“Well, any idea that she ran off with the other man is null and void if he sent her the necklace.”
My brows furrow with a thought. “Right, but maybe he knows it got lost. I should call the delivery company and see if a claim was filed.”
“While that’s a good idea,” she agrees, “something about this situation feels weird to me. I mean, Allison left abruptly when she was very up and coming at the firm. Why? And of course, logically she did resign and pack her things and leave, or so I assume. If true, that should rule out something far more nefarious.”
“She did resign,” I agree. “That’s the only reason I’ve restrained myself from going down a rabbit hole of too much worry.”
“Barely,” Dash comments, rotating to face me, his hand on my knee. “We both know you’re barely restraining yourself.”
“Okay barely,” I admit. “Bella is right. Something feels off about this. You know it does, Dash. And why won’t she return anyone’s calls? Not even Tyler’s.”
“Assuming the man who sent the necklace to her was the man she was dating, he clearly didn’t leave with her. Hmmm.”
“Hmmm never goes anywhere good,” Dash murmurs, sipping his coffee.
She ignores him and continues as if he hasn’t spoken. “It kind of seems like she’s on the run, doesn’t it? Maybe from the guy who sent the necklace or even Tyler, though I really don’t think Tyler is the stalker type.” Her cellphone rings and she glances down to where it sits on the island. “That’s the record exec I’ve been dealing with.” She’s already on her feet, answering the call. “Hey, Cooper.” She listens a moment. “Yes. Yes. I can meet. I’m dressed for the weekend, but—right. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” She hangs up. “I think this is good. I hope it’s good. I have to run.” She grabs her purse. “Did you check Allison’s social media? And maybe she has a dating profile?”
“She has none,” I say. “I looked. That is, speaking of social media. I didn’t think about looking for a dating profile. I’m not even sure how to do that.”
“I’ll check the hot dating sites,” she offers, “and see if I can find her, though I’m certain that will be challenging. As for social media, she has an Instagram. She just uses a cute nickname to keep her professional name protected. Shelly at the office forwarded me a post she did way back when. I’ll look for it when I’m at a stoplight.”
My pulse leaps at the promise of a link to the woman I’ve come to know and yet don’t know at all. “What’s her nickname?”
“A southern girl and her cat,” she says. “She has a Balinese kitty. Beautiful girl, too, like Allison herself.”
A kitty cat, I think, feeling yet another bond to the other Allison, despite not sharing my home with a furry child. I’ve longed to adopt a kitty, but my rental doesn’t allow it. Cute kitties aside, Allison having a social media presence is encouraging. Really encouraging actually. I now have a new way to reach out to Allison and to check in on her.
“And I’m sorry,” Bella adds, “I have to go.” She points at me. “If I find out you’re seeing Tyler and Dash—”
“Never,” I say. “I have never done anything but argue with Tyler.”
“With your clothes on?”
My cheeks heat and there’s a pinch of anger in my chest that I push aside for one reason: she’s reacting to me out of love for Dash. And as painful as it is now, I do appreciate this about her. I like that she protects Dash and as bad as that might feel to him today, I believe it affects his life in a positive way. “There is nothing between me and Tyler, Bella,” I repeat, “and yes, of course, I had my clothes on.”
She studies me a moment and then says, “Okay good.” She looks at Dash. “You know what to do.”
My heart races with the potential meaning behind that statement, but before I can ask her to clarify if that means keeping me or getting rid of me, she rushes to the door and disappears.
CHAPTER NINE
You know what you have to do.
At this point, neither me nor Dash are on our barstools. We’re both on our feet and facing each other. “What does that mean, Dash? You know what you have to do?”
He catches my hip, and drags me to him, his free hand sliding under my hair, folding possessively along the line of my neck. “It means she wants me to do what I want to do and make you mine, Allie. If you’d even let me. But then she doesn’t understand that you’ll run before I ever get the chance. And you should run, Allie.”
He’s hit a raw nerve and the impact vibrates through my body.
Running and me are synonymous and a little too obvious. Meanwhile, Dash doesn’t run, not even from me after I saw him fighting. Or did he? Does he still want me to live with him? He did, yes, he said so, but half a day has changed everything, and inviting me to stay last night is not inviting me to live with him.
I want to live with him. I want to be with him. And I didn’t want to admit that to myself, let alone him, until now. I owe him the truth after all that happened in the past several hours. He’s vulnerable and exposed by way of what I’ve learned, and witnessed, about him, aware of the questions I will surely ask. If I want him to open up to me, I have to shove aside the past. “What if I don’t run, Dash?”
“That’s the problem,” he says softly. “I don’t want you to run.”
That’s the problem.
I’m a problem.
And yet, on some level, I understand this and welcome the confession that tells me he might want to walk away from me and us, but like me, despite all reason, he cannot. My hands go to his waist. “If I didn’t run already, do you really think I scare that easily?”
“There is so much you don’t understand, Allie.”
“Make me,” I challenge, eager to see behind the curtains.
“That’s what you don’t seem to get. I don’t want you to understand.”
His mouth closes down on mine, his tongue sliding deep. I moan with the rush of sensation through my body, with the taste of hot man and torment, and deep, biting self-hate. And I’m not oblivious to the fact that he intends for me to find these things, he wants me to feel what he feels, and it’s the most honest thing I’ve ever known. With all his secrets, somehow Dash is the most real man I’ve ever known, and I am suddenly hungry for him in every possible way.
I kick off my shoes, letting him know that I plan to be naked, the sooner, the better. Even as I do, my fingers slide under the tail of his shirt, my palms pressing to his hard body. He tears his mouth from mine, breathes with me, a second dragging into two and then three.
“Dash,” I whisper, shoving his shirt up, telling him what I want.
He responds by pulling it over his head. I have a moment, maybe two, to appreciate his sculpted torso before he’s turning me to face the island, my hands catching the counter, his lips pressed to my ear. “I’m wrong for you, Allie.”
“Do I get to decide that?” I pant out, a flashback of last night with me pressed to the door, his hand on my neck, his cock buried inside me, reminding me of how much he needed control, how much he still does.