by Chelle Bliss
I had to think of what I’d say to Gin when I met her. There was a lot to say. I glanced down at the lower roof, phone still in my hand, and caught her watching me. My stomach turned when I spotted the way her gaze shifted from my face to the cell in my hand. When her smile lowered into a frown, I realized it would take more than being real to convince Gin things were different now.
This time, it would take honesty, and I had no intention of waiting to give it to her.
10
Gin
I wasn’t looking forward to another greasy meal at Dakota’s. It was a nice enough place and I liked Noreen, the older waitress who used milk, not water in the hot chocolate she served me. But meeting Dale, having to sit there and pretend I wasn’t seething that he’d shown up uninvited to my set, would be a test of my self-control. And I had very little of that when it came to Dale Hunter.
Inhaling, I checked my appearance one last time in the mirror, fluffing out my hair, then rolling my eyes at myself because I realized I was fluffing my hair and checking my makeup for Dale, whom I was still so pissed at. I hurried to the door, ready to get this little dinner over with. I was a strong woman, I told myself. I could face him and not be weak.
The door was heavy but came open easily when I turned the handle, then my insides liquified. Dale stood on the other side, his arms on the frame, smelling of that delicious rosewood soap he used. He looked like something right out of a Men’s Health ad in his jeans and snug-fitting Henley.
I am weak, weak, weak.
I opened my mouth, but the only sound that left it was a squeak of surprise.
Dale straightened, lifted his hands like he wanted to stop any fussing I’d do before I started. “I’m sorry for showing up like this.” I pushed a frown onto my face, though I had to force it there. He shook his head, moving into my room without an invitation. Again, he silenced me, this time by tugging off his jacket like he damn well knew he’d be staying awhile.
Why the hell wasn’t I telling him to leave?
“And before you tell me my apologies are no good, or that I’m a piece of shit for going over Carelli’s head to get the job, yeah, maybe that’s true. But I needed to apologize at the wedding, and the words got all twisted around my tongue, and I couldn’t get them out.”
“That’s no excuse for you to…”
“You were too beautiful.”
I stopped speaking, unable to do more than stare at him as he watched me. Dale didn’t grin or smirk or make any comment that made me think he was joking. Flattery usually didn’t work on me, but Dale never used it. Coming from him, it had me rattled.
He took advantage of my surprise by continuing. “I saw you that first night…looking the way you did, so…” He shook his head, gaze shifting to the window. He rubbed his fingers against his top lip as though he needed a second to decide if what he was saying made sense. Dale’s attention was on the activity outside the window—a plane flying far above the cityscape, to the Empire State Building in the distance. But when he spoke, his words were for me alone.
“You were…so… Hell, I’d never seen anyone in my life that beautiful.” He watched me, then stepping closer, and I couldn’t move. “You made me breathless. Speechless. I didn’t know how to react.”
I had to force myself to step back. “Well,” I finally said when he stood there, staring at me. I had to keep myself busy before I did something epically stupid like lunge at him and devour his mouth. “Well,” I repeated, moving to the table next to the window, taking off my own jacket. I needed something to distract myself from his attention, from how closely Dale watched me. I went to the bar, pouring bourbon into a glass, downing a shot before I looked up at him, motioning the bottle at him in silent offer.
“Yeah. Thanks,” he said, taking the glass before he followed me to the table and sat.
He took a great gulp of the bourbon and I sipped, too caught up in the way the thick muscles of his neck moved as he drank. His skin was darker than it had been this morning, and the sight of it reminded me he’d manipulated his way onto my set. I’d put him to work doing the job he hated most. That helped to lessen my shock at Dale calling me beautiful. The recall of it made things feel normal again.
“How was the tar work?” I asked, not hiding the humor in my tone.
“Pain in the ass and you know it,” he said through a laugh.
I shrugged, hiding my smile behind my glass. “You push, I push back. This is what we do—or what we used to do.”
