Rating Warning: This chapter contains one cuss word that would probably raise the rating by one notch. If you feel you can't read it, I'll be glad to send you a censored version.

Chapter XI: Do You Trust Me?

"Why exactly do you care?" Orton asked accusingly.

Dave hadn't thought this through very well. No one knew about his relationship with Orianne because he really didn't think anyone would understand. He just opened his mouth and started talking. "Shawn Michaels called me. Apparently the two of them have a close relationship. He asked that I take care of this since he couldn't be here this week."

"When did you become Shawn Michaels' lapdog?"

"When I called Orianne and found out that we're distantly related." Orton's mouth dropped open. "Yeah," Dave continued as the lie became easier, "her husband is my aunt-in-law's first cousin."

"Is that really kin?"

"Close enough for me to care about her and to make sure that I look after her for my family while we're on the road and her husband is away."

"Dude, I am backing off," Randy answered with a shrug of his shoulders and pushed by Dave to unlock the door and leave.

Batista wasn't done with his lecture, particularly the part about drugging women, even if done in small quantities. However, he was more concerned with fixing his lie. The wrestler quickly turned the lock back in place on the door and pulled out his cell phone again. "Orianne, this is Dave. Can you talk for a minute?"

"Yeah," she replied, scared to death of what was going on. He had never called her while at the arena. "I'm just out here at the ring. You want me to come find you?"

"No, just listen. I think I've done something stupid."

"You? Stupid? Get real. That's not even in your vocab—" Orianne began, thinking about how honestly perfect he was. Impeccably dressed at all times, there was never a hair out of place and the same went for his actions and words. It was really sickening.

"Seriously. You have to listen to me," he said, cutting her off. When she didn't reply, he took that to mean he should continue. "I confronted Randy about Wednesday ni—"

"You did what?"

"You can yell at me later for that. Listen to me now. I confronted him and he wanted to know why I had an interest in you. As far as he knows, I only know what you look like and your name. I said that—Fuck! I have to call Shawn Michaels," he suddenly shouted.

"Don't say that word. You know how much I hate it," Orianne chastised, one, because she did hate the word—it had never passed her lips before—and, two, to slow him down for whatever he had to tell her.

"Sorry. I told Randy that you told Shawn and since Shawn's at home, he asked me to take care of this. Then I told him that you and me are distantly related on my…" Batista stopped to remember exactly how he said they were related, "…aunt's, no, you are married to my aunt-in-law's first cousin."

"Do what?" she squeaked.

"I am so sorry, Orianne. I had no idea how to explain me flattening Randy and then dragging him out of the locker room. Even if nobody wonders why I hit him, I have no doubt he'll say something." Dave suddenly stopped and then softly continued, "Ori, I didn't want anybody thinking the wrong thing about us spending time together. We're friends but I'm afraid everybody else will consider you a slut if they saw us together."

The woman sucked in her breath at the use of her nickname and couldn't breathe through the rest of his explanation. She had often heard the despised shortened name but coming off his lips made her stomach flip-flop. That was not counting the rest of his words. It had crossed her mind that he didn't want anybody to see them together because he was ashamed of being her friend, as if she was too low on the WWE totem pole for him to spend time with someone in her position. Unless he was a damn good liar, he had the intention of making sure her name went unsullied.

"Thank you," she whispered.

"For lying?"

"No, for the reason why and for wanting to settle with Orton. You didn't have to do any of that."

"Yes, I did. You deserve to be treated better."

A grin split Orianne's face but it quickly left as she saw Dennis approaching. He had what seemed to be amended pages for tonight's schedule. "I have to go. We'll talk some more tonight?"

"Yeah, that would be good," Dave asked, feeling much better about having to tell Orianne about what happened. However, Shawn Michaels was next. "Are we still playing poker?"

"Good question. Call me afterward if you know for sure. 'Bye." The photographer turned toward Dennis and waited for the tirade that she knew was coming. He hated changes and was vocal about it with Quinn, Cedarius, and herself.

