Vanishing Dreams: Vanishing Dreams (Devil's Bend #2) (23 page)

“So, what grade are you in, Lexi?” Dalton asked when the three of them
were seated at his kitchen table.

“Third,” she said as Katie piled spaghetti on her plate. He had noticed
that once he had set the dishes on the table, Katie had gone back to the
kitchen and searched until she’d found the cabinet that held the plates. She
retrieved another one and now he knew why. After placing Lexi’s spaghetti on
one plate, she put the meatballs on another, careful not to include too much
sauce.

He hadn’t thought about the fact that the little girl may not want her
food touching, but now as he watched her, he realized that was exactly the
case.

“What do you like most about third grade?” he asked, reaching for the
spoon once Katie put food on her own plate.

“Going home,” she admitted truthfully.

Dalton fought the urge to laugh. He knew she was serious, but he
couldn’t help himself. Somehow he managed to hide his smile, nodding.

“What are we gonna do tonight?” Lexi asked as everyone ate.

“Whatever you want,” Dalton answered, glancing over at Katie. She’d
been quiet since she’d walked in the door, and he wondered what was on her
mind. She looked nervous.

“Can we play a game?” Lexi asked, glancing back and forth between the
two of them.

“Sure,” Katie agreed half-heartedly.

“Or could we watch a movie?” Lexi questioned.

“If you want,” Dalton told her. “It’s your night, kiddo. If you wanna
watch a movie, we’ll watch a movie.”

“Okay,” Lexi stated, turning her attention back to her food.

The three of them ate in silence for a few minutes. Dalton had no idea
what to say, and he felt like an idiot. This had been his idea, after all. He
should’ve been carrying the conversation, but he was having a hard time. He
didn’t know what to ask. Didn’t know what to say.

Katie was a stranger to him once again. For all the effort they’d put
into getting to know one another in the beginning — regardless of how
standoffish she had been — it seemed as though they were back at square one. Or
maybe that was his fear talking. They’d made love in the hayloft, which had put
them as close as two people could possibly be.

And it wasn’t that Katie looked like she didn’t want to be there. She
just looked timid, as though she was afraid of saying too much. He needed to
reassure her, to let her know that this was where they belonged. He wanted her
there more than he wanted anything else.

Which meant he needed to show her. And then, he got the feeling they
would be able to move forward.

Lexi was the first to finish her food, surprisingly eating everything
on both plates. She sat quietly, her hands folded in her lap. Dalton wished she
would’ve tossed out a few questions, helped to fill the silence, but he didn’t
get that lucky. When Katie was finished, he helped clear the table, but she
managed to beat him to the sink, insisting on doing the dishes. He tried to
talk her out of it, disclosing that he would be happy to do them later, but she
refused to stop.

Dalton had no choice but to join Lexi in the den.

“Do you have
Frozen
?” she asked.

“
Frozen
?” he asked, confused.

“The movie.”

Dalton grinned. It would take him a little while to get used to being
around a kid, but truth was, he liked Lexi. Enjoyed having her around.
Especially when she smiled. She was so darn cute, with her long black hair and
big gray eyes. She looked so much like Katie it was eerie. They easily could’ve
passed for mother and daughter, except for the fact that Katie didn’t look old
enough to have an eight-year-old. Yet she did. Even if she hadn’t given birth
to Lexi, Dalton knew she’d raised the little girl. And he hadn’t been lying
when he’d told Katie she’d done a good job. A fantastic job, actually.

Lexi was a great kid, and he found himself wanting to watch Disney
movies with her just because she’d asked.

“Let’s see what we’ve got,” he told her, grabbing the remote and
flopping onto the couch when she took a seat in his favorite recliner. After
turning the television on, he hit the necessary buttons to get to the Netflix
menu. It didn’t take long to find a movie she wanted to watch, although they
hadn’t found
Frozen
before she insisted on watching something else.

Katie joined them a few minutes later, taking a seat on the opposite
end of the couch from where he was. Dalton watched her for a moment, and she
must’ve felt his eyes on her because she glanced his way. When he had her
attention, he patted the cushion beside him. She slowly eased her way down
until she was sitting beside him.

Without hesitating, he placed his arm along the back of the couch, his
hand resting on her shoulder. They might’ve been having a hard time
communicating, but touching her felt right. The feel of her pressed up against
his side was more than he anticipated, and it wasn’t long before she was
leaning her head against his chest and he was embracing her, holding her to
him.

