Strapless

by Leigh Riker

  “What’d I say?” he asked. “You’re frowning.”

  “Nothing. I was just…pondering sheep.”

  “Counting,” he said. “You tired? We can go back if you want.”

  To Dylan’s room? He always seemed eager to end their sight-seeing. Part of her didn’t want to spend this precious day anywhere but in his bed. But the rest—because she might never come here again, no matter how sweetly he asked, allowed Dylan to help her on board the boat. It was named Aussie One. Oh, he certainly was.

  Within minutes the catamaran was underway again, and Darcie tried to forget her misgivings, her mixed feelings, about going home. At the exit of the Quay, the boat glided into the harbor past the Sydney Opera House but Darcie scarcely noticed. What if she could stay here for a while? Oversee the needed renovations to Wunderthings’ new space in the QVB, assuming the contract was approved? Become Walt’s point man—woman—for the store? Put her own stamp on its display windows, its interior design?

  Recalling her fantasy of Dylan as a model in the window, Darcie felt the breeze blow through her hair. She watched it lift Dylan’s darker silk strands, inhaled the ocean scents and watched the smile play on his lips and in his dark eyes. She couldn’t get close enough to him today, and crowded nearer. He slipped one arm around her shoulders, the other around her waist and held her tight at the rail.

  “Watch.”

  With his chin, he gestured at the opera house, the boat sliding past it, and Darcie’s breath caught at the up-close view.

  One of the most readily recognized buildings in the world had disappointed her at first sight. From the distance the Sydney Opera House appeared smaller than expected, not as impressive, and instead of the sparkling white she’d anticipated, it had looked dull, almost muddy. But here, looking up at its famous roofline of “sails,” she could see the individual tiles that comprised it and the awesome view brought tears to her eyes.

  “It’s immense, really.”

  “Tons and tons of concrete, ceramic…” Dylan turned her face-on toward it. “Keep looking.”

  Darcie did, then couldn’t believe her eyes. In the shifting play of light and shadow across the water, the roof changed color—from that flat brown to beige and then to cream, and finally, to a sheer, dazzling white. In the space of seconds it changed completely, magnificent and startling and graceful. She blinked harder.

  Hormones, she might tell herself. But on her second day in Sydney they’d kicked in (thank goodness that hadn’t bothered Dylan) and her period had been over for a week. Then why so blue?

  All around her boat horns blared, people called greetings from the decks, the water churned with celebration. Aussies certainly knew how to handle their national holiday. As joyously, she thought, as Dylan handled her.

  “Beautiful,” she whispered around the lump in her throat.

  Dylan tipped up her face to kiss her and the word went through her again.

  Darcie gazed back at the receding view of the opera house, glistening in the full sunlight now. She wished for a camera. But the postcards she’d bought would have to do. So would her memories of these two weeks, with Dylan Rafferty.

  “What do you want to do next?”

  “Eat lunch.”

  “And then?”

  “I’m waiting for the fireworks.” Darcie meant that night, with Dylan in his room, their last night, but she would indulge him. He was crazy about the actual star-bursts that would illuminate the harbor, he’d told her. All Aussies were.

  “Any excuse will do,” he said, and kissed her again.

  On the beach at Manly, their next stop that afternoon, Darcie’s senses heated another ten degrees. The sun blazed hotter in the blue Australian sky. In her new bikini she basked in its warmth, and the ever growing heat in Dylan’s eyes.

  But if Darcie had felt naked before, she felt positively exposed now. The crescent of beach, half an hour’s ferry ride north from Sydney, was jammed with sun worshippers, half of whom seemed to be cavorting on the sand or taking in the rays without most of their clothes. The women did sun topless here, she could report to Gran, and Darcie wanted to crawl inside her own skin to hide. You have nice breasts, Eden had said. But yowsah. Look at that. And that. And those.

  By comparison with other women here, she felt her breasts looked skimpy, malnourished. Famine Barbie At the Beach.

  Fanned out around her on every square inch of golden sand from the water that lapped against the shore in the sheltered cove to the row of towering Norfolk pines by the nearby street lay dozens—hundreds?—of sleek Aussie females, darkly tanned, scantily dressed. Bikinis, like opals, seemed to be the choice for most.

