He sat next to me on the bed and placed his hand on my leg. “You are not crazy,” he grumbled. “There is a logical explanation for everything.”
I looked into his eyes and was hit with a rush of adrenaline. Simply sitting so close, sharing his space, and gazing into his eyes felt dangerous. And I couldn’t deny it sucked me in. I imagined it was how wolves felt about their alphas. They were attracted to the alphas’ savage recklessness—their power, their innate ability to do as they pleased without fear of consequence. A part of me wanted to follow.
“Better?” he asked.
Of course I wasn’t. Regardless, I pressed my lips together and nodded.
“Good.” He stood up. “Then I have your commitment to stop the infantile tactics?”
I nodded. “Okay.”
“Then we’re on the same page.”
“If your page is a flaming ball of devastating terror, then yes. We are absolutely on the same page.”
“I know this isn’t easy, Dakota, but this will all be over quickly. If you do as I say,” he added.
“Really?” Because I might do just about anything to make this nightmare go away.
He grinned, and I wondered if it was because he’d found the secret key to gaining my compliance. “Yes.”
“How long?” I asked.
“Perhaps a few more days. Perhaps a few weeks.”
“I’m not going to your house or anywhere alone with you,” I blurted out.
He growled something under his breath. “It’s not sa—” Again, he stopped himself.
“I don’t feel well,” I pushed. “I need to stay here and rest.”
He tilted his head and scratched the black stubble on his jaw.
My cell rang on my nightstand, and I practically dove for it. It was my mother. “Hi, Mom.”
“I just heard. Why didn’t you call me? Are you all right?” she asked, frantic and panting.
“Fine. I’m completely fine. I promise.”
I heard her let out a slow breath. “Thank God Santiago was there.”
I looked at Santiago, who now stood like a sentinel, arms crossed again. “Yeah,” I replied. “Lucky me. Are you coming home?”
“There was an accident on the freeway; they’re bringing in fifteen people, and we’re down two nurses today. Can you hang tight for another few hours? Santiago can stay with you until I get there, right?”
Ugh. “No, Mom. Don’t come home. I’m fine. Really.” Not really. Please come home, my tone said.
She hesitated for a moment. “All right. But if you change your mind, call me.” Sirens soared in the background. “I gotta go, baby. I love you.”
I put down the phone and sighed. I was on my own, I realized. I needed to take control.
“If you really mean it,” I said, “if you’re not here to hurt me, then prove it. Back off. Let me stay home here where I feel safe.”
He sucked in a deep, slow breath almost as if he didn’t have the will to continue arguing. “I’m warning you, Dakota, I’ll be keeping an eye on you, so don’t leave this house. Don’t do anything stupid. And if you run, I’ll find you. If you run, there will be consequences. For everyone. I’ll pick you up on Monday for school.”
“Why do you have to pick me up?”
“I promised your mother. She doesn’t want you driving just yet.” He turned to leave.
“Thank you, Santiago,” I blurted out, surprised by my own unexpected burst of gratitude. “Thank you for stopping that lunatic who broke in.”
He nodded and stalked from the room, leaving me alone, swimming in my own desperate thoughts.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Monday.
Confined to my house and turning down several shopping invitations via text from Mandy, I spent the weekend arriving at three very important, rational conclusions.
One: If Santiago wanted to harm me, he would have done so by now. No, that didn’t mean I trusted him, but I didn’t feel as petrified as I probably should have. In any case, once fear is removed from a situation, it does allow you to see things differently, which leads to my next point.
Two: When something generally doesn’t make sense, it’s because you don’t have all the facts. So that’s what I began doing, looking for facts, answers. But Santiago Asturias was a ghost. I’d found hundreds of people with the same name, but not the Santiago Asturias. Maybe that wasn’t his real name. After all, I’d invented that, too. What I found odd, however, was being unable to find the website from where I’d nabbed his photo. There was no trace of this man anywhere: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Images. Nada.