They finished watching the first movie, and Lexi asked for another, so
he once again flipped through the menu until she made her selection. He thought
she was going to last all night, but the next thing he knew, Lexi was sound
asleep in the recliner, her little eyes closed, her mouth slightly open, a soft
snore coming from her nose.

Dalton looked down at Katie, expecting to see that she was asleep, but
then she moved.

“You doing okay?” he asked.

“Honestly?” she countered.

“Yeah.”

“I’m doing better than I thought I would.”

“You wanna talk?” he asked, hoping she wouldn’t decline.

“Sure.”

When Katie got up, Dalton rose to his feet and took her hand, leading
her toward his bedroom. It wasn’t that he was expecting anything, but he didn’t
want to wake Lexi, and for the time being, he still wanted to hold Katie.

Leading her to the bed, he watched as her eyes widened. “I promise, I’m
not trying anything,” he assured her, smiling. After their romp in the hayloft,
he couldn’t promise to keep his hands off her all night, but for now, he really
did just want to hold her.

Katie nodded and then joined him on the bed. Dalton reclined on the
pillows and pulled Katie up against his side. When she was resting her head on
his chest, he exhaled deeply.

“She’s a good kid,” Dalton told Katie.

“She’s got her moments,” she replied with a smile in her voice.

“You’ve done a great job taking care of her.”

“Haven’t had much of a choice.”

Dalton considered that for a moment. “Why’d your mother leave?”

“Guess she got tired of playing mom.”

“What about your dad?”

“Oh, he hauled ass the minute Lexi was born. Took me a while, but I
finally learned that he hadn’t wanted kids. My mother thought having another
would force him to stick around. She was wrong.”

“So she just left?”

“The day I turned eighteen. Not quite the birthday present I had
expected, but I came home from school to find she was gone. I was surprised to
see that she’d left the furniture, but all of her personal things were
missing.”

Dalton squeezed her tightly, willing her to continue.

“So you just picked up where she left off?” he asked.

“I guess you could say that. Although I had been taking care of Lexi
for a couple of years by then. I took her to day care, picked her up in the
evening. My mother wasn’t much of a mother, even when she was around.”

“Why don’t you share that with people you know?” Dalton knew the
question might piss her off, but he needed to know.

Katie sighed before answering. “I don’t want her to go through it
again. I don’t want people to walk in and out of her life. She doesn’t deserve
that.”

“But you have friends who care about you.”

“I do. My best friend, Sarah, lives with us. She helps take care of
Lexi when I work. She’s the only one I trust.”

Katie’s admission hit him like a sucker punch. He realized then that he
wanted her to trust him. More than anything. More than he wanted to roll her
onto her back and climb over her, sliding deep inside her, he wanted Katie to
trust him.

But he wanted to make love to her, too. He wanted to rekindle that
connection they’d made all those months ago, the connection that had been there
in the barn earlier. The need to be close to her overwhelmed him.

Turning so that he could look at her, Dalton took her chin between his
finger and thumb. “I want you to trust me, Katie. I know it might take a while,
but I promise I won’t be that guy. I won’t walk away from you.”

“But you did,” she said, her eyes filling with tears.

“You kinda gave me no choice,” he told her, keeping his fingers on her
chin, insisting that she look at him. “I tried to get in touch with you, but
you didn’t want to talk.”

“It would’ve been too hard,” she admitted. “I needed… I just didn’t want
you to get hurt.”

“We both got hurt, Katie.”

She nodded, her eyes still meeting his.

“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” she told him. “Forcing you
out of my life made raising Lexi seem like a cakewalk, Dalton. I didn’t want
to, but I didn’t know what else to do.”

“I know,” he whispered. “We both could’ve done things differently.”

“Part of me wished you would come after me. That you would fight for
me.” Katie swallowed hard. “It wasn’t why I left. I wasn’t trying to force you
to do that. I really was trying to protect you. I’ve just … never had anyone
fight for me before.”

“It’s one of the only things I’ve regretted in my life. Not forcing you
to listen to me, to give us another chance… I live with that decision every
day. But you’ve given me a second chance now. I refuse to let you down again.”

“I love you, Dalton.”

Katie’s soft admission had his heart pounding painfully against his
ribs. She’d said it earlier, but he wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to hearing
it. Those were the most precious words he’d ever heard.

