“This has fuck all to do with you, Jem. Piss off.”
“Yeah? You fuck off without telling anyone then come back ten times fucking worse than when you left.” He scrutinises me. “And for her?”
“I didn’t go down there for her. I fucking told you. I met her there!”
“Whatever. You’re still a mess thanks to this manipulative bitch.”
“You arrogant wanker!” I say, too loudly.
“You want to be in his life or not, summer Sky?”
“Don’t call me that.”
“I got a story to tell you…”
“I’m sure you have a whole bunch of stories,” I reply.
“A story about me and Dylan and a girl a bit like you.”
“That’s nice,” I want to get away from this guy; he has nothing to say I want to hear. “Dylan, can we go?”
“Should we tell her our story, Dylan?” presses Jem.
Dylan’s face is expressionless, but a muscle twitches in his cheek. Jem raises an eyebrow at Dylan; but whatever he hopes to achieve, Dylan doesn’t bite.
“Do what you like,” Dylan says.
A grin spreads across his face. “Nah. Maybe Sky can do her own research. Check out Lily Parker.”
“I’m sure she can, if she wants,” says Dylan in a tone dropping the room temperature.
Despite telling Jem I’m not interested, I make a mental note of the name.
“Yeah, whatever,” he says to Dylan, eyes trained on my face. “Little Miss Summer Sky, I got the measure of you.” He looks to Dylan. “She’ll bring you to your knees, fuck you over and leave. Haven’t you learnt anything?”
Dylan shoves Jem. “Stop talking. Now. Not everyone gets involved in the same fucking messes you do.”
Jem and Dylan face off, like tomcats ready to tear each other’s fur out. I inhale, wishing the hell I’d stayed in my bedroom. Jem makes a final scornful noise, looks at me as if I’m something from the bottom of his shoe, and backs away.
“She’s playing a clever game with you, man!” he calls, draining his glass.
Satisfied he’s stirred the pot enough, Jem tips his fingers away from his head in a mock salute, and then steps away from us.
Trembling from anger, I shrug off the hand Dylan places on my arm. Jem bumps into a small Asian girl, turns and wraps an arm around her shoulder. She smiles, and looks up at him. He whispers something in her ear then slides a hand to her backside, squeezing. My stomach turns. I guess he found his victim then.
I thrust the glass of champagne at Dylan. “I’m leaving.”
“Sorry about him. He has issues…”
“Really? Thanks for pointing that out.”
I walk away, back to the throng in the next room. Weaving my way through the suffocating throng of people, I head for the door to the kitchen, the short cut to my end of the house and the edge of the party. Dylan pursues me, trying to grab my arm a couple of time, but I shake him off.
Bursting into the cool of the darkened kitchen, I halt with my back to Dylan. “Now can you see why I don’t want to be involved? And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.”
We’re alone in the kitchen, the silence a contrast to the hubbub of the party. The sound fades further as the door behind me shuts.
“Sky.” Dylan touches my arm again, carefully turning me around.
Pissed off with the tears fighting their way into my eyes, I hold down the desire to run. Dylan places a palm on my cheek, rubbing a thumb across my cheekbone. The heart-thumping reaction to him intensifies.
“I want to go,” I whisper, looking at my hands. “Not just away from the party but away from this house.”
“Tomorrow?”
His face is shadowed, the only light from the nearby window.
“It’s always tomorrow with you,” I say hoarsely.
“Of course. There’s always tomorrow. Every day.” He smiles. “Hanging on to today is hard, but tomorrow is always in reach.”
“Very deep.”
He attempts to hug me and I stiffen. “Is she the answer?” I ask.
“Who?”
“The girl you were with.” The girl didn’t look like the complaining model girlfriend in the magazine. Is she a new girl? Filling the gap he says only I can? “Are you going to humiliate me? Is that the scene? You’re going to bring her inside and carry on with…whatever. Dylan, with a more suitable girl?”
“What? No!” He succeeds in placing his fingers back on my face and I recoil. “Who are you talking about? Cressida isn’t here - I told you.”
