Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
CHARLOTTE
I’d been in serious need of some rest and relaxation after the debacle at lunch.
My friend Eden was big into all-natural skincare and made her own products she liked to hand out to her friends whenever she had the opportunity.
So I’d headed home, piled my hair on top of my head, drawn myself a nice, hot bath with an essential oil bath bomb, and slathered my face with one of the many masks she’d given me as gifts.
The cucumber and eucalyptus not only made my skin soft as silk but smelled like heaven.
I’d tried to focus on some of the deep-breathing, meditative techniques I’d learned from Hayden during one of the many yoga sessions she’d forced me to attend with her and Sylvia, but I couldn’t get my mind to shut off.
Every time I closed my eyes, images of Dalton’s sexy face popped up on the backs of my eyelids.
When that didn’t work, I’d scrolled through my Kindle, looking for a book that would hopefully keep my attention, but that was also a bust. As soon as I got to a smoking hot love scene between the heroine and hero, my mind went straight to the gutter, and I started wondering what Dalton would look like naked and if he was strong enough to pick me up and twist me into some of the positions the dude in the book was pulling off.
I was pretty sure the answer to that was a hard yes, so of course, that lead to me imagining Dalton lifting and tossing me around a big bed with ease.
I’d stayed in the tub until the water turned cold and the skin on my fingertips wrinkled into prunes, and with a defeated sigh, I eventually climbed out, taking the time to exfoliate and lotion my body from top to toe.
I still felt the tension in my muscles like tight, coiled knots, but at least I was baby-smooth and fresh as a daisy by the time I was done.
However, there was still a bit of residual jealousy lingering inside me, making it impossible to calm my racing heart since I ran out of The Tap Room like my ass was on fire.
I knew I was being completely irrational . . . she was his sister, for crying out loud, but seeing him with her today had been something of a wakeup call. There was a voice in the back of my head telling me I was eventually going to run out of time, and I didn’t like it one damn bit.
I was going out of my mind, and I had no one to talk to about it.
If I called Hayden, she’d just say, “I told you so.” And the girls at the club had already witnessed my humiliation and had no problem having fun at my expense.
I was so desperate to talk to anyone, I was actually contemplating heading across the hall and having a heart-to-heart with Ms. Weatherby when a knock sounded on my front door.
Grabbing the gray jersey-knit robe from the foot of my bed, I pulled it on and padded toward the door just as the person on the other side knocked again, more persistently this time.
Pressing my hands to the wood and standing on my tip-toes, I looked through the peephole and felt the breath expel from my lungs when I saw who was standing on the other side.
I jolted with the third knock, whispering, “Shit,” as I dropped back down and hugged the hard metal door like I was afraid he could somehow see through it and knew I was right on the other side.
“Charlotte.” That rich, velvety voice saying my name sent a shiver of delight down my spine. “I know you’re in there. Open the door.”
Taking a step back, I squeezed my eyes closed and curled my lips between my teeth while I fought to control my heart before it beat right out of my chest.
“You’ve got three seconds to open up, or I’ll do it myself,” he warned, sending a thrill of anticipation across my skin.
I tried to move, to reach out and twist the deadbolt, but my limbs were frozen in place, my eyes glued to the door as my brain struggled to get my body to listen to its simple commands. Then, before I had a chance to act, I watched in shock as the lock turned all on its own and the door swung open.
My jaw dropped and my eyes went wide as Dalton stepped into my apartment like he owned the place, closing the door behind him with a resounding click.
“Did you . . .?” I gave my head a shake, trying to figure out what the hell had just happened. “Did you just pick my lock?”
Sure enough, he flipped closed a tiny case that looked a hell of a lot like the lock pick cases I’d seen people carrying on TV shows and stuffed it into the back pocket of his jeans.
Jeans, by the way, that looked faded and soft from about a million washes and fit his long, thick thighs to absolute perfection.
“Yep.”
I gaped, my mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. “So, you just walk around with a lock pick set in your freaking pocket all the time?”
He shrugged indolently. “Never know when it’ll come in handy.”
I narrowed my eyes at his reply, reminded of that night months ago when things were really starting to heat up with the Cormack case.
