by Brenda Novak
“Because…”
“Because you were soaking wet and freezing to death. And that’s what you’re supposed to do with someone in that situation.” His voice sounded slightly defensive, as though she’d accused him of being some kind of pervert.
Realizing he’d just saved her life, Chantel tried to act nonchalant. She wasn’t sure he’d needed to remove every stitch of their clothing, but he’d obviously acted in what he thought was her best interests. “I’ve seen it before on television,” she admitted.
“How’s the burning in your arms and legs? Getting any better?”
“A little.”
Chantel shifted to remove her lower body from contact with Dillon’s, which was nearly impossible in the snug bag. While modeling, she’d seen a score of naked men, changing from one outfit to another, and lots of men had seen her doing the same thing. But somehow she couldn’t treat being with Dillon as indifferently as she’d handled working around those fellow models, photographers, costumers and artistic directors. Especially since his body felt good enough to melt her bones.
“Relax.”
Though nervous and vulnerable, she tried to do as he suggested, but ended up simply keeping as still as she could. It had been almost a year since she’d been with a man. She’d gotten so skinny in her final months with Wade that he hadn’t wanted her, at least sexually. And the memory of it made her even more self-conscious than she would normally have felt in this particular dilemma.
“I’m sorry I got you into this mess,” she said to break the awkward silence.
His chuckle rumbled in her ear. “Don’t be. From my perspective, there are worse things than having a beautiful woman in my arms.”
Chantel smiled. So he was generous, as well as kind. “What do we do when we’re warm?”
“Wait for morning.”
The thought of spending the entire night in Dillon’s arms sent a shiver up Chantel’s spine. He hugged her closer and began to rub her back again, as though he assumed her reaction had something to do with the cold. But Chantel knew it had much more to do with the man holding her, stroking her.
“That feels good,” she whispered.
Dillon’s shallow breathing—and more obvious proof lower down—told her he agreed. “I guess this might get a little awkward,” he said, knowing, of course, that she couldn’t possibly miss his arousal. “But don’t worry. I won’t, you know, try anything.”
She smiled at his attempt to reassure her. “We just have to relax, like you said.”
“Unfortunately, even that won’t change some things.”
“I know,” she whispered. “It’s okay.”
Chantel had felt exhausted only moments earlier, but now her blood zipped through her veins and wouldn’t let her lie still. “We’re not going to be able to rest,” she said, “if we feel we can’t move.”
“We can move.”
“I know, but I’m hesitant to put my arm here or my leg there…”
“Do whatever makes you comfortable.”
Sighing, she snuggled closer, laying her head on his chest and slipping one cold foot between his. The burning in her arms and legs had eased, but her fingers and toes still felt like ice. “Thanks,” she said. “I guess we should probably get some sleep. I’m a lot warmer now, aren’t you?”
“I’m plenty warm,” he told her, but to Chantel his body didn’t feel as though he was ready for sleep. His muscles were taut, his chest rising and falling too fast.
Dillon’s breath stirred her hair, but he said no more. Chantel listened to the storm outside until sleep began to woo her. Then, when she was finally warm, she drifted slowly toward it. As her brain lost its override on her body, she relaxed even more and pressed closer to the muscled chest beneath her hands, the powerful limbs entwined with her own. The steady beat of Dillon’s heart lulled her that final step, and she fell into peaceful oblivion.
DILLON STARED into the darkness, willing his body to forget the soft flesh pressed against his, to block out the smell of woman that filled his nostrils. He and Chantel Miller were merely two strangers surviving the storm together. Morning would come and everything would be the way it was before.
Still, he had to admit that the person he held in his arms was no everyday woman. She was slender and elegant, but it was her smile and her eyes that appealed to him most. Unique, exquisite, haunting.
Beautiful. She was simply beautiful. And, of course, her body did nothing to change that overall impression. Long legs, smooth and shapely, slid against his own; her small perfect breasts were crushed against his chest. He’d longed to touch them from the moment he’d taken off her shirt, to feel them in his palms…
She smashed my truck. She smashed my truck. She smashed my truck. And she made me miss the party at the cabin.
He repeated Chantel’s shortcomings over and over to himself, but nothing quelled the hot desire that smoked through his veins. To make matters worse, he’d begun to feel a little proprietary toward her. He had found her. He had saved her. It was that old finders keepers, losers weepers thing, and he knew it. But no matter how many times he told himself no, his groin tightened, insisting on a different answer.
If it hadn’t been so long, he wouldn’t be like this, he told himself. He and Amanda had divorced two years ago, and he hadn’t slept with a woman since. He’d come close a few times, but the commitment that went with sex had always pulled him up short—because he didn’t want to give his daughters any competition. He owed Brittney and Sydney his wholehearted loyalty. Divorce was hard enough. He knew firsthand how difficult it could be to get along with a stepparent. Why would he do the same thing to his kids that his parents had done to him?
Chantel stirred. One of her hands climbed across his ribs, and he had to stop himself from cupping the roundness of her derriere and pressing her more firmly against him. It was simply the most natural of responses. But she was sleeping peacefully and had no idea she was driving him mad.
