Protecting Dallas

It was yet another inevitability; my own attraction to them, rearing its ugly head. I was trapped alone in a house with three beautiful men, all ripped and shredded, all built in the most Adonis-like fashion. So if I couldn’t help drooling over Maddox’s washboard abs? Over Kane’s magnificent chest and shoulders, or Austin’s strong arms and delicious olive skin?

Well, a girl really couldn’t really be blamed.

Ten

DALLAS

I dreamed, and in my dream I was back at home. I was young again. Maybe eight or nine. My house was warm and inviting, and somehow filled with all sorts of people I didn’t know.

Everyone was talking and laughing, only not with me. And no matter how much I searched, no matter which rooms I wormed my way into, I couldn’t find my mother, nor father, nor Connor as well.

I went deeper, further into the heart of my childhood home, and things began to change. Person by person the faces disappeared, the strangers fading away with every step until only their voices remained.

And then their voices went too… and I was utterly and completely alone.

A light caught my eye, and I found myself staring through a window that shouldn’t be there. It was less of a window and more a shimmering pool of liquid darkness, filled edge to edge with a billion, twinkling stars.

I saw bright stars. Endless stars, stretching in every direction. But then the stars disappeared too. One by one they all blinked away, whole fields at once, until in the end I was staring at nothing.

In my dream I turned, and my home was gone also. Everything had become a void. A cold, limitless void of pure dark nothing… and when I opened my mouth to scream, the blackness poured into my soul.

DALLAS!

Something hissed my name, so cold and sinister it rippled every square inch of my skin with instant goosebumps. I woke up frozen and shivering, my skin cool to the touch.

It’s only a dream, that’s all.

I lay there for several long moments, staring at the ceiling, trying to convince myself. Then, teeth practically chattering, I gathered the blanket around myself and sat up.

A dream, or maybe the wind.

Sleep was no longer an option. Not tonight. Maybe not all week, if I was doomed to have nightmares like this…

I jerked my head toward a sound — the wind, rattling my window. I could hear it shrieking loudly outside. Swirling and screaming, against the glass.

A few steps later I was out in the hall, which seemed somehow even colder than the bedroom. I was dragging my blanket. Making my way toward the staircase, my body and mind now fully awake.

Maybe the fire’s not out.

It was only one o’clock in the morning. If there were still embers, maybe I could resurrect it. I could curl up on the couch. Try to get comfortable enough to—

My body froze mid-step. Deep in my chest, my heart stopped and then started again.

Someone was standing at the window.

“K—Kane?”

He was at the far end of the hall, staring out into the pale blue darkness. He wore loose-fitting sweatpants. And nothing else.

I held one hand against my thumping chest. “You scared the shit out of me.”

He turned as I approached, moving to stand next to him. Then he went back to staring, as the wind howled outside.

“Big storm, huh?”

The massive SEAL nodded, scratching at his chin. Almost on cue a gust of wind whipped up. It rattled the window at its seams, throwing a wave of sand against the glass.

“This reminds me of the dust storms we used to have,” he said plainly. “Fierce ones, back in Afghanistan.” He was silent for a few seconds. “Somalia too.”