Scandalous (3 page)

He just wanted to clear the air with her. He respected her, but for whatever reason, he had always seemed to rub her the wrong way without even trying. Everything he said seemed to touch a raw nerve, and - as much as he enjoyed their bickering and banter – he was ready to move forward in their relationship.

He wanted to know Cristal, and he wanted her to get to know him, as well. He didn’t believe men and women could actually be “friends” - especially not with the kind of explosive chemistry the he and Cristal shared - but over the years he had grown to really care about Cristal, and he wanted her to know that. He wanted her to know she could rely on him.

From what he had observed, Cristal didn’t let too many people get close to her, and to his knowledge at least, she had never admitted that she needed any help from anyone.

The kind of solitary existence she lived did not seem healthy even to a confirmed loner like Dominic. He just wanted to make sure she knew that he was there if she needed him.

He knew that it wasn’t going to be easy to make any headway with her, but he had known her for eight years now. Experience had told him that this time that they were being forced to live together was the best shot he was going to have – ever. If he wanted to move their relationship forward, he was going to have to step up and take that shot, no matter the risk.

“Can we put the gloves away, Rocky? Maybe just sit and talk?” Dominic modulated his voice carefully. He wanted to inject every drop of sincerity that he was feeling into it, but not to sound patronizing or condescending. For most people, that would probably seem like an easy feat. For Dominic – at least whenever he spoke to Cristal – his voice had an edge, whether he wanted it to or not.

Cristal looked as though she was mulling over his proposition. He couldn’t quite read what her answer was going to be. Her face was a complete blank to him, an
impenetrable wall that he could not see past.

This was also a foreign experience for him. Normally, first of all, Dominic never asked a question he didn’t already know the answer to. He didn’t like the shaky feeling that rose inside of him. It felt dangerously close to uncertainty, and that was not an emotion he was comfortable with.

Secondly, he could normally read people as easily and as quickly as Cristal could, if not even moreso. Their particular skills were what made them so valuable to the agency.

So why couldn't he seem to apply his prodigious talent to reading his counterpart?

He sighed inwardly. Even if he couldn't tell exactly where her head was at, he could see that she was on the fence about having a civil conversation with him. Well, he thought, a little push couldn’t hurt.

“Look,” he said, a teasing edge invading his voice, “I understand if you’re scared. Last time we spent any time alone, things got out of hand. I completely get it if you don’t think you can control yourself.”

With that, he moved aside so that she could walk stiffly past him, retreating to the back of the house.

Her spine stiffened at that challenge. She said coldly, “I am going to go take a shower and get out of these clothes. I’ll meet you in the living room in ten.”

With that, she tossed her hair over her shoulder and strode confidently down the hall, efficiently killing her glass of wine in one toss as she went.

Dominic knew that he had played a little dirty and reverted to tactics one might use in middle school - basically double dog daring her to sit and talk to him - but it was all a means to an end. He had learned a long time ago that sometimes in life, even if you have the best
intentions and motives, the road to victory was curvy and paved with shades of grey. It was never a straight shot, and it was CERTAINLY never black and white.

Anyone that told you that it was had never been in a real-life battle. In theory, you can have lots of pretty ideals about what is right and wrong, ethical or unethical. When you got down in the dirt, you found out that it's true what they say – all IS fair in love and war. All that matters is the victory.

They also said that no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy, no matter how brilliant and well thought out it was. The key to winning was to roll with the punches, and adjust your plan as necessary – and not to be afraid to rely on instinct.

He had planned to create a warm and collegial atmosphere with Cristal, here in this house. He had planned to be so goddamn charming and fun that he couldn't help but grow on her.

He shrugged. That had been a good plan, but it hadn't survived first contact. So what now? His instincts told him that laying all his cards on the table was the best play, and so that was what he intended to do.

Trust your instincts. Roll with the punches. Attain victory. These were concepts that he was familiar with, and he had no problem applying them here.

Cristal quickly undressed and hopped in the shower, letting the water wash away the scummy feeling that she hadn’t shaken since leaving the bar. The hot water sprayed her body and she closed her eyes and enjoyed the heated liquid massage.

She knew that she was going to have to do a much better job at not letting Dominic get to her if she planned on leaving this house with her sanity intact. Which she fully did. She wasn't going to give him that kind of control over her.

God. It was just that he made her feel so
out
of control, so completely reckless...

Cristal shook her head under the hot stream of water, trying to shake away the fogginess that always seemed to pervade her brain when Dominic was on the scene. Only when he was around. No one else had that effect on her.

She prided herself on taking to heart the lessons she had learned at a very young age, when she was being shuffled from foster homes to group homes and back again countless times. Lessons about never letting people get to you. That no matter what others did – and Cristal had endured some pretty rough treatment – the truth was, the only real power they had was the power you yourself gave them. She never gave anyone control over herself…not mentally, emotionally, and not physically.

When she was in 6th grade, she had read an autobiography written by a Holocaust survivor. The author had written about the experience of quickly reconciling themselves to the fact that they may very well die in the camps, but resolving to never let the grim realities of their physical surroundings touch their spirit or their mind. The Nazis could take everything from them, but they could never take their dignity or their human spirit.

Cristal had felt a chill run through her entire body when she had read those words and, even at that young age, she knew that she had just discovered her own life philosophy within the pages of that book.