“I love you, too, darlin’,” he told her. “I hadn’t planned to fall in
love with you so quickly, but it happened. And I want to spend the rest of my
life loving you.” It was a revelation he’d made a long time ago. The only
logical reason for his obsession with her. He loved her, and he knew that
because what he felt for her was unlike anything he’d ever felt for a woman
before.

They were finally getting past those walls she had erected around
herself, and he wasn’t going to take that for granted.

Leaning down, Dalton pressed his lips to hers. He’d intended to pull
away, but when Katie’s hand slid behind his neck, holding him to her, he gave
in to the kiss. Sliding his tongue past her sweet, warm lips, he melded his
tongue to hers. And when she pulled him closer, he eased over her, pressing his
knee between her legs.

“Katie,” he whispered, pulling back slightly. “You don’t know what you
do to me.”

“I’ve got an idea,” she said softly, a smile tipping the corners of her
pretty pink lips.

“Are you sure this is what you want?” he asked her. “What happened
earlier, that could be considered spontaneous. But this… If I make love to you
tonight, I want you to stay in my bed. I want to wake up to you in my arms,
Katie.”

“I want the same thing.”

He stared into her beautiful gray eyes, trying to understand what she
was telling him, hoping he wasn’t mistaken.

“Don’t make me wait, Dalton. Love me.”

Unable to resist her plea, Dalton sealed his lips over hers, coaxing
her lips open with his tongue. When she let him in, the hunger ignited, taking
him by surprise, and he found he couldn’t hold back any longer. He’d dreamed of
this for months, held out hope that he’d be here again.

Not that he’d ever expected it, but he had hoped.

Now that he was here, Dalton realized he wasn’t nearly as strong as
he’d thought he was. Staying away from her had been painfully difficult. And
now that she was in his arms again, he knew that he would never let her go
again. He couldn’t resist her.

Nor did he want to.

Katie knew she wasn’t thinking with her brain. She was giving in to a
carnal desire that had consumed her since the first time she’d been with this
man. Wanting him, needing him … it was all she’d thought about for so long, and
now she was here.

In his arms.

In his bed.

She loved him. She’d told him as much, and the words he’d spoken back
had been what her heart longed to hear. And she didn’t want to lose this
moment. She wanted to push out the rest of the world, pretend that all of her
problems weren’t waiting just outside his bedroom door.

So that was what she decided to do.

Sliding her hands over his back, Katie tugged on his T-shirt, forcing
it up until Dalton helped her to remove it by reaching behind his head and
gripping the cotton, pulling it over his head. He knelt on the bed in front of
her, and she admired him for a moment. When he started to lean back down, she
stopped him with her hands. “I want to look at you for a minute,” she told him,
surprised by her forwardness.

Dalton nodded; their gazes held for a brief moment before she allowed
her eyes to trail over his body. He was all hard planes and angles, lean
muscle, ripped abs. He was, in one word, perfect. Reaching up, she slid her
hands over the contours of his stomach, then up the hard planes of his chest as
she sat up. Returning her gaze to his, Katie knew then what she’d denied them
both for so long. She loved this man. She had loved him at the beginning and
she loved him now. He had the ability to crush her heart, but he also had the ability
to make her whole. She needed this. She needed everything he had to give her.
Right here. Right now. She wanted to be with him, to be complete the way she’d
been for the brief time they’d been together.

“Make love to me, Dalton,” she whispered before pressing her lips to
his chest.

She could feel the heat of his breath against her head as he wrapped
his arms around her, his hands sliding down her back.

She kissed a trail up his smooth chest, over his collarbone, then to
his neck, savoring the salty taste of his skin on her lips.

Dalton eased her shirt up until she had to pull back so he could slip
it over her head. Her bra went next, his deft fingers unhooking it quickly. She
allowed him to pull it from her body, and then they were both naked from the
waist up. It wasn’t enough, but it would do for the time being.

Katie eased back down, pulling him to her as she trailed her hands
along his body, easing between them so she could free the button on his jeans.
It was then that Dalton pulled away. He glanced behind them, and Katie knew
what he was looking at. Lexi was just down the hall, sleeping in the recliner.
If she woke up, she’d surely come to find them.

“Let me close the door,” he said, and Katie nodded in agreement.

