Between Friends (40 page)

He jabbed a finger at her. “I came here to see if we can work this out. You’re the one …”

“You came here to see if you could still get me into bed. I think that’s all you ever wanted.”

A change came over Burke, from self-assured and sophisticated to rank and pissed.

“Goddamn bitch!” Burke said scathingly.

She’d seen Burke angry, but she’d never seen him mean or ugly. It took her by surprise. She thought she could make her feelings clear and he would just leave. No recriminations or bruised ego. But this had the potential for getting nasty.

His mouth twisted with displeasure. “Let me tell you something about yourself …”

“She doesn’t want to hear it,” came a deep voice behind them.

Dallas jumped, and Burke whirled around in stunned surprise. Alex had appeared in the living room. He looked still drowsy from sleep, but he had quickly assessed the situation.

Dallas’s surprise at Alex’s appearance quickly turned into relief. His presence curtailed whatever Burke was about to say. Alex was not afraid of a fight, though she hoped it wasn’t going to come to that.

Burke swung from Alex to Dallas and back to Alex again. Then he cackled in amusement. “Well, I’ll be
damned
!” he said wickedly.

His expression was one of vindication and righteousness. Whatever personal regard Burke might have had for her, even ten seconds ago, was irrevocably gone.

“Ain’t this some shit,” he said.

Dallas noted how easily Burke’s demeanor slipped into the street vernacular of the urban black male. This is what he was going to use against Alex. Except that Burke didn’t know that Alex was an urban street white male who could square off with him.

Alex had pulled on his jeans, but otherwise he had nothing on. Sleep was still evident around his eyes and mouth. His face was a bit flushed and his hair tousled. He looked very much at home … as if he’d been with her all night.

“No wonder you can’t be bothered with me. You have a
white
man in your bed! Man … I should have known.”

Alex took two steps into the room. He looked deceptively unconcerned, his hands thrust into the front pockets of his jeans. “Now that you know the deal, why don’t you get out like she asked?”

Dallas moved forward, pleading with her eyes for him to stop. She touched his arm. “Alex, it’s okay. We had a disagreement and he’s upset …”

“I don’t need you to make excuses for me to that white boy.”

Alex smoothly ignored Dallas’s entreaty and stepped around Dallas so that she was no longer between them. The muscles in his arms were taut and ready. Prepared for battle.

“Alex …”

“Then, let’s leave Dallas out of this. You got anything to say about why I’m here, you talk to me. I’m more your size. Try getting over on me.”

Burke’s expression grew tight and explosive. “Who the fuck are you?”

“I’m a friend of Dallas’s,” Alex said patiently. “And I don’t particularly like the way you’re talking to her. If you can’t be nice, get out.”

“Oh,
man …
” Burke shook his head, glaring at Dallas again.

She tried not to let her hands shake. “This isn’t going anywhere. We’ll just end up saying horrible things to each other, Burke. Just go.”

“Oh, yes, ma’am. So that’s the choice, huh? You don’t need my sorry black ass anymore. You’ve got Casper, here.”

“Hey …” Alex began in a slightly raised voice as he stepped even closer to Burke.

Burke stood still and they faced each other. “So, you don’t like how I talk. What you gonna do? Kick my ass?”

“Is that what it’s going to take?”

“You and what other two
white
boys?”

“We’re not going to rock and roll because you’re going to leave.
Now.
That’s it.”

Burke sized Alex up, but Dallas could see that he wasn’t about to take a chance. Besides the fact that he wasn’t dressed for throwing down on her living-room floor, he was of a slighter build than Alex. It was obvious to Dallas that Alex could take him easily.

Burke had the attitude of being tough, but nothing to back it up with. He wasn’t going to take the chance of making a fool of himself. And Alex was not going to back off. So Burke took the next best option. He continued to mouth off at Dallas as he backed toward the door.

“You know what? I was right about you to begin with …”

Alex started toward him again.

“Alex, don’t. Please …” she said.

Burke reached the door, and pointed at her. “You’re a whole lot of yelluh, wasted.”

“Sorry your visit was cut short …” Alex said smoothly.

“Fuck you!”
Burke spat out at him.

“You wish you could,” Alex murmured as the door slammed.

