by Andre, Bella
Dylan’s curse was soft, but powerful nonetheless. “The bastard didn’t deserve you.”
“I know he didn’t. I think I knew it long before that night, actually. We were always alone, just the two of us on a yacht or in a fancy hotel suite or my apartment. I thought it was because he wanted to get to know me better before he introduced me to his friends and family. But what he was really doing was hiding me from them and from the other woman he was actually going to marry—one who was infinitely more appropriate in his world. But I didn’t want to be alone, so I didn’t stop seeing him even though I should have.”
She paused, took another sip of wine to try to steady herself. But it was no use. Not when she had an even worse part of the story to tell.
“I was still reeling from his reaction the next day—and trying to wrap my head around having a baby on my own—when I had a couple of unexpected visitors. His parents didn’t want to risk leaving anything to chance. And, I think they were used to cleaning up their son’s messes over the years by throwing money at them. They gave me the money and tried to act like it was a gift. But I made them tell me, made them say aloud what it was for. They expected me to get rid of Mason and forget I’d ever had anything to do with their son.”
“Tell me his name, Grace.”
She knew she shouldn’t, but since she’d already been crazy enough to tell Dylan this much—more than she’d ever intended to tell anyone—it wouldn’t be hard for him to put the pieces together. “Richard. Richard Bentley.”
His eyebrows went up with surprise even as his gaze simmered with obvious fury. “The former senator and his wife gave you money and told you and your baby to disappear?”
“That’s why I left Washington. Not because they paid me to—I didn’t cash their checks—but because I couldn’t risk letting them or Richard see that I’d decided to have the baby.”
“Do they know where you are?”
“No. At least, I don’t think they do.” She tried to keep the rest from spilling out, but couldn’t. “Richard is having trouble conceiving with his new wife. I’ve seen a couple of news reports online about it this week. Before now, I was pretty positive that Richard and his family thought I was so insignificant, and so lacking in strength, that they wouldn’t bother trying to track me down once I’d left Washington. Especially given that they’d told me that if I tried to say a word against them, their charity—one that helps disadvantaged women, ironically—would be what people sided with. Not a woman who had clearly gotten knocked up on purpose to try to lock their son into marrying her to set her up for life.” She took a shaky breath. “But now that I know Richard might not be able to have the Bentley heir they were all expecting his wife to give them...”
“I can help you, Grace. I can help keep you and Mason safe from them.”
She gave him a small smile to let him know she appreciated his offer even if she couldn’t possibly take him up on it. God, she could only imagine what a mess that would be, especially since she’d seen for herself that afternoon that at least one of Dylan’s cousins ran in the same circles as the Bentleys. Dylan’s family had been nothing but nice to her and Mason. She wouldn’t drag them into her mess.
“When you were talking about sailing through a storm during our interview, I realized that I’ve been there. Finding out that I was pregnant and then realizing that I was going to have to be a parent all by myself has been one of the most frightening things I’ve ever done, but also one of the most beautiful. My parents raised me to be strong, but I was never really tested before and never knew what I was capable of. Or how tough I could really be. Now I do, and I have a plan for how to fight them just in case I ever need to. But thank you for offering to help us. Honestly, it’s enough that you agreed to do this story with me. That already helps a great deal.”
“You’re so damned strong, Grace, that anyone who can’t see it is a total idiot.” Had anyone ever looked at her with such respect and admiration? “But my brother Rafe is a P.I. And Ian is one of the wealthiest men in the world, with business ties to pretty much everyone. My brothers can help make sure nothing ever happens to you and Mason. Let me talk to them. Let us make absolutely sure that your ex and his family aren’t up to anything.” He took her hand in his. “I promise you that they’ll stay totally below the radar. They won’t stir anything up.”
It was so overwhelming, the way he was offering to help in any way he could to keep her and her son safe. “But we—”
She stopped herself before she could protest that they’d only just met. What did it matter how long she’d known Dylan when he was offering to do whatever he and his family could to keep her son safely with her?
“Yes,” she finally said. “Okay.”
“You’ll let us help?”
Utterly overwhelmed with emotion from all sides, she nodded. “I’d appreciate it, actually, not having everything fall on me for once.”
“Thank you for trusting me not only to help, but also by telling me about your past.”
“I couldn’t let you think there was something wrong with you.” Realizing that sounded strange, she quickly added, “I mean, obviously you’ve looked in a mirror, so you know that’s not the problem.” Ugh, that only made things worse, even though he’d smiled when she said it. “It’s just now that you know where I am in my life and where I’ve come from, you can understand why I promised myself that I wouldn’t make that same mistake again. I can’t jump into a relationship right now and don’t honestly know when or if I’ll be able to again. Not now that everything inside of me has shut down.”
“Shut down?” He shook his head. “There was nothing shut down about the kiss we shared last night.”
She knew he was right. There was no point trying to deny it, even if a part of her argument fell apart. “You’re right,” she said, “there wasn’t. But one kiss doesn’t change anything.”