She watched as he stalked across the room, the muscles in his broad
back flexing as he moved. The man was so beautiful it nearly hurt to look at
him. He disappeared from the room, leaving her to wonder where he’d gone.

He came back a moment later, smiling at her.

“Where’d you go?” she asked.

“Checking on Lexi. She’s out like a light.”

Katie’s heart swelled at his thoughtfulness. He had checked on her
sister, making sure she was okay. After all, she was in a strange place. It
meant more to her than Dalton could possibly realize.

Expecting him to rejoin her, Katie held her breath when he stopped at
the foot of the bed after closing and locking the door. She waited, wondering
what he would do next.

When he reached for the zipper on his jeans, her mouth watered with the
need to taste him. And when he lowered his jeans and boxers down his legs, she
found herself admiring all of him. The first time they’d been together had been
in the backseat of his truck, both of them fully clothed. Earlier that day had
been spur of the moment, both of them completely clothed as well. She felt as
though the few times she’d seen him completely naked hadn’t been nearly enough.
She was right, because now, as he stood before her, she knew she would never
get enough of him.

“I noticed you changed clothes,” he told her, nodding his head toward
her skirt.

“I showered,” she informed him. “I seemed to be missing pieces of my
clothes when I got home. Thought it was only appropriate.”

Dalton reached for her, pulling her skirt over her hips and then
sliding the material over her legs, taking her panties with it. He smiled, and
she knew he was thinking about the fact that she’d replaced her panties after
he’d torn them from her body earlier. The memory sent a frisson of heat
sizzling through her veins.

And then they were both naked, staring back at one another. The heat
she saw in his gaze as his eyes traveled the length of her body had her insides
stirring, her pussy clenching.

His hands began a slow perusal of her body, as though he were seeing
her for the first time. In many ways, he was. She looked different than before,
she knew. Her breasts were fuller, her belly more rounded. Yet she still saw
heat in his gaze.

She needed him.

Katie held her breath when he leaned down and pressed his lips to the
inside of her knee, his tongue sliding up her thigh, then to the juncture
between her legs. Oh, God. She was going to implode. His mouth was hot, the
stubble along his jaw sensually scraping her sensitive skin. And when he nudged
her legs wider, situating himself between her thighs, Katie wasn’t sure she
would survive what he would do next.

“Dalton,” she whispered, a moan escaping when his tongue caressed her
delicate flesh. “Oh, God, it’s too much.”

He didn’t seem to care that she was writhing on the bed beneath him. He
began circling her clit with his tongue, his thumb brushing her entrance,
slowly dipping inside.

“You’re so wet, darlin’. I can’t wait to bury my cock into your warm,
wet heat.”

“Please,” Katie begged. “I need you inside me.”

“Just one more minute,” he told her, flicking her clit with his tongue
between words. “But first I’m gonna make you come with my mouth.”

The dark, sultry sound of his voice sent another bolt of sensation
coursing through her. She loved when he talked to her, loved the sound of his
voice, the sinful words that he spoke.

It wasn’t long before he accomplished the goal he’d set out for. Her
orgasm started in her core, radiating out through every nerve ending until she
could hardly breathe from the sheer intensity of it.

And then he was hovering over her, guiding himself into her. He was
gentle, but the urgency was still there.

“Aww, damn, baby,” he growled when he was fully seated within her. “So
tight.”

Katie wiggled her hips, trying to increase the friction. He felt so
good. The warmth of his body, the gentle scrape of his leg hair against her
calves, every sensation overpowered her thoughts until there was nothing left
but pleasure.

“I love you, Katie,” Dalton said, reaching behind her head and grabbing
the headboard as he thrust into her, slowly sliding out. Their bodies were
slick with sweat, and his chest brushed her nipples, making her crazy with the
overwhelming ecstasy of it all.

He continued to rock into her.

Cupping his face with both hands, she stared up at him. “Fuck me, Dalton.”

His eyes flared briefly, but then he thrust into her harder than
before, his pace increasing, the friction adding another layer of sensation to
the overload on her circuits until she couldn’t take any more. It was too much;
it wasn’t enough.

“Dalton. Oh, my…” Katie bit her tongue to keep from screaming as her
head thrashed back against the pillow, her orgasm racing through her, more
powerful than the first one moments ago.

Dalton continued to fuck her, continued to drive into her over and
over, and Katie held on, another orgasm building.