Three: I was on my own. My mother had stayed at the hospital the entire weekend due to yet another shortage of nurses, and my father’s phone was turned off. Voicemail only. And strangely, each time I tried to call someone other than my parents, the signals on both my cell and landline went all screechy. When I dared to look outside, there was Santiago. At one point, maybe out of boredom, I actually saw the guy mowing the front lawn and trimming the trees. Strange, to say the least.
So basically, that left me confined to the house with nothing but the train wreck inside my head. Why was Santiago here? What did he really want? When would he leave? Was he, perhaps, a real, live ghost? Someone I’d brought to life by speaking him into existence?
No, I supposed he wasn’t a ghost who enjoyed gardening, but everything was beyond bizarre. There had to be a logical explanation. Even he had said so.
I gulped down my coffee, looked at my watch, and yawned loudly. It was almost 8:00 a.m., the time I’d normally leave for school, and time to face my “ghost.”
I yawned again. How would I make it through the day without falling asleep? I’d tossed and turned for hours last night after having the most intense, vivid dream. The sort that made me blush when I woke up. Obviously, the man was brutally attractive. I’d have to be dead or in a coma not to notice Santiago’s raw masculinity—his powerful body, fierce gaze, and fearless posture. But why in the world had I dreamt about baking cookies with him? Well, it started out that way. But then we were naked and covered in cookie batter, which led to us being in the shower. Before I knew it, I was washing his wet, hard body, touching and exploring every steely inch of him. And there were many, many inches. But strangely, he never really moved or touched me back. He simply gazed at me with hungry eyes, as if I were some kind of forbidden fruit he wanted to devour. Even when I took my soap-slick hands and began stroking him, he simply stared right up until the very end when he closed his eyes and screamed my name, rocking himself frantically into my hands. That’s when I woke up a hot mess.
Needless to say, my body was in no mood for sleep after that. It was in the mood for something else.
“Don’t think about it,” I’d told myself, ashamed for having such incredibly lustful fantasies at a time like this. But when I closed my eyes and tried to return to sleep, I saw those images of his tanned, muscular body straining against my hand. That’s when I got out my journal and tried to purge the sinful thoughts. But writing them down only made the dream more real, only made me sweat. Before I knew it, it was morning and time for a shower. A cold, cold shower.
I didn’t want him. Did I? He was an icy, scary enigma. Maybe that was it. A sick little part of me enjoyed the danger he represented to my sad, tame, wallflower of a life.
Idiot.
The doorbell rang, and I jumped out of my flip-flops, nearly landing on my butt.
Crap. He’s here.
I ran my trembling hands over my smoothed-back hair, trapped neatly into a bun, and then tugged on the front of my tight baby-blue tee. I took in a breath and yanked open the door.
And release breath.
Santiago stood on the porch, one hand shoved into the pocket of his faded button flies, his white T-shirt stretching across his unfathomably muscled chest and upper biceps, his black hair a hot mess. Just like my night.
Dark shades covered his dark eyes, but I could’ve sworn he was checking out my breasts
and midriff. My T-shirt suddenly felt too small. I gave it another tug, trying to close the gap between the bottom hem and the top of my low-rise, vintage Levis.
He jerked his head. “Ready?”
No. Not at all. The guy dripped with danger. And anger. And sensuality.
I swiped my backpack and stepped out, closing the door behind me. When my eyes hit the curb, I stopped. “That’s your ride?”
Not that I expected him to take me to school on a motorcycle, but his other vehicle wasn’t what one might think. Not a muscle car—Mustang or Camaro. Not a race car—Porsche, Ferrari, Lamborghini. Not a yuppie car—BMW, Mercedes, Lexus. But a big red Bronco. An old one. No top. Just a steering wheel, black seats, a roll bar, and fat tires. The kind of truck you hoped you never had to get into while wearing a tight skirt.
“I guess that explains the hair,” I said.
He grumbled something about classics under his breath and stepped aside as I passed.
