Black Dalliances (A Blushing Death Novel) (2 page)

Chapter 1

Columbus Ohio, Present Day

The elevator pinged and the light for the third floor flashed a harsh white light. I sighed.
Only one more floor. Christ on crutches!
The air in the elevator was thick with testosterone and not all of it was Dean’s.

Everett stood next to me like he was the last thing standing in the way before my complete obliteration. His navy eyes darted from me to Dean and back again. The glasses he’d worn as part of his cover in Las Vegas were gone. It had taken some convincing but I’d managed to get Ev to chuck them in the trash. He’d been attached to them, reminding him of him dead girlfriend. He’d put on several pounds since Vegas, even in the few days of eating well in the company of real werewolves. His protectiveness was sweet but his useless grandstanding was pissing Dean off and making the air hard to breathe with the heat vibrating off of them both.

Ev had been standing between me and the world since we’d rolled back into town a few days ago. A small part of me was thankful. If I was paying attention to Ev and worrying about him, I couldn’t focus on the strain between me and the men I loved. I should’ve stopped Ev, but what good did that do me?

Yeah, I was a shit. I couldn’t help but smile as Dean went into Alpha male mode, brooding and grumbling under his breath as Ev forced distance between Dean and me. Dean’s broad shoulders tensed as he suffered through Ev’s demonstration and the harsh yellow light from the elevator gleamed off Dean’s clean-shaven head. He wasn’t losing his hair, he just didn’t care what he looked like or want to deal with a trifling little thing like hair. I’d forgotten how deeply tanned his olive skin could get and the shimmering brown flesh made my stomach flutter. Strong. Secure enough in his own power to not thrash Ev about as the kid tried to make his presence known in a very tiny elevator.

Ev couldn’t out bully Dean, but he could physically stand between us. I let Dean stew. Leaning against the back of the elevator with my shoulders pressed against the mirrored wall, I crossed my arms underneath my breasts and waited for the slow rise of the car and the inevitable ping of salvation.

I caught Dean’s Caribbean blue wolf eyes over Everett’s head and shrugged, giving him my most apologetic grin. That was all he was getting out of me. It wasn’t my fault the kid worried. He seemed like the worrying type. It was my fault that I didn’t stop him but that was neither here nor there.

Dean grimaced at my expression and huffed through his nose.

PING!

Thank you.

Dean stepped out first and held the elevator door as Ev followed. Grabbing Ev by the scruff of his shirt, Dean yanked him back into the elevator. He glared at the kid like a wayward child being reprimanded.

“Ladies and Alphas first,” Dean growled.

Exiting the elevator, I made the turn to the familiar glass doors of the Trevelyan Dean Construction offices, ignoring the two men behind me. They’d figure it out, or they wouldn’t.

“I won’t hurt her,” Dean snarled down at the much smaller werewolf through gritted teeth before allowing the kid to leave the elevator. “Cool it,” he muttered.

Stopping in front of the glass doors, I searched inside. Tamika, the temp assistant I’d hired before I left and had stayed on through my absence, wasn’t at the desk. Without the bombardment of questions and concern I was sure I would get from her, I had a moment to think, to breathe, and remember who I was supposed to be. Not the Blushing Death, that’s for sure. I was Dahlia Sabin, officer manager extraordinaire. Sometimes, that was a harder transition to make than it should have been.

“No one’s expecting anything of you,” Dean whispered against my ear as the keys jingled in his hand. His breath was warm, caressing my skin in a soft, hot line of desire. Being this close to him and not being able to touch him was almost tortuous. His heat caressed my skin, familiar and hot.

Dean brushed his hard body against mine as he opened the doors and my skin pimpled with gooseflesh at the thought of him surrounding me in that heat. I wanted him to close that distance and wrap his large, muscular arms around me. I wanted him to tell me everything was going to be okay.

Brushing his hand across my neck, he flipped my hair over my left shoulder. His breath grazed my neck behind my ear as his fingers trailed over my skin, sending heat to pool low in my middle. His nose trailed a soft line against my flesh and up behind my ear, barely skimming the surface. Warm lips stoked my desire into a steaming hot need, forcing all thought from my mind.

