Mystery Man (The Dream Man Series Book 1)

I woke pre-dawn, I could see a bit of light in the sky and I could feel Hawk’s heat at my back.

Damn.

I scooted out from under him, carefully but quickly, successfully made it off the bed and I grabbed my undies and rushed to the bathroom. I put them on, used the facilities and then walked out, going to my thermostat. It was on a timer and went down way low at night. It wouldn’t kick in for awhile. I turned it up and went to my office. I arranged the toss pillows on the armrest on the couch, lay down and then pulled my chenille throw over me. It would take awhile for the house to heat up. The chenille was snuggly soft and nice to cuddle under while watching TV but it wasn’t exactly ultra warm.

I lay there and my mind was filled with possible strategies of how to get out of my current predicament. I could go to Tack but that might send mixed messages and, anyway, I needed to sort myself out. I could report Hawk to Lawson but I might have difficulty explaining why, after Hawk broke in, I let him fuck me.

Hmm. Not good.

Hawk told me he’d come after me even if I stayed at Leo and Cam’s. Meredith and Dad were back home but Hawk had already proved he could infiltrate their house and would. Troy lived on the seventh floor in a secure condo building but I figured Hawk could beat a security system or scale walls.

Hmm. More not good.

Then, totally against my will, my mind slid to Simone Delgado dying because she loved her brother and was excited to be there when her niece or nephew entered the world.

I could see that.

I could also see Hawk’s grief swinging to anger because she let love veer her away from caution and she dragged their daughter into it, something as a mother she should never do. I could also see that would make him feel guilt, the extreme kind, loving her, his grief at her loss mixing with anger. An innocent decision, but he knew the danger and warned her against it, she didn’t listen and that happy, beautiful family in that photo he showed me was gone. Poof! He had the memory of their farewell and left to do his job not knowing it was the last memory they’d ever make.

And he was thousands of miles away. Simone and Sophie dead for days and he was thousands of miles away. Hawk, who controlled every nuance of his life, completely removed, powerless and thousands of miles away.

I tried not to think of this. I tried to force my mind back to ways to keep him out of my life, stop him from hurting me again, but all I could see in my head was that picture.

You weren’t movin’, Gwen, he had said.

Firebombs. Drive-bys. Kidnappings. He’d been through it all with me.

And he saw Brock Lucas carry my immobile body out of my house and he decided he wasn’t going to go there again and, damn it all to hell, who could blame him?

“Shit,” I whispered into the room, tucked my hands under my cheek, curled my knees to my chest and felt the heat seep into my house.

Then I fell back to sleep.

* * * * *

My knees were gently pushed down and this woke me up.

My eyes opened as I felt Hawk’s hips fit into the curve of mine then they slid up to look at him sitting on the edge of my couch.

His hand came out and he shifted the hair off my shoulder then his hand curved warm against my neck.

“Not a big fan of bein’ the reason you’re curled into a protective ball, babe,” he murmured as a good morning.

He was fully dressed, his face unhappy.

I had no response. I was still sleepy and having trouble getting my guard up.

He held my eyes as I mentally struggled. Then suddenly he moved, I was plucked out of the couch, planted in his lap and his arms went around me.

“Hawk,” I whispered.

“You could have anything, babe, anything in the world, what would it be?” he asked.

I blinked. “What?”

“Anything you want, it’s yours. What would it be?”

“Um… I don’t –”

His arms gave me a squeeze. “Anything, Gwen.”

“Ginger out of trouble and safe,” I answered.

His eyes studied my face for awhile after I answered. Then he said, “Next up.”

“Next up?” I repeated, confused.

One of his arms left me so his hand could bunch the hair at the side of my neck. “Next up, Gwen, the next most important thing you could have if you could have anything.”

“Hawk, I don’t understand.”

“Anything, no matter what it is.”

“Hawk –”

“Answer me, Sweet Pea.”

“Hawk, I don’t –”

“Gwen, answer me.”

“Simone and Sophie alive and you with them and happy like you were in that photo,” I blurted and his face froze into that blank mask.

Staring at him, sleepy and confused, I suddenly understood that mask. It slotted into place when he was hiding something important from me.

“Which would mean, of course,” I kept blurting, “that you would never darken my door.”

The mask fell away instantly and he grinned, huge, his dimples popping out and dang, it killed me, but I had to admit I really missed those dimples. Then he twisted his torso and I was on my back in the couch, his upper half on top of me, my hips in his hips, my legs dangling over the back.

His fingers trailed my hairline and tucked my hair behind my ear as he went on. “What’s next?”

I felt my eyes get squinty. “Why are you asking me this?”

“What’s next, Gwen?”

“I’m still sleepy,” I dodged.

His face came closer and his thumb stroked my jaw when he whispered his demand, “Baby, what’s next?”

God!

Okay, he wanted to play this game, whatever. I’d play.

“Meredith being my real mom not my stepmom.”

He nodded and his thumb swept my lower lip. “What’s next?”

“You want to clue me in, Hawk?” I requested.

“What’s next?”

Apparently, he didn’t.

“There isn’t anything next,” I declared.

“Bullshit, Sweet Pea, a woman who wants a pair of seven hundred dollar shoes, she’s gotta have a next.”

“A diamond bracelet from Tiffany’s,” I replied then went back on it. “No! Wait. Leo to get Cam an engagement ring then a diamond bracelet from Tiffany’s.”

His head dipped and his mouth touched mine before he moved back and murmured, “All right, baby, that’ll do for now.”

