Page 18 of Hart of Darkness
I was tempted to hop up on the table and open my legs, but that wouldn’t be ladylike.
Dillon’s arm went around my side, and I froze as if I’d never been kissed by a boy before. Now that I thought about it, I’d never had a mind-blowing kiss that made my toes curl. Nevertheless, just when I thought he was going to pull me to him, he snagged a paddle off the table instead.
Images of him using that paddle on me only made me cross one leg over the other.
He edged back, examining the paddle as though he were looking for cracks. “My brothers and I played as kids.”
I let out a quiet sigh, thankful he didn’t kiss me or that our bodies didn’t touch. I wasn’t sure what I would’ve done. Scratch that, I was ready to rip my clothes off for him.
Vibrator, here I come.
His biceps bunched as he rubbed a hand over the surface of the paddle.
Say something.“I heard your brother Denim is in jail.”
In a flash, Dillon was on the other side of the enormous table, not showing me his cards, so to speak. “I really don’t want to talk about my brother. I was hoping I could ask you about the sex-trafficking story.”
I was hoping I could ask you for one night of unadulterated passion.
He traded the paddle for his wallet. “My sister, Grace, went missing four years ago at the age of sixteen, but it’s been much longer than that since I’ve seen her.” He swaggered back and handed me her picture.
I studied the young girl but didn’t recognize her. When I’d been in a gang, I’d only heard of Grace but had never seen her.
“It’s a shot in the dark, but I thought that with the stories you work on, that maybe Grace Hart was one of those stories.”
If she had been, I would’ve remembered the name. Yet sometimes faces didn’t come with names other than Jane Doe.
His hand brushed mine. When it did, I freaking whimpered.
He cocked his head.
Busted.
“She’s young.” My voice cracked as I studied the girl who resembled Dillon. She had warm brown eyes like he did, and her hair was a smidge lighter than his dark brown. I dipped back to some of the stories I’d done on girls of the night or even dead girls who’d had a sad story to tell. I couldn’t recall anyone resembling Grace.
Craning my neck to look up at him, I handed Dillon her photo as my heart severed at the misery that lived deep in his eyes.
“I haven’t done any stories on a Grace Hart, nor have I seen anyone like her. She’s young in this picture.”
“She’s fourteen in that photo,” he said. “I don’t have a more recent one. I was gone so much for the merchant marines that I hardly came home much. Anyway, she’s twenty now.”
“I hate to be blunt, but—”
He held up his hand, sadness oozing from him in buckets. “Don’t say it. I’ve heard a million times that she’s probably dead.” He touched his heart. “In here, I don’t believe she is.”
I admired him for having hope. “Why not?”
His long fingers disappeared in his unruly locks as he began pacing. “Over a year ago, I talked to a woman on the street who claimed she saw Grace at a soup kitchen down on Asher Street. I watched the joint for days but never got anywhere.” Desperation weaved through his words.
I couldn’t fault him for that. I was itching to find Cory, of course for different reasons. I studied Grace a little more closely. “Is that a birthmark on her neck?” Of all the stories I’d done, I couldn’t recall a female with a birthmark that resembled a broken star.
Dillon stopped dead in his tracks, drawing in an audible breath. “Have you seen her?”
I rested my butt lightly against the ping-pong table, holding on to the edge. “Again, I haven’t. I can check my files, though, and I’ll talk to Ted. He’s seen a lot on the streets.” That was the least I could do.
Dillon came up to me, and again my pulse became erratic, even more so when he settled next to me, his leg grazing mine. “Thank you. You can keep the picture. I have a few.”
As much as I wanted him to touch me again, I couldn’t get involved with him. I was afraid he would take me on a journey I would never recover from, one that had love somewhere in there along the way, and that scared me to no end. I was afraid I would end up in a strained or nonexistent relationship in which the husband and wife argued constantly, much like the foster families I’d been in.