  “Good grief,” she murmured, though Dylan seemed unimpressed.

  His mouth touched her ear, making her shudder in reaction.

  “Take off your bra.” Darcie started to protest and he said, “Shy, darling?”

  “No. I just…we don’t do that in America.”

  And in Cincinnati? Ha. Her mother, her father, if not Annie would die if they knew Darcie had even considered baring herself to the sun, the crowd and Dylan. Not that he hadn’t seen her “wares” before.

  He propped himself on an elbow and studied her.

  “Chicken.”

  “Sheep,” she said, tracing a line with her index finger across his smile. “You think I should follow the flock? When I see the men around us taking off their skinny little Speedos, and you join them, I’ll reconsider.”

  “I think you’re chicken.” He smiled behind his sunglasses then trailed a finger down her side. Her mostly nude side. “I also think you want to…almost as much as I want you to. Truth or dare.”

  “I’m not playing.”

  Dylan sighed in obvious disappointment. “See that girl over there?” He craned his neck to look back over his shoulder at a nearby blanket. A woman was lying on her back, alone. “She’s about your size, but hers are tilted. And her nip—”

  Darcie slapped his hand. “Pervert. Voyeur.”

  “I’d rather watch you. I’d rather…” He trailed off, frowning. Dylan flopped back onto one of the beach towels they’d bought several blocks away in one of the souvenir shops. “Hell,” he nearly whispered, “I can’t bear the thought of you leaving tomorrow.”

  Alarmed, Darcie gently put her hand over his mouth to silence him.

  “Don’t. Let’s not talk about that today.” She couldn’t bear it.

  He turned his head away from her touch.

  “I wish we didn’t live so far apart.”

  “Me, too.” She couldn’t deny that. But Darcie had almost conquered her earlier sorrow about her flight tomorrow over thousands of miles of open ocean—not something she cared to dwell on in any circumstance. Now that she was leaving Dylan…

  As if he sensed her renewed unhappiness, he rolled onto his elbow again and smiled at her, a sexy glint in his eyes, she supposed, though she couldn’t see them behind his shades, a definitely intent slant to his lips.

  “I know how you can make me forget.”

  He moved closer until his hip nudged hers. His hard, warm thigh touched Darcie’s and she tingled. She could feel herself loosen, tighten in different places, right here on the beach. Across the street, where traffic moved up and down in front of the hotels, where horns tooted and boom boxes vibrated on the warm summer air, people walked and bicyclists rode and skate boarders glided. Hardly private.

  “Take off the top, Matilda. Please.”

  “You’re a very bad man.”

  As if to prove the point, he tugged at the string around Darcie’s neck. Before she could move to stop him, Dylan had drawn her bikini top down. He reached behind her to pull the tie at her back and she felt a sensuous slither along her skin.

  Darcie tried to turn over onto her stomach but he splayed a hand across her abdomen. “Oh. God,” she managed.

  And then she was naked to the hot sun, and Dylan’s eyes. And those of anyone else who walked by or glanced over.

  “Sprea
d your fingers on your chest.”

  She gazed up at him blankly. The sun felt good, actually. Look at me, Ma. The closest thing to skinny-dipping. Janet would turn ten shades of red, not from sunburn. But all at once, with the warmth upon her skin, everywhere, Darcie liked it. When she still didn’t move, Dylan lifted her hands, placing them over her breasts, covering her. Except that her nipples poked between her fingers. Hard. Like diamonds, not opals.

  Dylan’s gaze narrowed, heated.

  He scooted down the beach towel, along Darcie’s side, until his mouth reached the level of her breasts. He used one hand to turn her, slightly, so he could…

  Dear God. He had drawn her erect nipple into his mouth. His tongue flicked against Darcie’s fingers and she moaned aloud.

  “You want to get a room here?” he whispered.

  “No.” No, she didn’t. She doubted they could rent a room today, despite the many hotels at hand. All would be booked by now. And she wanted him to go on kissing her like this forever, right here, out in the open on the beach at Manly where the whole world could see them—or at least all the Sydneysiders here to celebrate Australia Day. “No,” Darcie repeated as he gently sucked and sensation pooled low inside her and Dylan’s arousal jutted against her thigh. “I’m…still waiting for the fireworks.”