Her asshole foster parents. The scam artists that ran the group homes. The violent little shits she had to sleep next to on a nightly basis. They could take everything from her, and – yes – they may eventually take her life...but they would never really touch her. Not inside. Not her spirit. Not her mind.

Not where it counted. That part belonged to her and only to her, and that was how it was going to stay.

That philosophy was what had helped her survive the next seven years with dignity and toughness, and twenty years later, that philosophy was still serving her well.

She sighed. With one notable exception.

The problem was that whenever she was around Dominic she had to fight with every fiber of her being to maintain control. Intellectually, he challenged her in a way that kept her on her toes. Physically, he made her feel things that no one else in her life had ever made her feel. Emotionally, he made her want things that she had never allowed herself the luxury of wanting - or even entertaining the possibility of having, for that matter.

It was scary as hell, Cristal didn't mind admitting it, and that was the main reason she tried to avoid him. She didn’t want to have to face the possibility that someone may have any sort of power over her, especially a power that she couldn't seem to control no matter how hard she fought.

Because of that, she spent most of the time that she was around him trying to consciously act how she would with anyone else and treat him exactly as she would anyone else. But the problem was...he
wasn’t
anyone else, and she was finding it more and more difficult to not seem almost bi-polar with the erratic nature of her mood swings whenever they spoke.

God dammit! He affected her. She might as well just accept it.

Avoidance hadn't always been her coping mechanism of choice. In fact, once upon a time, she had had a fun little theory that once they had slept together, that would be it - he would be out of her system. The mystical spell he had somehow managed to cast over her would be broken.

It wasn't as if she was a virgin, by any means. Cristal had plenty of experience with the opposite sex, and it had led her to believe that, even if you were insanely attracted to someone, once the deed had been done -
well, the itch had been scratched. You could move on.

Yeah. Not the case with Dominic.

Her experience had also taught her that these encounters were never as good as you had built them up to be in your mind beforehand. Even the hottest couplings usually had some elements of awkwardness. They usually left something to be desired.

Again. Not the case with Dominic. In fact, it had been quite the opposite. After their night together, she had wanted more. And more and more and more. He had been the starring act in
many steamy, hot dreams...which had, in turn, led to many a restless and/or sleepless night since then!

So, she did the only thing that she could think of to do to protect her inner self, that part of her that no one else would ever touch. She went into 'damage control' mode, and she had been there ever since.

She tried as hard as she could not to think about that night. At all. That night – oh, God. The one night that she had given into him, had let herself go, had allowed herself to really
feel
.

Not that she really had much choice in the matter. Once his mouth had touched hers, it was like an avalanche of sensations had swept over her, overwhelming her completely. But, now it seemed that pushing down those memories w
as making them even more epic, and even more frightening, than they were to begin with.

She had no idea what in the world Dominic wanted to talk to her about, but she did have a renewed sense of self-awareness, and with it, self-confidence. She made a decision then. She was no longer going to pussyfoot around him. She was going to handle this situation as an adult.

She stepped out of the shower and toweled off, then pulled on her cutoff sweats and a tank-top. Her hair was still wet from the shower, but he was just gonna have to deal with it! She wasn’t about to spend fifteen minutes drying it into submission.

Normally she never let anyone see her without her make-up on and her hair done, and certainly not without wearing presentable attire. But, hell. Since she and Dominic were being forced to live together like 'husband and wife' - he was just going to have to take her as she was. For better or worse.

--- ~ ---

As Cristal crossed in front of the television to take a seat opposite him on the L-shaped sectional, Dominic was struck momentarily speechless.

This particular phenomenon was certainly not a normal occurrence in Dominic’s world. He was usually glib and well-spoken, he had even been described as silver-tongued. He had never in his life been at a loss for words, until right now.

This unsettling anomaly was occurring right now due to the fact that he had never before seen Cristal Hart look more beautiful than she did right at this moment. His breath left him in a whoosh, as if sucked out by a vacuum force, a black hole.

Over the eight years he had known her...over the multiple undercover operations he had done with her...he believed that he had seen every side of her. He would have sworn to it.

He had been wrong. Wet hair falling around her shoulders, her face clean of any traces of make-up, she looked like a walking fantasy. She was wearing a black tank top and grey cutoff shorts and she looked like she could be a Playboy centerfold.

As she sat, she pulled her legs up onto the couch into the position that his niece referred to as 'criss-cross-apple-sauce.' When he had been younger, in less ethnically sensitive times, he and his schoolmates had called it 'Indian-style.' Right now, he called it giving him a straight view of her red lace panties.

Damn, he really needed to get a grip, and fast.

He felt himself starting to sweat and cleared his throat. He adjusted his position on the couch so that, just in case he got more of a show, his physical response to it would not be glaringly obvious.

He shook his head as he realized that this was going to be so much harder (no pun intended) than he had originally planned.

Oh, well. He was up for the challenge, and Cristal was worth the sacrifice of losing all blood pressure as it seemed that every drop of blood in his veins made its way as quickly as possible to the one part of his body that, for the next few weeks, was not going to need it. He shrugged. Nothing he could do about that.

“So what did you want to talk about?” She asked, voice even, as she stared directly into his eyes, carefully guarding her expression. She didn't give anything away.