“Outside. The dark-haired girl.” The jealous pang twinges again, but I have no right to him.
“Sky, her name’s Myf. She’s a good friend - one of the few people who can keep me grounded. She helped me when things got bad; she dragged me to rehab before I self-destructed. I was talking to her about how fucking hard this is for me.”
“Right, sure. I don’t know why I agreed to any this!”
I attempt to get to the door and Dylan steps in the way. “Don’t leave.”
Six-foot-plus of solid muscle stands between me and the way out. Sexy as hell guy, who kick started my heart and I’m no longer a hundred percent sure I want to go.
“Move, Dylan.”
“No. Not until you listen to me. I have to tell you some things.”
“I don’t want to hear them again!”
“Why?” He raises his voice. “Because you’re scared you’ll believe me or because you’ll have to admit you feel something?”
He’s right; he knows he’s right. I try to get behind him to the door but he puts his hand on the door handle. “Sky! Just fucking listen to me!”
“Don’t swear at me!” I lose my temper and shove him.
Dylan catches my arm, and pulls me towards him. I’m caught in his grip, the hard planes of his chest against mine and hyperaware of the thin material as the only barrier between us. The warmth and scent of my beach house Dylan engulfs.
“I had to speak to her because it’s pointless talking to the guys about this. Seeing you again tonight is killing me because this hurts. Really fucking hurts, Sky. I feel like the world held something out to me – a chance to be someone else - and then snatched the chance away again.”
His words pierce my armour. “Dylan…”
“Why does who I am have to change anything? I’ve never connected to a person like this before and I know you felt the same connection to me, so I fought for this. I’m sorry if I went about things the wrong way, I wasn’t thinking straight. I just wanted the opportunity to show you what that week meant to me.”
“It wasn’t even a week,” I whisper.
The sincerity in his words and his earnest expression strips away another layer of defence. This time when he cups my chin, I don’t back away.
“I’m in love with you. Is that strange? Yes, but I am. You fill a gap in my soul, Sky, and I don’t want to lose you.”
Nobody has ever spoken to me in this way, and he doesn’t need to. Dylan has no reason to seduce me with clever words and subtle seduction - he had the chance in Cornwall.
If he weren’t Dylan Morgan, he’d have a chance. I waver.
Dylan places his lips on mine, sending a wave of sensation through my body, and the last part of rationality slips away. I’m lost the moment his mouth touches mine, the connection he talks about fusing us. He can’t love me; people don’t fall in love after a week. Yet if I go with the unspoken ways we understood each other from the first day, and the speed in which we opened up to each other, maybe there is something more. Perhaps not love but the something he’s fighting for in his weird, fucked up way.
Hesitantly, he pulls me to him by my hips and slides his hand up my back. The way our bodies shape against each other pulls us into our intense world where only we exist. The moment I respond to his kiss, his mouth claims mine. He runs his tongue along my bottom lip and I part my mouth, allowing him to kiss me deeply. Losing my grasp on anything but the warmth of Dylan and the plac
es our bodies touch, I grip his short hair and tangle my tongue with his. He tastes of the whiskey he drank before, and of the Dylan, I kissed on the beach.
Dylan moves to kiss my neck, his stubble scraping along the skin firing heat to the centre of me. He places his lips gently against the sensitive spot beneath my ear, encircling my waist so the charged gap between our bodies disappears completely. His hair tickles as he moves to planting kisses along my throat, before crushing his mouth against mine again.
Unable to breathe from the intensity, I pull away air pushing from my lungs in short bursts. Convinced my legs are about to collapse, I hang onto his arm, and his grip around my waist tightens. His arousal is evident against my hip, spiking my own in return. Dylan places his forehead on mine, his breath heating my skin.
In the moment with Dylan, we return to our illusory world and I understand at last what he means. With him, where I am doesn’t matter because the world we exist in follows us everywhere. We don’t need to be in Broadbeach and we were never in a bubble. This is real.
