"I don't know for sure, but…I think so. That's why I keep trying to get you to calm down and be quiet. If you're too loud, they might try to shut you up. And if any of them laid a land on you…I don't know what I would do."
Harper heard the crack in his voice as he said those words, and she let them hang in the air before responding.
She knew he was wrong. Harper knew that the only way to solve these crimes was to stay loud. Spread awareness. Let them know that the citizenry was not afraid of them. She did not try to argue with Dash, though. She was so tired of arguing.
"Why didn't you just ring my front door?"
"Because I didn't want anyone to see me."
"You're ashamed to have people think you have a boner for me?"
"No. Because Fr. O'Brien's rectory is right across the street, and he's already had a talk with me about protecting your reputation."
"Why do you care what he thinks?"
"I don't!"
"The cuts on your face from climbing my tree would indicate otherwise. I could have just let you in the back door."
"As I said, I didn't want you to have to get out of bed and come downstairs. Maybe I like a romantic gesture."
She smiled. "I doubt that very much."
"Okay, fine. Maybe pain turns me on."
She let her mouth fall open. She wouldn't judge, but she sure felt surprised to hear Dash talk about himself that way.
"You are the toughest nut to crack all the time. And now here you are, climbing my tree, sitting in my room, talking about enjoying pain? Excuse me if I need a minute."
"I get it," Dash replied.
Harper could not understand at that moment why the implication of pain turning Dash on made the walls of her sex tremble, why her undies began to feel wet, why these otherwise comfortable pajamas felt constraining.
"How…I mean…what…" Harper did not stammer, as a rule. She spoke quickly and assertively, and she did not mince words or beat around the bush. But everything about this conversation made her head foggy. Blood was not getting to her brain, nor oxygen. Her voice came out breathy, and her nipples felt hard under her nightgown. "So…do you want to tell me what that means?"
Dash grunted. "You want me to tell you or show you?"
Harper's stomach turned over in some new emotion that felt like both fear and longing. Dread and fascination.
"Show me."
She exhaled when, instead of attacking her, he removed his coat and lifted his bar tee-shirt.
Dash was all his bare ridges and valleys, lines of long, lean muscle. Her body bloomed with fresh heat.
"What…what am I looking at besides your man nips?"
Dash ran his hand over his chest slowly, almost caressing himself, and then stopped above where his heart was. "Here," he said, "is where you hit me the first time." And then his hand moved over to the other side of his chest. "And here is where you thumped me the second time."
Harper's breath trembled. "It's dark in here, but did I leave a mark? I'm so sorry."
"No!" he replied. "No, it's not that. I went home and checked in the mirror, and there were little red marks. But then they were gone. I don't know why but I wanted to see them before they disappeared."
"Why? Why would you want that?"
"Because it fucking turned me on knowing you left a mark."
A lump formed in her throat. If this was foreplay, it was the weirdest foreplay she'd ever experienced. And yet, it worked.
This man was infuriating. Confusing. Ill-tempered. But goddammit, if this fine slab of grumpy human did not bone her tonight, she was going to march across the street and tell the priest that she wanted to become a nun because she would have to give up trying to figure men out officially.
There was that breathy voice again.
"Dash. I don't know why you're telling me this."
"Did I embarrass you?"
"No," she answered.
"I told you that because you need to know what you do to me."
"Other than act like a harpy trying to scratch your eyes out?"
"Harper, You make me so goddamn furious. You don't listen. You have a smart-ass remark for everything. Everything makes you super defensive and loud."
Harper cocked her head. "Well, if you wanted a soft-spoken Stepford girlfriend, you'll have to look outside of Newcastle because none of us here are gonna put up with your Crow Bar bullshit without some choice words."
Dash looked confused. "Stepford…there's not suburb around here by that name, is there?"
Harper covered her face and moaned. "Oh, my god. Sweetie. No, it's a book…you know what? Forget it."
"Already have. Can I finish telling you my shit?"
She nodded.
He continued, "I feel things I've never felt for another person. I'm so restless. I can't sleep. I can't eat. I can't think about anything but making sure you're OK."
Confused, she said, "You kissed me for the first time today. Or yesterday."
He put up his hands and swallowed, building up another ounce of courage. "I've been lying to myself, but I've wanted you for years."
Wow.
"And your smart mouth makes me want to do things."
Harper inhaled slowly, taking a beat to consider whether she wanted to ask the next question. Do you want to know? God yes. Yes, I do.
"Wh…what kinds of things?"
Dash's voice dropped. "Do you want me to tell you or show you?"
There was nothing at that moment except the sound of their trembling breath, the distant low tone of a ship's horn echoing off the water, people somewhere having a party. The air smelled faintly of a bonfire and weed.
She remembered when her mother said, "Nothing good happens after midnight," when Harper had been campaigning for a later curfew.
Her mother was right but also wrong. Whatever happened next would be good. So good. She knew it. The man's face was trained into a permanent intense glower. He was a whole angry, fiery mood that she didn't understand and
