Always Yours

183 Pages·2007·0.81 MB·English

by  Shiloh Walker

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Always Yours
By
Shiloh Walker
Triskelion Publishing
www.triskelionpublishing.com
Published by Triskelion Publishing www.triskelionpublishing.com
15508 W. Bell Rd. #101, PMB #502, Surprise, AZ 85374 U.S.A.

First e-published by Triskelion Publishing
First e-publishing January 2005

ISBN 1-932866-71-X
Copyright © Shiloh Walker 2003
All rights reserved.

Cover art by Triskelion Publishing

PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters places,
and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to
persons living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Chapter One
September

If there was one thing about Max Delacourte that Kris would change…it
was his hair.
Something about hair that short on a man, well, she just didn’t like it as
much. And she imagined, if he grew it out long enough, those wavy golden
tresses would curl over her fingers just so.
Leaning over the table, she smiled at him as he poured more wine into her
glass and teased, “So…am I going to be invited to spend the night?”
She quirked a brow. “You’re leaving on a plane in three hours, soldier.
What good would it do?” she said with a smile.
“Well, then I could take a raincheck,” he answered with a grin.
“Where you flying off to this time?” she asked, biting back a sigh when he
arched his straight brown brows at her. He never told her.
He was never able to.
“Sorry—terminal nosiness,” she said glibly, lifting one shoulder as she took
her wineglass and sipped, licking a drop from her lip before she set it down.
“You military boys can never tell us civilians much of anything.”
He cocked his head, studying her. “You sound as if you’ve known a couple
of military boys,” he murmured.
She shrugged, and said softly, “Only one. A friend’s brother.” She pushed
thoughts of him out of her head and focused on the man in front of her. “So…
can you tell me when you have to leave? How long you’ll be gone?”
He laughed. “Damn, you’re nosy. Leaving next week. Flying down to see
my family before I head out. And no…I can’t say how long I’ll be gone,” he
responded.
She stuck her tongue out at him.
His response to that was to lean over and catch it with his own, tangling his
hand in her hair and kissing her hungrily.
She sighed and leaned into him, thoughts of another military boy fading
into the back of her mind.
Later that night, Kris lay in bed, her sheets tangled around her body, soaked
with sweat while her heart pounded in slow, torturous beats within her chest.
Outside her window, the lights of New York City drowned out the stars overhead
and the ever mad rush of life pulsed on.
Within her dream, she was as far away from the glam and glitz of New
York City and her nice little condo as she was likely to get. Kris stood in the
corners of a primitive hut made of sticks and mud bricks, hay stuffed between
the cracks. Man... People really live like this... It wasn't the important thing to
be dwelling on. She knew that. But it was better than the alternative.
There was death in the air tonight.
Betrayal.
Evil of the worst kind. The kind that knew it was evil and just plain didn't
care. As she stood in the corner, her hands closed into fists so tight, her nails
biting painful little circles into her flesh, Kris could see him moving through the
hut. He wore army fatigues, some kind of heavy combat gear. She couldn’t see
a damn thing to distinguish him, but she sensed he was a deadly bastard.
All she could see was his pale colorless eyes.
And they were soulless.
His eyes passed over the corner she stood in and she shivered, feeling her
heart stop in her chest.
Who are you...what meaning do you have in my life...she wanted to ask him.
But then she knew, because the man that passed in front of her this time was
one she knew. And she knew him well, since he had been all of fifteen and she
had been twenty-two and fresh out of college. An eager beaver junior editor, she
had a job she had bullied her way into, using all her family’s connections and all
her sass, then working to prove that she was more than her father’s daughter and
that she could damn well succeed on her own, away from him.
It was Dylan Kline, his face as familiar to her as her own, even under the