“That’s not true,” he murmured into my hair. “I expect to pick up where we left off.” A low hungry growl reverberated through his chest, making my knees weak and my heart race. I reached out to steady myself, placing a flat palm against the clean, clear glass. When my body swayed, I reached out with my other hand to the stainless steel handles of the glass door and let the cold metal cool some of his heat.

Dean did things to me with his voice that he shouldn’t be able to do. I should have been scared of how Dean affected me and there was a time when I would have run for the hills rather than face what was between us. Not now. Not ever again.

“We’re in public,” I chastised.

“Don’t care,” he answered with a deep, hungry growl.

Arousal tingled along my skin, making me almost hum with need. Dean breathed in my scent, groaning as desire filled his nose from my heated skin and wet panties.

“Yep, right where we left off,” he teased, striding by me and into the office.

“You’re such a shit,” I spat as I followed him through the double doors.

Stopping several steps in, I barely recognized the place. Plants littered the reception area, making the office seem less stark and more like a home. When I’d first stepped in this office, there wasn’t a humanizing thing to be seen. Not a stapler or notepad out of place. The place had looked like a mausoleum to a former office. Now, there wasn’t a corner left untouched by life.

“Tamika!” Dean bellowed. “Where are you?”

“I’m coming, Mr. Dean,” she called from inside his office. “I was just laying out your appointment materials on your desk.”

Sassy and in charge, Tamika let him and everyone else know exactly who ran that office. At 5’5”, the shapely woman with
café au lait
skin, walked with purpose pushing a werewolf twice her size around as if she owned the place. I smiled to myself with pride as she stepped into the reception area. I’d hired her back before I’d left Columbus to try and “find myself”. In that search, all I’d found was a lot of grief, a vampire who wanted to steal me for herself, and a human servant hell bent on eradicating werewolves from the Earth. All in all, a pretty uneventful trip. Riiiiight.

“Tamika, reschedule my appointments today. I have something more important to do,” Dean said with a twitch of his lips as delight shone in his olive-green gaze. He seemed lighter in his own skin, sounded almost content. That couldn’t be because of me . . . could it?

“Oh?” she chastised, placing her hand on her hip. When her eyes met mine, a grin curled the corners of her mouth up. “Miss Dahlia, thank goodness you’re back,” she said. Taking the several steps across the reception area toward me, she threw her arms around me and drew me into a tight hug.

Once I would’ve been uncomfortable with the contact but death and grief had taught me to accept the gifts I have now. So I wrapped my arms around her and hugged her back. It felt good to be missed.

“How are you? How are the kids?” I asked, matching her excitement with my own. A grin spread across my face and it actually reached my eyes. I was genuinely happy to see her and a part of me was surprised. I’d been living on adrenaline and self-pity for so long that Tamika’s joy and this light easy feeling in the pit of my stomach felt incredible.

“We’re all good. I’m just glad you’re back. Maybe he’ll stop being such a bear,” she said, jerking her thumb in Dean’s direction.

Imposing. Brooding. Intimidating. All words I would have used to describe Dean on a regular basis. Now, Dean stood beside us with a put-upon expression on his face as if he was completely innocent. I wasn’t buying it. His eyes twinkled with laughter, and I smiled up at him, happy.

The shrill ring of his phone broke the electric connection between us and disappointment sank like a stone in my belly.

Ripping the phone from his belt, Dean almost growled, seeming just as disappointed as I was.

Glancing at the phone’s face, he said, “I have to take this.”

I waved him off to his office for privacy. I didn’t need a babysitter.

“So who’s this?” Tamika asked, cocking her hip in expectation.

“Oh, sorry. Tamika this is Everett. Ev, Tamika,” I said in a rush. “Ev, make yourself comfortable.”

Winking at me, he stepped away a few paces but not too far. He understood I needed him to make himself scarce but wasn’t willing to let me out of his sight in unfamiliar surroundings. Smart kid.

“Sure, I’ll just be over there, checking out the, ah, plants,” he answered, trying to seem casual and failing miserably.

“All right, Tamika, let’s go see my office,” I said.

The unease in her stance and her rigid posture made me wary. She took a few pensive steps forward, hesitated, and then reached for the knob.