And he’d promised he’d be good.
A sweet mewling sound came from Chantel, but her eyes remained closed. She was probably dreaming. He gazed through the darkness, finding the curve of her cheek, the silky spray of hair that fanned out over his arm, and caught sight of her lips. They were slightly parted…and wet.
He clenched his jaw. It was going to be a long night.
THE CELL PHONE broke the silence, waking Chantel with a start. Next to her, Dillon stirred and they both fumbled around until Chantel came up with the phone, which turned out to be her own, and answered it.
“Hello?”
“Miss Miller?” a man’s voice said.
“Yes?”
“This is the police dispatcher just checking to make sure you’re okay. The storm hasn’t lifted yet, but I want you to know we’ll get there as soon as we can.”
“Okay.”
“You sound tired, Miss Miller, but I can’t stress how important it is that you not fall asleep. With the windchill factor, it’s well below zero outside.”
“I understand, but I’m not alone anymore.”
“What?”
“I, um…A friend of mine came to find me. Only he’s stuck now, too.”
“The two of you are together?”
Dillon shoved himself up onto one elbow. “Give me the phone so I can tell them where we are.”
“We’re sheltering in a Toyota Landcruiser,” she said into the receiver. “Here, he wants to talk to you.”
Chantel listened as Dillon identified himself and gave the dispatcher directions. When he ended the call, she looked at him expectantly. “What did he say?”
“To sit tight. Someone’ll be here as soon as the storm lifts.” He flicked on a flashlight and looked at his watch.
“What time is it?”
“Three o’clock.”
Chantel groaned. “No wonder I’m still tired. Did you get any sleep?”
“I dropped off about five minutes before the phone rang.”
Now that she and D
illon were both awake, Chantel felt her earlier self-consciousness return but fought it back. They might as well get used to each other. According to the dispatcher, the police were going to be a while yet. “What kept you up?”
She thought he arched a brow at her, but couldn’t see clearly enough in the darkness.
“You don’t want to know,” he said.
“What—was I snoring?”
He laughed. “You didn’t have to.”
Catching his meaning, Chantel felt her face flush and tried to sidle away, but he wrapped an arm around her and pulled her down beside him. “Come on. It’s too cold for that.”
She put a hand on his chest, keeping a slight distance between them. “Tell me about yourself, Dillon.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Well…tell me about your daughters.”
He opened up easily to that question. His voice warmed as he talked about his girls and their accomplishments. His fourth-grader had just competed against a sixth-grader for student-body treasurer and won. She played the clarinet in band and sang in the school choir. His second-grader was in gymnastics and could already do a back flip.
Chantel felt something tug at her heart and knew she should have steered the conversation away from kids. It was always this way when…
Dillon fell silent right in the middle of describing a family trip they’d taken to Disneyland just before the divorce.
“And then what?” she prompted.
He didn’t answer, and Chantel berated herself for not listening more closely. What was it he’d said? Something about promising his girls they’d go back every year. Wasn’t that it? “Dillon?”
“What?”
“You didn’t finish.”
“I know. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“What’s wrong?” She propped herself up to look in his face, but in the darkness, she couldn’t decide whether his expression was as stony as his voice suggested.
He shook his head. “I’m just angry. It has nothing to do with you.”
“It’s that damn Mickey Mouse, right? You hate him.”
He gave her a grudging smile. “No.”
“Then what?” Chantel studied him again and guessed that what she saw was pain. “Forget it. You don’t have to talk about it,” she said. “Divorce is a hard thing—for everyone.”
“I never thought I’d be divorced,” he admitted. “I never wanted to be.”
“I don’t think anyone ever plans on it.”
“It’s funny how someone you love can turn into someone you don’t even know, isn’t it?”
“Oh, I see. You’re not over your ex-wife yet.” For some reason she wanted to pull away, but there was no room to do so.
He laughed harshly. “Wrong. I’m completely over her. I got over her shortly after her second affair, which, ironically enough, was with the mailman.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No. Well, technically speaking, he wasn’t our mailman, but he worked for the post office.”
“How did she meet him?”
“At the gym.”
“Ouch.”
He laughed, but his voice was edged with bitterness. “I used to think that sort of thing could never happen to me.”
“Does it hurt to talk about it?”
“Not anymore. At first I thought I’d never recover. I blamed myself. We got married too young. I was gone too much, working, trying to put myself through school. I think she was lonely and bored and found the wrong kind of friend. She and the woman next door, who was already divorced, started going out together in the afternoons, visiting bars. I could see what was happening, but I thought I could stop it. I thought if I was meeting her emotional needs, she wouldn’t turn to other men. She admitted she didn’t love them.”
“Did you ever find out why she did it?”
“She said she liked the thrill of it. I think she was on boyfriend number three then, and she was leaving the girls with baby-sitters to spend the day at the gym or tanning. I cut back on my hours at work, but she resented the hit our budget suffered because of it, and her behavior only got worse. I finally realized she had affairs because it fed her ego that other men found her attractive. And she liked my jealous reaction.”