What’ll do? And for now?

No. No. I didn’t want to know.

Time to move on.

“Since you’re here and don’t appear to intend to leave anytime soon, I might as well ask you something,” I announced and got another grin. “Tack says that things have cooled with Ginger. Does your intel confirm that I’m safe?”

“Ginger’s gone to ground,” Hawk repeated Tack’s words. “Darla, Skeet and Fresh were facing kidnapping charges and luckily they all signed confessions so they won’t breathe free for awhile. This is good because it’s good. This is also good because their incarceration is an added deterrent to anyone who might think of fuckin’ with you. Lee entered the game which is further inducement for someone to avoid fuckin’ with you. But, no, you’re not safe.”

Dammit!

“So I take it that means I can’t go to the grocery store.”

“You can go to the grocery store but you’ll do it with one of my boys at your back.”

My body froze under his and my heart slid into my throat.

Then I forced out, “No.”

His hand at my neck moved so his thumb could lightly stroke my throat.

“Brett’s recovering, babe,” he whispered. “It’ll take time but it’ll be a full recovery.”

“No more of your boys at my back.”

“Gwen.”

“No, Hawk,” I denied, made a decision and then proclaimed, “I’m buying a gun.”

He burst out laughing at my words, no hesitation, like they were beyond hilarious and I glared at him. “I’m not joking.”

He controlled his laughter and stated, “Babe, you want a gun, I’ll give you one but you won’t be let loose on the unsuspecting population of Denver until I train you how to use it and you get comfortable with it, so no gun.”

“I don’t need your permission to buy a gun, Hawk.”

“Yeah you do, Gwen, seein’ as you’re livin’ in Badass World now.”

“Well, I’m taking a vacation from Badass World and visiting Zip’s Gun Emporium,” I shot back.

He smiled at me, dimples and all. Then he changed the subject.

“We’re goin’ out tonight.”

Oh no we were not.

“No we’re not. It’s cosmos at Cam’s tonight.”

“Then I’ll take you there and bring you home.”

That’s when I made another decision.

“No, I’m spending the night so I can get as drunk as I want.”

“Babe, warned you about that shit.”

Something about that pissed me off. Likely it was the reminder of how the us we came to be used to be. Something he seemed totally okay with resuming and something I was really not okay with.

In other words, that was when my mouth ran away from me.

“Yes, you did, but you did that before you destroyed me. See, Scott crushed me but you destroyed me. It was just a week, I know that so here’s something to freak you out. You got it wrong, in only a week I was already tied to you. I was already in deep. It was only a week but it happened, you didn’t see it and you went in for the kill. So I’m getting from you that you’ve had a chance to rethink things. But for me, you not reading how precious it was, what I gave you, and even for self-preservation’s sake walking all over that is a red flag, Hawk. And that red flag says to me it could happen again and I’ve had enough in my life, I don’t need any more of that shit.”

“I’m not your fuckwad ex, babe, my shit’s not about bangin’ any woman I can to prove I’m a man,” he returned and I noticed he looked just about as pissed as me.

“I’m aware of that, Hawk, that doesn’t change the fact you walked all over me.”

“I didn’t, Gwen, I explained that shit to you then and again last night. And, newsflash, Sweet Pea, outside my family, you’re the only one in Denver who knows anything about it.”

Wow. Interesting.

So interesting, I gave a little but I didn’t give in.

“Okay, I understand where you’re coming from but can you at least take a second to understand where I’m coming from?”

And it would appear, from a response that gutted me, that I was so deep in my own efforts at self-preservation that I wasn’t paying enough attention and I vastly underestimated just how pissed off Cabe “Hawk” Delgado was.

“I know where you’re comin’ from and what I see is that you haven’t dropped that hand, Gwen, and you never did. I came clean and you’re usin’ some seriously bad shit against me to fend me off. He taught you curl up tight and keep everything out. You threw it in my face that I called you on what it would mean, you don’t take a risk on me. Now, you’re blinded to the fact that you’re doin’ the same fuckin’ thing I was but I’m strugglin’ to get passed it and move on. But you, babe, not you. You’re hell bent on holdin’ on. My wife and daughter were murdered, Gwen, and I found myself, eight years later, in the same fuckin’ mess with a woman who had a sibling that put her in extreme danger. I took that risk and in a week, I was so tied to you, I was in so deep, I faced that shit again, was confronted with the possibility of that kind of loss, I couldn’t deal.”

He lifted up suddenly, taking me with him, standing and putting me on my feet in front of him.

Yes, definitely pissed, and if I could get beyond the justified jab wounds he inflicted with his words, I would come to realize he had a right to be.

Unfortunately, he kept speaking. “So, yeah, I get where you’re comin’ from, Jesus, I understand protecting yourself from pain. But standing in front of me is a woman who can’t see beyond herself and her own fuckin’ issues to recognize that the man she was tyin’ herself to needs some understanding or, if that’s too much for you, some fucking compassion.”

I realized I wasn’t breathing as I stared up at him because he was right. Damn, he was right.

I wasn’t just a slut, I was also a bitch.

“So thanks for the head’s up, babe. Everything you did that week we were together, every reaction you had to the shit swirling around you, everything out of your mouth, the way you were with the people who love you indicated to me I’d found treasure. It’s good to know early that I was wrong.”

After he sunk that last blade into my flesh, or more accurately I positioned it, held his hand and did the deed, Hawk vanished.