue skirt that hiked up to just above the knees as she had pulled her legs up under her on the couch. The trickle dripped just below it.

  "Oh," she said, wiping it away. "I’m sure it's nothing. I must have cut myself when... when that guy threw me against the wall. You know, day in the life." She tried to laugh it off.

  "Come here,” he said without smiling. “Let's see it."

  "What? No, I'm -- what are you doing?"

  In a single motion, Dallas stood and grabbed Cleo by the waist and lifted her up and onto the kitchen counter, so that she was sitting. He then stepped in-between her legs, so that she was facing him directly... and straddling him to boot.

  "I'm taking a look at that leg." Without asking, Dallas moved to examine the wound. As he went to lift her skirt to better see the wound, his hand grazed her inner thigh.

  "Woah!" she pulled back, grabbing his hand as she did. "I don't think that...?"

  "I need to see it, Cleo. I need to know if you’re hurt."

  Slowly, she released his hand. As she did, he moved it carefully, sliding it up her thigh. Dallas was very aware of where he stood; in-between her spread legs, but tried
his best to ignore that fact. Instead he concentrated on the wound. It was only a small gash, barely a scratch really.

  "You're right, it's fine," he said without moving. From where he stood he could feel Cleo's breath, hot on the side of his face. He saw the pulse beating in the side of her neck. He thought he could feel the heat of her core, where it almost touched his cock. “Better to be safe.” He said, his voice gravelly with tension.

  "Right... safe," Cleo agreed, looking up at him.

  Dallas didn't even realize he was doing it.

  It was her scent that got to him at first; it was intoxicating and crippling. As it wafted through his nostrils, his head spun and his mouth salivated. He pulled his stare from her thighs and up to her eyes, locking onto them. They sparkled in the darkness. They bore into him. They devoured him. And after that it was her lips...

  Before Dallas even had time to pause or think, he was kissing Cleo. And she was kissing him back. Her legs wrapped around his waist as she pulled him in tight. Her hands ran up the side of his face, holding him in place. She bit down on his lip, and pushed her fingers through his hair.

  Dallas took the opportunity of her hands being raised to pull her shirt up over her head. Their lips parted for the split second it took to accomplish it, but came back together with a fiercer passion than before.

  He pulled her forward on the counter so that the mound of her pussy was rubbing on the bulge of his straining cock. She let off a soft moan as she held on tight. It felt right. Right to have her legs wrapped around him, to be holding her tightly.