He carried the desert rose over to the register, the petals brushing his arm from this tiny, twisted tree. The cashier lifted a brow as she rang him up but didn’t offer any unwanted opinions. He thanked her before scooping off the plant from the counter and returning to his conversation with Nellie.
“So, what did my ex-fiancée say to you?” he asked, familiar irritation washing over him. The more time that passed, his initial hurt and shock changed into acid annoyance. Her actions since they split retold the story of a woman he once knew better than anyone. She was the pure opposite of Danny who no matter what name she went under burst with a Monarch butterfly’s vibrancy since high school.
“She’s claiming she got the short end of the deal with the house and you underpaid her,” Nellie said, letting out an annoyed huff afterwards. “Why that monster is torturing you more is beyond me. She never deserved you.”
Adrian reached his car and placed the desert rose in the passenger seat before slinking over to the other side. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, sweetheart. Betty’s making it easier and easier to get over her every time she pulls one of these stunts.”
“She can’t throw you out of your house, can she?” Nellie asked, the worry broadcasting clear in her voice.
Adrian’s chest warmed. The subtle war Betty had waged with his family had made him feel inattentive for how involved he got in his family’s lives, but that’s part of what it meant to be a Dukas. They were a chaotic, interfering, constant mess of the most loyal people he had the honor to know. Any one of his siblings would’ve pulled out their arsenal against Betty the moment she tried to cause him serious problems, whether Cal called in one of his connections in town or Lex showed up at her house with a switchblade and a butane torch.
“Anything she tries won’t hold up in court,” he said, pulling out of the Home Depot parking lot. Next stop, Danny’s apartment. This could either end one of two ways, but he just held onto the hope that she hadn’t closed her heart for good. “Betty signed the agreement when she accepted the money. Right now, she’s begging for attention.”
“Why doesn’t she ask the dozens of guys plowing through those legs?” Nellie spat back, his sweet-spoken sister’s temper appearing.
Adrian snorted. “I’m betting her entry into fine society hasn’t been as satisfying as she hoped for. All the talk about me holding her back was hot air. Old money only accepts their own into the ranks, and she reeks of newly earned desperation.”
“Next time she comes up to me in public, I’m pulling out the pepper spray,” Nellie muttered. “You’re way better off now. I liked the new girl you brought around the other week.” His sister would’ve been too young to remember Sam Peterson from Hanahan High, and Lex must’ve kept her trap shut for once.
Adrian swallowed, his throat drying at the reminder of his current destination. A quiet part of his heart still flickered with unwavering hope for respite from the disappointment that clutched his chest ever since Betty left him. However, he’d also witnessed too much injustice to believe Danny would slip into his arms and all their past problems would melt away.
“I’m heading to see her now,” he said. “I’ll tell her you said hey.” No need to share his cracked cobblestone headspace with Nellie, not until he knew what path he and Danny headed down. “How’s Greg doing?” He asked more out of politeness than giving a damn. His blood boiled every time his brother-in-law opened his ignorant mouth, and Greg’s disparaging comments to Nellie’s face made Adrian’s knuckles itch every time.
If Nellie and Greg ever split, which Mom prayed for every day, the man had best hustle out of town. So many members of his family would be lining up to sling a punch they’d have to start taking numbers.
“He’s real busy with work,” Nellie murmured, and he’d be an idiot not to hear the slight tremble in her voice. “His job has him traveling to a lot of different cities, so we don’t get to see each other as much as I’d like.”
“Well, you know we’re here to keep you company in the interim.” He flicked on his turn signal as the exit came into view, the proximity causing his heart to race.
“I appreciate it,” she murmured. “And if Betty gives you any more trouble, don’t hesitate to tell us. We’ll make her regret she ever messed with a member of the Dukas family.”
Nellie hung up the phone, but Adrian couldn’t help his lingering grin. His sister would sling fists for any one of them even if she never stood up for herself. He wove down the side streets closer and closer to the apartment complex he’d entered when he picked Danny up on their official date. A few weeks ago felt like an eternity since their stumble through the Siren’s Call and first, intoxicating kiss.
