22—ANOTHER One
Dallas gritted his teeth against the urge to come.
Bonhi stopped moving and locked eyes with him. “Good,” she said. “Me, too.”
He wanted to clarify, but she got off him and knelt before him, her hand gripping the outside of his thighs.
“Can I touch it?” she asked softly.
“Yeah,” he growled, wanting her hands on him even if it made him come the moment she laid a finger on him.
What she did, though, caught him by surprise. She put one hand on his knee, then traced a deep scar on his stump through the silicone sleeve.
Dallas laughed at himself. “I thought you meant this,” he said, grasping his cock through his boxers.
She smiled. “I know I can touch that.” She leaned forward and gave it a kiss through the cloth and his eyes rolled back in his head, but she went back to touching his bad leg. He kept a hold of his cock at the base to keep it hard while his focus shifted.
She ran her fingers over the gnarled flesh at his knee, and it felt so good, not only easing pain, but making the tissues feel strong again. He moaned. “Feels good,” he bit out.
She touched his hand that had a grip on his cock. “What you’re doing or...”
He let himself go, returning the hand to the armrest. “Your touch. Feels good. Not sure why but it eases my pain.”
She put both hands on him, encircling his knee, and his leg relaxed in a way it hadn’t since he’d been shot. Dallas melted into the chair and sighed.
“Can’t you heal by shifting?”
“Normally, yes, but the injury wouldn’t heal with a hundred shifts. No one knows why. Possibly I was shot with a bullet infused with the blood of a switch.
Her face crumpled. “Really?”
“Really.”
“You’re not making any of this up?”
“I wish I was. But no, I’m not.”
She worked her hand up his thigh, with her other hand on his other thigh. Her touch felt so good, raising tingles all over his body. His softening cock perked up again, and he was glad. He hadn’t known how this would go.
“Shit,” he rasped. “You’re hot as fuck.” He gripped the armrests, fingers digging into fabric.
“This is the first time I’ve gotten hard since I was shot.
I thought I’d lost the ability.” In truth, he hadn’t tried, hadn’t wanted to, hadn’t found anyone attractive in the last year and a motherfucking half.
That was a long fucking time to go without a boner. Thank fuck that streak was over.
“You’re so fucking sexy,” he said. “Your hair, your body, your voice… every damn thing about you is sexy.”
She smiled and blushed, hair falling over her face. “You can touch me,” she said. “I want you to touch me.”
He pushed her hair back over her shoulder and cupped her face to his, kissing her.
Something crashed and Dallas thought it was his heart, but then Bonhi stiffened and raised her head. “Is that in the backyard?” she asked.
Dallas listened and heard two men swearing and things being thrown around. Bonhi climbed off him, going to the window.
Dallas shot to his feet and pulled his pants on.
He ran out of the bedroom and pounded down the stairs.
The backyard floodlights were on, an entire panel of the back fence was knocked over, and two people were fist fighting—one of them was Maze—and the other one was blurry!
The blurry guy had blond hair, was tall, wearing a red shirt, a jacket, and jeans, but the guy was just a kid—early twenties, maybe.
Dallas tore the door open and jumped into the fight, holding the blurry kid while Maze got him in an arm lock.
“Where is she?” blurry kid yelled, twitching in Maze’s arm lock.
“Who?” Dallas demanded.
“Her! The woman who lives in this house!”
“Let him go,” Dallas told Maze.
Maze did, stepping back several paces. The kid snarled and ran for the house. Dallas caught him around the neck and threw him to the ground.
“You’re not going in there,” Dallas grated.
“The fuck I’m not,” the kid yelled, bouncing up like a Jack-in-the-Box. Dallas punched him in the jaw. The kid swung around and fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes and lay still. The blurriness leaked away over the course of a few seconds, exactly as Dallas had seen with the kidnapper.
Dallas looked up at the house, waving Bonhi out. She came out in a pink bathrobe, her face saying she’d heard everything. Dallas turned the guy face-up. “You know him?”
