Finding Grace (15 page)

His sigh was deep and long, an attempt to release
some of the unbearable tension. Truthfully though, he would have
been satisfied just to talk to her, to have her sitting next to
him. He glanced at the passenger seat with such bitterness that
Mills flinched.

It hit him hard. Dagger slapped the steering wheel
instead of his own head. He missed her! Shit. He’d never missed
anyone before. He’d missed beer, he’d missed pork chops and juicy
steaks, he’d even missed his caddy, but he’d never missed
any
one
.

Now he was truly and royally fucked. Especially
after his best friend had probably screwed the hell out of any
chance he might have with her. And he could only be pissed at
himself because big bad ol’ Dagger had been scared. Scared that he
might be turning into a…Then he’d discovered his instincts weren’t
traitorous at all—that they were good, really good…

He punched the roof of the SUV. He still didn’t feel
any better.

Maybe if he clocked Mills instead…He glanced at his
passenger. The poor bastard was sweating even more than usual. At
least he was quiet. Had been ever since Paul had called and told
them all about the rescue of Lieutenant Rigby’s girlfriend.

Grace’d done it again, pulled a rabbit out of her
magic hat. He wondered what else she had in there. He sure as hell
wanted to find out.

A song came on the radio. One of the songs she’d
played in the studio, the one where she’d used that silver ball.
Holy Christ. He turned up the music without thinking and his lips
formed a smile. It felt strange, but good.

Mills must have taken it for a momentary sign of
weakness.

“Hey Dagger, can we stop for somethin’ to eat? I’m
starvin’.”

Dagger turned his shut-the-fuck-up look on him and
cranked the music up another notch. He turned his eyes back to the
street that seemed to go on forever, disappearing into the
shimmering waves of heat coming off the pavement.

When the song was over and the asshole jock started
jabbering, he turned the volume down in time to hear Mills’s
stomach growl. He pulled into the next fast food joint they came
to. Mills could hardly afford to have what smarts he might have
dulled by hunger.

“Thanks,” Mills said around a mouthful of burger.
“Say, now you got everythin’ all set for us, you gonna be headin’
back, Dagger?”

“Why? You in a hurry to get rid of me?” Dagger kept
his gaze straight ahead this time, at least until he heard Mills
swallow.

“It’s just that…” The swallow was louder than it
should have been. “Damn. How come I always got to lose when it
comes to drawin’ straws?”

“Lemme guess. You’ve been elected to impart me with
some special wisdom.”

“Uh, somethin’ like that.”

“It’s gonna be real deep and insightful, I can tell
already.”

“Promise you won’t hurt me?”

“Nope.”

“Now that just don’t seem fair.”

“I’m not the one who lost the draw.”

The sound that came out of Mills’s mouth was more
like a gulp than a swallow this time.

“All right then.” He sucked in a breath. “You know
you’re no hill o’ fun to begin with.” He held up his hand as if
Dagger would have protested. As if. “Now that’s fine, the devil we
know an’ all. But this week, well, it’s been like ridin’ shotgun to
a seat packed full o’ C-four on a teeter-totter. An’ I’m not the
only one what feels that way.”

“Hence the straws.”

Mills nodded.

“That bad, huh?”

Mills nodded again. Dagger thought he was holding
his breath.

“I explained it was all that little faggot’s
fault—”

“Goddamn it! It is not Thorne’s—” The SUV shuddered
this time when Dagger’s fist punched the roof. Even though, damn it
to hell, in a way it was.

Mills’s breath whistled out through his teeth.
Dagger could smell the onions.

“I know, I know, y’all think he’s somethin’ special.
An’ maybe he is. But he’s gotcha all agitated, Dagger. Mind now,
nobody’s blamin’ you. Bet you’re real glad to be here with us and
Farley’s been stuck with drivin’ him all week—”

“What!” Grace was riding with
Hollywood-fucking-Farley? Funny, Paul hadn’t seen fit to mention
that. Dagger punched the roof again. His knuckles were trying to
tell him something, but he didn’t want to hear it any more than he
wanted to hear what Mills had to say.