When the Magnolia Courts sign came into view, the weight of his nerves smacked into him like a broken brick.
This was a terrible idea. He had shot the occasional text, but she hadn’t responded to a single one. That pretty much confirmed she had no more interest in talking to him, let alone seeing his face. Somehow, he’d let Cal and Lex’s terrible plan infect his brain, and he couldn’t help feeling like some pathetic creep at this point. The thought didn’t sit well in his stomach as he pulled into a parking spot.
The desert rose mocked him from the passenger seat. Adrian ran a hand through his hair, wishing for the thousandth time things hadn’t ended the way they did, with his worries coming out horribly and her walking out his front door. He’d imagined the night going in the opposite direction, with Danny spending it in his bed. Not like he had planned on sleeping.
Instead, four days later, he sat outside her apartment feeling like some heartsick weirdo. But Lex and Cal were right about one thing. Her actions and words conflicted, even when she ghosted him. It wasn’t like he showed up ready to strike matches and light the place on fire—he just wanted closure, one final conversation. If she slammed the door in his face or told him they were done, he’d leave her alone for good.
His hand rested on the door handle of his Mustang, but he couldn’t get his calves to move forward, his feet refusing to listen. As much as he told Lex and Cal he was fine, he had lied. This past year had been hail battering an aluminum roof until at last it threatened to snap.
He let out a shaky breath. At the end of the day, the same words he’d told Nellie reflected onto him. When his sandcastle crumbled, his family would be there to build it back up again, even while they scattered their own messes across the floor.
He steeled himself and pushed the door open, grabbing the potted desert rose to bring along with him. “You’re my first line of defense, got that?” he told the plant as he locked the car.
Christ Almighty, the stress had him talking to inanimate objects. Adrian strode up the slate walkway toward her apartment complex, his heart thundering so loud it drowned out the rest of the neighborhood sounds. An older woman hobbled by with a little Yorkie in tow, the tiny pup yapping at thin air. He tilted his head and offered a smile. The woman’s eyes crinkled as she grinned back, her Yorkie racing up to him trying to yip him into submission.
He strode up the steps of the first floor leading to her apartment. It was a miracle he still gripped the pot since the amount of sweat coating his palms increased with every step forward. In the hospital, even though the truly shit days made him spiral, for the most part he could fall back on protocol and years of study for answers. He’d gained an arsenal of logic and knowledge to throw at problems, and every year he spent there, he attained experience as well.
Around Danny, he free fell with nothing to grasp onto. Part of it thrilled him to his core, but the other half of him needed something—anything—to steady him. The enormity of his feelings for her broiled in the back of his mind like an impending storm.
He counted his steps down the corridor until the gold 4B on her door came into view.
Judgment time.
His mouth dried as he lifted his hand to knock. The door already lay open a crack, dim rays of light spilling from it. Adrian nudged the door open instead and stepped inside, his
one arm laden with the potted plant.
“Danny?” he called to announce himself. “I swung over to finalize things. We left it too open ended at my house.” He glanced around her room, a lone lamp lit in the corner while shadows smothered most of the apartment. Even though the light was on and the door open, he didn’t see her anywhere.
Adrian took another step forward, confusion settling in. “Hello?”
The creak from the left was the one warning he got.
Adrian pivoted to the side in time to spot an older man approaching, messy silver strands, haggard lines on his face, and the sort of dead eyes that didn’t belong on a person. Before Adrian could back away, the older guy’s arm descended with something big and bulky in his grip.
The last thing that flashed through his mind was how familiar the guy looked.
Until, lights out.
Chapter Seventeen
Danny hoisted a plastic bag in each hand as she strode up the walkway to her apartment. A yappy little Yorkie barked from further along the sidewalk leading around the building, the sound almost causing her to drop her groceries. Why she bothered to stock her fridge was a mystery when the second her phone buzzed she’d have to ditch this place. From the sounds of it, she might not even be allowed to tote her meager belongings with her this time.
