by Brenda Novak
“Are you going back to the Amoses’? Or somewhere else?” Cheyenne tried to make her tone more conversational than parental, but she knew how the question sounded.
“Does it matter?” she asked, obviously irritated.
“I’d like to know where to look for you if you don’t come home.”
She gave a dramatic sigh. “I might stop by to see what the Amos guys have going. Don’t know if I’ll stay.”
Her sister’s perfume was so strong it burned Cheyenne’s nostrils. “Will you be stopping by alone?”
“No. Carolyn from work’s planning to hang out with me. We might also go to the Devil’s Lair in Jackson.”
So she’d have company. That was good news, at least.
Cheyenne turned off the TV. “I worry about you, Presley,” she said. “You’re two years older than I am. Don’t you think it’s time to settle down?”
“Don’t start,” she snapped, and hurried out the door.
Silence fell like an anvil once the door banged shut. Cheyenne told herself she should use this opportunity to get some sleep. She hadn’t slept well last night. She’d been too busy wrestling with her conscience over Joe. But she was too listless to go to bed this early.
Leaving the TV off—it was no longer capable of holding her attention—she went into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of the wine Joe had left behind. If only her friends weren’t gone. She could’ve had one or more of them over. Eve often came by to keep her company on the long nights she had to babysit her mother. Sophia and Riley were in town, but Sophia had a husband and a daughter, and Riley had his son, Jacob. She couldn’t imagine that the two of them would want to come over and hang with her, not when they had to be at the inn first thing in the morning.
She eyed the phone. She wanted to call Joe, ask him what had gone wrong at the tree farm, why that guy had upset him. Was it related to his divorce as she’d guessed?
Regardless, she had no business breaking down whatever barrier had sprung up between them. That barrier was keeping her safe from herself.
You ever want me to show you what it’s like to have a man in your bed, you know where to find me.
Dylan’s words ran through her mind, as they had several times since the park. She had no intention of taking him up on his offer, but she had to admit she was curious about what it would be like to finally sleep with a man. She was also beginning to wonder if she was waiting for something that was never going to happen....
Maybe holding off was an excuse not to take the risks that came with getting that close to another human being. Maybe she was so fearful of being categorized as a whore, like her mother, that she was determined to remain above any and all accusation, so determined she wasn’t leading a normal life.
Or she was as damaged as her sister and was simply reacting to it differently.
That could be it, she thought, but at least her response to what she and Presley had been through wouldn’t lead to rehab or leave her open to an STD. Her sister didn’t even know if she’d slept with Dylan!
Cheyenne shook her head at the craziness of that. But then her gaze drifted to her cell phone and she decided to go ahead and make a call. She wasn’t sure where it would lead. It would probably be a terrible mistake. But at least diverting herself in this way would insure that she kept her distance from Joe.
* * *
Cheyenne had expected to hear a lot of noise in the background. Music, possibly some raucous laughter. But that wasn’t the case. When Dylan answered, she could hear him perfectly. A dog barked. Probably one of the two he had with him most of the time. That was it.
She almost hung up as soon as he said hello. But she knew caller ID had already recorded her number. Chickening out would be more embarrassing than saying what she’d devised as her excuse.
“Dylan?”
He went silent, as if the sound of her voice took him completely off guard. The fact that she’d called him surprised her, too.
“It’s—” she drew a steadying breath “—it’s Cheyenne. Christensen.”
“I only know one Cheyenne, Cheyenne Christensen. What can I do for you?”
“I’m sorry to bother you, but…” This wasn’t going as smoothly as she’d intended. It was one thing to try to keep her mind off Joe; it was another entirely to contact a virtual stranger just because she’d run into him at the park and thought he might be able to ease her loneliness.
“I don’t mind,” he said, putting the onus of the conversation back on her.
She swallowed, her throat dry. “My sister told me she was coming over again tonight.”
More surprise. “You’re welcome to come with her, if you want,” he said, guessing at the reason behind her call.
That was nice, at least. “I can’t. I have to stay here with my mother.”
“What about that Mostats-Passuello woman? Doesn’t she come over and sit with her sometimes?”
Marcy was a nurse who helped out from time to time. But she had a family. “Once in a while.”
“Call her.”
“I can’t call her this late!”
“So…”
“So I was hoping you’d…that you’d…” Suddenly what she’d rehearsed—I was hoping you’d look out for my sister while she’s there—promised to come across as so lame she couldn’t bring herself to say it. This wasn’t the first time Presley had gone over to his place, and he’d already said nothing would happen to her there.
Face burning, she decided to end this as quickly as possible. “Never mind. I shouldn’t have interrupted you,” she said, and hung up.
“That was colossally stupid.” She groaned, pacing back and forth in the kitchen. For all she knew, he was with another woman. “What was I thinking?”
She’d been thinking that he was a lot more attractive than she’d given him credit for. That she’d gone long enough without knowing what it felt like to make love to a man. That it didn’t matter if she called Dylan, just as long as she didn’t call Joe.
But she’d made a fool of herself.
“I’m an idiot,” she murmured, and forced herself to go to bed.
