Scandalous (4 page)

He liked that she was aggressive, always made the first move. She always wanted to position herself in the power role. Strategically placing the ball safely in the other player’s court before revealing her serve. It was smart, smooth and sexy as hell.

“How did things go tonight?” He wasn’t quite ready to show all of his cards just yet. He needed to buy himself a few minutes to allow at least some of his blood to travel north, where it could actually do him some good by nourishing his brain and helping him figure out the right words to say.

“Fine. You’re here aren’t you? Presumably you got a text from Raiza that it’s a go. So you already knew that.”

She wasn’t going to make this easy on him. He wasn’t surprised.

“Look, I know you’re not happy with this arrangement,” he said gently, “But I want to start it off by saying that if I’ve ever done or said anything that has offended you or upset you, I am truly sorry, Cristal. It was never my intention.”

She tilted her head and gave him a slanted glare, “You are honestly going to sit here with a straight face and tell me you have never done or said anything to upset me. Seriously?”

He smiled, “Yes, I am. Because, although I will admit that at times I have sometimes messed with you a little, mainly for the purposes of my own entertainment, it was always meant to be good-natured and playful. It was always supposed to be all in good fun.”

She looked to be considering the merits of his admission. Finally, she shrugged and said, “OK. Apology accepted. Is that it?”

Dominic could tell by her tense body language that she was on edge and wanted to bolt. She probably wanted to be just about anywhere else in the world. Anywhere except for sitting on the couch facing him. But, for the life of him, he didn’t know why.

“No, that’s not all,” he said, trying hard to maintain the easy manner that he was attempting to cultivate, “Actually, I was thinking that - since we're stuck here together - we could get to know each other a little bit better...”

“Not gonna happen,” she cut him off. With that curt pronouncement, she was up and off the couch before he had even finished his sentence.

Without taking a second to even consider his actions, he stood and began to follow her down the hall.

She abruptly turned to face him as she reached her bedroom door. He was following her so closely that her abrupt turn caused him to almost knock her right over.

Instinctively, he grabbed her arms to keep her from falling. She, in turn, put up her hands for balance and they landed on his chest. Wow, Dominic thought. I didn't intend this, but I'm certainly not complaining.

They stood like that, staring at one another, touching, time beginning to stretch and drag and seem fuzzy, for what seemed like an eternity before she spoke.

“Stop following me,” s
he said. He could tell that she was trying to sound authoritative, but her voice quivered, causing it to lack the anger and conviction she was most likely intending to convey.

He leaned his head toward her, matching her low and quavering tone, “We weren't finished with our conversation.”

Her chest was heaving and he felt her arms shaking a little. He saw her fighting for control of herself. She said, trying to be firm, “You don’t always get to decide when conversations are over.”

He leaned in even closer and whispered, “And neither do you.”

Neither of them released their hold on the other. They stood like that, unmoving, the only sound filling the air was the sound of their mingled and ragged breathing.

Before he could stop himself, he leaned down even further and breathed in the smell of her hair. He had always loved the way her hair smelled when it was dry, but the scent of her hair still wet, right out of the shower, was even more heady. That scent brought out the caveman in him. It made him want to pick her up, throw her over his shoulder, toss her on her bed and make her his.

Instead of doing that, though, he heard himself say, “God, you smell so good.”

She looked up at him, her green eyes filled with desire. She bit her bottom lip, a move that she may not have been intending to be seductive, but it brought Dominic to the brink of exploding in his pants.

He heard a visceral groan escape from him, and wasn't even aware of making a sound until he heard it. He knew he was past the point of no return. He felt that she was, too. This was going to happen. Desire had taken over. He leaned his head down toward hers, his lips inexorably closing the distance between them, and...

...just then, her phone buzzed from inside her room and broke the spell they had both been under. Cristal was out of his arms before he knew what was happening.

She shut the bedroom door firmly behind her. Well, he thought regretfully, maybe 'slammed' would actually be a more accurate description.

He trudged down the hall to his own room, shaking his head. Alright, so that hadn’t gone great...but it hadn’t been a complete disaster, either. And, on the upside - they still had a few weeks together, at least. This was only the first night. He could be patient…maybe.

He sighed as he turned on the shower in the bathroom attached to his bedroom. He had no idea what was ultimately going to happen between them, but he didn’t need to be psychic to predict one thing, for sure, and that was that the freezing stream of water he was currently climbing under might constitute the first of the cold showers that he was taking during his and Cristal's stint in the North Hollywood house together – but it certainly wouldn't be the last.

Cristal was going stir crazy. Her cover story was that she worked from home doing medical billing. It was always easier to set up a fake identity for a person who 'worked from home.' First of all, it was reasonable. A lot of people telecommuted or owned their own consulting businesses nowadays. Secondly, this meant that no physical jobsite or coworkers had to be dreamed up and accounted for. Simple!

However, Cristal quickly found out that living out this piece of her cover story was going to be significantly more difficult in practice than in theory. She was used to being busy, having a purpose. Even though stakeouts could be long and tedious to say the least, there was a specific reason to be there. She wasn't just sitting around. She was sitting around and watching for something to happen. In stakeouts, she might be doing nothing while she waited, but at least she was
actively
doing nothing.

One high point of the day was that she had successfully avoided seeing Dominic that morning. He had to be on the construction site at six am. Although she had been awake since four (she had spent the night feverishly tossing and turning – sleep, it seemed, had not been on the agenda!) she didn’t venture out of her room until about a half an hour after she heard him leave. She waited the extra thirty minutes just to be safe, to ensure that he didn’t run back in because he had forgotten something.