grime of his face paint, and the fine coat of sweat. His mouth twisted with hate
as he moved through her, towards the man that now stood behind them.
Kris felt a ghostly chill race through her and she turned, staring at them, just
in time to see somebody from outside the shack lift a gun. She screamed out
Dylan’s name.
But he wouldn't hear her. As the fun fired, Kris jerked out of her dream
with a scream, and stumbled out of the bed, her eyes wide, her hair damp with
sweat, and her thin camisole clinging to her.
Nausea roiled in her belly and she fought to push the nasty dream out of her
head.
But it wasn’t going any place.
And she knew why.
It wasn’t a dream. It was fact. Or at least, it would be. If she couldn’t do
something to stop it.
It took an hour and half, and numerous phone calls.
But she had come to accept one simple fact. She was not family.
They were not going to get a fucking message to Dylan Kline for her, no
can do, sorry ma’am.
Well, that was okay, Kris thought with an evil smile. She knew who was
family.
****
Dylan was having sweet dreams.
Very sweet dreams.
There had been one time…only once, but it had been close enough for him
to pretend there was something in Kris’s eyes beside aloofness.
And now…he was dreaming of that time, at a picnic, Labor Day weekend,
at Nikki’s cabin, when it started pouring down rain and they were caught under
the trees by the lake, waiting for the rain to let up. Either that or make a dash for
it.
Her eyes had met his and lingered…just for a minute, before drifting down
to his chest, wet from the rain, and he had been studying the front of her T-shirt.
“I didn’t know rich girls wore T-shirts,” he drawled.
“Well, I gave the maid a few days off and I haven’t done laundry, slick,”
she said, lifting a brow at him before returning her gaze back to the rain and
sighing, a movement that made that miraculous chest rise and fall, drawing his
attention to her hard, pebbled little nipples.
“Gasp…you know the ‘L’ word?”
“Bite me,” she said, rolling her eyes.
He surprised her when he crossed the grass and asked softly, “Can I?
Where?”
Her lids flickered and he watched as her tongue slid out, wetting her lips.
“It’s a saying, babe. You know, a sarcastic one, basically telling you to—”
The rest of her words were muffled against his mouth as he lowered his
head and pressed his lips against her petal soft mouth, very curious to see how
she would taste. Damn, he’d been dying for a taste for years. And the heat and
the sun and a couple of beers, watching her all day was enough to weaken his
resolve.
And that was where the dream differed from reality. In his bed, Dylan
rolled onto his back, his hand resting on his belly, while in his dream, his hands
came in framed her face, holding her still. In reality, her lips had parted under
his for a second, one sweet, brief second…and then the moment had been ruined
as thunder cracked and the wind started to whip around them.
But in his dream…he backed her up against the tree and he never even
questioned how it somehow became a bed. Or how her jean shorts and damp
shirt were replaced by black silk. Clichéd, maybe, but there was something
about a long, slim woman wearing black silk.
Just as he was peeling the black silk off of her…her lips parted—ringing
erupted from them.
His eyes flew open on a vicious curse and Dylan jackknifed out of bed,
wide-awake and hornier than hell. He grabbed the pager and stared at the
unknown number. Unknown, no emergency code, so he tossed the pager down
and rolled over, going back to sleep.
And it had actually been a sweet dream, almost—it almost felt real. One
day, he’d love to have that kiss followed by something more than his dreams.
****
Kris was pulling her hair by sunrise. He hadn’t called back. She didn’t
give a flying fuck if he didn’t know the number. And did he have the decency to
actually have a voicemail option?
Of course not.
The urgency in her gut grew—she had to talk him. Soon. Reaching for the
phone, she called Nikki again, and prayed she wouldn’t get her head ripped off.
****
Dylan growled into the phone this time as Nikki said in lieu of greeting,
“You know, the reason you carry a pager, is so when somebody pages you, you
can call them back.”
“No, really?”
“Smart ass,” she said. “Somebody called you this morning. She’s waiting