She’d only been able to eat a few bites of the burger after the conversation she had with her handlers, and she craved oozing grilled cheese and canned tomato soup in a fierce way. Mom used to make it every Saturday for lunch, and when her insides scraped like a knife to metal the way they did now, those familiar tethers offered the faintest relief.
She stalked up the steps, her nerves buzzing like a club’s dance floor. The handlers never failed to slap fear into her, as if she could forget the ever-present crawl of the numbness from her shoulders to fingertips. Besides, her jaunt down memory lane left her shakier than normal.
The plastic handles bit into her palms as she squeezed them tighter while making her way down the corridor. Maybe she could crack open the bottle of Tanqueray she’d picked up the other night and knock back a couple of shots to settle down. Her stomach soured in remembrance of her night of excess not long enough ago.
Danny fished for her key as she stepped up to her apartment. She stopped still.
Her door lay open.
Her insides went Novocaine numb. Danny set down the bags as quietly as she could manage and tugged out her pistol. She turned the safety off as she approached the crack in her door. Now of all times, she wouldn’t take any chances. She knew better to delude herself this might be some junkie looking to steal her not-so-fancy silverware.
If she saw Kyle Peterson, she would shoot him in the face, no hesitation.
Danny crept to her door and peered inside, pistol leading the way. Dim light from a single lamp pooled in the corner of her apartment, and inky shadows smeared through the rest of the room. She listened, waiting for a creak or a breath to give the intruder away. Cold sweat prickled on her forehead, and she tasted iron as she took another step inside.
Shards of clay scattered across her carpet, followed by loose dirt strewn around a beautiful Madagascar rose. Her brows furrowed. Something didn’t add up. She scanned the shadows, her gaze landing on a still form hunched in the opposite corner of the room.
Except it wasn’t her father.
Someone slumped in the fold-up chair she lugged from apartment to apartment. Danny inched forward, daring another couple paces with her gun aimed in front of her. She leaned to the wall of her apartment and flicked on the overhead light. Her breath hitched in her throat as the form grew clearer. She’d recognize the thick, dark hair anywhere, those careful hands, and the broad shoulders she’d leaned against too many times to count.
Adrian.
Cord wrapped around his torso, binding him to the chair, and a white piece of paper had been attached to it. His head hung forward, and he wasn’t moving. Danny forgot how to breathe. Panic rose in her chest like a bee slamming inside a glass jar. She didn’t even question who else had been in her apartment—at this point, she could sense her father’s presence like an oily residue left in the air.
Danny rushed to Adrian, her knees slamming to the ground in front of him. Tears stung her eyes even as her mind screamed in helplessness. She fumbled for his wrist and placed her fingers against the skin. No blood splattered on the floor, so he wasn’t bleeding. At least, not from any cuts she could identify. His pulse thumped against her fingers, and she let out a gasp of relief, like someone reached through her ribs to restart her heart.
“Adrian?” Her fingers slid to his chin, tracing the firm lines. A sob rose in her chest, one she choked down. She needed to secure the area first—deal with her emotions later. Danny strode over to her single closet, keeping her pistol directed in front of her as she flung open the door. Empty. Danny marched over to the door and grabbed her bags from where she dropped them before locking the deadbolt. The heavy click didn’t help. She wouldn’t ever feel safe in this place again.
Danny crouched by Adrian’s side, grabbing her switchblade to cut the thick cords binding him to the chair. The movement caused him to blink, and the overhead light illuminated the brilliant purple bruise growing on his forehead. The letter attached to his chest relayed a simple message her father had intended her to find, whether Adrian had arrived or not.
My final victims will be Samantha and Abigail Peterson.
Those words transported her to somewhere remote and freezing, as if she’d been dropped in Antarctica. Somehow she knew, from the moment she discovered her father’s secret room and outed him, this was the direction their story would go. Her father wouldn’t stop until he killed the very person he brought into the world. God, she wanted to hurl.
