“Oh, the things I want to do to you,” he said, with a combination of a moan and a growl. His voice was gravelly, and sexier than it had ever been on the radio. He ran a hand from her shoulder between her breasts and down, letting it come to rest on the swell of her abdomen. She ached with desire. “With your permission, obviously. But I have one thing to ask first. A favor.”
Suzanne had to admit, despite her constant goal of keeping the upper hand with Dylan, there wasn’t much she wouldn’t have agreed to right now. If only he would do those things he wanted to do. But she nodded, waiting.
“We can stay right here all day, and you can have your wicked way with me all you want.” He gave her the lopsided grin she had come to treasure. “In fact, we don’t have to leave for days or weeks—we’ll live on room service if you want.”
“Okay,” she breathed, still trying to think of a clever retort or some remnant of their usual banter. Nothing came. His hand on her lower abdomen seemed to be clouding all her thoughts.
“But just please promise me one thing: if you’re going to freak out and leave me here alone, go today. Or tonight while it’s dark. It will suck, but I’m a big boy and I’ll deal with it.”
Suzanne shook her head in protest, but he continued. “I’m falling for you, Scarlett. Have fallen. I’m pretty sure you feel the same way. But if you need to go, if this isn’t right for you, I think right now I can deal with being just the next guy on your list. Maybe.” He winced a bit and went on. “But if you’re here tomorrow morning, if I get to wake up with your hair in my face and your body in my arms…well, then, I won’t look back. My heart will be on the line. Don’t break it.”
He was so sweet and sincere, part of her wanted to pull him to her and promise him that she would never break his heart. But in another part of her, the old hesitation was still there. She loved him now, but how long would it last? Could she be trusted with someone’s heart?
She chickened out, and settled for their preferred method of communication. “I don’t know…” she teased. “Maybe a broken heart is good for your career.”
Suzanne was angry with herself as soon as the words left her lips. For once, he was being sincere with her. How could she be so glib about it? She was confused: she loved him deeply, wanted him desperately, and she was terrified of how out of control everything felt.
But her teasing comment didn’t seem to hit Dylan the way it felt to her. “That’s it,” he said, with menacing playfulness. “You’re in serious trouble now.” He held her down and tickled her, and she writhed beneath him, making a show of trying to get away while they both laughed. Soon his smile faded and they were kissing again. Suzanne sat up, pushing against him while they kissed, and found to her surprise that the shaky feeling was gone.
She unbuttoned Dylan’s shirt carefully and admired his lean, bare torso and the tiny tufts of russet hair that emerged from the top of his jeans and under his arms. She let her manicured nails linger on his skin, loving the way the flesh rippled slightly beneath her touch. He closed his eyes and groaned, and then pressed her back onto the bed again with a long, deep kiss. His mouth resumed its roving across her skin, tenderly kissing and nipping at her neck and shoulders, following her midline down until he was removing her panties with his teeth.
Suzanne thought she would explode with excitement while his mouth danced around its goal, kissing her inner thighs repeatedly, and then the mound of flesh just above her pubic hair and back again, grinning up at her the whole time. She began to moan in pleasure and frustration, arching toward him, her whole body begging. And then, finally, he inhaled deeply and sank his mouth onto her, gently but fully, his warm breath finally connecting with its intended mark, along with lips, teeth and…oh! tongue. At once, he was outside her, consuming her like a warm comforting dish, and inside her, probing and exploring her to a titillation she had never before experienced.
Suzanne panted and moaned like she hadn’t done since…ever. She knew how to make the noises men wanted to hear, and sometimes they expressed her pleasure, too, but never before had she abandoned herself this way. Perhaps it was the safety of the penthouse, where she knew they would not be overheard or maybe it was just that she had no choice. She cried out Dylan’s name as though it was the last word that would escape her lips, and he responded by making his movements more forceful. It felt like mere seconds until the pleasure overwhelmed her, sending her shuddering so violently into Dylan’s mouth that she was worried for a moment that she’d hurt him.
But the lopsided smile said it all. He was proud of himself, she could tell. Or maybe he’d enjoyed it almost as much as she had, or both. “Damn,” he said softly. She waited for him to say the standard things the occasion called for. You taste so good, or I love watching you come, or something equally bawdy. But what Dylan said next surprised her. “I do believe, Miss Scarlett, you could break my heart right now if you wanted.”
She sat up to kiss him, and he kissed her back, but gently pushed her hand away as she reached for his jeans. He eased her back down and lay half on top of her, kissing her deeply and massaging her with his hand. The second orgasm was surprising; the third, unprecedented. She was beside herself, and seriously expecting to wake any minute to find she’d overslept and missed American Breakfast entirely.
Finally, looking pleased with himself, Dylan kicked out of his jeans, returned to embrace her, and pushed himself inside her as naturally as if they did this every day. He moved with a slow, regular rhythm, looking and feeling like something every woman would love to bottle and sell. To her shock, she felt herself moving toward climax again. “I love you,” she said into his ear as she trembled once more beneath him, violating her own rules about professing emotion during sex. And then, to even her surprise, she spoke the truth that had been building in her since the moment he announced his sabbatical on national television. It seemed beyond her power to deny it now. “I’m going to stay.”
