Chapter 8 I Need You
EIGHT
I NEED YOU
DALLAS
You know what?
I finally understand why Connor’s first instinct was to break Haven out of that cell, wrap her up in his protectiveness, hide her away from the world, and refuse to let anyone have the chance to hurt her again.
At the time, I thought my old buddy had taken it too far.
Haven needed professional help, not his obsession, to heal.
Fuck that. When I look at Lucy, when I see the question in her eyes and the trauma she can’t quite hide in the way her lips constantly seem to pout when she thinks I’m not paying any attention to her, I have to resist the urge to ask Connor if I can borrow his handcuffs.
She needs me. Not because I told her we’re married, or because she believes my lies. Not because she’s been hurt, but because the only thing I want to do in this life is make sure that no one ever causes Dandelion any pain ever again.
That’s why I called Connor down to my office the morning after Adrian told me that, if I don’t want the old guard to be suspicious, I needed to leave the penthouse.
Haven’s been doing so much better lately.
I’m even welcome to visit—as long as I give them advance notice in case she’s having a bad day—and I figure, if there’s anyone who can help me with my Lucy, it’s him.
He doesn’t bring his handcuffs. However, he does bring his sedatives.
I know that, in the beginning, he was drugging Haven to keep her under control.
He says it’s because she was a danger to herself.
I know better. While she did hurt herself a few times, it was Connor’s desperate need to keep her where he could see her—to keep her safe after her ordeal—that led to him doing something like that.
Nowadays, he uses them only when Haven has a panic attack.
He still keeps a supply on hand, and he offered some to Bas after he first entered into a marriage of convenience with Annaliese (that everyone knew was a real one…
except maybe for Annaliese). Bas never used them, but after the first night when I sat outside of Lucy’s room and heard her whimper, I knew she needed something to sleep.
Something strong like what they were giving her in the hospital.
Something like a sedative.
And, okay, I’m not that altruistic. After I put the sedative in Lucy’s nightly cup of water, I would wait for her to knock out, then climb into bed with her.
I’m not that big of a fucking perv. I’m not into somno, not like Connor who has an open agreement with Haven to fuck her when she’s unconscious if he wants since it’s easier for her to handle intimacy that way.
Does that mean I don’t sprawl out next to her, stroking her soft hair, running my fingers along her soft skin, reveling in the fact that I have my Dandelion back?
Not at all.
I always slipped out of her room and back to mine before the sedatives wore off.
But when it had been a few days and she stumbled to breakfast one morning, rubbing her eyes and softly complaining about feeling like her head was woozy and full of cotton?
I realized that the sedatives were harming her more than helping.
So I stopped giving them to her two nights ago.
That means that, after gorging myself on being next to her for the few nights before it, I’m fiending now.
Like an addict in need of his next fix, I want nothing more than to breathe in everything Lucy, and not even disappearing into my bathroom repeatedly and rubbing one out every time I do so I can keep my cock in check is helping.
She’s still managing to sleep, even without the sedatives. I know because I keep checking on her. Me? Not so much. I haven’t gotten a good night’s sleep since the last time I was able to go to bed calling Lucy mine, and that was five years ago.
So, yeah… I’m not sleeping when she pushes in my door and steps into my room.
The light in the hall is off. Without the moonlight streaming in through the gaps between my curtains, I’d be blind. I can sense her before I can make her small body out, a slender silhouette against the deeper shadows in the penthouse. I can hear her before she ever announces herself.
There’s the shuffle of bare feet against the hardwood floor.
The whisper of silk swishing from the red nightie that Adrian picked out.
Oh, I told her it was Loni. I didn’t think she’d understand that I could rely on my male cousin to fill the house with anything he thought a woman could use, but I didn’t trust anyone else to know that Lucy is here.
I risked bringing her in through the front of the Fortress because I hadn’t been thinking at the time.
Since then, no one knows she’s here except for me, Adrian, and Lucy.
Did I have to bite back the curse when I saw the sexy lingerie he ordered in Lucy’s size?
Yes, because, fuck it. I’m an obsessed bastard who wanted to snarl at the idea of any other man knowing what Dandelion looks like when she goes to sleep.
I had no choice when it came to that fucker, Julian, but Adrian? I didn’t know what he was thinking.
It hit me later, once I saw Lucy in a simple white nightdress.
Goddamn it, but Adrian always has a plan, and giving her no other option but slinky, revealing nightdresses in her drawer—as though I remembered her preference and passed them on to ‘Loni’—was one of the most brilliant he’s ever had.
If anything, it was a gift for me paid for with my own credit card, but it was definitely worth the price.
She hesitates just past the doorway. Can she tell I’m awake? Does she want me to be?
What is she doing in here?
This… might be a problem. I was being so careful not to push Lucy, but she hasn’t left her room a single night after she settled down for bed. I never expected that she would come searching for me in the middle of the night. If I did, maybe I wouldn’t have gone to bed naked.