Poker was cancelled for the weekend. RVD twisted up his knee enough to be drugged for the evening and sent home and Shawn Michaels and Ric Flair were on vacation for the next two weeks. Between Dave, Orianne, and Mike Chioda, they decided it wouldn't be worth it to meet. With RVD possibly injured, poker was officially cancelled for the next weekend unless Rob came back and wanted to get together.

Orianne nervously piddled about the hotel room while Dave lay back on the queen sized bed, watching her and attempting to get her to open up. She said she had wanted to talk more about their situation but the photographer had little to say. She darted from her suitcase to the bathroom and then folded up clothes lying around before rearranging some hanging on the rack by the door. She was frustrating him because he knew she wasn't this neat and because she wouldn't be still despite the fact that her limp had grown progressively worse throughout the day. He wanted her to stop and say more than "okay, whatever you think" with regards to his earlier fabrication. She even didn't have a problem with the lie Dave fed to Shawn, which was that Dave found out after Orton's "assault" that they were kin and he needed an excuse as to why Orianne would be telling him about it since the poker group wasn't exactly common knowledge while everyone knew Shawn and Orianne often talked.

A storm front was rolling in and had been wreaking havoc on Orianne all day but she had to keep moving. She was now "related" to Dave, which was actually a good thing as a cover-up. The difficult part of the situation was that their relationship had drastically changed. They were no longer quite so secret, yes, but the reasons behind the act were disturbing. Had she been single, things would be different. She was playing with fire, tantalizing fire. It was in the way that he said her nickname, so soft and seductive. The woman couldn't be still with him in her room and she battled her thoughts regarding how she would handle him. They were not engaging in anything illicit and she had to ask herself if indulging in his company and her fantasies—as long they remained fantasies—were also illicit.

"Orianne, sit before I sit on you," Batista ordered. The photographer did not argue with his command and parked herself at the bottom of the bed where he was pointing. "Don't move."

"I got that part," she replied back but understood what he meant as his large hands closed over her shoulders and began to knead them.

"Tell me what's bothering you."

"I don't know," she sighed. "I'm just wound up with all this stuff with Randy."

"It's passed; I told you that. He's not going to do anything about it. Him getting both his legs broken by me is not worth it," Dave replied and worked his thumbs down her spine and then out across her lower back. He knew that she had been afraid that Orton would either try again or attempt to intimidate her into keeping quiet, so he related the entire incident to the woman. She had good-naturedly chided him over hitting the younger wrestler but it felt good to have him stand up for her and for Orton to get what was coming to him. There was no excuse for what he had done despite his intention.

Orianne grunted when Dave found a couple of knots and he ordered her to lie down.

"Only if I can return the favor," she replied in the same commanding tone. Batista started to decline since the company masseuse had given him one already after his match but he knew how much Orianne disliked favors she couldn't return that weren't poker related.

"Good enough," he responded and moved out of her way as she situated herself on her stomach. Dave pushed her shirt up to expose her lower back and began circling the knots with this thumbs.

Orianne had started to protest at his fingertips on her bare back but she could only grimace and attempt to hold back the grunts…and justify enjoying his touch through the pain. It was an innocent massage from a good friend. Nothing was wrong with that.

"How's that?" he asked, tugging her t-shirt back into place.

"Wonderful," she sighed, rolling over and smiling at him. "Worth not being able to breathe."

"As much as it hurts, it always feels better," Dave replied and pulled her feet into his lap. "I like these," he said, indicating the teal socks that sported black and white cows jumping over green and yellow moons as he pulled the right one off and kneaded the sole of her foot. "My niece would like them. She's obsessed with cows like you're obsessed with collecting socks."

Orianne blushed, not with embarrassment, but over the fact that he noticed. "Some people collect stamps or stuffed bears—or cows—but I collect socks. No good reason," she said with a shrug.

"I think there's one," he replied as she dissolved into a moan as he massaged her heel.

"What does that mean?" she asked in a whisper with her eyes rolled back into her head with pleasure.