It also just so happened to be the same night Dalton came into my life and shook everything up, turning my world upside down with one heated look from those dark, mysterious gunmetal eyes.
One of the dirty cops who was part of Cormack’s operation had been killed, putting Micah and Leo even more on edge in regards to my safety. They’d called a late-night meeting after the man’s body was found, and Dalton had been tasked with picking me up and taking me to Alpha Omega.
He’d woken me from a dead sleep, scaring me half to death as he hovered by the side of my bed. I didn’t have the first clue how he’d gotten into my apartment, and needless to say, I’d been pissed as hell by the middle-of-the-night intrusion.
“You have got to stop breaking into my apartment!” I demanded with a childish stomp of my foot. “Doors have locks for a reason.”
“Told you I was comin’ in one way or another.
Not my fault you didn’t listen.” Suddenly the atmosphere around us shifted.
An electric current shot through the air, making me all too aware of just how tiny my apartment felt now that Dalton was in it.
It was as if his presence expanded into every nook and cranny, stretching from one corner to the other as his gray eyes did a full body scan of me.
“Fuck me,” he said on a rumble that sounded like it had been ripped from the deepest recesses of his chest. “What’re you wearing?”
Until that very moment, I’d completely forgotten the only thing covering my body was a short robe that was so damn thin it didn’t leave much to the imagination.
At his attention, I felt my nipples stiffen into hard peaks that felt sharp enough to cut glass and quickly crossed my arms over my chest in an attempt to hide my body’s reaction.
“Well, I wasn’t exactly expecting company. And it isn’t like you gave me a chance to put on clothes.”
I glanced down to check and make sure I was as covered as possible, and when my gaze returned to Dalton’s, the flames burning bright in his eyes had turned the gray to liquid steel.
“Don’t feel the need to get dressed on my account.”
At his husky, rough words, my heart lurched and heat pooled in my core, making my folds slick with need. God, this man drove me crazy.
Shifting from foot to foot, I tried to ignore the deep ache that had centered between my thighs as I stumbled over my words. “Wh-what . . . um, what are you doing here?”
He blinked slowly, the long, thick fan of lashes kissing his cheekbones before he opened his eyes again. I got the impression he was trying to calm himself down, just like I was currently struggling to do.
“Wanted to talk to you about what went down at The Tap Room earlier today.”
Of course he was. So much for pretending that never happened.
“Look, I’m sorry I acted like an ass. How I treated your sister wasn’t cool, and I’m really sorry about that.”
His brows slashed down over his eyes. He started moving toward me at a slow, predatory pace, and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I was his prey. “That isn’t what I’m talkin’ about and you know it.”
I let out a shaky breath, feeling goosebumps spread across my skin.
For every step forward he took, I took one back, hoping that if I could maintain a distance between us, I’d be able to think clearly.
“Dalton,” I said carefully, hoping to keep the tremble out of my voice. “There’s nothing else to talk about.”
“You were jealous.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
“I wasn’t.”
“Liar,” he clipped just as my back hit the wall behind me.
He lifted his arms, bracing his palms on either side of my head, caging me in.
The predator had just cornered his prey, and there was nowhere else to go.
“You saw me with another woman and that pissed you off. Admit it, you couldn’t stand the thought of me with someone else. ”
“Can you please move back?” I whispered weakly, one part of me needing the space while the other hated the idea of not having him close. I was a freaking mess!
His beard twitched as his lips pulled into a smile that made my heart race. “Nah, I think I’m good here. Somethin’ tells me the only way I’ll get the truth out of you is by makin’ sure you have no escape. Now admit it.”
I let out a long, stuttered breath as my stomach twisted into knots. “I didn’t—that—I was just mad,” I insisted, the argument sounding lame to my own ears. “You made it sound like you wanted me, then days later you were with this gorgeous woman, and I thought . . .”
He leaned in closer, the smell of him, that strong, masculine scent, making it hard to breathe, hard to think. “That I’d moved on.”
Christ. Why did hearing those words hurt so damn much?
Because you’re head over heels for the guy, you moron, a voice in my head screamed out.
