The Unseen Enemy Series

Chapter 146

Dallas was sitting on the edge of his bed, wearing just boxer shorts and feeling incredibly nervous.

Jesus Christ. I feel like a virgin or something here. I haven’t been this worried about getting into bed with a woman since… well, actually. I’ve never been this worried about sleeping with a woman.

He heard the bathroom door open and he turned to the hallway. There she was. Beautiful, brave, kind. His Olivia. She was wearing his long t-shirt, the one that she’d used as a nightgown since her stalker had sliced her up almost three months earlier. His heart squeezed at the look on her face. She looked tentative and afraid, and he didn’t want to see her like that. Not ever again.

“Olivia,” he said. “Baby, are you sure?”

She stepped into the room and joined him in bed. “Can we take it slow?”

“Yeah. We can.” He lay back. “You set the pace here. You decide what we do, and when. You decide if we stop.”

“OK.” She bit her full lip. “But Dallas, I really want this. I miss you.”

“I’m right here, hon.”

“Yeah, but… I miss us.”

He was silent. He missed them, too.

She crawled onto his body, stretched full-length on top of him. He groaned loudly, and she raised her head and met his blue eyes.

“What?” she said.

“Oh, man,” he said. “You weren’t kidding about gaining some weight… you’re crushing me here, girl.”

She burst into laughter then, and he grinned up at her.

That’s better. She looks like herself again.

“Sorry about that, tough guy,” she said. “Maybe I can make it up to you a bit?”

“Hmmm.” He thought about that. “What have you got in mind?”

“How about I show you?”

“OK. Show me.”

She lifted herself higher on his body and kissed him. He ran his hands up her slim back and clenched them in her hair. She gasped as he held her in place and slipped his tongue between her lips. He probed, licked, sucked. Gentle and hot.

Like a cat, Olivia rubbed her lower body against him and smiled when his erection pressed into her p***y. She spread her legs and sat up on his body. She stared down at his broad chest and traced the curves of his muscles, the lines of his tattoos. Dallas lay still under her, watching her face.

“How you doing, Olivia?”

“Good.”

He reached up and cradled her cheek, his thumb running along her scar. “You sure you want to show me? We can make love without all your clothes being off, baby, if that makes you more comfortable.”

She shook her head. “No. I want you to see me… all of me. As I am now. As I will be forever.”

“OK. Whatever you want. You know that.”

She rolled off him and lay down on her back. He turned on his side, kissed her, sweet and soft and slow. She stared up at him, loving him so much, she thought she might actually explode from the heat and need of it.

He loves you too, Olivia. He’s not going to be disgusted; he’s not going to think you’re ugly. He’s going to love you anyway. Despite it all.

She reached for the hem of the t-shirt, slowly pulled it up her body. She watched his eyes as she did, and he held her gaze, not breaking it to even glance down at her exposed flesh. She paused, her heart pounding hard, then took the shirt off. She lay naked next to Dallas now, trembling.

He was still holding her eyes. As they stared at each other, Olivia felt her body calm, felt her heart slow down. He was looking at her with such pride, and adoration just poured off of him like a steady flow of water. Suddenly she knew that it was all going to be OK.

“You ready for me to look now?” he asked softly.

She nodded. “Ready.”

He dropped his eyes to her body. He looked at the small scars scattered around her stomach and hips. He looked at the larger, deeper ones on her breasts, where the knife had stabbed more than slashed her tender skin. And he looked at the one long scar, the one that stretched from her breastbone straight down the middle of her upper body, ending just above her belly button.

It was the angriest, the darkest. It was the one that she hated the most, because she knew that the others would fade to white as time passed, but this one would always and forever be purple. And she hated it because she remembered what she had thought when he had done it: she'd thought he was slicing her right in half. She'd thought he was going to kill her at that moment.

Dallas blinked back his tears. “Oh, baby.” He lifted one shaking hand, then hesitated. “Can I touch you?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

His huge hand settled on her stomach. He held it there, palm-down, unmoving; he felt her body rising and falling with every breath. Then he traced the long scar with the tip of his index finger, all the way up to where it ended. He touched the smaller scars on her body, one at a time, stroking them gently. He glanced up at her.

Her beautiful eyes were overflowing with tears, but they weren’t tears of sadness or fear. Her eyes were calm and clear as she looked back at him, and he knew she was there with him. Her eyes had trust and love and something very like hope shining out, so he didn’t move to hold her. Not yet.

“Can I kiss you?”

“Yes.”

His lips and tongue followed the path his fingers had just travelled. She closed her eyes and shuddered, her body turning warm and liquid under him. When his tongue flicked her n*****s, she moaned and he smiled against her breasts.

“OK, Olivia?”

“Yes… definitely OK.”

She pulled him up onto her body, and he leaned down for a kiss. His c**k was huge and hard between them, and she reached down with both hands to stroke him. He rested his forehead against hers, and let himself relax.

She’s OK. She’s made it through. Damn, she’s something else.