21. Char #2
I drew in a broken breath as I craned my neck back, trying to keep his face in view. “I’m so sorry, Dallas.”
“Just answer the question,” he said as he hovered over me. “You’re no longer out on that limb by yourself.”
I swallowed hard before I placed my coffee and muffin down next to his on the coffee table. “Dad came home one day high as hell while Mom was cooking dinner. I got underneath his feet to hug him and accidentally tripped him up.”
I blinked back tears as the memories rushed to the forefront of my mind.
“He, uh… before I knew it, h-h-he was—just—just grabbing me, and Mom got so angry and she started bashing him over the head with this wooden spoon she was using to stir her spaghetti sauce? And he… he just snapped, Dallas.”
He placed both of his hands on my shoulders. “I’m so sorry, Char.”
Tears lined my eyes. “That was the day I disobeyed her. I heard her screaming while Dad was beating her. Punishing her, really. And then, her screaming just stopped. He didn’t, but she did, and I just knew something was wrong.”
“What rule did you break?”
My lower lip quivered. “Uh, just?—”
“Char, look at me.”
Maybe it was just the lack of caffeine in my system, but I did as he asked. “Yeah?”
“What rule did you break?” he asked as he stared into my eyes.
“I called 9-1-1 when she stopped responding.”
“Good girl.”
I closed my eyes at his words. “And the rest is, well, you know. You and the whole ass country, anyway.”
A tear slipped down my cheek as my eyes opened again and I watched his thumb gravitate into my vision.
No, I couldn’t let him touch me. Not any longer.
Things had already gotten weird enough. Personal enough.
And if I wasn’t careful, I’d let him right back in between my legs with absolutely no consideration for the consequences.
There was too much at stake for me to get sidetracked like that.
“Anyway,” I said as I quickly sat down before his touch had a chance to break down my walls, “that’s why I don’t have a TV.”
“Come here,” he said softly.
Before I had a chance to answer, he scooped me into his arms. Me.
With curves, and unharnessed tits, and thighs for days.
He picked me up as if I weighed nothing.
As if I were a sack of feathers being tossed around by some kids for fun.
And as he sat back down onto the couch, he placed me in his lap.
His muscled arms draped over me like a weighted blanket, and all I wanted was to go back to sleep.
With my head settled on his shoulder and my gaze tucked into the crook of his neck, his body cradled mine as I melded into him.
God, I hated how good he felt.
I wonder if those other two feel as good as him.
“Question for a question?” I asked.
I needed a distraction before my fantasies ran away with me.
“I guess I already had my turn, huh?” Dallas asked.
I giggled. “I suppose so.”
I felt him nod against the top of my head. “Sure, I suppose it’s only fair.”
“Why didn’t the DEA help you guys?”
I didn’t have to look up into his face to know that he had grown stone cold. I felt the tension in his muscles build almost immediately. All of his soft movements, the dancing of his fingertips against my skin and the jiggling of his leg, all ceased to exist.
“What?” he asked.
I sighed. “Sorry, okay, uh… rephrase time: why didn’t you guys want the DEA poking around here when there was an obvious drug problem that they needed to resolve?”
He practically threw me off his lap and I had to catch myself against the coffee table.
My coffee spilled, leaking toward the other edge as his shadow cloaked my body.
I barely caught myself before I tumbled over the entire thing.
I heard the liquid dripping off the side of the cheap particleboard table as I scrambled to get upright.
That is, before Dallas wrapped his tight grip around my upper arm and yanked me back to my feet.
“The hell are you getting at?” he snarled.
I ripped out of his grasp. “It’s just a question, Dallas. And you know it’s a good one.”
He took a step away from me, which was a first. “It’s not my fault they didn’t feel the issue was big enough to come back around.”
“You’re lying.”
“And if I’m not?”
I had clearly hit a nerve, but why? “Then, that would be a lie, too.”
He took yet another step back, and I couldn’t figure out why he was having the reaction that he was.
“Oh, come on, Dallas,” I said with a snicker. “Quit with the theatrics and just talk to me. You guys aren’t even good at hiding it!”
“At hiding what?” he asked flatly.
I tossed my hands into the air. “Some crew wants to work with the police department, and all of a sudden, they own three businesses in town? I’m not a fucking idiot, so stop treating me like one. Why did you guys not want the DEA in town? Is it because you run drugs on the side?”
It was the only logical conclusion that I had.
They didn’t want the DEA sniffing around in their drug operations.
Maybe their businesses were fronts. Places where their customers could come, get some work done on their cars, or have a drink, or some food, and-oh, by the way!
Here’s some fucking coke you ordered! I deserved to know if the substance that slaughtered my family passed through the corridors of the place where I worked.
But, when Dallas growled and rushed me, he wrapped his hand around my throat. He scooped me off my feet and slammed my back into the wall. The same wall he had pinned me to not hours before just so that he could rip ecstasy clear through my veins.
The same wall that now threatened to cradle my dead body if he didn’t let go.
I clawed at the back of his hand. “Dallas, I can’t?—”
He snarled as his breath pulsed against my face. “How dare you think I’d have anything to do with that shit after what happened to my brother.”
I struggled to breathe. “Then, tell me the truth.”
I wouldn’t back down. I’d never allow another man to intimidate me ever again. That was the promise I made to myself after dropping out of high school and never looking back. Dallas wouldn’t be the exception, either. None of them would be.
My vision started tunneling, though.
“Dallas,” I choked out.
His grip grew tighter. “I should’ve known you were just another?—”
BOOM! BOOM! “If you’re up here, Dallas, get downstairs. The contractors are here to finish off the bar top installation before they get started on the stage and I’ve got a doctor’s appointment.”
Gauge. Dear God, I never thought I’d be so happy to hear that massive hunk of meat beyond my front door.
Dallas’s grip released almost immediately, and I went tumbling to the floor.
I didn’t even have time to catch myself.
My knees crashed into the carpet, my side slammed into the ground, and I gasped for air as Dallas stepped over my body.
“Enjoy your coffee and muffin,” he murmured.
And as he slipped out my front door, guilt overwhelmed my body.
Because had anyone accused me of slinging drugs after what happened to my family, I’d want to kill them, too.