Now, it was time they faced the music and figured out once and for all where, if anywhere, this thing between them was headed. As much as he wanted to indulge himself for one night with Sarah, Dylan knew that wasn’t him. He wanted more than one night. A hell of a lot more.
Not making a sound, he allowed the door to close behind him, then set his coffee cup on the bathroom counter. He stood there, staring at her as she inhaled deeply, then released the breath slowly, her shoulders squaring.
He was pretty sure she thought he’d stayed out in the hall.
Dylan watched as she picked up her coffee, took a sip, then turned around. He met her gaze, held it. He sensed that she was surprised to see him standing there, but she didn’t say as much. Anger ignited in her eyes, and he knew she was fighting back the frustration. He couldn’t blame her.
Yet he couldn’t help but think that she was so damn cute when she was pissed.
Then it hit him. Just as she’d mentioned earlier, there were two beds in this room. “Why do you have your own room? Why weren’t you staying with Bill?” he asked when he didn’t notice anything that could possibly belong to a man.
Glancing around, it looked as though she was trying to figure out how he would know that.
“Only girl stuff in there,” he said, nodding toward the bathroom. “Don’t forget that you invited me to stay.” He glanced at the second bed.
“You’re into threesomes, remember?” she countered hotly.
So she was feisty. He liked that. Dylan cocked an eyebrow before stalking her across the room.
Her eyes flared and she took a step backward. Dylan took Sarah’s coffee cup from her hand and set it on the dresser, moving closer.
It was now or never. “Have you been with anyone since me?”
Yes, he was fully aware how arrogant the question was, but he wanted to know. It was imperative that he know. He didn’t understand the reasoning behind it, but the primal beast inside of him was roaring to life.
That banked fury ignited in her eyes, but Dylan ignored it. He didn’t care if she was angry; he wanted to know the answer to his question. He moved closer.
“Tell me,” he insisted, closing the rest of the gap between them
Sarah backed up again until she had nowhere to go.
In the next instant, he was up against her, his body pressing into hers. God, she smelled so fucking good. Like roses and sunshine. He planted his palms on the wall on each side of her head and continued to stare down at her, the hard ridge of his erection pressed intimately against her belly as he slid one knee between her legs.
“What are you doing?” she whispered, a sexy rasp accompanying the words.
“What does it look like?” He kept his voice low, even.
“It looks like you’re bein’ an ass,” she said. “I think it’s best if you leave.”
“I don’t want to leave, Sarah.” His tone gentled even more, his eyes as well.
“Your mood swings are gonna give me whiplash,” she announced, her lips pursed.
Her hands flattened on his chest and she pushed, but Dylan didn’t budge.
He couldn’t. He finally had her right where he wanted her; the last thing he intended to do was to walk away again.
“Now answer my question.”
chapter TEN
AS HE STOOD THERE, STARING down at Sarah’s surprised features, Dylan realized this night wasn’t going exactly the way he had expected it to.
Eh. He hadn’t really known how it would go, truthfully. And never could he have predicted that he’d go to Devotion and end up in a hotel room with a woman he hadn’t stopped thinking about for nearly three years.
Amend that—a pissed off woman he hadn’t stopped thinking about.
No doubt, Sarah was working up a good mad, but she hadn’t yelled at him yet. He was beginning to wonder if she was even capable of it. Lord knew she had every reason to be angry with him. Not only for his recent behavior but also for what he’d done years ago.
He’d somehow let his emotions build up and now he was taking it out on her. She didn’t deserve this crap from him, but Dylan didn’t know what else to do. Was there a better way to handle this situation? Undoubtedly. Would he change the way it had played out so far? Maybe a little.
The fact that he was in a hotel room with Sarah Davis should’ve been enough for him.
But it wasn’t. Not by a long shot.
Backing away from her when she made another weak attempt at pushing him away, Dylan allowed his hands to fall to his sides.
“Why won’t you answer the damn question?” he asked.
“Because it doesn’t matter,” she snapped.
“What’s really goin’ on with you and Bill?”
It seemed downright strange that a man would invite a woman on a weekend getaway only to get two separate rooms and then surprise her with an impromptu trip to a sex club. Without ever having sex with her before? Either the dude really was a dumb ass or there was more to this story than Sarah was letting on.
Then again, Dylan was being a special form of dumb ass by continuing to press the issue, but that possessive side of him wanted to know that she was his for the taking. Because he had every intention of taking her. However, he wanted her to confirm that whatever had been between her and Bill was no longer standing between them before he made his move.
Sarah sighed, then moved toward the bed and flopped down on the edge. “You’re not gonna let this go, are you?”
Dylan didn’t say a word, simply continued to watch her.
Sarah’s shoulders sagged a little. “Like I told you, I’ve been seein’ him for a few months. Casually.”
“Where’d you meet him?”
“Starbucks. He bought my coffee.” She looked up at him, then dropped her gaze to her hands. “We hadn’t seen each other for a couple of weeks when I invited him to the CISS party. I knew I couldn’t handle seeing you, so it was a last-ditch effort to protect myself. It probably would’ve been over between us if I hadn’t invited him then.”