Dallas didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath until after the door shut. Alex slowly turned to face her, but she averted her eyes, feeling the heat of embarrassment spread across her face.

“Are you okay?” he asked in quiet concern.

Dallas nodded, afraid to try to talk. She merely stepped around Alex to head toward her room. But he would have followed her there … and that was dangerous. She went into the bathroom and closed the door instead. Dallas sat on the downed toilet seat lid and tried to stop the tremors in her body.

… A whole lot of yelluh wasted …

She squeezed her eyes closed but could see the look of disgust on Burke’s face. She’d had no idea he really felt that way. That Burke had never taken her seriously … might never have considered her as black.

There was a soft knock on the bathroom door.

“Dallas?”

“Yes?” she answered wearily.

“You okay?”

“I said I was fine,” she answered impatiently.

“Then open the door.”

“I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

There was a pause.

“All right. If you’re not out by then … I’m coming in.”

She believed him. She continued to sit there for another minute, then got up and stepped cautiously into the hall. It was very quiet. She thought that perhaps Alex had just gotten dressed and left. She passed the small office and peered in. The futon had been folded up and the bed linens neatly stacked on top. She went into the kitchen and found Alex standing at the sink, drinking a glass of juice. She stopped short when she saw him. He was still dressed in just the jeans. He put the glass into the sink and faced her.

“Come here,” he murmured, reaching out for her.

Dallas didn’t seem to be able to move. Alex stepped toward her to put his arms around her. That’s what he’d always done. Been there. This time it was not a comforting hug, but an embrace. Dallas could feel it in the gentle tightening of Alex’s arms. In the warm breath he expelled that she felt against her cheek and neck, in the overwhelming awareness of his solid masculinity.

“Stay as long as you want,” he teased.

She did, closing her eyes and not moving. She let herself relax against him. Her sense of safety returned. And then the change started.

“Dallas?”

“No. No, Alex. Don’t say anything.” She tried to pull out of his arms.

“You feel it, too, don’t you?”

“I think I …”

“What’s happening. It’s not the same anymore between us. You know it isn’t.” He sighed, pressing his cheek against her hair. “It’s a whole lot more …”

She shook her head. “No …”

He held her, tightening his arms a little and forcing her to look into his face. “This isn’t about Burke, or your ex-husband, or any other man who’s given you a hard time. This isn’t about you being black or me being white. This isn’t about my family or yours, or the past, but right now. We have to talk.”

“I … I don’t think …”

“Dallas,” he said urgently. “Do you realize how long we’ve known each other? Do you realize we’ve done everything together—
everything
—except hold each other like this? Or kiss? Jesus … I’ve never kissed you …”

She was going to suggest that now was not the time, but Dallas looked up and already Alex’s mouth was descending. His lips settled with an open eroticism on hers. The immediate effect on them both stunned her. Totally new, yet familiar. Shocking … yet so right. It had taken them fifteen years to get this far. And it was as if they both knew it would come to this.

Alex gently twisted his mouth over hers, forcing it open, and Dallas let his tongue slip easily in. The warm pressure and sensual manipulation disoriented her. She closed her eyes and reality dropped away. Dallas knew only the springy softness of the hair on his chest between her fingers, the massaging warmth of his hands. The supple male firmness of his skin. It was heady and wonderful, tender and knowing and amazingly familiar. It was made all the more so because she’d imagined this, and denied it. When she was sixteen. When she saw him again at Lillian and Vin’s. In the kitchen at Valerie’s …

She jumped and pulled her mouth free. She felt his lips on her neck. He thrust his hips forward against her and the hard pressure of his erection lodged a moan in her throat. “Alex, I can’t. I … I’m so confused, I … we have to stop,” Dallas whispered, trying to push him away.

“I don’t want to,” he said. “You don’t want me to.”

His point was proven when Alex again kissed Dallas, sabotaging her efforts to stay focused. His mouth was so knowing, making her give in to the pleasure. She did, for a long time. Finally, she broke it off again.

“We … can’t,” she forced herself to be firm. She looked into his face. She saw wonder, gentleness … and desire. Dallas wanted him to kiss her again. She wanted him to never stop. But she wasn’t going to let it happen. “It’s too soon.”