She had felt self-satisfied about her little ruse, and had begun the day in fine spirits.

That had quickly faded as boredom had set in.

Now, it was almost two in the afternoon and she was done flipping through channels on TV. She had eaten more today before lunch than she normally ate in an entire twenty-four hour period. She had browsed online for a while, but that got old fast. She was getting so desperate that she began to wish for some actual medical billing to work on.

She shook her head. No. That still wouldn't do the trick. What she needed was human interaction.

Hmm, interaction…Dominic would be home in a few hours. She stopped that train of thought in its tracks. Nope! Not a good idea. Her best bet would be to steer clear of him entirely, just to be on the safe side. The short time they had been in the house together so far indicated that even a few moments alone together would send them directly toward interaction of the adult variety, and that was NOT what Cristal needed!

Well actually she knew she
did
need that kind of interaction...just not with Dominic. That's why it was a much safer bet to simply keep her distance.

She shook her head. God! She had almost lost every last vestige of self-control in the hall last night. What had she been thinking? AH! She hadn't been thinking, that had been the problem! She had lost the ability to think clearly the instant he had touched her. The instant she had felt his hot breath on her neck. She shuddered. She was starting to get worked up again just thinking about it now. She had to make this more academic.

So, what exactly had happened? What had gone wrong? She mulled it over. He had caught her off guard, she decided. He was usually so cocky, so obnoxious. She had developed an armor against his unbreakable self-assurance.

But, last night...had been different. Cristal could read people. That gift had kept her alive, and as safe as you can be in the types of environments that she had grown up in. She could see into people's souls, and when Dominic was talking to her on the couch last night, he wasn't bullshitting. He was being sincere.

Jerk.

Then, in the hall when he had told her she smelled good…it flipped a switch inside of her that she hadn't even known existed, and so hadn't had the foresight to guard the way that she guarded every single other piece of herself.

It was all just too much. She could have handled him making some immature frat boy comment about her body -“nice ass” “great legs” “amazing tits” - she got those remarks all the time, and they were easily filed away inside her brain.

Yes, she could have easily dealt with a compliment/come-on about her eyes or smile. No problem. She’d heard them all, and quite frequently, at that.

But why did he have to say she smelt so good? That was different. That was intimate. That wasn't an observation someone could make from across a room. That was something that you had to be standing as close as Dominic had been standing to her last night to be able to tell...she shuddered. Add to that the intense look in his eyes...it all just felt so…personal.

And THAT was what put her completely off balance! She could handle arrogant, she could handle smart ass, she could handle egotistical. What she could NOT handle was sincere and caring. Not coming from him. It was hard enough to keep her walls up around him! She didn’t have a shot in hell at keeping herself at a safe distance if he kept up this new behavior.

And why now? Why did he have to turn over this new leaf just when they were going to be spending so much time together?

And how had he known? How had he been able to sense that sincerity would be her undoing? That it would be the one key that would unlock the only tiny door she had not been able to brick up in the otherwise unassailable fortress surrounding her heart?

If she thought that his words were just a scheme or a plot, then she wouldn't be worried at all. She could easily out-play him at any game he threw her way, she was confident.

But she knew people. She had a sixth sense about people's intentions, and, more to the point - she knew Dominic. He wasn’t playing around, of that she was certain.

And that scared the living daylights out of her.

She got up off the couch and decided that maybe she should go for a run, get some of this anxiety out of her system. Sweat out the tension that was rolling through her. There was a great running path that ran down the middle of Chandler all the way to Burbank. She figured it must be a couple of miles long, at least. She would give it a try. She was just heading back to her room to go change when she heard a knock at the door.

Hallelujah! Honestly, at this point she didn’t care if it was Girl Scouts selling cookies or Mormons out on their mission, either one would be welcome. She was just so grateful to have someone to talk to!

She opened the front door and was greeted with an even better surprise than she could have imagined. Not only was Cristal’s best friend and co-worker Raiza standing in front of her in the flesh, she came bearing gifts - Cinnabons and coffee.

Cristal threw her arms around her and pulled her into the house. She trilled, “I’ve never been so happy to see you in my entire life!”

Raiza laughed when Cristal finally released her from her tight embrace and she quickly moved through the living room and into the small dinette area that sat just off the kitchen.

“Good to see you, too, sexy mama! But, if memory serves, I did see you just yesterday morning at the Kellan prep meeting.”

Cristal sighed as she flopped down in the kitchen chair beside Raiza, “I know...but that seems so long ago. I haven’t had anything to do all day. I think I might be going a little crazy. Stir crazy, at least.”

Raiza stared at her, a smile spreading across her face, and then slowly opened the bag containing the insanely divine, mouthwatering delicious treats she had brought. She angled the top of the open bag toward Cristal so that the fresh, doughy aroma would waft over her. Raiza said casually, “Want a Cinnabon?”

Cristal looked at her like she had grown another head, “Um, does Howdy Doody have wooden balls? What kind of a question is that? Of course I want one!” Cristal reached her hand toward the open bag.

Raiza quickly crumpled the bag shut and pulled it back to her across the table. “Well, then,” she said with a grin, “You better start talking.”

Cristal wasn't following Raiza's train of thought at all, but she did know one thing - that Raiza had better hand over the Cinnabon, or she was about to throw down! “I’m not even playing right now,” she said, raising her eyebrows to indicate the depth of her earnestness, “I seriously need that Cinnabon.”