“Did it work?”
Sarah’s eyes were sad when she peered up at him. “Not at all.”
That made him feel better, in an odd way.
“He asked me to go away with him for the weekend, and I got a bug up my ass last night because I knew if I didn’t do something, I would spend too much time thinking about…” She looked at him, but she didn’t finish the sentence. Dylan didn’t need her to. He knew what she was referring to. “Next thing I knew, I had agreed and he was picking me up this morning.” Sarah’s gaze lowered to her hands. “I was tryin’ to come up with a way to back out when you showed up at my house. But then when I saw you, I knew I couldn’t. Back out. I needed to move forward.” She sighed deeply.
“So you went because of me?”
“No,” she answered quickly. “I went because of me.”
“So you’ve never slept with him, yet you decided to go to a hotel with him? For the weekend?”
“I didn’t actually know he was taking me to a hotel.”
“But you knew he was taking you somewhere. Did you think the guy was gonna get a tent? What the hell, Sarah?”
Sarah rolled her eyes. “Okay, so maybe I knew deep down. I just needed”—her eyes softened—“a distraction.”
He swallowed hard. A distraction.
That word was being thrown around way too much for his liking.
At one time, he’d been her distraction and she’d been his. At least in her version of things.
“Not the smartest decision I’ve ever made, I know,” Sarah continued. “When we got here, I told him I wanted separate rooms. He said he’d thought ahead and he got me my own room, but he’d been hoping I would stay with him.”
“Did he pay for this?” If she said yes, Dylan was going to march his happy ass right down to the check-in desk and make sure they changed the credit card on file. No way was he sleeping in a room that douche paid for.
“He tried. I slipped down and put i
t on my card. I didn’t want him paying for anything for me, because I was planning to tell him that we could only be friends, but I hadn’t gotten around to it. I felt guilty for leading him on.” She glanced down at her hands. “I’m a chicken, I know.”
“Friends,” Dylan muttered. “That’s a mighty swift kick to the ego, Sarah. And you were gonna tell him tonight? Before or after the club?”
Her shoulders stiffened. “I didn’t know about the club until we got there.”
“So it’s over between you and Bill?” he asked directly, wanting to get to the point. “That’s what I need to know. Are you and Bill over?”
A small smile curled the edge of her lips. “There wasn’t anything between us, Dylan. Regardless, if there was, I think it’s safe to assume I’m done with him.”
Dylan took a step closer to the bed, stopping directly in front of her, then tilting her chin up with his finger, forcing her to look at him. “I don’t want you to assume, Sarah. I need you to tell me that it’s over.”
She frowned, her eyes raking over his face. Finally, Sarah nodded. “It’s over. Is that what you want to hear?”
He released a breath, feeling lighter although he wasn’t even sure why. “It is, yes.”
“Why?”
Dylan slid his thumb over her lower lip. He wanted to kiss her, to put his lips over hers and inhale her sigh. To taste her sweetness on his tongue, to feel the warmth of her mouth. To lay her back and cover her with his body, to slide deep inside her and make her cry out for him and only him. Never again did he want to hear another man’s name pass her lips. Certainly not Bill’s.
He took a step back. “So what now?”
Sarah shrugged.
All the fight seemed to drain out of him, so Dylan joined her on the bed, sitting a few inches away from her.
The two of them sat in silence for several minutes. Dylan resisted the urge to touch her, to put his hand on her thigh, to lean over and press his mouth to hers. She was still wearing his jacket, and for whatever reason, he found that sexy as hell. He wanted her so fucking bad it hurt, but until he could figure out where they stood and which direction they would be heading, he knew pursuing more was a bad idea.
“Why’d you show up at my house this morning?” she asked, breaking the thick silence.
He weighed his answer before he spoke. The last thing he wanted to do was to lie to her. “Jake mentioned he was going to cat sit for you because you were going away with Bill for the weekend,” he finally said, not looking at her. “I got jealous.”
The mattress shifted when she jerked her head toward him. “Jealous?”
Dylan nodded.
“Really?”
Okay, it wasn’t that hard to believe.
Wringing his hands in his lap, Dylan thought about all the things he’d wanted to say to her, but he didn’t know which part to start with. This was new for him. Confusing as hell to boot. Yes, he’d been jealous. To the point he hadn’t slept for shit last night, conjuring up a million images of Sarah with another man. Right or wrong, Dylan didn’t want her to be with anyone else.
Sarah flung herself back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, and the shift in the mattress, combined with her new position, which caused that sexy-as-fuck dress to slide up her thighs, made his jeans suddenly very uncomfortable.
“Is it me, or have we done this all backwards?” Sarah questioned softly.
Dylan figured it was a rhetorical question, but he answered anyway. “More like twisted.”
Sarah peered over at him. “Like a detour? The scenic route? From dating in high school to friends to sex to … whatever this is?”
“Pretty much.”
“Do you ever miss high school?”
Dylan swallowed hard. He figured she was talking about a time when nothing else mattered, but Dylan’s thoughts immediately drifted to Meghan. He still remembered the day he’d fallen for her. She’d been in several of his classes over the course of their four years in high school, but it hadn’t been until his senior year that he’d noticed her. Really noticed her.