Suzanne Hamilton had thrown out her own rulebook.
“What?” he said, breathless.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said, pulling him closer on top of her. “I’ll be here in the morning. I promise.”
Dylan let out a husky cry and she felt him tense, and then relax on top of her, kissing her neck and muttering something she couldn’t understand. They lay like that for a long time, spent and happy, listening to the sounds of their own breath slowing to normal.
“Well,” he said eventually, rolling next to her and wrapping her in his arms. “That lived up to my expectations.”
She smiled and stroked his hair. The day’s events were surreal, and now that her body was peaceful, her mind worked to understand everything that had happened.
“Are you seriously taking a sabbatical?” she asked after they’d been quiet for a while. “Or was that just the world’s most dramatic pickup line? Which obviously worked like a charm…”
He laughed and turned on his side to face her, his elbow propping up his head. “Truth?”
“Have we ever done anything else?”
“Fair enough. Honestly, I was already planning to take a couple of months off after the tour anyway. The guys need a break. Eddie’s wife just had a baby; John’s dad has been sick. We’re all a little worn out right now, and if you keep that up you get bad music.”
Suzanne realized that, like most people, she had been seeing the glamorous side of his life, not the real person side. Dylan was a musician and an image in the press, but it was just now occurring to her that he was also a boss, the CEO of a company that floated or sank with him. Did he provide health insurance? 401(k)? Could the drummer in a rock band take family or medical leave? She supposed she would learn all of this, because this would now be her world, too.
The truth of it struck her. She was now in this, for better or worse, whether they got married or not. For an instant, the familiar sensation of panic tightened in her chest; her legs felt the first tingling of a desire to scoop up her clothes and run like hell. But she forc
ed herself to take a deep breath and nuzzle closer to him, tracing patterns across his chest with her finger.
“So you were going to take a break anyway?” she asked.
“Well, a short one. I’d been thinking when we planned this tour that we’d start work on the new album at the end of this month—give the guys six weeks and then hit it again. We’ve done stuff at the holidays for the last couple of years, too, and then we were scheduled to record the album by the end of January. But then after your little speech at the cabin, I talked to Yvette and cleared everything through February. And we can push it back longer if you want. I said a year this morning just to cover the bases.”
“That must have been some conversation,” Suzanne said. She’d seen Yvette in an absolute tizzy over the wording of a press release; she found it hard to imagine the chipmunk-like woman after receiving news of at least a six-month setback.
Dylan shook his head, chuckling. “Yeah, she pretty much went supersonic on me. Dogs were barking for miles around. But I suggested it would give her more time to work on that charity album you’ve been demanding from us. Plus, I gave her a bonus and put her on a plane to Hawaii. She’ll be all right.”
This is how he gets you, Suzanne thought. A little charm, a little pampering, and he’s bending you to his will. “She’s probably happy, though,” he went on, “making maps of all the places on the islands with cell service…rewriting my performance contracts…”
“So did you arrange all of this—the show and everything?”
“Well, kind of. Yvette’s been trying to get me to go on those morning shows forever. Apparently a bunch of country singers are doing more of that, trying to catch a younger audience before school or whatever. Anyway, they wanted me on American Breakfast and I told them only if it included you and we could talk about Bonita. The rest of it just sort of fell into place.”
They lay silent for a couple of moments, both thinking about their shared experience, shared loss. Suzanne’s pain had dulled, but it was still powerful sometimes.
“I never got to tell you, did I?” Dylan said after a bit. “That I tried to find you?”
“What? When?”
“That first night we kissed. After I left Marci’s house. I tried to come back to find you, but I got lost.”
“You what?”
“I got lost in Alpharetta. Looking for Marci’s house. I drove around until, like, three in the morning.” Then seeing her face, he reddened and tackled her playfully. “Shut up! Everything looks the same there at night!”
“Really? I hadn’t noticed,” she laughed. Suzanne ran her fingers absently over a tribal-looking tattoo around one of Dylan’s biceps. “So, what happens next?”
“That depends on you,” he said. “If you feel ready, we’ll do the album for next summer and do an abbreviated tour. Actually, Eddie and I have been talking about doing a small-venue tour for a while now—go play all the dive bars and garden parties we used to do. And I was hoping, if you’re not too busy, maybe you’d come with me. At least some of the time.”
“Won’t that cramp your style? I mean, with the guys?”
“Did you know Paul and Linda McCartney only spent a few nights apart the entire time they were married?” he asked. “It didn’t seem to hold him back. Besides, I’m the boss.”
“You’ve thought about this quite a bit, haven’t you?” she asked.
“Well, I did have some extra time on my hands this summer,” he said. “I pretty much alternated between wishing I’d never met you, and trying to figure out how to make it work. And cold showers, of course.”
“At least you don’t need one of those today,” she said.
He rolled toward her, grinning lewdly. “Want to make sure?”
Suzanne shoved him away playfully. “Are you kidding? I’m exhausted. Besides,” she put on her most dripping Scarlett O’Hara accent, “when I was brought to this establishment I was promised room service and I expect you to keep your word to a lady.”