He went quiet. He grabbed the bottle of bourbon from the bar when he’d finished his drink. He nodded, refilling mine before he sat back down. I tried to ignore how good it felt to be here with him. How I liked the familiarity of it. How it felt safe.
Dale cleared his throat, bringing my gaze back up to his face. “The Lake Washington cottage.”
“What?”
Dale took slower sips from his drink now, relaxing the more he drank. “You’re trying to think of the last time we worked together. It was the cabin in Seattle right after Kit and Kane got together. We were wrapping up that cottage on Lake Washington with the funky pergola by the side porch when Kiel called Kane asking for help with the mafia stalker.”
“That’s right. We didn’t wrap that until you were out of the hospital.”
“And you hated me by then.”
I looked at Dale, my mouth tight. He had to know why.
Trudy wasn’t the only issue. She was a big issue, and he had made it worse with the sweet talk while he was in the hospital. Dale knew why I was still mad at him. I wasn’t going to broach the subject.
Besides, he was the one who’d flown all the way from Washington and had a sit-down with a mafia boss to land a spot on my crew. If he wanted to hash out lingering issues, he’d have to bring up why I’d been pissed at him for so long.
“No, I didn’t hate you.” I wanted him to know the truth. “I was just so…angry.”
“And you still are.” It wasn’t a question.
“Dale.”
He set his glass down, moving his elbows to the table. “How long are you gonna punish me for something I had no control over?”
“No con…”
Anger bloomed inside my chest and shot up my neck. If I knew my temper—and I did—I’d bet everything I owned that my face had gone all splotchy and my cheeks were flaming red. I would have taken the opportunity to tell Dale to kiss my ass and fuck off, but at that very moment, the asshole’s cell vibrated in his pocket.
He jumped, clearly caught off guard by the interruption. “Sorry,” he said, hurrying to silence the call.
I sat back, arms folded as he fumbled with his phone. “This is ridiculous.”
Dale jerked his gaze to me, still holding his cell between his fingers.
I leaned forward, palm flat against the table. “What’s going on that your attention is so divided? You were like that at the wedding, and today on set, you…”
“Anthony,” he said. The name came out in a grunt, as though it took effort for him to admit it.
My temper flared then for a different reason. “You have got to be shitting me.”
“I’m not answering the call.” Dale slipped his cell back into his pocket, pausing when I glared at him. “What? I’m not lying.”
“You want to, though.”
He didn’t answer.
Something in my chest burned. It prickled and twisted out of some misplaced sense of loyalty for Dale that still lingered inside me. “He’s stolen from you. Had you beaten up.”
He nodded, fist back against his lips.
There was a line denting the skin between his eyebrows as I spoke, each sentence like an accusation that didn’t surprise him. “He is a liar.”
Another nod.
“And a cheater.”
And another.
Dale had one weakness and only one—his family. His brother and sister were the only two people in the world who made him vulnerable. Jazmine never asked him for anything. She always took
care of herself because, as Dale had told me time and again, she was too proud to ask anyone for a thing.
But Anthony was like every other addict I’d ever known. He used people. He took advantage of people. Dale, most of all. And Dale, the strongest, fiercest man I knew, could be toppled by the one syllable from his kid brother he could never refuse—please.
“One day, he will ask you for help, and it will get you killed.”
Dale closed his eyes, not bothering to look at me. He mumbled under his breath, likely trying to talk himself out of whatever it was he didn’t want to say to me.
I picked up my glass but didn’t drink. “Addicts are addicts for life.”
“I know that.” Dale jerked his attention to me. “You think I don’t know that?” His voice was loud. The sound echoed like a whip inside the room, making the noise around us pause for a breath. Dale rubbed his face, scratching his nails through his hair before he regrouped. “I know how you feel about them. I know Tony has fucked me over again and again. That’s why I haven’t taken his call.”
“Bottles over babies,” I muttered, not meaning to be heard.
Dale made out what I said and reached across the table to grab my hand.