“Would you be okay with that? Me moving on with someone else?”
“I—” My words got lodged in my throat, and for a second, I worried they might choke me.
He lowered his head, dragging his nose along my jawline and down the cord of my neck. His breath whispered across my skin, making me shiver as he said, “I’m not sure who you’re fighting more, me or yourself.”
“Dalton, you don’t understand—”
His head came back up, his eyes shot fire.
“Swear to Christ, Thumbelina, if you give me that bullshit about not deserving me or try to lie and tell me you don’t feel this thing between us, I’m gonna tie you to that fuckin’ bed and prove how wrong you are until you’re begging me to never let you go. ”
Holy shit. That delicious threat turned my blood up from a simmer to a full rolling boil.
“You are your own worst goddamn enemy, Charlotte. I don’t get how you don’t see that. Why can’t you just let yourself be happy?”
Something about that question pushed me over the edge, and I snapped.
“Because I don’t deserve it!” I shouted so loud it took us both by surprise.
Placing my hands to his chest, I gave him a shove, a bit shocked when he actually allowed me to move him back.
“Good things don’t happen to me, Dalton.
There is no happy for me! My whole life has been a series of shitty choices.
Being alone, the life I’m living now, that’s my punishment.
It’s the penance I have to pay for all the bad choices I’ve made. ”
His expression gentled as he came back, lifting his hand and placing his palm on the side of my neck. “Baby,” he said so softly I felt that burn in the backs of my eyes. “That’s not true.”
I couldn’t handle his touch, not when I felt so raw and exposed. I slipped away from the wall and moved across the room, putting distance between us. “It is, Dalton. I lost my parents when I was seven years old, and I haven’t had anything good since then.
“It was one shitty foster home after another. I ran away from the last one when I was sixteen. Things hadn’t been good in the majority of them, but that last one was really not good, and I had to get the hell out of there.
I’d started dating an older guy, not because I actually liked him, but because I knew he was my way out.
What I didn’t know was that he had a mean streak that rivaled my last foster dad’s.
He thought I owed him for taking me in, and if I didn’t do what he wanted when he wanted, he’d make his displeasure known by beating the living shit out of me. ”
Dalton’s jaw ticked as he clenched his teeth. His hands curled into fists at his side so tight his knuckles bleached white, but I was too far gone in my rant to notice how the energy in the room had electrified.
“I had nowhere else to go, no one I could turn to, but at least he took no for an answer, unlike some of the other assholes I’d been stuck with, so I stayed.
I let him hit me. I put up with it until I was able to squirrel away enough money for a bus ticket out of the state.
I got myself settled, thought things were finally looking up, so I put myself out there again.
The very first asshole I took a chance with stole every single dime I had.
I had to pawn the locket that had belonged to my mother.
It was all I had left of her, and I had to sell it, and that still wasn’t enough.
I couldn’t afford my shitty little apartment anymore and was crashing at a women’s shelter where I met Malachi Black. ”
I wasn’t sure how it was even possible, but at that man’s name, Dalton’s entire body strung even tighter.
“I thought he was my knight in shining armor, and look how that turned out,” I said with a self-deprecating laugh.
“Charlotte—” he tried, taking two steps closer to me, but I wasn’t done yet. I needed to get this poison out, and I couldn’t do that if he was touching me.
I moved back and kept going. “Don’t you get it?
I’m broken, Dalton. I was used up a long time ago.
The filth I associated with, that I went to bed with, left me so dirty, it rubs off on everything I touch.
I’m not pushing you away because I don’t have feelings for you.
I’m doing it to save you! Besides Micah, you’re the only good man I’ve had in my life since my dad died, and I don’t want my filth touching you. ”
I knew he was done giving me space when he moved across my apartment so fast I didn’t have the chance to get away from him. His hands came up to cradle my face between his palms. I didn’t realize I’d started crying until he brushed the dampness from my cheeks with his thumbs.
He was staring into my eyes with an intensity so strong it made my knees weak. I had a fleeting thought of, God, I wish he’d kiss me. Then, as if reading my mind, his lips crashed down on mine.
And just like that, I was lost.