He laughed, rolled on top of her, pausing seductively. He reached across her for the phone on the bedside table, handing it to her as he rolled out of bed on the other side. “Order anything you want. Literally, anything. They’ll either make it or find it for you, I promise,” he said. “I’ll have a cheeseburger and a beer.”
“It’s not even eleven yet,” Suzanne protested.
Dylan just laughed. As the concierge inquired in a professional, if slightly husky voice, how she could assist Mr. Burke today, Suzanne watched him cross naked to the bathroom and get into the shower.
“Hello? Mr. Burke?” the concierge asked. She had nearly hung up before Suzanne found her voice to answer.
#
Several hours later, Suzanne woke suddenly in the semi-darkness. She felt the arm draped over her, heavy with sleep, and heard light snoring next to her. It took a moment to remember where she was as the lights of the city helped bring the room into focus. Dishes were still piled on a tray near the bed; clothes and wet towels were scattered around the well-appointed room.
The bedside clock informed her that it was one in the morning, but she felt as though she’d had a full night’s sleep. She pieced together her memories of the day: being on television, Dylan’s announcement that he was in love with her and taking a sabbatical, making love to him for the first time (and three times after that), showering separately and together, talking for hours, falling asleep as the sunset gleamed in pink and orange through the massive windows. Now, with all traces of the sun long gone, the significance of the day and its events came back to her. His arm around her felt heavier the more she remembered.
Despite her best efforts to fight it, the familiar tightening in her chest appeared like an old friend. This panicked sensation, and the relief that running away produced, had been two of her closest companions over the years. They had outlasted every man she’d been with, propelled her through every door, protected her from hurt and, until now, from love.
She turned to look at the man holding her. Dylan Burke—whose face had first become familiar to her through the pages of gossip magazines, who she had insulted openly before their first meeting, and who she had slowly come to adore—was sleeping soundly next to her. He looked happy. It was a kind of peaceful contentment Suzanne envied. Maybe, if she stayed with him, she would learn his secret to staying happy in the midst of the chaos.
If I stay with him. The tightness in her chest sharpened a bit, and she tried to push Dylan’s arm discreetly up to relieve some of the pressure on her body. She had promised to stay, and meant it, in the heat of their passion this morning. They had passed the afternoon in hedonistic abandon, talking, eating, and exploring the physical connection that seemed to culminate all their months of banter and confusion. The day had been near-perfect, which made it easy to imagine that things would work out, and easy to leave her promise untouched on the table like a peppermint from their last meal.
But now, in the quiet darkness, doubt was beginning to encroach on her. Dylan’s arm, so comforting and strong earlier in the day, was beginning to feel like it was made of solid steel, trapping her. She remembered his words: If you’re here tomorrow morning, my heart will be on the line. Don’t break it.
Suzanne understood what he meant. If she stayed with him, if she snuggled closer and allowed herself to drift off to sleep again, she was throwing her lot in with his. As consciousness slipped away, so would her freedom, the one thing she had always held dear, always kept to herself. There would be no looking back. She and Dylan would stay in this room for a few delicious days, like a honeymoon, and then whether they formalized their arrangement with marriage or not, she knew she would be giving herself to him, tying her life to his. For better or worse. And what real life would be like, after the dream in this room ended, she had no idea.
Or, she could leave now, while he slept, and what they’d shared would be peacefully over. She would go back to the certainty of her own world, where she was in control. She’d continue her work wit
h the foundation, maybe even branch out to other charities or areas of service. Dylan would be sad, but he’d forgive her, and she knew for certain that he would move on. There would be no shortage of young starlets and groupies waiting in line to nurse his poor, public broken heart. She would be sad, too; in fact, she knew that her own heart would be broken. But wasn’t it better to break both their hearts now than the painful, public disaster this was sure to be?
Of all the men on her list, with very few exceptions, Dylan Burke was just about the worst choice imaginable for a husband. He made his living being young and wild and loud; his reputation would continue to lure girls to his door for years to come, committed or not. In fact, she thought sourly, she knew that any public commitment he made to her might make him more of a conquest to some of those women he’d be meeting every night backstage. She had seen how some women flocked to men as soon as that little gold band appeared on their hands, eager to find out whether they could take someone else’s treasure.
Worse, Dylan would be on the road half the time, living the life she’d seen firsthand at his mountain house. How could she compete with that? Would she have to be with him constantly? Follow him around like her mother did her dad, putting her needs last, trying to hold on to him? Plus, they would bicker constantly, she knew. They always did. What would happen when that stopped being stimulating and flirty, and deteriorated into just plain bickering?
Suzanne glanced at Dylan’s sleeping form, and her heart surged. She wanted to wake him and kiss him. She wanted to run away from the power he had over her and never look back. She squeezed her eyes shut, unable to see anything but the horrible list on her dining room wall. All the years, all the men, all the times she’d made this very same choice. It had never been so hard. She had never felt so lost.
Regrets Only (Sequel to The Marriage Pact) Page 27