* * *
Almost two hours later, the doorbell rang. Cheyenne dragged herself from sleep and checked the clock, but it took a moment for the time to register. Two. Who on earth would be at her door in the middle of the night?
She listened to see if the noise had disturbed her mother. But there was no other sound. Anita was so drugged she could probably sleep through the apocalypse. And, apparently, Presley wasn’t home yet. That, however, wasn’t unusual.
Hopefully, her sister was okay....
Climbing out of bed, Cheyenne grabbed the fluffy robe Eve’s parents had given her years ago and shuffled to the front door in matching slippers. There, she peered out the peephole. Then she pressed a panicked hand to her chest. Although the image was somewhat distorted, she recognized the tall, dark figure who stood leaning against the railing.
Dylan.
Cheyenne’s heart began to pound so loudly it reverberated in her ears. What was he doing here?
She’d called the devil, and now he’d come calling on her.
“Oh, boy, oh, boy, oh, boy,” she breathed, flicking her hands. Did she dare open the door? Would he go away if she didn’t?
She hesitated, watching him. He was smoking. She could see the glow of his cigarette.
He waited patiently for a couple of minutes. Then he put out his cigarette and straightened, addressing the door as if he could see her quaking behind it. “Are you going to answer or not?”
Before bed, she’d left the porch light on for Presley, but she’d turned on the living room light when she got up. He knew she was there. It wasn’t as if her mother could respond to a visitor.
Should she let him in?
She couldn’t decide, didn’t know what she’d say once he was inside. She hadn’t consciously committed to seeing him. She’d just given in to whatever weakness had made her react to the way she�
�d felt in the park.
“Go,” she whispered. But when he stepped off the porch to do just that, she unlocked the dead bolt and poked her head out.
He turned at the sound, stopping a little beyond the circle thrown by the porch light. She wondered if he’d been drinking. He’d been doing something in the two hours since she’d called him. But he didn’t seem drunk, wasn’t at all unsteady.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” she asked when he merely stared at her.
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know.” Acute anxiety made it difficult to talk. She was shaking, too. Why, she couldn’t explain. He hadn’t taken so much as a step toward her.
Then she realized how cold he must be. He was wearing the same Levi’s jacket he’d had on earlier with a pair of jeans. The worn denim hugged his body in all the right places, but it didn’t provide much protection against thirty-degree temperatures.
“Would you like to come in?”
“Is that why you called?”
Not in her conscious mind. She could never admit it, not even to herself. But she knew she hadn’t phoned him to ask if he’d look after her sister as she’d pretended. She’d been hoping he could fill the gap her friends had left. He seemed like a safe substitute. He wasn’t part of her circle, wasn’t close to anyone who was, and he wasn’t likely to judge her. Not only that, but she was pretty sure he could keep a secret. He didn’t do a whole lot of talking—about anything. It was other people who talked about him.
She shoved back her hair, combing her fingers through it so she wouldn’t look like a hag after tossing and turning in bed. Then she breathed deep and swung open the door.
He didn’t chuckle at her transparency or taunt her for giving in, as she thought he might. In fact, he said nothing as he walked past her. It was almost as if he was a bit nervous himself.
His gaze cut to the tree, then skimmed over the rest of their threadbare furnishings. But, unlike with Joe, Cheyenne felt no need to apologize for what she lacked. Dylan wouldn’t look down on her for her background or her impoverished circumstances. There was something liberating about feeling like an equal, just as there’d been something liberating about standing at the park, knowing that if she acted badly, he wouldn’t necessarily regard her as a bad person.
For a second, she was afraid he’d wait for her to come up with some small talk and couldn’t think of anything. As much as she must’ve wanted this—or why would she have called him?—she hadn’t rehearsed what would come next.
She owed him an explanation for her unexpected behavior, didn’t she?
Probably. But she was grateful he didn’t demand one. He reached behind him and turned off the light, plunging the room into semidarkness, with only the porch light filtering in from outside. Then he extended his hand to her.
Cheyenne thought she must be dreaming. Except she couldn’t be. If she was, she’d be with Joe and not Dylan Amos.
“Chey?” The vulnerability in his voice told her he was afraid she might reject him. Apparently, he wasn’t quite as cocky as he’d seemed at the park.
Butterflies rioted in her stomach as she stared at his outstretched hand. She dared not touch him, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask him to leave, either. She stood locked in indecision—until he gave her more encouragement.
“It’s okay. I won’t take it too far.”
“How far is too far?” She heard the breathless quality in her own voice but, at the moment, couldn’t seem to speak normally. Her pulse was racing so fast it was making her dizzy.
“Any further than you want to go,” he replied. “You call the shots.”
She wasn’t convinced she could rely on that promise. But if he was dangerous to women, she would’ve heard about it by now. Her sister went over to his place all the time. When he got in trouble with the law, it was for speeding, fighting, possession of unregistered firearms, setting off illegal fireworks—misdemeanors that suggested he had problems with authority, not women. He’d never been picked up for anything sexual in nature.
“I’d hate to get you excited and then…you know, bail out.” She swallowed hard. “But I don’t know what I want. I’m not even sure why I called you. It took me over an hour to get up the nerve.”