Bonhi shook her head, her expression scared.
“Go inside, lock the door and call 911.”
Bonhi nodded and went inside.
Dallas leaned closed to Maze. “What the hell’re you doing here?”
Maze spoke quickly. “I’ve been looking for Thorn on Jameson’s orders.
I spotted this guy and his vibe was all off, and he was stalking in the forest out back where he had no reason to be.
I knew you were here, so I checked him out—tried to talk to him.
He was completely unreasonable and all he cared about was getting inside the house. ”
“You knew I was here?”
“Everybody knows.”
The guy on the ground moaned and stirred. He touched his jaw, then he jumped to his feet and backed away. Neither Maze nor Dallas tried to stop him.
Aven and Dakota came to the back door and opened it. Aven wore shorts and Dakota had a blanket wrapped around her.
“Who’s this guy?” Aven said.
“Who the hell are you?” the kid yelled, backing over the fence panel that lay on the ground. “Did you kidnap me?”
He ran into the forest before any of them could react.
“You’re welcome,” Maze said. He also disappeared into the forest. A moment later, a hawk flew overhead, SKREE-ing goodbye.
Dallas turned to Aven and Dakota.
“You stay here and guard Bonhi. I’m going to make sure that kid is gone.”
Aven nodded. Dallas stalked into the forest.
Three hours later the police had come and finally gone, the guy who’d broken through her fence hadn’t been found yet, Dakota and Aven were asleep in the guest bedroom, and Bonhi was watching the police officers walk to their car. It hadn’t been the same officers as last time.
Bonhi was exhausted. She locked her front door, then she double-checked the lock on the back door, then she turned around to find Dallas leaning against the wall, watching her. He didn’t say a word, only locked eyes with her and waited for her to talk.
“Why do men keep trying to abduct me?”
Dallas shrugged. “Both of them were charmed by vampires.”
Bonhi shook her head. “I didn’t see any vampires.”
“He twitched, and we’re figuring out that means charmed,” Dallas said, not meeting her eyes, but then he looked up and locked onto her gaze. “I think it’s because you’re a switch.”
Bonhi took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “Okay then, I’m willing to go to the magical house.”
Dallas smiled, a warm and genuine smile that made Bonhi’s heart twinge. “Great. Maybe you’ll have a room and that would solve all sorts of stuff.”
She didn’t like the sound of that. “I don’t need a room, I need answers. Besides, what would that even solve?”
Dallas looked around like he was hoping help would come to him from somewhere, then he said, “I’m the only one who sees you glow, but all the shifters should be able to.
Aven and I think it’s because you aren’t ‘switched on’ yet, because you haven’t gotten close to a vampire yet.
I could see Dakota glow before she was switched on.
” He shook his head. “We don’t know why, but I could, and now all the shifters can see her glow. ”
Bonhi shook her head slowly. It was too much to think about in the middle of the night. She took Dallas’ hand and led him up the stairs to her room. She stopped by the bed, took both his hands in hers, and looked up at him, fully trusting him. “Will you stay with me tonight?”
Dallas nodded. They didn’t speak as they got ready for bed separately.
He was standing by the bed in boxers when Bonhi came out of the bathroom, and he looked good.
He’d already taken the shoe off his prosthesis, so it looked like a leg and foot.
His right knee was scarred up pretty good, but the thigh was strong and muscular, and so was the other leg.
Bonhi smiled and got into bed. He sat down next to her, then laid down, facing her, entwining his hands with hers.
Bonhi closed her eyes and drifted, not quite falling asleep, but enjoying the feeling of Dallas in her bed, holding her hands.
After some time, he pulled away. He gently got out from under the covers and out of bed. Bonhi watched him through her lashes, feeling almost asleep.
He pulled on his pants, then sat in the chair and put on his shoes, then he took a position at the window, watching over her.
Bonhi fell asleep, feeling perfectly safe and taken care of.