“Well, like my mama says, in for a penny, in for a
pound.” Mills started talking faster than Dagger had thought he
could. “We was thinkin’, the boys an’ me, you just need to let off
some steam, right? An’ since it’s prob’ly best you not go beatin’
on some poor body as you’d like to kill him as not, we were hopin’
last night at the girlie club you were gonna find yourself a nice
little piece o’ relief, like you do now an’ then…An’ here in L.A.
they’re all so full of sunshine and sweetness, well, they prob’ly
wouldn’t even charge you extra like they do in Seattle.” Mills took
a deep breath and went on, his face locked onto the road in front
of them. “But then you just had to go stompin’ out o’ there
practic’ly before they even got started. We figured maybe on
account you were broke, so we took up a collection, see? We
raised—”

Just then, Mills made the mistake of looking over at
him. Dagger didn’t just laugh. He roared.

His passenger moved farther away from him and
started eyeing his door like he was considering using it even
though they were on the freeway.

The confederacy of fools and their general only had
it half wrong, though. He wasn’t broke, but he was losing it.
Watching those girls after seeing Grace had been like—

“Now, now no need to…it was jus’ a thought. But one
thing you gotta understand.” Mills looked at him again, though
Dagger could tell it took about all the courage the man had. “If
you plan on stayin’, you’re ridin’ by yourself. You’re this close
to blowin’—” he almost pinched his thumb and index finger together
“—an’ if you don’t know it, we all sure as hell do, an’ there’s
none of us wants to be within a mile of you when it happens.”

Mills turned his eyes back to the road and fell
blessedly silent. Dagger was still shaking with laughter that he
hoped wasn’t madness.

Chapter Ten

Something pounded insistently at Thorne’s
consciousness. It had taken forever to fall asleep last night. Not
that that was unusual, but it had been worse than ever this week,
worse since Jack had penetrated her protective shell and left her
shivering in Seattle with a storm full of questions to sun his fine
inscrutable ass in fucking L.A. The big jerk. She’d been alone all
her life, but she’d never known loneliness until now.

What was that infernal racket? It was probably her
neighbor again, trying to teach himself how to play the Djembe
drum, a lovely instrument that she lately wished had remained in
Africa.

She didn’t figure out that what she heard was
knocking instead of drumming until a deep voice with a trace of
Southern accent penetrated the thin door of her apartment.

“Thorne, uh, Grace, it’s Dagger. Let me in, will
ya?”

Her eyes flew open and she practically jumped out
her bed on the floor.

“Jack!” she almost shrieked.

“You gonna let me in?”

Thorne thought of the scars the sweat suit she slept
in wouldn’t hide. They weren’t the worst she had, but they were
bad, and impossible to miss. She could just tell him to go away and
come back tomorrow. That’s what she should do. But if she did,
she’d just spend the rest of the night lying awake and wondering
why he’d come.

What to do? In knitting, programming, and life, the
simplest solution was often the best.

“Okay, you can come in as long as I don’t have to
turn on a light.”

“What?” She could almost see his brow furrowing.
“Okay, sure, whatever.” His words were casual, but his tone was
tense.

She opened the door and took a step back. Even the
dim light in the hall made her blink.

He stepped in and said, “You sure do seem to like it
dark, between those big tinted glasses and the blindfold you wear
during your workout. What’s that about, anyway?”

Backlit as Jack was, and lit from the front only by
the tiny amount of light that made it through her kitchen window,
she couldn’t make out his expression. Letting him in had been a
mistake.

Thorne took a step back. “Did you really come over
here in the middle of the night and get me out of bed to ask me how
I feel about darkness?”

Her voice hadn’t come out petulant as she’d intended
it to, but rather as a low whisper, almost an invitation. Damn it,
how did Jack manage to suck all the air out of a room?

Then she felt his strong hands on her shoulders,
pulling her to him. His touch was gentle enough, but there was no
mistaking his intent when she heard the tone in his voice. “No,
Grace, that’s not why I’m here.”

“Well then…” She didn’t finish, couldn’t finish. She
felt the warmth of his breath before the touch of his lips on hers,
his fingers cradling her face. It was so sweet, so gentle, so
tempting, that she suddenly thought she understood what all the
fuss about kissing was.