“I wondered. But I’m not asking for any kind of commitment.” He crooked his fingers, coaxing her. “Why don’t we start with a simple kiss?”
A kiss sounded innocuous enough. She wanted to kiss him, didn’t she?
Slipping her hand in his, she allowed him to tug her forward. But when his arms went around her, bringing her up against his body, she nearly balked. She didn’t know this man. The solid muscular frame, the hair that fell to his shoulders, the eyes that watched her so closely—it was all foreign to her.
But any man would feel foreign to her. She hadn’t been on a date since Joe’s divorce. The last guy she’d kissed had been twenty-five years her senior and had asked permission.
Dylan seemed cautious, as if he was trying hard not to spook her, but he wasn’t tentative. He knew what he wanted and was working on the best way to get it.
“You smell like Christmas trees and cigarette smoke,” she said as her cheek brushed his.
He rubbed his lips against her ear as he spoke. “I’m sorry. I should quit.”
For his health, he should. But he’d misinterpreted her comment. “I don’t mind the smell,” she admitted. “My mother smoked until recently. Now Presley does. I’m used to it.”
“Your mother is…where?”
Although he was taller by at least six inches, she fit nicely against him. “In her room. Asleep.”
Tilting her head back with both hands, he looked down at her as though he wished he could read her mind, understand her intent. She recalled her earlier opinion—that he had cruel eyes—but they didn’t seem cruel tonight. A soft, liquid brown, they held a world of sensual promise, which he began to fulfill when he brought his lips to hers.
Cheyenne didn’t resist. The contact felt surprisingly natural, considering how little they knew each other. She liked the feel of his mouth, firm yet soft, moving on hers, so much that she leaned closer and parted her lips.
He groaned as their tongues met, sending a wave of awareness through her that weakened her knees. When she answered with a similar sound, his arms tightened until she could feel his erection against her abdomen.
They’d barely touched and yet they were already getting swept away. It felt as if they’d been waiting for this moment their whole lives.
She slipped her hands into his hair, let the silky strands slide through her fingers. She couldn’t taste any alcohol—just spearmint, as if he’d eaten a breath mint on his way over.
“That’s it,” he murmured as she kissed him harder. “I can give you what you want.”
As he trailed kisses down her throat, his hands found their way inside her robe. She thought he’d immediately go for her breasts. They tingled with the desire to be touched. But he slid his palms up her back instead, perhaps to make sure that she was comfortable with such intimacy.
“I’ve wanted to feel you against me for years,” he said.
She didn’t know how that could be true. She’d pretty much ignored his existence. But whatever they’d felt before didn’t matter. Right now she was drowning in desire, so much so she feared her legs wouldn’t have the strength to support her if he let go.
When his hands finally found her breasts, Cheyenne gasped and covered them with her own. A gratified smile told her he took that for the encouragement it was. Kissing her again, he bent her slightly back, then dropped his head to suckle her through the silky fabric of her nightgown.
“Oh…that feels amazing,” she whispered. How could he bring her to a state of arousal so quickly, so easily? She’d felt nothing but mild affection for Principal Kovinski when they made out after their last date. If not for her fantasies about Joe she would’ve feared she was frigid. Never had she been tempted beyond her ability to
resist.
But the fire burning through her veins left no doubt that her body was as healthy and normal as anyone else’s. Maybe she was a little late in embracing her sexuality, but the need building inside her was already turning to an expectant throb between her legs.
She wanted to feel Dylan inside her.
It was a shocking revelation, so shocking that she pulled back.
He seemed reluctant to let her go. He stared at her as if he couldn’t make himself turn away, but he did—and without complaint. When she realized he was leaving, that he thought she’d stomped on the brakes, she caught him by the shoulder.
“No!” she said, and started yanking off his jacket.
She sensed his surprise that he’d misread her intent. Or maybe he was surprised by her sudden aggressiveness. It wasn’t like her to be so forward. But she couldn’t seem to rein herself in.
Fortunately, he didn’t hesitate. He shed his coat. Then he pulled his thermal over his head.
She’d known he had tattoos on his arms. She’d seen them before. There were more on his chest. She couldn’t tell what they were in the dark, couldn’t see clearly enough. But she didn’t really care. Being able to feel him was all that mattered.
As he tossed away his shirt, she explored the sinewy contours of his chest and arms with her hands and mouth. It was insane, inexplicable, but she wanted to do things to him she’d never imagined before, and he didn’t seem to mind. She could hear the change in his breathing, knew he was feeling the same crush of excitement.
Then she glanced up and saw the stubborn set to his jaw and realized he was trying to retain control of the situation. “What?” she said.
“This is hard to believe,” he explained, but he closed his eyes and dropped his head against the wall when she found his nipple.
“Why?” she murmured against the wet spot she’d made. She was too absorbed to manage a conversation. She didn’t want to think, anyway. She just wanted to get rid of the rest of his clothes, to feel more of his supple skin.
“You never let anyone touch you.”
“So?”
“Why me?”
“I don’t know.”