  “How’s it coming?” Dylan asked late that night.

  “Just…fine.” Darcie groaned into his mouth. Back from Manly, they were lying on Dylan’s bed, in Dylan’s room at the Westin, and if Sydney had created the most awesome spectacle of fireworks ever seen over Darling Harbour a few hours ago, that was nothing. In Dylan’s inspired hands she was turning into an incendiary device. “I’d say another minute, two at the most and I’ll—”

  He moved against her, inside her. Silk and velvet. Heat and oiled friction.

  “Let me join you.”

  You don’t settle for third-rate, Darcie. You deserve lights and laser shows, Claire had said. Fireworks.

  Darcie didn’t know whether she could ever convey the barest outline of these past two weeks to Claire, Gran, anyone she knew.

  Thank the stars—and a few pinwheels, some rockets—for Walter Corwin. He’d barely blinked when Darcie asked to spend the day, the whole day, with Dylan. Walt had an appointment, he said. He and the real estate agent would have brunch, then nail down the last details of the rental contract for the QVB. After that, he’d “keep busy” with a stroll near the harbor, a bite of dinner somewhere, an early night—if he could sleep with the pyrotechnics going off all over the city.

  Dylan’s hands caught her hips to hold Darcie still.

  “Don’t move,” he murmured. “I’ll go off too soon.”

  How could he, again? Darcie wondered. Didn’t men need recovery time? After watching the light show from The Rocks, they’d wandered back to their hotel, stopping here and there along the way to kiss or touch or both, pausing now and then to have another drink somewhere. Then, in Dylan’s room for this last night together, they’d fallen into bed. Made love. Once, three times…now four?

  “I’m glad you have such staying power.”

  “Just for you.” Even if he didn’t mean them, the words sent another wave of desire through her body. Taking a deep breath, Dylan framed her face between his hands. Leaning on his elbows over her, he looked into her eyes. “I want you so much. I keep wanting you. I keep thinking…”

  Bending his head, he kissed her mouth.

  “Thinking what?” Darcie whispered against his lips.

  “How you’d look—” he pressed one hand to her belly “—swollen here, ripe with a baby growing inside you, moving—” his hand slid upward over her rib cage “—your skin flushed, radiant—” then up again to her breasts “—your nipples larger, darker—” he kissed one then the other “—beginning to leak with first milk…”

  “Dylan,” she said on a moan. Talk about old-fashioned. Primal.

  “You’d taste so sweet….”

  The notion shocked her. His words shot through her from breast to thighs, and deep between. “Don’t—”

  He sipped at her. “It’s how you should be. Sometime,” he said.

  It was only a fantasy. Harmless, sexy. She let him have it, let the forbidden thrill roll through her body too because it was just that—like these two weeks. Pretend.

  He licked and nibbled, then kissed her some more. Her breasts, her collarbone, her jawline, her earlobe, her cheeks, her eyes, her mouth again until Darcie was gasping with need. And all the while he moved inside her, slow and deep, light and shallow, then hard and fast again. Darcie held on, her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist, her heart around his soul.

  Until a fresh spurt of alarm hit her squarely in the solar plexus. Maybe, for him, this was more than a fantasy.

  “You are wearing a condom?”

  Dylan grunted. “Want me to double-bag it?”

  She had no answer for that. No heart. When the climax came, it came at once—for both of them again.

  “I could get addicted to this,” Darcie whispered in the darkness when she caught her breath. “I never had a mutual orgasm until you.”

  “It doesn’t have to stop.”

  His voice suddenly edgy, Dylan rolled away from her. She heard him deal with the latest condom before he lay back on the bed and pulled the white duvet over them. Darcie felt chilled anyway.

  “We’re not going to fight about this. Are we?”

  “You could stay.”

  “No, Dylan. I can’t.” She stroked her fingers down his cheek. Five-o’clock shadow…no, 3:00 a.m. shadow now. “I have a job, you have a farm.”

  “Station,” he said, his jaw set.

  “You live in the Outback, I live in New York.”