Part of me wanted to jerk away from his touch, dropping my hand into my lap. Another part of me, the part that remembered how good a friend Dale had been, had me pausing.
“Your father didn’t deserve you,” he said, keeping his voice low. “None of them did.”
Billy Sullivan, the man who made me, had left me at a hospital the night of my fifth birthday. He promised the nurse he’d be back to check on me after he had a smoke. Even as a five-year-old, I knew better.
Twelve hours later, I was sent to a foster home, and I stayed in the system until I was eighteen. My father died when I was twenty. I didn’t go to his funeral. Never knew who my mother had been. Never had anyone but Ms. Mixen, the last foster mother who took me in at sixteen. She’d been dead by the time I was twenty-four. Killed by a junkie for the thirty-five bucks she had in her wallet one September night in Knoxville.
Addicts, in my experience, wrecked you.
My father had wrecked me.
Anthony would wreck Dale if he let him.
The weight of Dale’s hand felt too good. I pulled my hand free of his touch, reminding myself of the things he refused to acknowledge.
The most important thing I needed him to remember.
“Well, it’s in the past. That man is dead now.”
“What I wanted to ask you,” he said, his tone different, a smile on his face, “is how far your good grace extends.” When I dipped my head, furrowing my eyebrows, Dale elaborated. “You think you’ll ever forgive me?”
“Forgive you for what?”
He opened his mouth as though the word skirted the tip of his tongue but got stuck somewhere around the middle. I knew what he’d say before he spoke. He wanted forgiveness for things out of his control. Not for things he seemed so damn adamant not to remember.
Dale inhaled, hesitating before he downed the rest of his glass.
I shook my head. Waved off whatever bullshit excuse he might have surfacing. “Save it.”
I left the table, returning the bourbon to the bar. I debated if I should down what remained in the nearly empty bottle or kick Dale out and drown myself in a hot bath.
It seemed, though, that redneck wasn’t done with our conversation. I didn’t hear him coming up behind me. It wasn’t until that rosewood scent hit my sinuses and I felt the heat from his body and spotted his hand resting next to my head on the wall at my side that I realized he stood behind me.
Dale was taller than me by at least four inches. I turned, straightening my shoulders, chin lifted, hoping he caught the back-off vibe I pretended I sent out.
“For not telling you what I wanted.”
He gave nothing away. No confusion. No real remorse. I hated him, just a little, for the admission. Dale didn’t seem sorry at all for never mentioning what happened between us the night of the shooting. “That’s…it?”
“That’s not enough?”
“No,” I said, pushing him back, not wanting him close to me. “No, it’s not enough.” I turned, hating that there were tears burning my eyes. “You pretend like nothing happened…before.”
Dale frowned, his mouth drawing into a firm line that made him look like a confused kid. The expression didn’t suit him. “What…do you mean? Before?”
“The cabin, Dale. Before Vinnie attacked.” When he only stared at me, I stepped back, laughing to myself, but I found nothing funny. “You can’t even be bothered to remember what we did…”
“What…” Dale scrubbed his face as though trying to force his head to rewire itself. “There aren’t…” He looked up at me, his expression open for the first time I’d ever seen, as though he was truly lost. “I don’t have all my memories.”
“What are you talking about?” I wiped at my face, irritation burning in my eyes right along with my frustrated tears. “You forgot what you said to Trudy, but everything else…”
“Of course, I forgot what I said to Trudy. You think I went all sweet-mouthed on that crazy woman because I was soft in the head? That medicine messed with me. It fucked me up. But it wasn’t just what I said to her. I’ve got no memory of the attack. I don’t remember anything from the time we left set Friday until I woke up in the hospital.”
Something deep inside me felt like it uncoiled. Like my insides had just unplugged and all the depleted stores of energy that had barely sustained me the past year slowly began to refuel. I watched him, watched the sincerity and confusion in Dale’s expression collide. That sensation redoubled, slowly but surely. It felt like something was stirring; something that felt a lot like cautious hope was coming back to life inside me.