“Tamika?”

She gave me an apologetic grin and opened the door.

I stepped in and froze, not able to grasp what I was seeing. It was exactly as I’d left it. Each paper in place, even the blueprint I’d shoved under the phone to flatten it out so it would stop rolling up on me. The pencils I’d left in a sharp line of descending order by length still lay on the desk. And the Post-it I’d stuck to the window reminding me to get milk, dulled in color by the sun, fluttered with the air-conditioning. All of it with a layer of dust a few centimeters thick.

“Tamika?” I asked again in soft a whisper.

“He wouldn’t let me touch it. Kept sayin’ you were comin’ back and that he didn’t want me in here,” she said with an edge of heartbreak quivering in her voice. “Miss Dahlia, sometimes he’d come in here and just sit . . . for hours.”

“Why?” I asked, almost aghast at the sight of my office covered in dust.

“Tamika,” Dean called, his voice sharp.

She jumped, almost out of her skin, next to me. “Mr. Dean, what did I tell you ‘bout sneakin’ up on me!” she chastised with a motherly tone that made me smile.

Even though the thought of Dean sitting in this office, alone for hours on end made my heart ache, I knew Tamika had done everything she could to make his life easier.

“Tamika, when you reschedule my appointments for today, can you also call John at the Casino Control Commission? Everett needs a job and he has experience working in casinos. He’ll stay here in case there are any questions he might need to answer.” 

“Sure, Mr. Dean,” Tamika said, hesitating as her concerned gaze darted from Dean to me and back again. She squeezed my arm one last time and whispered, “It’s good to have you back, Miss Dahlia.”

“It’s good to be back,” I said, matching her sincerity. It was really good to be home.

Standing with his arms crossed over his chest, the muscles in Dean’s arms bulged with tension as his eyes bore down on me like a lead weight. Dean was like a brick wall of impressive authority, giving me the strong, silent treatment. He couldn’t break me. I’d faced death a hundred times and come out the other side, almost in one piece.

After a minute of quiet tension, I broke.

“Getting Ev a job, huh?”

“This was the only place I could still smell you,” he whispered, his shoulders slumping as the rigid tension left his body.

“What?” My heart thundered in my ears as his unexpected response tumbled around in my head.

“Your scent lingered here.” Dean sighed, releasing the hold his hands had on his bicep. “I couldn’t let her wipe you away with cleansers.”

Before I knew it, I had my arms wrapped around his narrow waist and he clutched me to him as if he would absorb me into his very being. His cheek rested hot and snug against my hair as he held me.

“I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. I understood. I just missed you,” he murmured.

“I won’t do that to you again,” I said.

I’d forgotten for a time who I was, and what my responsibilities were. In the process, I’d hurt a lot of people. But I had remembered and now I was home to make things right.

“No, you won’t. I’ll snatch you back quicker than you can draw your gun,” he said, contentment rumbling in his deep voice.

“That sounds like a threat.” I laughed, turning up to meet his warm gaze.

“It’s a promise,” he huffed. His eyes flooded a vibrant Caribbean blue, and my pulse quickened.

My grip on his shirt tightened, and his eyes drifted down to my mouth.

I licked my lips, waiting. Molasses slow, his head tilted down. Grazing my lips with his full mouth, he sent sensations tingling through me like sparks on pavement. His light brush of plump, warm flesh against mine accelerated my senses. My nose filled with his scent, a deep woodsy musk and rich moss on a summer’s day. Desire tingled in my groin, tightening muscles deep in my body, and burning nerve endings all the way down to my toes. I wanted more than just a touch. I wanted all of him. My lips parted, gasping as I leaned in and tasted him.

He chuckled, relaxing as my tongue plunged into his mouth, demanding his attention. A hungry growl vibrated through his chest as he licked the inside of my mouth, caressing my tongue with his. I melted into his strong, solid body, touching every inch of him that my hands could reach. His muscles flexed underneath my fingers as I stroked a line up his spine.

His large hands held me close, caressing a trail of heat down my back and over my rear end. His fingers dug into the firm flesh of my ass and tugged, forcing me up on tiptoe as he ground his erection hard against my stomach.