Kiss in the Dark (17 page)

“Not long,”
she said, struggling to breathe. The relaxation of the bath congealed into a palpable unease.
“Everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine.”

Like hell. She knew Dylan well enough to recognize the muscle leaping in the hollow of his cheek meant he was working to keep his temper in check.

“This is hard for you, isn’t it?”
she asked, advancing across the hardwood floor of the kitchen.

“What is?”

“Being here,”
she said, knowing sooner or later they had to deal with the tension between them. “With me.”

Dylan’s eyes went a little wild at that, his body a little more tense.

“Away from
all
the activity,”
she clarified. “You want
to be back in Portland, don’t you?”

He yanked open a cabinet and pulled out two stoneware plates. “I want you safe.”

She moved beside him and reached for two glasses. “We can go back.”

“No,” he said, pulling forks and knives from a drawer. “You need to be out of the chaos
more than
I need to be in the middle of it.”

Reaching for the sparkling cider, she froze. The impact of his words rained down like acid. “We can’t stay here
forever. They could press charges. There’d
be a trial.”

Finally Dylan looked at her again. He set down the utensils and tilted her face toward his. The light glinting in his eyes could only be described as fierce.

“I’m not going to let that happen,” he said point-blank. “No child of mine will be born behind bars.”

The breath whooshed right out of her. “Dylan—”

“Go sit down, Bethany, before I have to send you back to the bathtub to relax all over again.”

She stared at him a long moment, searching the severe lines and angles of his face for an explanation to the way her heart raced so frantically in her chest. Alarmed by what she saw, she pulled away and did as he asked.

Eating dinner seemed far wiser than cornering an angry male.

* * *

Beth stared out the wall of windows, toward the darkened land beyond. The sun slept now, the moon taking over as guardian of the skies. A thick blanket of clouds
dimmed the light.
Orion was nowhere in sight.

The blues drifted through the cabin. Lifting a hand to the window, she breathed deeply of the pine logs crackling in the
fireplace. Reflected in the glass, she saw flames licking against the grate, smaller flames flickering from candles along the mantel and side tables.

She also saw Dylan moving toward her.

He’d been unusually quiet during dinner—steak and baked potato—answering her attempts at conversation with monosyllabic words or worse, masculine grunts. Tension radiated from him like heat from the sidewalk on a hot summer day. It seeped into her, as
well, completely erasing
the soothing effects of her bath.

But she didn’t tell him that.

After dinner he’d practically ordered her into the sprawling
great room, refusing to let her help with the dishes.
She’d stood there staring into the darkness while he’d lit the fire, inserted the compact disc into the stereo. She’d stood there while behind her, he paced.

And now she stood there as he approached her.

Through the hazy reflection in the window, their gazes met. He stopped a few inches behind her, so close the heat from his body whirled around hers. So close his breath shimmied across the back of her neck. So close she couldn’t begin to mistake the struggle in those primeval eyes of his.

“Dance with me, Bethany Rae.”

The way he said her name caused her heart to thrum a little harder. A lot deeper.

Closing her eyes to the heat in his, she
inventoried the
thousands of reasons to say no.
Absolutely not. To move away from him and walk to her room, shut the door, drag a chair beneath the knob. A thousand reasons to say no, and only one to say yes.

The need she didn’t begin to understand.

Opening her eyes, she drank in the sight of him reflected
there in the window, and felt something inside her shift. Loosen. Start
to melt. His unshaven jaw
was set, his eyes fiercer than usual. His stance was
rigid, a strange combination of angry and unsure. Faded jeans hugged his long legs. His olive button-down shirt lay open at the throat,
exposing the curly hair beneath.

The swift blade of longing stole her breath.

Last night you asked for a night without worries.

Just one night, she reasoned, the urge to let go of the
tight rein she kept on
herself strengthening with every heartbeat. His chest looked so broad and strong and … tempting. She remembered what it was like to rest her head there, to hear the steady strumming of his heart, to feel his warm breath feathering over her. His arms holding her.

Just for tonight. There could be no harm.

She turned to him and stepped into his open arms.

“You smell like jasmine,”
he murmured, pulling her
close.

“You smell like sandalwood and smoke.”
Like before.
Like always.

His hold on her tightened, and slowly they began to sway. He’d always preferred blues, whereas she’d favored a more upbeat tempo. But tonight the sultry melodies seemed … right.

The ambiance thickened, deepened. Tension arced and flowed, liquid lightning streaking through every nerve ending of her body. Instinct warned to pull away now, fast, but need and longing kept her in Dylan’s arms. She loved the way his heart strummed a strong, steady beat, the way his chest expanded with each breath he drew. His hands skimmed her back. The front of his legs brushed hers. Another part of his anatomy pressed into her, as well. A very hard part she tried equally hard not to think about. But failed.

“I’m sorry.”

The hoarse words surged through her, and she abruptly went very still. “What for?”
she asked before she could stop herself. God help her, she didn’t want to hear him apologize for the desire he couldn’t hide. How did a
woman respond—

He pulled back,
cradling her face in his hands. “About what I said to you by the pool last week.”

The sound of pain ripped from her heart before she could stop it. Suddenly she saw him standing by the chaise lounge all over again, tall and condemning. She remembered the surge
of seeing him, the
traitorous flash of joy. The sure knowledge that he’d pull her into his arms and make the nightmare go away.