In her space, I kept my pants on. In mine, they came off. If I wasn’t going to sleep, I was going to stroke my cock to the thoughts of Lucy sleeping in her silk nightie down the hall before spilling into the spare pillowcase I’ve been keeping stashed under my pile of pillows.
Fuck. I’m thirty years old. A healthy man who’s been celibate for longer than I care to admit.
Of course I masturbate. If I didn’t jerk off, I’d probably have a lot more bodies under my belt.
But, since bringing Lucy to the penthouse, it seems like it’s all I’ve been doing, and I’d rather take a dive out the window myself than let her find my come rag.
Pulling my sheet up and over my cock with one hand, I reach behind me with the other, shoving the soiled pillowcase as far back as I can. I try to go slow so that she doesn’t hear the sound of my movement, but in my slight panic, I hit my knuckle against the headboard.
She gasps, a simple breath before she whispers, “Dallas? Are you up?”
The sleep-roughened voice goes straight to my cock so… yeah. I’m up. In more ways than fucking one, too.
I sit up slowly, peering through the darkness to find her. “Lucy? What’s wrong?”
“I need you.”
My cock twitches. I want to bat at the thing, telling my body to control itself before her eyes adjust and she looks at my bed, only to find me tenting the goddamn sheet.
That’s not what she means, I tell my dick. While I need her more than I need the sun to rise or to know that Jack is rotting in hell, Lucy is vulnerable and lost and definitely not slipping into my room after midnight because she’s decided that a good fucking might help her remember—
“I had a dream and…” She shudders out a shaky breath this time. “I need you.”
“Anything, baby. Whatever you need. Hang on.” I lean over the edge of the bed, patting the floor, searching for my discarded jeans. “Let me find my pants and I’ll be right there.”
Her breath hitches. “Are you… Dallas… are you naked?”
I freeze. “Shit. Yeah. Sorry. I didn’t think you’d come here… you were sleeping.”
“I was,” she agrees. “But then I had a dream.” Her head dips, the pale strands of her short blonde hair falling forward. “At first, it was a nightmare. But then… you and I… we were…”
My heart thumps. My cock decides it’s time to ignore my brain, going from half-mast to fully erect in the time it takes for me to run through all of the erotic dreams I’ve had about Lucy since she left me.
She stops talking.
“Luce?” My voice is rough. Too rough. Ain’t shit I can do about it except pretend like I’m not suddenly so turned-on, it aches. Lucy comes first. She always did, and now that she’s back, she always will. “You okay?”
In answer, she steps toward the bed. I already knew she was wearing the slinky red nightie from earlier tonight when I checked on her.
As she comes closer, I get a better view as the fabric flows over her body.
She doesn’t wear a bra to sleep. Unless I’m imagining it, I see her nipples poking through the silk, the material draped over her tits, her hips, her ass.
It just covers her pussy, hitting the tops of her thighs, and I have to wonder: does she have panties on?
“Should I go?” Her voice through the darkness is a rasp that plucks every fucking nerve in my body. “Or can I…”
She doesn’t finish her sentence. She doesn’t have to.
When her knees bump up against the edge of the bed, I instinctively know what she wants and, holy shit, I want it, too.
My bare legs rustle as I move over. Not because my bed isn’t big enough for both of us, but because I want her to know that I’m making space for her if she chooses to take it.
She does. Taking my silence as permission, she slides in beside me without asking again before turning on her side so that she can look at me propped up on my elbows.
The sheet is covering most of my lower half, but my bare chest is on display. For a moment, she ghosts her fingers over one of my abs before she presses her palm over my heart.
It was already thudding nervously. Now it kicks it up a gear, and I bet she can feel it. She doesn’t give it away if she does, though, as she lays her hand flat against my chest.
I shudder at her touch. This… this is my Lucy. My Dandelion. From the first time we met, she’s been entranced by my chest. It caught her attention that summer day out by the dandelion fountain, and five years later, with the memories of our time together gone, she is drawn to it now.
Her fingers drag slowly down my sternum like she’s reacquainting herself with a map she once knew by heart. Arching my back, I lean into her caress so that there isn’t a moment when she isn’t touching me.
The bed shifts as Lucy leans over me.
“I need you,” she whispers against the shell of my ear before she slips her foot under the sheet, stroking the edge of my bare calf, giving her proof that I am as naked as she suspected.
Every muscle in my body goes rigid as I finally hear the pleading in the way she says ‘need’ like that.
I’d hurriedly told myself that there was no way that that’s what she meant before—that she wanted me to fuck her brain right—but as her breath warms my skin and her touch makes me feel like I’m on fire, I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what my sweet Lucy means.
I want to. God, I want to more than anything, but it’s bad enough that I’m lying to her every time I call her my wife. To put her body under mine, fucking her until her pussy can’t remember a time when there was ever anyone else… I want to, but I can’t.
“It’s too soon,” I tell her, even as I go on my side, facing her, searching for something in her face that I hope I can find. “We don’t have to—”
“What if it helps?” she asks. “What if it sparks something? What if… by being with you… I remember who I am.”
“I don’t want to take advantage to you,” I murmur. “I can wait. For as long as it takes… I can wait.”