"Hmmm…" he deflected and reached for her other foot. As he slid his finger inside the top of her sock, her eyes flew open and she jerked her foot away, even though he refused to let go. "Do you trust me?"

"Of course," she replied and tried to pull her leg in to her body.

"Orianne," he firmly said, "do you trust me?"

She stared at him for a moment, his index finger still hooked into the hem of the fabric. "Yes," the woman finally replied.

"Why are you so guarded?" he asked conversationally, slipping the sock off and beginning to knead her foot.

His eyes never left hers and his gaze compelled her to answer or else it felt he would see into her soul and read the answer there. "I don't like being treated any different," she answered through a moan of pleasure.

"Have I done that yet?" Dave asked, his fingertips gliding over the scars surrounding her ankle and running up the outside of her calf.

"Hmmph," she snorted but then mumbled, "God, that feels good."

"When exactly have I treated you different?"

"The first night we met."

"Oh, when I picked you up in the rain and brought in your equipment just because that was a nice thing to do and I knew nothing about you," he sarcastically replied.

She said nothing in response but continued on with her explanation because he had slid his hand up under the leg of her pajamas to massage her calf and she had to keep talking or she would dissolve into a puddle. "People are nosy, too nosy for their own good. Have you noticed that if the door is in the back of the room at our meetings and someone's late, everybody will turn around in the middle of McMahon's speech to see who it is? I just don't appreciate the questions, so I don't give them any reason to ask them."

"Now you make me want to ask those questions," he said with a cheeky grin attempting to maneuver around the pajamas to grasp her knee. For all intents and purposes, the surgeries had reconstructed her knee and her ankle, which was slightly flatter than the other, to feel almost as if nothing had ever happened. From what he could tell, the pucker running down the front of her knee and the tiny slits around the side were the only things to give the reconstruction away.

"That's the most unique way someone has asked me what happened without actually asking," she replied but then moaned again as his thumbs worked the muscles around her knee. "If you keep doing that, I can't talk."

"Alright," he replied and slid his hands down her leg and out of the cotton bottoms. "Put on a pair of shorts and let me finish. Then you can talk."

Do you trust me? Of course she did but years of hiding her scars around anyone but her family made her uneasy. "That's not necessary," Orianne declined and started to wave him off but the stern glare that she received was enough to set in her motion to at least fake a search for the article of clothing. She wasn't so self-conscious that she thought he would reject her friendship simply for the marks that scored her flesh. She knew she probably made a bigger deal of hiding it than necessary but it was assholes like Dennis who made fun of Cara for a crooked pinky finger that Orianne had guarded herself from.

While the raven-haired woman was rifling through her suitcase, Dave wondered what in the hell he was doing. Her little noises of pleasure from the massage had innervated his libido and here he was prodding her into revealing more flesh that he could touch. He hadn't meant to so intensely demand her trust but he couldn't stand to be shut out like that. It had simply started out as a desire to relax her, to make her feel better but then he couldn't stand that, after all the intimacies they had shared and the way he had put himself on the line by confronting Orton, she would still not trust him with something that was such a part of her and her life.

"The elephant man is not on display today," she joked, turning back around to him. "No shorts this week and if you don't believe me, Dave Batista," she sternly stated, "then you can pilfer through my underwear yourself."

Dave considered calling her bluff—he would have been right though—but after demanding her trust, he didn't want to hurt her feelings. "Well, then…" The wrestler tackled her and tossed her on the bed, pinning her down. "Are you ticklish?"

Orianne's eyes grew wide and she began struggling to get out from under him. "Calm down, I'm just kidding," he said with a laugh, holding her down until she stilled. "Now I know how to scare the hell out of you," he stated, slipping his hands down from her shoulders, more to keep her in place than to touch her, to her left thigh to massage it.

"You have to stop that," she breathed.

"What? You like this?" he asked, slowing moving up her thigh to her hip. Her stomach bottomed out and she literally could not feel her feet as his large hands clasped over her hip bone. She involuntarily moaned in response and he smiled to himself as he continued his ministrations.

