“I see.” She didn’t, but she was becoming restless. “I need to walk around outside, Nicolas. It isn’t you, really, you’re being really supportive, but even Milly and Bernadette never spent more than fifteen or twenty minutes with me unless we were outdoors.”
“Am I projecting sexual energy?” He was watching her hands again. She was whirling the amethyst spheres beneath her fingertips, never touching them, keeping them afloat in the air just beneath her palm.
“There’s always energy, but that’s not it. You’re amazingly low-key. Most of the time, unless it is sexual, I don’t feel anything. You’re a very restful person to be with.”
“How about going out into the courtyard, Dahlia? You can sit out there and relax. I’ll make a list of things we need and call in the order and then make us something to eat.”
She nodded. “Thanks for being understanding. I really appreciate it.”
“Dahlia.” He stopped her before she made it to the door. “Is it something I can help you with?”
She should have known he would see beyond mere words. Dahlia shook her head. “I’ve always relieved the buildup by physical activity. You saw my gym. I can wait until dark and use the rooftops. I get a little shaky is all.”
“Are you hurting?”
“It isn’t bad—and don’t offer pain meds. I don’t take them. I have a fairly high tolerance, and I get by.”
He waved her toward the courtyard. Dahlia didn’t hesitate. She needed to be alone. Part of it was she didn’t want him to see her as she really was. She put her hands out, fists clenched around the spheres. Both hands were shaking. She was used to her routine, the sanctuary of her home. Interacting with Nicolas was exhilarating, but it took its toll. She began to jog around the courtyard, all the while keeping the spheres moving beneath the fingers of both hands.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Dahlia paced back and forth in the small bedroom, her mind refusing to give her peace. Something was wrong. She’d walked the entire parameters of the house several times. She jogged in the courtyard. Her dinner, a traditional Cajun dish, wasn’t sitting well in her stomach despite having been cooked to perfection. She missed something. Granted, she’d lost everything, and she’d been distracted by running through the bayou and practically sleeping with a man, but she never had so much trouble figuring things out. It was right there, within her grasp, yet she couldn’t quite reach it.
She leapt onto the bed and raced halfway up the wall, taking refuge in physical activity. Someone wanted her dead. They shot Jesse. Was it possible the very people she worked for had sent a team to kill her? Her bare feet beat a small tattoo on the lower part of the wall as she ran lightly around it, circling several times before attempting to race up the wall to the ceiling. Why did they shoot Jesse and not kill him? They would know he didn’t know where she was. She was late. She never had contact with Jesse until she reached her house. It was always set up that way. It never varied. She didn’t carry a cell phone or a pager or anything else. Once he gave her the mission, she planned it and carried it out alone. Why did they shoot Jesse? Just to torture him? It didn’t make sense. It wasn’t the first time a recovery had taken a wrong turn, though she always completed the assignment, but there was a strong possibility the attack on her home and family was connected.
Dahlia raced up the side of the wall until she was upside down, hanging from the ceiling. It took a great deal of concentration. Her mind was not sufficiently following the process and she fell like a rag doll, hitting the bed and bouncing slightly, the breath slammed from her lungs at the jolt.
“What the hell are you doing?” Nicolas stood in the door looking disheveled and shaken from his usual calm. “Are you out of your mind?”
Dahlia sucked in air, enough to allow a smooth somersault that brought her upright and sitting tailor-fashion in the middle of the bed. She shook back her hair and looked at him. “I missed something important.”
He couldn’t help staring at her. Drinking her in. Dahlia wasn’t shy or vain, or even modest. She didn’t seem to notice her personal appearance. She sat on the bed, the covers rumpled, in a tank top that bared her shoulders and midriff and a loose pair of cotton drawstring pants. With her hair tumbling around her and pooling on the sheets she looked mysterious and feminine and all too sexy when she clearly wasn’t trying.
A frown slipped across her face. “Quit fixating on my br**sts. You cannot do whatever it is you’re thinking right through my shirt, thank you very much. For heaven’s sake, do you ever think of anything besides sex?”
“Apparently not,” he admitted wryly. “I’ve never had the problem before I met you.” He was damned if he’d be embarrassed. He could see the darker outline of her ni**les through the thin white tank top, an intriguing shadow that tempted and beckoned and begged to be suckled. It wasn’t his fault the woman never wore adequate clothing.
“What were you doing? People don’t walk on ceilings.”
Dahlia studied his face. His long black hair cascaded to his shoulders and looked as if he’d rubbed his hands through it over and over until he was completely rumpled. He wore a thin pair of sweats and nothing else. Heat radiated off of him, nearly shimmered in the air so that the temperature in the room rose several degrees. He was so beautiful he took her breath away. She stared at him, dazzled. Starry eyed. Idiotic.
Dahlia pressed her lips together. She was no better than he was at controlling the sexual awareness leaping between them. The moment they were together, it spread until it enveloped them and burned them up. She tilted her head. “Why is it that you emit such incredibly low energy, even in the most violent circumstances, but when you’re with me the energy becomes a tidal wave?”
“You don’t censor, do you, Dahlia?”
She shrugged her shoulders, drawing his eye to the line of her neck. He could plant little kisses right along her neck. Take small bites to the curve of her br**sts.
Dahlia pressed her hands to the aching swell of her br**sts and heaved a sigh. “You just aren’t going to stop, are you?” She frowned. “Should I be censoring? I don’t have a lot of experience in conversing like this. Do you want me to censor the things I say? Milly told me once that I was too outspoken.”
Nicolas rubbed at his pounding temples. There was a strange roaring in his head. He always wondered what the proverbial walking hard-on meant and decided it was a person . . . him. No matter how much he meditated, the moment he went to sleep, he dreamt of Dahlia. Erotic, sexy dreams of her soft skin rubbing against his. Of her mouth sliding over his chest, his belly, edging lower until he thought he’d go out of his mind. Her hand wrapped around his erection, fingers slipping over him, dancing and teasing and stroking long silken caresses. As hard as he tried to control his wayward thoughts, she crept into his mind. He transferred his hand to the back of his neck, rubbing hard to ease the tension. “This is worse than basic training ever was, Dahlia, and no, I don’t want you to censor.”
“What’s worse than basic training?”
“Wanting you. I even want you in my sleep. What the hell is that? I am completely disciplined at all times. What have you done to me?”
Unexpectedly, Dahlia laughed. She lifted the thick mass of her blue-black hair off the back of her neck and let it fall in a cloak around her. “I’m a voodoo queen, of course. I’ve cast my spell, and it’s too late for you to get away from me.”
He wanted to swear. He wanted to cross the room and pin her down on the bed and see if she dared laugh at him then. She’d melted whatever ice had run in his veins, and now she was sitting there in the middle of the damned bed laughing.