But it wasn’t until the kiss deepened and one of
Jack’s hands trailed slowly down her jaw and around her neck to cup
her head—the other slid to the small of her back to pull her hard
against him and she felt his tongue pressing between her lips,
opening them and exploring her mouth—that she truly understood the
power of a kiss. She panicked for moment, wondering why her legs no
longer seemed to function. She only knew that if he hadn’t been
holding her up, she would have crumbled into a heap at his
feet.

Abruptly, he stopped, leaving her breathless and
wobbly.

“Shit. I’m pushing too hard, too fast, aren’t I? I’m
sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you. I just came in on the red-eye out
of L.A., and I thought…I wasn’t even sure you’d be home. Or alone,
or with Farley…Christ, I’m making a mess of this.” Those powerful
hands of his tightened on her arms.

“Farley? Why the hell would I be with Farley?”

Jack’s grip loosened. He said, “Paul made me look
like an asshole.”

“I’m not sure you needed his help, but I’m still not
following you. Why did you stop, um…”

“You froze up, I just—”

“Oh, that. My body felt all weird and it scared
me.”

“Weird bad, or weird good?” Jack’s low voice lowered
another notch, tickling her in strange places.

“Weird good.” Her own voice wasn’t much higher.

“Does that mean you’ll let me do it again?” he
whispered. “But Grace, if I do, I’m not gonna be able to stop.” His
grip tensed again and she understood what he was asking.

Thorne swallowed hard, her brain still in a fog, not
really able to process thought. This was a new state of being and
it was unbelievably wonderful, even better than when she was
totally into her workout. Hell yes, she wanted more. “Only if…only
if you
don’t
stop.”

She hadn’t known Jack had been holding back before
until he kissed her again. One roaming hand slipped under her
sweatshirt, its thick callouses rasping over the ultra-sensitive
skin of her marred breasts. An unexpected moan of pleasure escaped
from her mouth into his.

Jack’s kiss instantly deepened. Both hands moved
down to her ass and strong arms lifted her up and against him,
against all of that hard muscle. She felt a wave of heat that had
nothing to do with embarrassment or fear. Just like when he’d had
her against the wall in the studio. Only now there was no one to
interrupt them.

His tongue began a slow rhythmic thrusting into her
mouth that echoed the way he was holding and rubbing her against
him. Another wave of heat engulfed her, bringing with it a
throbbing ache.

She might have complained when he set her back down
if his mouth hadn’t still been on hers. She certainly would have
when one of his hands slipped below the elastic of her sweatpants
and dove right down and touched her bare—

But just then, he pulled back from the kiss and
hissed. She froze. Had he felt her scars? Was he going to
leave?

To her surprise, Thorne felt him stripping her
instead, felt the cool air glide over her skin—such a contrast to
the incredible heat building inside her. She was completely out of
her mind and that would have been great, except she couldn’t
identify the delicious ache that increased with his every touch. It
wasn’t just her bones that had melted. Now her brain was gone too
and her whole body felt both languid and tense, like it was waiting
for whatever was building inside her to be released.

“Please, Jack, oh God, please, I…” She couldn’t even
have told him what she was begging for.

He laid her down and kissed her again, spreading her
legs, doing things with his hands and mouth that made her body arch
toward him. She shuddered and he increased the pressure of his
touches. Then her whole world seemed to shatter, each splinter and
fragment of pleasure driving her to a higher peak. She heard
someone’s desperate scream. Then warm lips and a salty tongue
pressed into hers and the scream stopped, but her body continued to
buck and tremble.

He moved away and she felt cold all of a sudden,
forsaken. Somewhere in the darkness, she heard the tearing of a
foil wrapper and then she felt Jack—all the hard strength of
him—covering her, sheltering her. She felt his teeth nip her throat
and her legs wrapped around him of their own accord, as though they
knew what they were doing, had done it before. When he plunged into
her, she shattered again. But this time the ache was filled, filled
almost beyond her capacity to receive it, and the waves of pleasure
seemed unending.

* * * *

Dagger had never thought of himself as much of a
lover. From his first time on, his partners had always been
experienced—for years now, professionals who made him pay extra
because of the way he looked, because of the danger they thought
they were in.