When he finally stopped, she slowly opened her eyes with a sigh. "Thank you."

"You want me to do the other side?"

"I'm good. It's your turn anyhow," she said, rising to her knees and indicating he should turn around. The woman almost protested as he pulled his shirt over his head.

Orianne paused above his shoulders and then indulged herself and skittered her fingertips across the top of his tattoo. "Tell me your story," he said as her fingers lightly grazed his skin and sent shivers throughout his body.

"It's so boring, so please try not to fall asleep," she replied and plunged in, talking as much as touching to keep her mind—and her body—from responding in a manner that would definitely get her in trouble. "I was at the stupid age of thirteen and acting like a spoiled brat. I think I was pissed at Orrin because I was jealous of him and I wanted to go hang out with my best friend to lament the woes of being the inferior twin but I smarted off to Mom and she refused to drive me over to my friend's farm. A few more words later and I found myself grounded. So I stormed out, saddled up my horse, Aramis, and raced him out of there—I would 'drive' my own self." She stopped to make bunny fingers and, despite the professional massage earlier, Dave hoped she was not through.

"Why does that not surprise me? Claiming independence at thirteen."

"No, just stupid. Aramis was just training to be a show horse when some idiot kid shoved a plastic snake into his stall and he went ballistic and scarred up his legs too badly to be shown. So we ended up buying him for riding lessons because he was so obedient and calm. I fell in love with him and he sorta became my horse unofficially," she wistfully related.

"Please tell me he made it out of this alive," Dave interrupted, sensing the love she had for the animal.

"He's still my baby even though he's getting on up there in years. You'll have to meet him," she replied and began switching her tired hands off to massage his neck. "I think he's forgiven me by now. I forgave him much more quickly since it was all my fault I practically rode him into a cottonmouth snake. He reared up, I flew off and, thankfully, hit my head—"

"Thankfully?" Dave asked, turning his head around to see her.

"Yeah, knocked me out," she replied and parted her hair to reveal a two inch scar behind her ear. "Fortunately because Aramis trampled me in what we can only figure out was his way of scaring the snake and protecting me." Dave twisted around on the bed to 'inadvertently' give her a rest because he could tell her hands were growing tired.

"And it's still bad after all these years?"

"I have more metal in me from the waist down than a kitchen full of appliances."

"That's why you set off the metal detector."

"Yeah, it's only Stamford's that consistently does that. I had pins in a destroyed hip bone, femur, tibia, and a reconstructed knee cap and ankle. I had several reconstructive surgeries, my body rejected some of the materials and they had to start all over again. I finally hit my growth spurt—I was a late bloomer—which made it all the worse. Hours of physical therapy after the casts came off and you have what you see. Like you have to oil joints, I still have exercises I do every day and I can predict rain ninety-nine point nine percent of the time." Orianne paused for a moment to gauge Dave's thoughts but it seemed impossible—as always. "So, did you enjoy the bedtime story?"

"Orianne, your sarcasm kills me. I will admit that after I accused your husband of hitting you, I figured you were in some massively tragic event that took your parents, your horse, your dog, and your farm and left you so emotionally damaged you'd never be able to love again."

"Talk about my sarcasm," she exclaimed and punched him in the shoulder but his hand locked around her wrist before she drew back.

"I do wish it had never happened to you," he seriously replied, "but I have this feeling we would never have met if it hadn't happened."

Orianne could only hold his gaze, his intense chestnut eyes boring into her soul. Could he see that a once athletic, young girl turned to photographing everything that moved from her wheelchair to deal with an accident that removed her mobility? Could he see her rejection years ago of all things equestrian from fear and depression, a rejection of the family business that disappointed her parents? Could he now see the fear and trembling in her soul simply from his presence bearing upon her loneliness and shaky marriage?

Finally she broke loose from the trance and Dave released her arm. "It's been a long day. I'm going to turn in, if that's alright."

"Great idea," he yawned and began to hunt for his running shoes. "Are we still on for tomorrow?"