“Let’s leave the party. I can’t do this. I want them all to go away, and the world be me and you again,” he says, running his fingers long my cheek.
“Aren’t we supposed to be putting on a show for everyone?” I whisper, sliding a hand along his hard back.
“Fuck that,” says Dylan. “I’m stealing you away with a bottle of champagne to somewhere quiet where you’ll have to listen to me.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Sky
Drinking several drinks in quick succession at the party has disarmed me, and I allow Dylan to take me by the hand and lead me away from the house. My brain is on standby, my heart and hormones firmly in control. Being dragged across a country estate by Dylan after the kiss he gave me is euphoric; his words in the kitchen intoxicated as much as the alcohol. The buried Sky who wants Dylan has pushed her way through, and I doubt I’ll get her to leave again now. The fight is over and the Sky whose heart and soul belongs to Dylan won.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“Somewhere no one else is allowed but me.”
The summer breeze is warm as we cross the lawn, the moon casting a blue light across the perfect summer’s evening. I inhale the scent of jasmine and woody earth, enjoying the natural freshness after the artificial scent of the house.
“Come on!” Dylan tugs my hand and we leave the lawn for a path running into the trees.
“Where?”
Dylan halts. A square, brick building stands before us. Disconnected from the main part of the house, the place was once a barn or stables because the building isn’t large enough to be a cottage. “Here.”
Pulling a key from his back pocket, Dylan unlocks the heavy wooden door and pushes it open. I hesitate outside as he walks in and flicks a switch. When I adjust my eyes to the light, I step inside and rewind to a teenage rock star wannabe’s basement.
A beaten up sofa rests against one side of the room, a rough patchwork of mismatching green and brown cushions. Posters paper the walls like in a teen bedroom, although most teens wouldn’t have their own band up there. Dark veneer shelving lines one wall and holds a bizarre assortment of items - hats, empty drinks cans and the kind of souvenirs you buy in tacky tourist shops. I smile as the weird shell creature from Sandchurch catches my eye. The place is an eclectic time capsule of the last seven years of Dylan’s life.
A laptop is connected to the mixing desk taking up half the room. An acoustic guitar rests on the carpet-tiled floor. Pages, ripped from an A4 pad, are strewn around; words are scrawled and crossed out covering the paper.
This place is more Dylan than the pile of overpriced bricks we walked away from.
“Your cave?” I ask.
“Kind of.”
He removes his jacket, throwing it over a chair, and then pushes stray papers from the sofa and sits, holding the two glasses out. I take them while he pops the cork on the champagne and fills the glasses. Bubbles spill over the edge and I shake them from my hand.
“So I’m honoured to be allowed in here?” I ask as I sit.
“Nobody comes in here, seriously.”
“Thank you, then.”
With his spare hand, Dylan tucks my hair behind my ear and I shiver at his touch. “You’re somebody to me, and I can share everything with you.”
Desperate to shift the conversation, I search the room. “Oh, look! A lava lamp.” I hand him his glass and turn on the lamp. These lamps always fascinated me, the liquid movement hypnotic.
“Sky?”
I rub my not entirely sober head. “Can we not get all talky?”
Dylan’s mouth tips in amusement. “Talky?”
“Rebound girl here.” I indicate myself with the wine glass.
“I don’t think so.”
“I spilt up with my boyfriend two days before we met! How is that not rebound?”
Dylan drinks, the curious expression in his eyes indicating he’s considering his answer. “Because you stopped loving him months before you split.”
His words slap me, and I’m as pissed off as if he actually had. “How the hell do you know?”
“Sorry, presumptuous of me.” He takes my glass and shifts closer.
I’m here, hidden from the real world. Slightly drunk and with a guy who only has to brush my arm to make me want all of him.
“Why do you have this place when you have a house full of empty rooms you could use?” I ask.
“Sometimes, I want to leave the world back there alone, as you know. This is disconnected somehow. When I walk in here, I’m away from the fucked up reality that exists back there.” He indicates the direction of the house with his head.
