It'
s a ridiculous nickname, not to mention demeaning, but the women who'd whispered it had done so with reverence.
And the worst part isn't even how vulgar and stupid it is.
No, the worst part is the way it made me feel.
Not angry. Not disgusted.
Jealous.
God help me, I'm actually jealous. Because those gossiping bitches had been in his bed. They'd felt his fingers stroking their skin, his mouth brushing their lips.
I recall the shiver that had cut through me when I'd first entered his room and found myself face-to-chest with his well-muscled abs that I had once explored with my fingertips. With my lips.
But that had been a boy's chest, and Dallas was a man now. Hard and lean and utterly beautiful.
Objectively, I'd known that. Didn't I see his picture in the tabloids almost every day? But that was print and pixels. Up close and personal was a wholly different experience. In print, he's stunning. In real life, he's a god, or at least a fallen angel, with power and poise and a defiant confidence.
His hair is the color of caramelized sugar, a rich brown with hints of blond. He wears it short on the sides but longer at the top, and that, along with about three days of beard stubble, gives him the appearance of a man who's just come in from his sailboat--or who's just spent long, lazy hours in bed.
He looks like a man who can run an empire. Who spends millions of dollars on his toys.
He looks like a man who can have any woman he wants, and probably has.
A man who enjoys his life.
A man who has long since forgotten about me.
He'd stood in front of me shamelessly, his fly open, his cock straining against his briefs and the denim as his green eyes flashed like the devil.
I'd wanted to reach for him. So help me, I'd had to pretend that my feet were cemented to the floor. And then I'd turned to look at the women, relying on my anger and frustration to keep me anchored.
He'd touched them. Hell, he'd fucked them.
And dammit all, I wanted that to be me.
Except I don't just want a fuck, I want everything. And he and I both know we can't have it. We'd tasted forbidden fruit seventeen years ago, and we'd paid a heavy price.
I don't have the right to want him. Hell, I don't even have the right to be angry with him for shucking off all his talent and education and hard work in favor of the life of a billionaire playboy asswipe.
But I am angry. And I do have the right. Because even though we don't share a single drop of blood, we're siblings, by law and by adoption.
We're family.
And that pretty much sums up exactly why he's so fucked up.
For that matter, it sums up why I'm so fucked up, too.
I tell myself that I need to get my shit together and get back to Manhattan, and I'm just about to start down the stairs with that goal in mind when I hear the doors open and Dallas call my name.
For a second, I consider running, but I don't. I stop.
A moment later, he's at my side, and I say a silent thank you that he's put on a shirt. His hand closes over my elbow, and in that moment of contact a hundred memories flash like fireworks in my mind. His touch. His kiss. His scent.
I jerk my arm away, and I know he thinks I'm angry. But the truth is far more disturbing--it's self-preservation. I can't bear being touched by him. Or, more accurately, I can't bear his casual touch, when I still crave an intimate one.
"I get why you ran," he says gently. "But why did you come here in the first place?"