“Katie, baby. Oh, love,” Dalton crooned. “I’m gonna come. Oh, fuck.”

Katie felt him pulsing deep inside her, the gentle pressure of his
pelvis against her clit sending her over the edge and into oblivion one more
time.

As Dalton spooned behind her a few minutes later, Katie gave in to
sleep, linking her fingers with his as his hand hovered over her belly.

“I love you, Dalton.”

“I love you, too, darlin’. Forever and always.”

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

Dalton lay in his bed, unable to sleep as he held Katie close to him.
He’d only left her side once, and that was to clean up. He had used a warm
washcloth to clean Katie as she slept, and surprisingly she’d never stirred.
After pulling on a pair of shorts, Dalton had made his way to the den to check
on Lexi. She was still sleeping soundly right there in the recliner. He’d
pulled a blanket over her, and she’d rolled onto her side, curling into a ball.

His first thought was that he needed to get her a bed. But then he
realized she probably didn’t do well with change, so he needed to talk to
Katie.

As he lay next to Katie, his arms wrapped around her, he knew he had to
tell her. He was ready. Ready to move forward, ready to take this to the next
level. He wanted them to move in with him.

More important, he wanted to marry Katie.

He could practically hear her rebuttal already. She would come up with
some excuse. Maybe she would tell him that Lexi wouldn’t be open to moving. Or
maybe she’d tell him that she wasn’t ready.

He wanted to be ready for anything she could throw at him, so he stared
into the darkness, thinking of all the reasons he wanted her there.

It boiled down to the fact that he loved her. Hell, he’d just met Lexi
a few days ago, but he already loved the little girl. She had made an impression
on his heart much the same way Katie had when he’d first met her. He wanted to
protect them, to take care of them.

And the baby, too.

His heart swelled when he thought about the fact that they were going
to have a baby. They were going to be parents.

Unable to hold everything in, Dalton tapped on Katie’s shoulder,
whispering her name against her ear. “Wake up, darlin’.”

“Is everything okay?” she asked as she rolled onto her back, looking
over at him.

“Everything’s perfect.”

Katie smiled, her eyes slowly coming open. “Why aren’t you asleep?”

“Just thinkin’,” he told her.

“About?”

“Us.”

Another smile, this one bigger than before, turned Katie’s lips up.
“Wanna tell me what you were thinkin’ about?”

Dalton swallowed hard, steeling himself for the argument he was
expecting when he told her what he’d been thinking about.

“Katie,” he began, swallowing again.

“What is it?” Her eyes widened slightly, and he could tell that she was
beginning to worry. So he decided to ease her mind.

“I need to tell you something.”

“Okay.”

Dalton took a deep breath, exhaled slowly. “When I was eighteen years
old, just a few months away from graduating from high school, I got pulled over
one night for speeding. What should’ve resulted in me getting a ticket, paying
a fine, and moving on with my life ultimately altered everything.”

Dalton noticed she was watching him intently, her head turned on her
pillow looking right at him, so he continued. “The only thing I had ever wanted
in life was to be an FBI agent. I don’t know what spurred it on originally,
maybe a movie, maybe something I read. Don’t know. But it had been my plan from
the moment I was old enough to have a plan.

“That speeding ticket turned into a felony drug charge. Still, to this
day, I have never bought or used an illegal drug. Never had the desire to. It
would’ve affected my end goal. Unfortunately, the guys I was hanging with at
the time didn’t have any fancy plans to be in law enforcement, and the weed
they stashed in my car was proof.

“I went down for marijuana possession. There was a lot of pot found in
my car. I knew exactly who had done it, but I never gave him up. Instead, I
accepted my punishment, knowing I would have to deal with the felony I would
carry with me for the rest of my life. When my music career started to launch,
the press got hold of the information and had a field day with it. Took forever
for that to die down, but it eventually did.”

Dalton closed his eyes briefly, trying to rid himself of the memories
from so long ago. “What I’m trying to tell you is that we all make mistakes. We
make choices that affect our lives. We learn from them, and hopefully, if we’re
lucky, we come out on the other side as better people. We all have secrets,
Katie.”

Katie’s eyes glistened with what looked like unshed tears. She didn’t
say a word at first, and Dalton wondered what she was thinking. He didn’t
regret telling her his story. She needed to know. It was something that would
forever tarnish his good name. But it was something he’d learned to live with.
And he’d put it behind him.