“I take it the two of you aren’t friends now.”
“Actually I’m just trying not to dislike her too much. Not for the old stuff, her betrayal of me—that’s history. It’s the problems we’re having now that make me mad. It kills me that I’m missing so much of my girls’ lives. Their mother changes boyfriends like she changes underwear and insists Brittney and Sydney welcome each new guy with open arms. Sometimes she even makes them call whoever it is ‘daddy.’”
Instinctively Chantel reached up to caress his cheek. “You sound like a wonderful father. Can’t you gain custody somehow?”
“I’ve spent thousands of dollars trying to do just that. California is touted as being liberal, but the judge still won’t award me custody. I’d have to completely discredit Amanda to get them, and I just can’t bring myself to destroy my daughters’ mother.”
“What about visitation rights?”
“I pick up the girls whenever I legally can, but a lot of the time Amanda takes off so that they’re not home when I arrive. Or she leaves them at her mother’s, who thinks I’ve let her daughter down and won’t even open the door to me.”
“Fighting all of that must get old.”
He paused. “I’d rather fight it than not see them. Now Amanda is trying to get permission from the court to move to Iowa.”
“Iowa!”
“Yeah.” He scrubbed his face with his free hand. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”
“Because it’s the middle of the night, and we’re naked and huddled together in your sleeping bag.”
“I’m fully aware of the naked part, but how come I’m the only one baring my soul?”
So I don’t have to tell you about the skeletons in my closet.
“Do you like being an architect?” she countered.
“I love my work, but we’re going to talk about you now. What do you do?”
“I work in the district office of my state senator.”
“Were you involved in politics in New York?”
“No.”
“‘No’? That’s it? What, were you a stripper or something?”
“I was a model.”
“Really? Who’d you model for?”
Chantel bit her lip, reluctant to discuss her modeling experience because she was afraid of where the conversation would lead. “Let’s talk about something else.”
“Why? You didn’t like modeling?”
“I loved it.”
“Then tell me about it.”
Cocooned against the weather, Chantel breathed in the smell of the aftershave she’d first noticed when Dillon had leaned into her car, and smiled. She could trust him. He’d come for her despite the storm, even after the police had given up.
“I did runway modeling, and some work for high-end catalogs. I was in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue a couple of years, used to model for Calvin Klein a lot. Oh, and I was on the cover of Vogue once.”
“Wow, sounds like you were pretty successful. What happened?”
Chantel thought of Wade and his demands, demands that increased with her success. “I had a boyfriend…well, more like a husband, really. We lived together for the ten years I was in New York. He modeled, too, and when he didn’t get the breaks I did, he became fanatically jealous. He insisted I cancel contracts I never should have canceled, had me refuse jobs I should have taken. I did it to preserve the relationship, to prove he came first. We’d talked about having a family, and I wanted to get married, but he kept putting me off. He said he didn’t see the point of making it official since all that mattered was what we felt, not some piece of paper. The harder I tried to please him, the more difficult he became. And then I got sick and had to quit altogether
.”
“What kind of sick?”
Chantel sighed. She hated telling people what had happened to her and usually didn’t. They didn’t understand anorexia, were generally frightened of the self-hate that spurs it on. “It wasn’t anything communicable.”
“I wasn’t thinking that.” He smoothed the hair off her forehead, and Chantel closed her eyes, wishing he’d go on caressing her until the devils from her past were forgotten. “Tell me what happened,” he whispered.
“I had anorexia.”
“How bad?”
“I had to be hospitalized. The doctors didn’t think I’d make it. Neither did Wade.”
“Wade’s the man you were living with?”
She nodded. “Wade Bennett. I believe, deep down, he was hoping against me. Maybe that’s what made me decide to prove them all wrong.”
Dillon was silent for a long while. “Where’s Wade now?”
“In New York, still trying to make it, I guess. I won’t open his letters.”
Dillon’s arms tightened around her. “And you’re well now, aren’t you? You look…I mean, I’ve never seen a more beautiful woman.”
She’d heard those words before, over the years, from numerous men who’d tried to pick her up. But Dillon sounded sincere. “Anorexia is like alcoholism. You’re never really cured. It’s a constant battle.”
“It’s a battle you’ll win.”
Unable to stop herself from giving him a simple gesture of affection, Chantel played with the hair on his arm, then slid her hand up to his shoulder. “I think your wife must’ve been crazy.”
He laughed and rolled her onto her back. In the process his hand brushed her nipple, which immediately drew up hard and tight.
“Chantel?’
“Mmm?”
“Are you seeing anyone now?”
The huskiness of his voice told her he wanted her, and Chantel felt an answering warmth in the pit of her stomach. “I’m not dating anyone. I only recently moved back to California.”
“Good.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m going to kiss you.”
His head descended and his lips found and molded to hers, tasting her, teasing her, gently prodding. The practical side of Chantel screamed that she’d known this man for mere hours. But her heart felt as though she’d known him for years.