  He had left his widowed mother with the sheep. But she had called more frequently this second week and Darcie knew that Dylan was stalling not to go home. Yesterday, finally, he’d found a ram to be shipped from England if the deal was right. He had duties, obligations, responsibilities. So did she. Then there were his attitudes about a woman’s place in a man’s life…the kitchen, the bedroom, the nursery. Oh, Lord, the nursery. That erotic playacting of his rolled through her mind again. If she stayed any longer, she would start to feel tempted by the very values she was trying to escape.

  A hundred times, she thought. With Dylan. Over the past two weeks.

  “Call me,” he said. “Here, when you get back. Or I’ll call you.”

  Darcie couldn’t answer. All she could do was cling to him for the rest of this last night, then go home—and keep trying to fit her life pieces together in their balky puzzle.

  She turned her face into his neck and breathed deeply of his scent. Soap, beer, man.

  She’d stayed away from the beer tonight herself. She wasn’t getting sick this last time.

  Darcie had no time for sleep, either.

  Long after Dylan fell into a restless doze, she lay awake watching him. Touching him. Why? she asked herself. Why do the good ones always turn out to be impossible? In some way or other, they were always Mr. Wrong for Darcie Elizabeth Baxter.

  Fireworks.

  She felt as if she’d set off a flotilla of barges loaded, programmed, with every conceivable mortar and starburst.

  It would be hard to say goodbye.

  So she wouldn’t.

  When light filtered through the windows that over-looked Darling Harbour, she didn’t bolt from the bed this time to humiliate herself in Dylan’s bathroom. No. When dawn came in the morning, she slipped out from under the hand he’d rested on her hip all night, pressed a feathery kiss on his forehead—and, cold sober, left the room. Left Dylan.

  Chapter

  Six

  Darcie had just drifted off to sleep—blessed relief—when a small body thumped onto her stomach. Sharp claws kneaded her tender skin through Darcie’s soft-knit Wunderthings pajamas, last season’s biggest seller in the clothing line, and she startled awake. Cursing.

  Sweet Baby Jane blink
ed at her in the dark, fierce cat eyes glowing.

  “Don’t even think about it.”

  If those stiletto nails sank into her any deeper, Darcie would abandon all pretense of politically correct treatment of animals. Knowing better than to spring up in bed, she moved slowly, cautiously. Intent upon removing the beastly animal from her abdomen, from her room, from her life if possible, she sat up. Shifting her weight, she hoped to dislodge SBJ without actually touching her. No such luck.

  “All right. War.”

  She plucked Jane away from her stomach—a stomach Dylan Rafferty had kissed only nights before—and dumped her on the floor. Sweet Baby Jane hissed.

  “Back off,” Darcie warned her.

  It was no use.

  If she went back to bed now, Jane would only take advantage. As soon as Darcie fell into a restless slumber again, she would jump on her. Wide-awake in the middle of the night, Darcie padded across the hall. Avoiding Sweet Baby Jane’s stalking, she hop-scotched into the bathroom. When she came out, the cat instantly pounced.

  Darcie shrieked. Jumping from one foot to the other, she inadvertently stomped on the cat’s tail. SBJ yowled. A second later, her grandmother opened her own bedroom door to peer out into the hall.

  “Jane, my sweet?”

  “It’s her. And me.”

  “Darcie. Why aren’t you asleep?”

  “Other than a virulent case of jet lag? It’s worse flying east than west.” She sidestepped Sweet Baby Jane. Eden scooped her up, crooning, but Darcie said, “That’s why.”

  “Did the bad girl hurt you, Janie? Ah, poor lamb.”

  Lambs, sheep, were not Darcie’s favorite topic this week, either.

  “I didn’t touch her…but, Gran, this cat is vicious.”

  “Nonsense. Julio said only last night—no, night before last, just before you came home—that he’s never met a cat like Jane.”

  The doorman? “I’m sure.”

  “He meant that in a good way, Darcie.” Eden turned back into her room. “I’m delighted to have you home, dear, but I do hope your mood improves. Soon.”

  “My mood is fine,” Darcie snapped. “But this…this feline needs a muzzle.”