Grace had spent enough time with Dylan in the past two days to know how to read the look in his eyes. Instinct was vitally important to him, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t take time to think things through. Right now, he was processing everything she’d said.
“After what you’ve been through,” he finally said, “I can understand how hard it must be to trust anyone. Especially another man.”
She was surprised—very surprised, actually—that what she’d said seemed to be enough to make him back down from wanting to date her. It was what she’d told herself she wanted, and yet…
“Good,” she made herself say. “I’m glad you understand.”
“After what that scumbag and his family did to you, anyone would be wary and want to take things slow the next time.”
She was with him right up until the end…when he got to slow and next time. “Dylan—”
“If slow is what you need, I can do slow.”
She knew she shouldn’t let excitement flood back through her. Shouldn’t let it push all of the earlier disappointment aside. Especially since Dylan was a champion racer and she doubted there was even a trace of slow in his blood.
Then again, building wooden sailboats by hand was perhaps one of the most painstaking careers he could have chosen. Maybe he could make a promise to go slow and mean it.
Still, she couldn’t just give in like this, could she? Couldn’t let a simple promise that he would go slow be enough to change her mind about everything she’d been so certain about for so long. She needed to be rational. Strong.
“In the past two days, I’ve met your entire family and have spent two consecutive evenings with you. If that’s your version of slow, we both know it’s not a good idea.”
“That’s not even close to my entire family,” he corrected with a grin before sobering again. “I know I’ve pushed you. It’s just—” She knew from the way he was looking at her, his eyes so dark, so intense, that she didn’t have a prayer of being prepared for whatever he was going to say next. “I saw you and I knew.”
“You knew?” She could feel her breath com
ing faster as she watched the shift happen inside Dylan—from thinking and processing to pure male instinct. She felt as she imagined a lioness would when her mate found her. Hunted—and just as suddenly hungry for him as he was for her. “What did you know?”
He reached for her then, the barest brush of his fingertips across her cheek enough to send her heart leaping and racing. “I knew this.” She watched him watch her, and when she didn’t pull away—Lord, how could she?—he slowly drew his fingers down to the nape of her neck. “I knew your skin would be this soft, this sensitive.” Thrill bumps rose all over her body as he ran his fingertips down from her neck over her T-shirt, then to the bare skin of her arm exposed by the short sleeve. “I knew you’d be this responsive.” Somewhere in there, she reached for him without even realizing it so that her hands were holding on to his waist. “I knew we would fit together this perfectly.”
Grace knew she should find more words, more reasons that she couldn’t do this, but she really, really didn’t want to. Not when it had been so long since she’d felt sensual pleasure. And not when it seemed like forever since she’d felt even the least bit feminine or had thought about anything but her son and her work.
She didn’t see how this could last, how it could turn into something real—how the gorgeous, incredible man from the amazing and famous family could ever look at a normal woman with a ten-month-old child and see a future. But, hadn’t she waited so long to feel this way? Not just a year and a half, but her entire life? For a man who made her want like this, who made her crave with every last fiber of her being?
Last night, she’d let herself have a taste. One perfect, wonderful taste of Dylan. Why couldn’t she have one more? Especially when he was right that she was only human.
Too human to know how to keep resisting him tonight...
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“I want to kiss you, Grace. I’ve wanted to kiss you a hundred times tonight. Every time you smile. Every time you laugh. Every time your body brushes up against mine.”
It would have been easiest for both of them if he simply took what he wanted by leaning in and taking that kiss. One kiss without her permission and their incredible chemistry would take over.
But he hadn’t made it easy on her from the first, and she knew he wouldn’t cop to doing that now. What do you want? was what he was asking her. And he was waiting for her answer with the patience that he must have honed from hours working in his boathouse building beautiful boats with his magical hands and brain.
Grace wasn’t nearly as patient, though. “I’ve wanted to kiss you, too, all those times.”
She didn’t know who moved first tonight, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was how sweet it was to let pleasure sizzle through her as their lips touched. All night long, they’d been leading up to this. To this kiss. To his hands on her and hers on him. She knew that now—finally accepted it as inevitable.
Kissing Dylan wasn’t about weakness, wasn’t about not having enough self-control. On the contrary, it was about being strong enough to let herself have what she wanted.
What she needed.
Her heart jumped in her chest and she lost her breath as he loved her mouth so tenderly. So seductively. Locking her arms around his neck, she all but melted against him, and knew from the low groan he gave just how much he liked having her pliant and aroused against him.
“Soft.” He pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth, and then more down across her cheek. “You’re so soft.” She lifted her chin so that he could nibble at the underside of her jaw. “You smell so good.” He ran his lips down the sensitive skin of her neck, nibbling at her between kisses. “You taste so sweet.” His hands were warm on the small of her back, warmer still as he slipped them just beneath the fabric to rest on her bare skin. But instead of taking the next step and pulling her shirt off over her head, he said, “Tell me to stop and I’ll stop.”
She loved that he was a man of such deep contrasts. So sweet, so gentle…and yet so full of passion and desire. Desire that she could feel him barely holding back, barely controlling.