I take my glass back from him and drink because he’s looking at my mouth again. If he kisses me, I don’t think I could be responsible for my actions.
“Do you sleep here too?” I ask, looking around.
The rest of the place is piled with cardboard boxes stacked high against the wall. He indicates another green, wooden door at the back of the room. “I’m a bit of a hoarder. So there’s no room for a bed, even though I often stay here all night.”
I spy a half-empty bottle of bourbon on the table near the mixing desk. “That would send you to sleep?”
“Yeah, I’ve been known to sleep on the sofa.” Dylan shifts, taking my glass again, the light touch charging through me. “We need to get a little bit talky though,? And not this small talky.”
“Do we?”
“Yes, otherwise I’m going to kiss you again.”
Dylan has me caught in his blue-eyed scrutiny, the suggestion of where the kiss leads made clear by the brief glance at my breasts. Darkened eyes meet mine as he chews on the edge of his lip.
“Okay, talk,” I squeak.
“Funny, Sky.” He brushes my face with the back of his hand.
Maybe I should kiss him before I explode.
“What really puts you off a relationship with me? The fame? Me? My world?” he asks, watching me warily.
“All of them.”
“I think you’re scared I’m going to try and change you like Grant did?”
“He didn’t change me, I changed myself.”
“Because of what he wanted.”
“Because I didn’t know any different, I thought if we were in love, we needed to make sacrifices.”
Dylan strokes my cheek. “Sounds like you were the one who made all the sacrifices, these things work both ways. He sounds selfish and a fucking idiot to throw you away. I’d never ask you to do anything or be anything. Why would I when to me you’re perfect as the Sky you are?”
I snort. “Perfect? No one is perfect.”
“I meant you’re perfectly Sky, and I love that Sky.”
Love. Again. I down my champagne while staring at the floor. “Stop saying the word.”
“Okay, you have an overwhelming effect on me which triggers feel good chemicals in my brain and I crave being with you so I can keep feeling this way.” He s
mirks and I pull a face at him.
“You’re having a chemical reaction? Very logical.”
“Too logical, Sky…” He brushes a thumb on my lips. “Fuck the chemistry, we were meant to meet. I never believed in destiny or soul mates or any of that bullshit but then you came along. I always knew I was lost, but I didn’t realise how much until I met you.”
Dylan covers my mouth with his, a gentle kiss I don’t expect. The craving he spoke about overwhelms me too. I have a confusing need for this man to hold and complete me, even though I’m fighting to stand on my own in the world.
Giving in to the longing, I wind a hand around his neck, stroking the short hair at the nape. Dylan makes a soft noise in his throat, and shifts closer. I run my tongue along his bottom lip and he responds with a fierce kiss, teeth almost colliding as our tongues push against each other. Our hearts thump in rhythm, matching the way our lives have joined in a shared direction.
However much I tell myself this isn’t what I want, I know life has other ideas. Dylan’s stubbled face scratches at mine, my lips sore from the intensity of our harsh kisses in the kitchen and now. I tremble and the heat we’re creating is going to combust if we don’t stop soon. I pull away, and touch my mouth as I meet the eyes of the man who has stolen my soul and given me part of his in return.
“Be with me, Sky,” he says softly. “Not now or tonight. Be in my life.”
I’m distracted by the smell of him; the sandalwood scent mingled with the heat from our desire tearing me away from anything but us.
“You’re already in my heart and head. I’ve spent two weeks trying to prise you out and you won’t leave,” I whisper.
“Because part of me is part of you, I believe that. This isn’t fate, or chemistry but deeper.” He holds my face in both hands, tone earnest and I know he truly believes his words.
“Don’t get talky again.”
Laughing, Dylan pulls me onto his lap the way he did when we snuggled at the beach house. He grips me around the waist, thumbs rubbing the sensitive spot on my back through my dress.
“I can’t out talk you and your smart mouth, but I think I’ll always know how to shut you up,” he says, looking up at me with an unmistakable intensity.
Summer Sky: A Blue Phoenix Book Page 19