“Danny?” Adrian’s voice cut through the quiet of the room, snagging her attention at once. “What’s going on?” He sat up in the seat and shook out his arms, palms already rubbing at the indents the cord made. His brows furrowed in confusion, and when those azurite eyes met hers, all the emotion she’d been strapping back for so long rushed out.
She covered her hand over her mouth as her throat spasmed, hot tears spilling down her cheeks. He was alive. Adrian was alive and in her apartment and he was alive. He hadn’t become another one of her father’s victims.
“Hey.” His voice softened as he tried to rise from the seat. His hand went to touch his head, and he winced as his fingers landed on the nasty bruise. “Last thing I remember is some guy trying to knock me out. I’m guessing he succeeded.”
She sucked in a shallow breath and wiped away the tears to draw together some level of composure. Not like it helped. Her gaze drifted to the uprooted Madagascar rose lying on the floor. “Did you bring that?” she asked.
“I came over to talk,” he admitted, taking a couple of shaky steps toward her. “The way we left things the other night wasn’t right.” The vulnerability in his voice, the sweetness of him remembering the way she’d blathered about the desert rose, and how his stare pierced right through her threatened to overwhelm.
In that moment her heart broke to a thousand pieces and glued itself together again. He reached her in a way no one else ever had, like he plunged past the thousand identities she’d worn over the years to touch the core of her, to the girl even she had abandoned.
Danny closed the space between them, reaching up to cup Adrian’s face. Tears stung her eyes, and her throat squeezed tight. Looking at him was like staring at the sea itself, this wild, vast, and consuming thing. She leaned up to press her lips to his.
The response was immediate. His hands wrapped around her waist, and he pulled her tight to his body. His kiss sent electricity through her body, shocking the numbness away. Adrian stood in front of her, alive, and that thought circulated her brain on repeat, excising the doubts and thoughts of the future. Here and now mattered more than ever. The salt and cedar scent of him, the warmth so intense it caused her to shiver, everything about being in his arms was lik
e coming home.
She gripped his back like he might fade away, her nails digging into the thick muscle of his shoulders as their lips met again and again. The way he brought her flush to his body caused her core to clench, and a scorching need rampaged through her like a wildfire. He was all hard lines and muscle, with the sort of solid frame she could sink into. No words were needed with the way their bodies spoke, a desperate need in how they joined together like the time apart had fractured them both.
Danny leaned in to nip and suck at his neck, eliciting a low, rumbling groan from him. His cock stiffened through the fabric of his pants with the way she rubbed against him. Arousal flushed through her in one dizzying wave as she melted into him. She’d been wanting this from the moment he re-entered her life.
“Darling, if you keep doing that to me, I will no longer be a gentleman,” Adrian growled, one of his hands slipping beneath her shirt. His hot palm felt like a firebrand on her skin, and her nipples stiffened in response.
“That’s exactly what I want,” she challenged, her eyes flashing in response.
With a snap of his fingers, her bra came undone, and he cupped her breast, brushing his thumb across the tip of her nipple. Danny let out a gasp, desire pooling between her legs like molten honey.
“You really want this?” he murmured against her mouth, the way he stroked her nipple and squeezed her breast driving her crazy. The ache in her built until she’d burn everything down if she couldn’t have him inside her.
“I want you,” she responded, tugging at the latch of his belt to flick it open. He dragged the hem of her shirt up and over her shoulders. The fabric hit the floor. Her nipples were stiff and ached with the way Adrian caressed them. He shrugged off his own shirt, and Danny licked her lips.
“God, I want to taste every inch of you.” The words tumbled out of her mouth without even thinking about it. He wrapped those big hands around her waist, his touch sparking her veins to life, and how he bit and sucked at her neck had her toes curling. A moan slipped from her as she sank against him. Every makeout session between them veered close to implosion, but borders stretched between them, walls she’d erected. Now that he’d seen the truth and now that she could no longer hide her past, those walls came tumbling down.
Taking Root (The Eros Tales Book 1) Page 13
