Dream Man

“Grace?” Dane asked slyly.

Trammell scowled. “Yes, I’m seeing Grace. What about it?”

“Nothing, just asking.”

“Then stop grinning like a jackass.”

He left and was back within the hour with Dane’s clothes and shaving kit. “Your wardrobe is severely limited,” he groused, dumping the clothes on a chair. He glanced down at Marlie, who was still asleep. “Maybe she can do something about it.”

“Maybe,” Dane said. “What’s wrong with my clothes?” he asked innocently. If anything was certain to send Trammell into a tirade, it was that question.

“What’s right with them?” Trammell snorted. “You have mostly jeans, very old ones. You have one suit, and it looks as if you got it from the Salvation Army store. Assorted slacks and sport coats, none of which really go together, and the most disgusting collection of ties I’ve ever seen. Did you actually buy this stuff? You paid good money for it?”

“Well, yeah. Nobody gives stuff away, you know.”

“They should have paid you to take it off their hands!”

Dane hid his grin as he picked up the clothes and carried them into Marlie’s bedroom, where he hung them in her closet, her very neat closet. His haphazardly hung garments looked out of place there, but he stood back and admired the sight for a minute. He liked the idea of his clothes in her closet, or her clothes in his closet. He thought about that possibility for a minute. He’d have to clean out his closet before she could, or would, put anything of hers in it.

Trammell left, and Dane watched television for a while. He couldn’t find a baseball game, so he settled for a basketball playoff game. He kept the volume low, and Marlie slept undisturbed.

He’d been on a lot of stakeouts, spent a lot of time just waiting. In stakeouts, boredom and the need to piss were the two biggest problems. This reminded him of a stakeout, because the waiting seemed interminable, but the quality was different. They weren’t waiting to catch a criminal, or to prevent a crime. The crime had already been done, they just didn’t know where or to whom. They were waiting for a victim to surface, waiting for suspicion and worry to send someone to a quiet house somewhere in the city, to check on a friend, neighbor, or relative. Then the waiting would be over.

“You’re thinking about it, aren’t you?”

Marlie’s voice startled him. Dane jerked his head around to look at her; she was sitting up again, her somber eyes on him. He realized that he had been staring sightlessly at the television for some time, because it was almost eight o’clock.

“It isn’t something you put out of your mind,” he said.

“No, it isn’t.” For her more than anyone else.

He got up and turned off the television. “How about calling out for a pizza? Are you hungry?”

She thought about it. “A little.”

“Good, because I’m starving. What do you like? The works?”

“That’s fine.” She yawned. “You call it in, and I’ll go take a shower while we’re waiting. Maybe it will wake me up.”

“Take your clothes off this time,” he advised, and she smiled a little.

“I will.”

The water felt good, washing away the mental cobwebs and cleansing her of the sensation of having been tainted, dirtied somehow by the evilness she had witnessed. She was tempted to linger under the cool spray, but thinking of the pizza, forced herself to briskly shower and shampoo. After blow-drying her hair to a semblance of order, she thought about clothes, but settled for the light robe Dane had selected for her.

She left the bathroom and halted, staring at her unmade bed. If she had been more alert she would have noticed it sooner. The fact that her bed was unmade was unusual enough, but what riveted her to the spot was the sight of twin indentations in the pillows, where two people had slept. Awareness roared through her like a brushfire. Dane had slept with her, in her bed.

She had docilely accepted his presence all day, knowing that she had talked to him the night before but never wondering about his location during the lost hours. Now she knew. He had been right there, in bed with her.

A wave of sensual heat overcame her and she closed her eyes, shuddering at the deliciousness of it. Her heart pounded, her breasts tightened, and a flooding, loosening sensation in her loins made her knees go weak. Lust. She was astounded as its presence, at its power. Instead of being outraged that he had taken advantage of the situation, she was aroused by the thought of him sleeping beside her.

He had been so gentle in his care of her that day, that iron strength and fierceness controlled so that she had felt only the protection he offered. He had combed her hair, fed her, held her while she cried, and most of all, he had given her the comfort of his presence. She hadn’t been alone this time, though somehow she always had been before, even while she had still been with the Institute. Dr. Ewell and the others had always maintained a distance from her; mental privacy had been so difficult for her to attain that they had gone out of their way to let her recover in her own way, at her own pace. Until now, she hadn’t realized how lonely and terrifying that had been.

Dane knocked briefly on the door and opened it without waiting for an answer. “Pizza’s here.”

As always, the impact of his presence was like a blow. He was so big and rugged, exuding a male vitality that made her shiver. For the first time she began to think that it might be possible, that Arno Gleen’s legacy of terror was losing its power over her. Gleen had been a sick, sadistic bastard. Dane was pure, hard-edged male, too intense and grim for life around him to ever be entirely comfortable, but a woman would always feel safe with him, in bed and out.