When he grabbed my hand and helped me fumble my way into the vehicle, my body lit up like a bonfire. It remembered touching his skin, and it didn’t care if the memories were fictional, a dream. My body simply wanted to have another taste. Muscles tightened. Nerves tingled. Saliva flowed. He was like a giant danger-brownie and my body wanted a big fat bite.
Crap, Dakota. Get a hold of yourself.
I watched him walk around the front of the truck, his backside moving like two impenetrable cannonball halves under the soft denim fabric of his jeans. Don’t. Don’t think about the dream. I pushed away the images still fresh in my mind.
“Stop looking at my ass,” he barked without bothering to look in my direction.
“I was looking at the…” Shit. “Windshield wipers. You should try changing them once in a while.”
“Changed them yesterday. Stop staring at my fucking ass. You’re too young for me.”
What? How crude. Why had he blurted that out? It was so strange and out of context. “Thank God for that.”
With his enormous stature, he easily slipped into the driver’s seat. “I’m not your toy. We won’t be having sex.”
“Who said I wanted to?” I retorted with disgust.
Your dreams said you wanted to.
Shut up!
He shoved the key into the ignition and twisted. “I’m not making out with you either. I don’t believe in any form of intimate contact with a minor.”
Where had all this come from? “First off, I’m eighteen. Second, I never asked you to touch me—I happen to like guys who are human. And third, I didn’t even ask you into my life.”
“Right.” He shifted into first and released the clutch. “Then why the hell am I here, Dakota?”
Ummm…“Damned good question.”
“Don’t start,” he grumbled over the loud engine.
“Grumpy much? If all that phone hacking puts you in such a bad mood, maybe you shouldn’t do it,” I spouted back.
He completely ignored my hacking comment and mumbled something about not getting any sleep for several days because someone had insisted on staying at her house. I guessed that someone was me. And I guessed that meant he had been camped outside my house the entire weekend, as I suspected.
“You could’ve come inside and taken a nap on the couch,” I said as we pulled up to a stop sign.
Why did I say that? And why did I find myself wishing he had?
He gazed at me from behind those black lenses. “Trust me,” he replied in a deep, slow voice, “I wanted to.” He looked ahead. “But you needed your rest. Although, you don’t seem to get much.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant, but I was sure he hadn’t intended his response to sound loaded with sexual innuendo, which is exactly how my body interpreted it. My heart began to accelerate and my belly filled with prickles.
Wait. He’s doing that sexual power play thing to me again. Regardless, I couldn’t deny it had an effect. My body was simply all too willing to play along, to play with him.
I smiled, masking my inappropriate thoughts. “Well, thank you. Because I slept like a baby.” Obviously, I hadn’t, but he didn’t know that. Or maybe he did if he’d been watching me. My bedroom light had been on all night.
Regardless, he didn’t reply.
Minutes later, Santiago’s truck roared into the school parking lot, our awkward silence a contrast to the obnoxious, vintage muscle truck.
“Why are you parking?” I asked.
He put the truck into neutral, pulled the brake, and turned off the engine. “I’m taking you to class. What the hell does it look like?”
He hopped out and walked around to my side.
“C’mon.” He held out his arms as if he were going to catch me like a toddler jumping from the swings at the park.
I frowned. “Back off.”
He grumbled and did as I asked.
Only a narrow space separated our bodies as I slid from the truck, and I could’ve sworn he radiated some sort of sexual energy, because my body reacted instantly: goose bumps, neck hair standing at full attention, girl parts begging me to zero in on their target, commanding my eyes to seek out his…well, boy parts.
He removed his glasses and stared with that penetrating gaze as I inched away from him, my back against the vehicle. I could only hope he wasn’t noticing my physical reaction.
“You’re not even a student here,” I said. “You can’t come with me.”