All because he wanted her with the same ferocity as she wanted him.
“Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”
Grace felt hot and tingly beneath her clothes. And from the first moment she’d seen him, she’d wondered about what he had beneath his. Any woman with a beating heart would have. Now was her chance to stop wondering and find out.
Forcibly pushing away any lingering thoughts that she was forgetting all of her hard-won lessons and the vows she’d made not to repeat her mistakes, she reached for the hem of his shirt and quickly pulled it up. He was more than happy to help, drawing back and lifting his arms so that she could take it all the way off.
Grace obviously wasn’t a virgin. Not even close, if that slightly wild year she’d had back in college counted. But…oh my…there wasn’t a man alive who could have prepared her for the way Dylan Sullivan looked without his shirt. Tanned and muscular. Lean and honed from daily sails and woodworking.
Perfect.
She didn’t think, couldn’t think anymore, could only lay her hands flat on his chest. His skin was so warm and his muscles jumped beneath her fingertips as she explored his incredible male beauty. She was a terrible painter—putting words together was the only art she’d ever been good at—but if she could draw, she’d want him to model for her.
But it wasn’t enough just to look, to touch. She had to put her mouth on him, too. Her lips had only just touched his shoulder when a low, rough sound rumbled from his chest. She barely had a chance to slick her tongue against him when she found herself lying back against the arm of her couch with Dylan’s hands in her hair and his kisses stealing her breath.
Every taste she took of him, instead of sating her the way she’d expected, only made her more ravenous. Every kiss they shared only made her want more. More of his tongue tangling with hers. More of his teeth nipping into her lower lip. More of his heady need for her.
She’d been wanted before, but never like this. And never by a man so beautifully put together or so in tune with how to give a woman pleasure. It was perfectly natural to fall deeper and deeper into his kiss, and to relish how good his hands, big and rough from working with wood and rope and tools all day, felt moving over her skin. The way he was gentle and yet powerful all at the same time—barely skirting that edge of control—made Grace melt into his touch.
Loving the heavy weight of his body over hers, she instinctively wrapped her arms around him and pulled him closer. She wanted more. More. More. But then, suddenly, she felt him shift farther away, rather than closer.
As she blinked up at him through eyes gone blurry with lust, while he ran his hands over her face, shoulders, and then the full lengths of her arms until he reached her hands, where he threaded their fingers together, she thought she knew why. Dylan wasn’t stopping because he didn’t want her. She could see, could feel, just how much he did.
The reason he’d reined them both in was because he was afraid of pushing her too far.
Because he cared.
He could easily have continued to seduce her with kisses and caresses until she was too mindless to be able to think at all. Until she wasn’t able to make choices, only soak in sensation. Until it was too late for her to realize that they were crossing the line between feeling blissfully alive and feeling regretful.
But the truth was that stopping here, stopping now, when they hadn’t gone any further than two teenagers necking on the couch—that was something she’d definitely regret. Especially if this was her one and only chance to allow herself the wonder of Dylan’s touch.
She didn’t want to break the sexy spell, but she needed to be completely honest with him right now, or moving forward wouldn’t feel right for either of them.
“I can’t have sex with you tonight.” Because for as good as it would be, and she had no doubt that her body would rejoice, her mind and heart weren’t even close to being ready for such i
ntimacy. “I don’t know when I’ll be ready for that again. But—” She licked her lips, watched his hungry gaze shift momentarily to her mouth before they locked on her eyes again. “I do want this. I want you. I want your body against mine. I want your mouth, your hands on me. I want—”
It was scary to say all of these things, scary to even think them after she’d put herself into a safe freeze for so long. But Grace knew with utter certainty that it would be far worse to turn back rather than take a risk. And no matter what happened after tonight, if they decided to keep slowly moving forward or agreed to step all the way back from each other instead, she refused to regret rediscovering pleasure. Rediscovering herself. Not when she’d only just realized that here was yet another thing her ex had tried to take from her—her confidence in her natural sensuality, her healthy feminine responses to being touched, kissed, wanted.
She wouldn’t let her ex keep taking that from her. Couldn’t let him.
“I want to feel like a woman again, Dylan. I want to remember what it’s like to feel sexy. To be desired. To let myself go, even just a little bit, for a little while. And I want to go there with you.”
She had barely finished speaking when his mouth covered hers again. In his kiss—one so sweet, yet dangerously sexy all at the same time—she felt his promise to give her everything she needed.
* * *
For all that Dylan loved his boats and the ocean, women had always trumped both. He loved hearing a woman laugh. Loved seeing the flash of fire in a strong woman’s eyes. But nothing he’d ever experienced came close to how good it felt to have Grace in his arms, her heart racing in time with his, her mouth sweetly seductive against his as they kissed.
He’d wanted her at first glance. He’d liked her as soon as she’d stood in his boathouse and tried to persuade him to do the interview. And now, from nothing more than a handful of minutes making out with her on her living room couch, he knew that he’d crave her for the rest of his life.
