The man I was fucking in my dream wasDallas.
I didn’t recognize any of the others, though I instinctively know that my father was in one of the visions I saw. I don’t care about that, though. None of it could be real, just flashes I made up to replace what I’ve lost, but as I close my eyes and see the look of pleasure twisting Dallas’s features in my dream… I don’tcare if it was my imagination or not. I’m not imagining how fucking turned-on I am right now, or how attracted I’ve been to my husband since he told me hewasmy husband.
My husband… the man who paid for the silk nightdresses that Loni picked out and put in my dresser, along with my underwear. My husband… the one who can’t help watching me from the corner of his eye, the look of longing there whenever he thinks that I’m not looking back.
My husband… who told me that I can sleep in here for as long as I want.
But what if I don’t want to anymore?
EIGHT
I NEED YOU
DALLAS
You know what?
I finally understand why Connor’s first instinct was to break Haven out of that cell, wrap her up in his protectiveness, hide her away from the world, and refuse to let anyone have the chance to hurt her again. At the time, I thought my old buddy had taken it too far. Haven needed professional help, not his obsession, to heal.
Fuck that. When I look at Lucy, when I see the question in her eyes and the trauma she can’t quite hide in the way her lips constantly seem to pout when she thinks I’m not paying any attention to her, I have to resist the urge to ask Connor if I can borrow his handcuffs.
She needs me. Not because I told her we’re married, or because she believes my lies. Not because she’s been hurt, but because the only thing I want to do in this life is make sure that no one ever causes Dandelion any pain ever again.
That’s why I called Connor down to my office the morning after Adrian told me that, if I don’t want the old guard to be suspicious, I needed to leave the penthouse. Haven’s been doingso much better lately. I’m even welcome to visit—as long as I give them advance notice in case she’s having a bad day—and I figure, if there’s anyone who can help me with my Lucy, it’s him.
He doesn’t bring his handcuffs. However, he does bring his sedatives.
I know that, in the beginning, he was drugging Haven to keep her under control. He says it’s because she was a danger to herself. I know better. While she did hurt herself a few times, it was Connor’s desperate need to keep her where he could see her—to keep her safe after her ordeal—that led to him doing something like that.
Nowadays, he uses them only when Haven has a panic attack. He still keeps a supply on hand, and he offered some to Bas after he first entered into a marriage of convenience with Annaliese (thateveryoneknew was a real one… except maybe for Annaliese). Bas never used them, but after the first night when I sat outside of Lucy’s room and heard her whimper, I knew she needed something to sleep. Something strong like what they were giving her in the hospital.
Something like a sedative.
And, okay, I’m not that altruistic. After I put the sedative in Lucy’s nightly cup of water, I would wait for her to knock out, then climb into bed with her. I’m not that big of a fucking perv. I’m not into somno, not like Connor who has an open agreement with Haven to fuck her when she’s unconscious if he wants since it’s easier for her to handle intimacy that way. Does that mean I don’t sprawl out next to her, stroking her soft hair, running my fingers along her soft skin, reveling in the fact that I have my Dandelion back?
Not at all.
I always slipped out of her room and back to mine before the sedatives wore off. But when it had been a few days and she stumbled to breakfast one morning, rubbing her eyes and softlycomplaining about feeling like her head was woozy and full of cotton? I realized that the sedatives were harming her more than helping.
So I stopped giving them to her two nights ago. That means that, after gorging myself on being next to her for the few nights before it, I’m fiending now. Like an addict in need of his next fix, I want nothing more than to breathe in everythingLucy, and not even disappearing into my bathroom repeatedly and rubbing one out every time I do so I can keep my cock in check is helping.
She’s still managing to sleep, even without the sedatives. I know because I keep checking on her. Me? Not so much. I haven’t gotten a good night’s sleep since the last time I was able to go to bed calling Lucy mine, and that was five years ago.
So, yeah… I’m not sleeping when she pushes in my door and steps into my room.
The light in the hall is off. Without the moonlight streaming in through the gaps between my curtains, I’d be blind. I can sense her before I can make her small body out, a slender silhouette against the deeper shadows in the penthouse. I can hear her before she ever announces herself.
There’s the shuffle of bare feet against the hardwood floor. The whisper of silk swishing from the red nightie that Adrian picked out. Oh, I told her it was Loni. I didn’t think she’d understand that I could rely on my male cousin to fill the house with anything he thought a woman could use, but I didn’t trust anyone else to know that Lucy is here. I risked bringing her in through the front of the Fortress because I hadn’t been thinking at the time. Since then, no one knows she’s here except for me, Adrian, and Lucy.
Did I have to bite back the curse when I saw the sexy lingerie he ordered in Lucy’s size? Yes, because, fuck it. I’m an obsessed bastard who wanted to snarl at the idea of any other man knowing what Dandelion looks like when she goes to sleep.I had no choice when it came to that fucker, Julian, but Adrian? I didn’t know what he was thinking.
It hit me later, once I saw Lucy in a simple white nightdress. Goddamn it, but Adrian always has a plan, and giving her no other option but slinky, revealing nightdresses in her drawer—as though I remembered her preference and passed them on to ‘Loni’—was one of the most brilliant he’s ever had. If anything, it was a gift for me paid for with my own credit card, but it was definitely worth the price.
She hesitates just past the doorway. Can she tell I’m awake? Does she want me to be?
What is she doing in here?
This… might be a problem. I was being so careful not to push Lucy, but she hasn’t left her room a single night after she settled down for bed. I never expected that she would come searching for me in the middle of the night. If I did, maybe I wouldn’t have gone to bed naked.