"Bright and early," she said with a smile.

"I could only be so lucky," he sarcastically replied before letting himself out.

How was it possible a simple action of fingers entwined together could stand in so much tension between elation and distress? Orianne's relationship with Dave had been ambiguous to this point but now she had little doubt as to what was not happening between them.

Despite his dislike of nature and the outdoors, Batista had agreed to accompany Orianne to a local bird sanctuary and wildlife preserve. She simply wanted get out of the city and he really wanted to throw pebbles at squirrels to relieve his frustration. Straying off the path in search of some critter that had run by them, Orianne wanted to continue on over a stream that required her to climb up a large rock. She was about to turn around dejectedly when Dave climbed the rock himself and then hoisted her up behind him. When he didn't let go of her hand, neither did she drop his. For another hour, they wondered down the creek and then back onto the path without once letting go of each other's hand.

The illicit action sent Orianne's heart pumping and her mind churning. How could she possibly do this when she was married? Yet, it wasn't adultery. She wasn't exactly cheating on Sloan. High schoolers held hands all the time. She even held her sister's hand when they went shopping. What was wrong with this small pleasure, with feeling like she was wanted, with thinking someone wanted to touch her? She could stop it before it went too far. That would be much easier than not holding hands.

Dave wasn't faring much better either. He couldn't figure why he hadn't let go of her hand when he pulled her up that rock. What exactly was it about her that made his hand work independently from his mind? It was as if there was a magnet that couldn't be pulled apart. He was really doing nothing wrong. It was nothing that involved naked body parts or was invasive. But that didn't stop his heart from swelling when she didn't let go.

No one would understand, they thought separately. Even if they were "kin" in other eyes, this was something they couldn't explain. After Dave saw her to her hotel room that evening, there wasn't another occasion for them to be alone again until Dave banged on her door the next Sunday afternoon.

Orianne had been napping so heavily after a wonderful lunch with Cara that she had to jerk herself awake to answer the door, not even bothering to look through the peephole. Her hair was in disarray, parting in two different places and a barrette dangling from one strand. She picked out the barrette when she realized it was Dave at the door.

"You've got a king-sized bed. Good," he said without preamble.

"What?" she muttered, rubbing at her eyes. "You woke me up from the best nap of my life to check out my bed."

"Sorry. It's just that I desperately need a nap. My eyes started crossing in this morning's meeting and I can't wrestle tonight like that."

"And my bed is better?" she scoffed in her haze.

"You didn't let me finish. Housekeeping just came into my room and the woman recognized me. I'm not putting up with that at the moment. Please, Ori, can I take a nap with you?"

How could she deny him? "Yeah," she mumbled and pulled her pillow to one side of the bed. "'Night," she added as she flopped back down with her back to him and was promptly asleep again.

Had Dave—or Orianne as well for that matter—not been controlled more by their body than their mind, neither would have fallen asleep so easily. It was the position that they woke up in, however, that was disturbing.

Orianne found herself in a dream world that involved a very naked Dave Batista. He was standing behind her, his broad chest pressed into her back as he ran his hands over her shoulders and across her breasts and began nibbling her ear. He then circled her waist with his strong arms and…she woke up. The photographer was very angry that she hadn't finished the dream. Dreams definitely did not fall under any category of cheating and could and should be enjoyed without guilt. Her ear twitched and she started to reach up and scratch it but her arms were pinned down. It was then that she realized that Dave was snuggled up to her, one of his arms thrown across her hip and, in effect, holding her down. He was slightly snoring and she realized he had not intentionally pulled her to him.

She lay there in a sleepy haze, reveling in the feel of his body against hers. Was it really cheating if he was asleep and not an active participant? She twined her fingers in his and then heard his snoring stop. Instead of pulling her hand away, she waited for him to resume, indicating that she had not woken him. Dave gripped her hand tighter and then rose up on one elbow. Orianne didn't dare move.

"I know you're awake," he whispered. "You're holding your breath."

TBC…