He laughed. “Like some fucking rules would ever stop me.” He caught my arm, leaned in, and whispered in my ear. He seemed to do that a lot. Was it because he knew it instantly got my attention? “I can go anywhere I like, Dakota. There are no walls, no laws, no school rules that can stop me.”
I shivered as I felt his hot breath tickle my skin. “What can? What will stop you?” I murmured, never expecting him to answer.
“An itch,” he replied.
An itch? “An itch?”
He breathed into my ear, and I inhaled deeply. He smelled like male. Cinnamon, testosterone. Male. “We all have needs. Sometimes those needs can’t be ignored.” His lips brushed across my cheek and stopped at the corner of my mouth. “Sometimes…we have to scratch.”
Unable to keep myself from remembering the dream and every hot, hard inch of him, my body tensed. But there was no doubt in my mind he was toying with me, trying to rattle my cage. But why? What had I done?
I tilted my head to the side. “You should have that itch looked at. Maybe you caught something.”
He laughed into the air.
I took advantage and scurried away like a little rodent fleeing from the light. “I can get to class on my own.”
He jerked his head. “Don’t be late, babe. I’ll see you at lunch.”
I flashed several glances over my shoulder until I rounded the corner and he was out of sight.
What had brought about this sudden change in him? Because this felt like more than a simple mind game used to keep me in check. The tension he radiated felt intense, real. It was as if he knew my mind had been in the gutter all night, and he was all too happy to join me. But my dreams were just that. Dreams. I couldn’t control them, and I certainly wasn’t about to give into them. No way.
Then it suddenly dawned on me. I was free. He couldn’t keep an eye on me here. To hell with what I’d promised. I had to tell someone what was happening, even if they thought I was crazy. But would they? No. Not possible. I would go to the principal’s office, and have her call the police. No one was above the law, and this entire thing had gotten out of hand. I was dangerously close to accepting the situation, believing it, and wanting things I had no business wanting.
Stockholm syndrome.
But what about his warning that someone would get hurt? Or his threat about telling my mom? Okay. I didn’t believe he would hurt me. And I didn’t believe there was some ominous force coming after me. That was ridiculous, likely a ploy to keep me quiet. But the part about my mom? If Santiago told her about my dad cheating, it would tear her to pieces. r />
Shit. I thought about it for a moment, and realized that the real reason I didn’t want Santiago to tell her wasn’t because I feared her learning the truth, it was because I’d never said a word. I felt like I was the one who’d betrayed her, not my father.
So there it was. My answer. My father needed to fix this. He needed to help me. He needed to tell my mother the truth. That would free me from Santiago and my guilt. It would restore a tiny piece of my respect for him.
I’d left several messages for my father over the weekend, but he hadn’t called back. Why? And he’d completely flaked on our FaceTime date.
Time to try him again.
I started digging into my purse for my phone. Damn it. I’d left it charging on my desk. I quickly thought about hunting down Mandy, but her phone didn’t have international access. I could, however, use the phone in the office—tell them it was a family emergency.
As I turned the corner, down the crowded corridor toward the administrative building, the sane thoughts in my head evaporated. Every student stopped or moved to let me pass. They shamelessly whispered and gawked in my general direction, parting like the Red Sea as I passed.
I ran my hand over the top of my head. Did I look horrible? The bruise was pretty bad.
But then the students began to applaud and cheer, “Fuck yeah!” and “Ding dong the witch is dead!” They roared like a crowd at a football game. I suddenly realized I was in front of my homeroom and ducked inside, out of sight.
The strange behavior, unfortunately, didn’t stop there. Steve, the captain of the football team, immediately held out his palm. “Dakota! Put ’er there, woman.”
In shock, I stretched out my hand, and he slapped it so hard that my skin stung from the impact. As everyone poured in, they saluted, patted, and hugged me until the bell rang. Everyone except Dax, who watched from his seat in the corner, his expression somewhat pensive, as if he were staring at a zoo creature. When the teacher entered, it wasn’t Mr. M but a substitute who immediately made threats of detention if people didn’t calm down.