Instead he’d accused her of murder.

“Don’t be,”
she now said in a voice alarmingly thick. She needed to remember that moment, the rush of disappointment. The truth that this man could never give her what she needed.

Against her face, a single finger stroked. “I was out of line.”

She laughed despite the tears scratching her throat. “Dylan St. Croix, out of line? Now there’s a surprise.”

Despite her teasing tone, his eyes went wild. “Damn it, I thought it was you!”

She’d still been holding him, but now her arms fell to her sides. Vaguely, she remembered hearing those same words that might.

He swallowed convulsively, the muscle in the hollow of his cheek thumping erratically. And his eyes, dear God, his eyes. She’d never seen the light blazing there. The emotion.

“I drove up to the house and saw the police cars and the ambulance,” he ground out. “And I thought I was going to throw up. I thought I’d never have the chance
to…
”
He broke off, wincing.

Her heart started to pound so hard it hurt. “To what?”

“It doesn’t
matter now.”

“It does to me.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, opened them a
moment later.
The ferocity remained. “No
matter what else happened between us,” he said, skimming his thumb along her lower lip, “I never wanted to see you hurt.”

“So you accused me of murder, instead?”

“When I saw you sitting there,”
he bit out, “something inside me went a little crazy. I didn’t want to believe what Zito said, but I had to know.”

“Zito
had
to think that,” she said, pulling out of his arms and backing away. She couldn’t stand there like that, body to body, while they gouged out the gulf between them with the truth.

“It’s his job,” she pointed out, blinking back tears. “He doesn’t know me. I hadn’t slept with him a few weeks before.”

Dylan went completely still. He stood there all rigid and towering, again reminding her of one of the timeless trees surrounding the cabin. And she’d just swung the killing blow.

Regret was swift and immediate. “That was out of line,” she said, lifting her hands to his face. She knew better than to let pain talk, to let emotion run free. “I’m sorry.”

His expression remained granite. “Don’t be. I hurt you.”

“We hurt each other,” she corrected, and knew it was true. “But life goes on.” It had to. “You promised me tonight,” she reminded, and realized how badly she wanted to step back into his arms. Except this time, instead of feeling him holding her, she wanted to hold him. To wrap her arms around his waist and pull him to her, close her eyes and live in a pretend world where the past didn’t have the power to rip her heart in two, and the future didn’t hold the possibility of a prison sentence.

Just for tonight. That was all. Reality would come crashing down soon enough.

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Dylan St. Croix,” she said, loving the feel of his whiskers beneath the pads of her fingers, “it’s that he’s a man of his word. Let’s not spoil what we have left with what we can’t change.”

Still, he didn’t move, just stood there looking at her like he’d never seen her before. Like he had no idea what language she spoke. No idea what to do with her.

She slid her hands from his face to the back of his neck
and pressed her body to his. The surge
was immediate, the
rush, the sense of
homecoming.

“Dance with me, Dylan. Please.”

A hard sound broke from his throat, that of frustration and restraint and strength, but he lifted his hands to her
waist and started to sway against her body. She felt him begin to relax, felt the tension drain from his tight shoulders and rigid back. Felt one hand slide around her waist and up her back, where he simply spread his fingers and held.

Felt her world, her resolve, shatter.

What was it about this man, she wondered in some hazy, barely functioning corner of her mind. What was it about this man that not only made her forget every hard lesson life had pounded into her, but made her
want
to forget? To simply enjoy the moment? When was the last time she’d danced in front of a fire? Danced at all. When was the last time she’d lived?
Really
lived?

The answer should have patched the cracks in the icy wall she’d erected around her heart, but instead, the thaw accelerated.

Across the room, the fire crackled, while the taper candles wavered valiantly. The singer’s raspy voice filtered around her and through her, as drugging as the feel of Dylan’s body moving with hers. They held each other tightly, fiercely, silently communicating what words could not.

“Look at me,”
he commanded softly, pulling back.

Three simple words, but they made her mouth go dry, her body liquid. She knew that intimate tone, had fought it in her dreams. Had surrendered to it the night they’d made a baby. Now, she lifted her eyes, wondering how she’d find the strength to tell him no. Tell herself.

“It was less than fifteen minutes,” he said.

She blinked. “W-what?”

“The woman I brought here,”
he said, never looking away. “We were here less than fifteen minutes.”

Her heart started to pound. Hard. A strange combination
of elation and dread tangled. “I don’t understand.”

“No,” he said with a slight smile, “I don’t suppose you do. I’m not sure I do, either. Holly sure as hell didn’t.” He hesitated, sliding a hand from her shoulders to her neck, where he spread his fingers wide.

Beth braced herself. It was bad enough imagining Dylan here with another woman, here where she’d given him her
virginity. But to hear him talking about
it, about her, shattered.

“We came here for
the weekend, but left before I un
loaded the car. I
never saw her again after
I dropped her
off.”

Beth just stared at him, trying to understand what he
was telling her. “She was that mad at you?”

“No, I was that disgusted with
myself.”
His thumb
cruised over her jaw and slid along her lower lip. “Seeing her here felt like a violation of something precious.”