“Dallas, we would have gotten to where we are now without Valerie or Burke. We both know it.”

She shook her head, as his lips left kisses on her face, teased at her mouth. “You have to settle your business with Val. I can’t be in the middle, Alex.”

“I never made any promises to her …” he whispered, brushing his lips over hers when she momentarily lifted her head. “Val knows that.”

She responded. It was wonderful. She stopped.

“Maybe it’s not me you want, either.”

She felt the reflexive tightening of Alex’s arms, the restless pressure of his fingers against her spine through her clothing. “I got distracted.”

“The red hair and green eyes?” she asked, bluntly.

“Trying to get what belonged to Nick, I guess. But Val and Megan need something different than what I can offer.”

Dallas frowned. “I don’t understand.”

He hesitated, carefully thinking over his answer. Finally Alex shook his head helplessly. “Val is trying to make up for Nick. To replace him. She wants to make up for the past. Nicholas was Megan’s father.”

A
LEX FINISHED GETTING DRESSED
and followed the quiet sounds in Dallas’s apartment until he found her in the kitchen. She too had gotten dressed, in linen slacks and a black bodysuit that defined her lithe and curvaceous build. He tried to get her to look at him, but she studiously avoided eye contact. Yet aware of his arrival, she automatically took two glasses from a cabinet and then opened the refrigerator to get a container of orange juice. She filled the glasses.

“Do you want anything to eat for breakfast? I don’t have much, but …”

“The juice is fine, thanks.”

The formality of the question and answer belied the undercurrent between them. Alex watched Dallas and tried to figure out what was going on in her head. He’d thought for sure that the truth would make it easier for Dallas to consider that something incredibly strong was happening between the two of them. But instead she had withdrawn from him.

“I really appreciate what you did for me last night,” Alex said, not bothering to sit at the small kitchen table, but leaning against the door frame as he accepted the juice.

“I suppose I should thank you for trying to help with Burke.”

“Would it have been better if I’d stayed out of it?”

“I don’t know,” Dallas said honestly. “Maybe not. He might still have …”

“Go on and say it. Gotten in your face the way he did. Sorry. I wasn’t going to let him go at you like that. Reminded me of Nick.”

There was a ghost of a smile at the corner of her mouth. “I know.”

“So then, what’s really bothering you?” he pursued softly.

Dallas had her glass halfway to her mouth, changed her mind, and put it down again. Finally she looked at Alex. And immediately she felt it again. The ties that bind …

“You know what,” she barely whispered.

“It probably would have happened sooner or later, Dallas. I do want you. I wanted you last night when I saw you standing behind the barricades on the pier. Just like that I knew. I want you right now …”

She closed her eyes and shook her head, as if to deny his words. Alex reached out and took her hand tightly.

“Question is, do you want me?”

Dallas winced. “I … I can’t answer that.”

“Yes, you can.”

She looked at him poignantly, her eyes overly bright.

She shook her head. “No. Right now I really can’t.”

“All right. We’ll let it go for now. I know it seems sudden, but it’s not. You know it’s not. And I’m going to ask you again. I promise you.”

Now Alex did pull her toward him. There was a token resistance, but all he did was to settle an arm around her waist, holding Dallas at his side. “The way I look at it maybe it’s been real since that day with Nick. I know you’re thinking of all that crap about black and white. It wasn’t on my mind when I pulled Nick off you. And I certainly didn’t think about it when I made love to you for the first time …” He felt the slight agitation in her at the reminder.

“I have to get to work,” Dallas announced quietly. She resolutely refused to go into what was happening. She couldn’t deal with it.

Alex sighed in resignation. He pressed his mouth and nose to her temple, a gesture of affection and understanding. “I have things to take care of, too. When am I going to see you again?”

She extricated herself from his arm. “I can’t. I don’t know what I’m feeling yet. It’s complicated. And you have your own thing to deal with. There’s a lot to think about, Alex.”

“I know,” Alex admitted. But he still wouldn’t let her just walk away. He held her hand again and cupped his other around the side of her neck and jaw, his thumb stroking over her cheek and the corner of her mouth. “But there’s one thing you have to tell me right now.” He gazed intently into her eyes, holding her attention. “Am I way off base?”