“That’s not… Why the hell…”
“You cut me off! Don’t you remember? You didn’t wanna talk to me. Hell, from what Kane said, you didn’t even want to talk about me. No one could mention me or tell you what I was up to because you were so…” Tears thickened in my lashes, and Dale moved his gaze, stepping closer, his attention on my face. He grabbed my shoulders, holding me tight. “What happened in that cabin?”
I let a long breath move past my lips. I tried to keep my heart from rattling out of my chest before I spoke. It was too much to wish for, too much to believe that Dale simply didn’t know, couldn’t remember what had happened between us.
“I…”
He touched my cheek. His thumb stroking along my cheekbone managing to calm me, make me feel safe and sure and settled enough that I was able to speak. “You kissed me.”
“That I remember,” he said, keeping his focus on my mouth.
“And…kept kissing me.” Dale raised one eyebrow, a curious movement that made me think he didn’t hate the idea of where my answer was leading. “And, well, that kiss got…um…lower.”
Both eyebrows went up then, and Dale’s expression relaxed completely.
“How—and I can’t fucking believe I have to ask this—but how in God’s name does information like this go missing?”
“Completely missing?” I asked, not minding when he moved closer.
He shook his head. The grin he wore transformed, his mouth drawing down until he rested his forehead against mine. “Gingerbread, I can’t…I’m so fucking sorry. I’m…I’m sorry.” He rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes and shook his head, like the entire explanation was too impossible, too frustrating to even think about. And then Dale pinched the bridge of his nose before he rested his palm against the wall next to my head. “The first time I kissed you…” he said, his tone going low, the soft cadence in his words reminding me of the growl that had been in his voice that night at the Kaino cabin. “It wasn’t…enough.”
There wasn’t enough space next to this small bar.
He moved closer, and I stopped breathing. “The second time I kissed you…you didn’t want it.”
Hell. There wasn’
t enough space on the planet.
Dale took my face in his large hand, moving my chin up. His attention was on my mouth and his thighs were against mine as I gripped his biceps.
“This time, I want it to be more than enough.” He leaned down, giving me a small, barely passable kiss. He nibbled on my bottom lip like it was candy. “This time, I want you to want it. I fucking want to remember every damn second.”
Dale brushed against me, leaning into me so that I felt the solid angles of his muscular frame. He smelled delicious and felt solid. I couldn’t move, couldn’t keep anger or recollection of the past in my head, nothing except for this man. The way he smelled, the way he touched me, and how I was desperate for him never to stop doing that very thing.
“Do you want more, Gingerbread?”
“I…why are you…what are you doing to me?”
“Trying to make up for all the times I messed this up.” He motioned between us. He lifted his hand to brush back my hair. “Can’t say enough how sorry I am for the way I keep doing that.” He used those long fingers to cup the side of my face. He leaned down, breath close, heat warming against my lips.
There was a pause, then Dale flicked his gaze to my eyes. One last attempt at a warning I didn’t need before he kissed me.
Dale didn’t take his time. He didn’t savor or tease. His tongue was forceful. His mouth engulfed. I became a meal that he devoured. My heart pounded and raced so that breathing was something I had to remind myself to do.
He tasted, and I took what he gave. I loved how full he filled my mouth. How he threaded his fingers into my hair and worked his tongue over my lips, controlling, demanding, like he couldn’t get enough of the sounds I made or the way I tasted.
“Fuck.” He lowered his mouth to my chin, inhaling against my skin. His tongue flirted over my neck as he pulled my shirt away from my shoulder, teeth scraping across my skin. “Want to taste you…everywhere.”
I responded to the visual. I was swept up in memory, desire, and the brewing hope that he’d almost been mine for so long. When I curled my fingers in his hair, pulling him closer, Dale’s throat vibrated with a deep, moaning growl that made me wet and throbbing and so anxious to feel himself everywhere he wanted to taste me.