The sad part was, his life had come full circle. He’d been dating Sarah when he started talking to Meghan. It might’ve only been a couple of months, but they’d been having fun. However, with that part of his life coming to a close, he knew that dating a freshman would as well. The last thing he’d wanted to do was hurt Sarah, so he’d ended things before they ever got started. And it wasn’t until they were over that he entertained the notion of dating Meghan.
So yeah, full circle.
And look where they were now.
“Yeah, I miss it,” he muttered. “More than you know.”
When the emotion got too heavy, Dylan got to his feet. He held out a hand, and when Sarah took it, he helped her up.
She was tiny. At six foot one, Dylan knew he was taller than average. However, compared to his friends, who topped out at six six, he was average. But compared to Sarah… She didn’t even come up to his armpit.
Tiny.
He liked that about her. It made him feel protective of her, as though he could easily wrap her in his arms and keep her safe. Although he doubted she’d like that one bit. The woman was fiercely independent and strong-willed, so he knew she wouldn’t want a man coddling her.
“What do you say we start over?” he questioned, tilting her chin up so she had to look at him.
The question must have taken her by surprise, because she didn’t respond right away. Dylan held her gaze, waiting as his chest expanded until he didn’t think he’d be able to breathe.
“I’d say yes,” she finally replied after licking her lips, “but I can’t forget it all, Dylan. As nice as it would be to start fresh, we’ve both… we’ve both been molded by our history. Even what happened between us … before. I can’t forget. I don’t want to. Not all of it, anyway.”
He didn’t want to, either. And he wasn’t talking about all of the things he’d experienced in his life. He was talking about that one night with Sarah. Those few stolen minutes when he’d buried himself deep inside her, getting lost in the warmth of her body. In that moment, he’d felt complete for the first time in years. But the moment it was over, his world had come crashing back down on him, ripping his heart to shreds.
“So what if we don’t forget?” he questioned, studying her face. “What if we … start again? Maybe do things differently.”
“You mean the sex?” Her eyes flashed.
His body instantly hardened.
“Like before?” she added. “A distraction?”
“No,” he answered immediately. “Not a distraction. That’s not what I want, Sarah. I never wanted that.”
“Then what do you want?”
This was the stipulation he’d been thinking about earlier. Though a one-night stand with Sarah would definitely quell the urge, it wouldn’t be enough. Not by a long shot.
Confused as to how to relay that to her, he turned away and slid his hands over what little hair he had. He paced to the window. The world beyond, though cloaked in darkness, was moving forward, one second at a time, just as it always had. And here he was, trying to find a way to tell this woman that he didn’t want her to be with anyone else, but also that he couldn’t make any commitments to her.
Sex? Yeah. It sounded like a damn good plan.
But even he knew he wanted more than that.
He could get laid in a heartbeat if he wanted to. Since Meghan, he’d resisted one-night stands, mostly because he knew he didn’t care enough to even remember their names if it came to it. He’d reaffirmed that he’d made the right decision after the night he’d been with Sarah. That shouldn’t have been a one-night stand. It should’ve continued. No other woman made him feel the way she did. They never would.
And eleven years without a woman, aside from the too-brief encounter with Sarah… Dylan was coiled tighter than a cobra.
“You know what?” Sarah called from behind him.
Dylan turned to face her.
His eyebrows lifted. He was on board with that plan. Though he hadn’t exactly expected sweet Sarah Davis to be quite so blunt.
“Dinner,” he echoed. “Then sex.”
Sarah laughed. “I didn’t say that. I said talk about sex.”
“I didn’t know you were into that kinky stuff.” He was trying to lighten the mood, and the smile she shot him told him he’d succeeded.
“Talk, Dylan. Listen carefully. Process what I’m saying.” She smiled. “That doesn’t mean we’ll have sex.”
“Maybe not,” he agreed. “But you want to.”
Her chin jutted out slightly, as though she was thinking about it but trying to reject the idea. A full-fledged grin formed on her pretty pink mouth. “It’s not the worst idea in the world.”
Closing the distance between them once more, Dylan cupped her face and held her there, simply looking at her. “I’m game. For both. Dinner and sex. Or talking about sex. Whatever.”
A laugh escaped her as she pulled back. Dylan allowed his hands to drop to his sides.
“Good, ’cause I’m starving.” She removed his jacket and laid it on the bed. “Now, come on, let’s—”
A knock interrupted her, and Dylan peered over at the door.
Sarah hightailed it over, standing on her toes and peering through the security hole. When she turned around, her eyes were wide. She backed up against the door, palms flat against it as though she was trying to hold it closed.
“Sarah?”
Bill.
Great.
The little fucker must’ve realized she’d left the club.
The idea that Bill had brought Sarah to the club with the notion of putting her into a precarious situation pissed Dylan off. It made him want to beat the shit out of the guy. The bastard clearly didn’t know how to treat a woman.
And you do?
Distraction (Club Destiny Book 8) Page 14
