“You okay? You look tense all of a sudden.”
She nodded. “I’m fine. I promise. Thought waves.”
Thomas had helped her come up with that term. She had so many mood swings. Someone asking her about them, making her analyze each one, could be as stressful to her as having them. So the term had become a way to tell her guardians what was going on, while simultaneously indicating she didn’t need any particular attention paid to them.
Rory caressed her face with his knuckles, then dropped that touch to the side of her throat. As he stroked her there, she forgot about food. She wanted to lift her chin, give him better access. Like a cat, but it wasn’t the stroking alone she craved, but some kind of pressure. His hand circling her throat, holding her…
With a murmured sound that sounded part reverent, part oath, he reached down, gripped the seat of her chair, his fingers brushing her thigh and hip. He tugged it closer to him in one easy pull. “Move your table setting over,” he said.
She did, him rearranging his so there was room for her to eat side by side with him. He cut his steak into bite-sized pieces so that one hand was free for him to drape his arm over her seat back. He stroked the round of her shoulder as he continued to eat, too, only with her in the shelter of his arm span.
Her body went on full alert when he eventually removed his arm and dropped it beneath the table, his hand resting on her leg. His fingers spread to cover her thigh, caress the fabric of her skirt and her beneath.
They were in a restaurant. He wasn’t going to do more here, so she could maybe get away with what she was feeling. She’d have time to bring it back under control, so that when they were alone together later, if he wanted to do things like this, she wouldn’t upset him. But now her body hovered as close as it dared to the bliss of those searing feelings. She was so aware of his hand there. Her thighs loosened on their own, it seemed, the one directly under his grasp shifting toward him.
Her body was going to betray her, she knew it, but she couldn’t find it in her to stop charging toward that precipice. She felt slightly feverish, and she couldn’t warn him they were headed into bad waters. He would be upset with her, maybe. He hadn’t been yet. Maybe even if he saw how weak she was, he’d still be okay with her. Maybe he’d overlook it.
When her leg moved toward him, his dark eyes came her way. “Good girl,” he murmured softly, and the flush that went through her was a tide of pure heat. “Eat your dinner, now,” he said. “We have that dessert to look forward to.”
Chapter Seven
Rory once again asked Lobelia to divvy up the dessert, so Daralyn had a small sample on her plate, while he took a portion of the rest, and had the rest boxed up. It worked out so well, she finished hers.
She was quiet on the way home, but Rory thought her reasons were the same as his. The good emotions and physical response tangled pleasantly together in the close quarters, providing enough in the way of conversation, all of it non-verbal.
When her knees had parted for him at dinner, he’d felt a jolt to his lower belly. He hadn’t pushed it—hell, he wasn’t sure what had taken him over, making him initiate the touch and then following it up with the praise, but both had felt as natural as breathing.
Before they went down that road, though, he reminded himself they had to figure out a way to talk about what had happened the other night with her. His gut told him that resolving it was vitally important.
Thinking about how she’d retreated from him, he considered pulling off to a side road to talk to her about it. She wouldn’t have the option of jumping out of the van and running into her little house if things got uncomfortable.
He discarded the thought immediately, ashamed of even having it. It brought back the unpleasantly vivid post-accident recollection of the first time his buddies had taken him out on a Saturday. His friends had just been trying to help, trying to recreate their carefree cruising nights.
But he’d been in his total scared dickhead, bad attitude mode. When he wanted to go home, really wanted to go, they’d insisted on taking him by the liquor store and some of their old haunts. He’d become progressively more agitated, though he’d tried to conceal it. Then one of them had teased him, probably to help him relax.
“Not much you can do about it, can you? Just sit back and enjoy the ride.”
He’d completely lost it. Opened the door and flung himself out of the fortunately parked vehicle. He had some insane idea that he was going to crawl around the back and open the trunk to get his folded-up chair. He barely had the strength to drag himself across the ground. When his buddies gathered over him, trying to figure out what was going on, he felt suffocated and started fighting them. Punching, screaming, telling them to take him home. A fucked-up reaction somewhere between PTSD and a kid having the worst tantrum of his life.
Take me home, take me home… Take me the fuck home.
It had been a serious setback on his physical therapy, because his still far too weak upper body hadn’t been up for that kind of volatile reaction. But the mental setback had been worse. He’d been a simple guy, the kind who scoffed at psychobabble about depression and triggers. He still thought most people had the ability to pull themselves out of their own heads if they put effort into finding the handholds to do so. However, after coming face to face with what being in a pit of true, helpless despair felt like, he didn’t scoff anymore. Pulling out of that feeling made climbing Mount Everest look easy in comparison.
He wouldn’t be taking Daralyn anywhere she felt trapped. But the way she kept looking at him, pressing his hand whenever he could hold hers, made his desire to figure things out even stronger. Fortunately, when he reached her house, he could tell without a shadow of a doubt she wanted him to come in.
As they parked at her place, he noted Marcus and Thomas were home. The Mercedes was back, and the lights were on in the house.
After leaving the van and crossing the yard to her house, Rory held out his hand for her keys. He noted the coldness of Daralyn’s fingers before he let her go and opened the door, gesturing her to go on in. She pushed back her fall of silky hair when she moved past him.
As he clicked the door shut, she was laying her purse on the table. He watched her transfer the flowers she’d brought in with her to a vase, and sit it on a side table. Then she stood before it, her gaze resting upon the blooms.
Her stillness, combined with her obvious heightened awareness of him, dictated his next actions. He killed the lights, letting what was coming in through the windows, thrown from the outdoor utility light and the moon, create a silver filter over everything.
She turned partly toward him, her head down, but her peripheral vision on him. Her lips were parted. Her hand had closed into a curl on the table. While her coldness was a warning sign of agitation, other signs showed the heat of attraction.
If he’d been able to walk, he would have come up right behind her, pressed himself against her, kissed her neck, held her close. Let her feel that all of him, his strength, his heart, every bit of his mind, was centered on her. That she didn’t have to be afraid.
He could do the same thing a different way, following his gut down the road he knew they both wanted. His voice was rough but low as he glanced at the large living room window. “Close the blinds.”