for you to call her back. I’d appreciate it if you’d call her so she’d leave me
alone.”
“I don’t return calls I don’t know,” he said dryly. “My big sister told me
never to talk to strangers.”
“It’s not a stranger. It’s Kris Evress,” Nikki said shortly. “And she sounds
pretty...urgent. Call her. Got the number?”
“Yeah.”
He punched in the number from memory and when her soft, husky voice
came on the line, it was like a punch to the solar plexus.
“So what has you calling my sister to track me down?”
“Dylan,” she said, and there was something odd in her voice, that sounded
like relief.
“You wanted to talk me,” he said.
“I have to talk to you,” she said.
Her voice was shaking. Dylan frowned, sitting up straighter, frowning.
“Kris, what’s up? You don’t sound good,” he said quietly.
“Listen, this is going to sound absolutely crazy, but… shit. Dylan, are you
going out on a job or whatever in the hell you guys call it soon?”
“A job,” he repeated levelly, a grin tugging at his mouth.
“Yeah, a job, a mission, an op, whatever the term is,” she snapped.
He could almost see her, too. She’d be pushing her hand through her hair
that tumbled deep red hair, her green eyes snapping with irritation. “Why are
you asking?”
For the longest moment she said nothing. And then—“Because whatever it
is, you can’t go,” she said in a rush. “I know this sounds insane, but I have
dreams, crazy, insane dreams that sometimes make no sense, and last night I had
one and you were in a hut in some primitive place, like a jungle or something.
There’s a man in the corner, and then I see you and—”
“Kris, sweetie,” Dylan interrupted. “Why in the hell would you be having a
dream about me?”
“It wasn’t a dream, Dylan,” she said softly. “Right before I woke up,
somebody shot you. There’s people, too many of them and hardly any of them
are on your team. Gunshots and shouting and—”
Her voice was getting higher and sounding panicked. “Okay, okay, Kris.
Listen, take a deep breath. Let’s say this is real—”
“Damn it, it is real. Or it will be. My parents were supposed to get on a
plane to France two years ago and I had a dream a week before. I threw such a
fucking fit that they cancelled their plans. Well that plane crashed outside Paris
and half the passengers died, you jackass,” Kris shouted in his ear.
Dylan winced, pulling the phone away from his ear.
“And you need to ask Nikki why she cancelled her plans to take the family
to Carlsbad last summer, slick,” she railed.
“Okay. Okay,” Dylan said. “I hear you. Maybe there is something going
on then. Listen to me, I need to know everything about the dream, everything
you can think of, okay?”
“Is there something coming up? Something in a jungle?”
He thought of the op coming up in Brazil and sighed. “Rich girl, I can’t tell
you that.”
“I take it that means yes,” she said softly. “Dylan, you can’t go.”
“Just tell me about the dream, Kris. Okay?”
****
She hung up the phone nearly an hour later, feeling drained and shaken.
And totally useless. Because he was still going.
And she wondered if she’d ever see him again.
Damn it.
Covering her face with her hands, Kris leaned forward, bracing her hands
on her knees and prayed.
Damn it.
Oh, God. Please, keep him safe.
Dylan, damn his stubborn hide, was a damn near permanent fixture in her
life and had been for the past eight years of her life.
Ever since she had stumbled upon the manuscript his sister had written and
she had done everything but walk on hot coals to get Nicole Kline to write for
Barnes and McNeel.
That sulky teenager, more man than boy, had grown into a man that had
could set her heart to flaming even just hearing his voice.
If he had the nerve to let anything happen to him…
Kris breathed out a sigh.
She had to stop thinking about him like this.
She actually had a man in her life again. A good one. One that made her
heart quiver when he kissed her.
So what if it didn’t outright stop?
But that had only happened once.
That rainy day when Dylan had kissed her. Kris had waited for years for
him to do it again, and had even thought about trying it herself.
But time passed.
Years actually. And she just never…did.
She never forgot it though. Pressing her lips together, she remembered the
taste of him, that hot, unique male taste—oh, damn.
It was sad.