Once Upon a Christmas (36 page)

She grinned. Once Dylan made a commitment, it looked as if
he really went all out. Pursing her lips, she grabbed Dylan’s other arm and
drew a red lipstick heart. His free arm tightened on her waist as she
embellished the heart with an arrow piercing through the edges.

He grinned as he watched her draw. “You had to make
yours fancier than mine, didn’t you?”

“It’s not a competition,” Stacey answered,
stalling for time, trying to sound about a hundred times more lighthearted than
she felt as she added a couple of feathers to her arrow.

What if he was kidding? Or, given the possible fiasco they
might have made out of the honeymoon charade, trying to cheer her up?

I love you
. It danced inside her head like a pink
jewelry box ballerina, surprising and beautiful…and likely to stop with no
warning at all.

Why?
she wrote inside the heart she’d drawn.

Dylan wrinkled his forehead and read. “Why?”

She nodded, suddenly afraid to look up at him. He’d probably
be mad. Maybe she’d spoiled the whole thing. But it was better to know the
truth now rather than later, wasn’t it?

“Yes,” she whispered. “Why?”

Chapter Eight

Dylan hesitated, then cupped her jaw and raised her face to
his. “A million reasons.”

His voice wrapped her in warmth and half-forgotten wishes,
seductive enough to make her hurl caution to the desert sun and melt right
along with it. A million reasons…a million reasons to love her. Wow.

Stacey’s knees wobbled, an unmistakable side effect of
whatever spell Dylan was weaving. Like a sorcerer’s lure, it kept her plastered
happily next to him as the rest of her thoughts unraveled. Her and Dylan, Dylan
and her—together. Right now. It was almost too much to believe, too much to
hope for.

Just believe him!
her body screamed, but her head had
gotten used to watching over the rest of her, and it had other ideas. Stacey
swiveled her lipstick higher and smoothed her palm over his biceps as though it
were a bumpy sheet of paper, then wrote.
Sex?

Dylan gave her a roguish smile. “That’s one reason. Let
me show you some more.”

He smoothed her sweater sideways, baring her shoulder. He
stroked his pencil over her skin. Slowly, its tip circled the rounded edge of
her shoulder with feather-light touches, then curved toward her neck. The
sensation felt surprisingly erotic. Every nerve ending along her arm and
shoulder tingled. She watched him draw, his face close enough to hers that she
could detect the faint beginnings of beard stubble shading his jaw. If she
leaned over a couple of inches, she could kiss him.

Mmmm. Good idea.

He frowned slightly, intent on his handiwork, then raised
his pencil with a grin. “There.”

Already missing the teasing stroke of his pencil, Stacey
tucked her chin to her chest and peered at her shoulder. He’d drawn a chain of
interlocked hearts.

“Show off.” Playfully, she wrinkled her nose at
him. How much more of this could she take before she caved completely? As a
sexual conquest, she’d be no contest—not after a little more of Dylan’s body
graffiti. But maybe, just maybe, it was more than that.

Oh, how she wanted to believe it was more than that! She
closed her eyes and made a quick wish.
Please. If this is only a dream, just
let me sleep in for once!
When she opened them again, Dylan smiled.

“That was just warming up.”

He added a wink that left her noodle-legged and leaning. All
this time, she’d thought she disliked men who winked. Winkers belonged in the
same class with fanny-pinchers, street corner hooters and guys who called you “Babe’.
Didn’t they?

Unless they were Dylan.

His fingers, blunt-edged and so much stronger than hers,
twisted up more eyeliner. He raised his eyebrow at her. “Hold still, now.
We don’t have an eraser.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m giving you those reasons you asked for.” He
bared her other shoulder, stroked his fingers over her skin like an artist
testing his canvas, then wrote
Sexy
.

“We already covered that.”

Was she nuts, arguing with him over it?
Shut up
, she
ordered herself.

“No, we haven’t.” He lifted his gaze from her bare
shoulder to her eyes. “This is a reason.
You’re
sexy.”

“Oh.” She felt her face heat and realized she was
blushing. “Umm, you are, too.”

Dylan looked pleased. She looked him over, pretending to
test her judgment. Her gaze wandered a leisurely arc from his big feet to the
top of his mussed-up hair, lingering over points in between…muscular legs,
jeans, a broad chest covered by his untucked shirt, wide shoulders, arms made
for holding her, and a sappy, sexy grin. Yeah.
Sexy
was the only word
for Dylan Davis.

He slipped his finger inside the scooped neckline of her
sweater, just barely touching her skin. He lowered the soft cotton just enough
to expose an inch or two of writing space.

Dylan touched the eyeliner to a place just below her
collarbone, then smoothed it slowly sideways. Stacey shivered in reaction, biting
her lip. She was supposed to hold still during this? It was torture.

But torture of the very best, most teasing kind. The
eyeliner pencil moved, guided by his warm fingers, creating a path of ticklish,
heightened sensation. His breath followed, fanning gently across her skin. It
made her yearn for his lips, his hands, to follow the same path.

Touch me
, she thought, and felt only the teasing
glide of the eyeliner point.
Touch me
.

Dylan stopped writing and stepped back. Grinning, he caught
hold of her arms and twirled her around. The next thing she knew, she was
backed up to the huge honeymoon suite window. Sun-warmed glass heated her back,
her arms, her thighs. It was nothing compared with the feel of his hands
holding her there. She wanted this, wanted him…wanted to know what else he’d
written. Stacey lowered her chin, trying to read the loopy midnight blue letters he’d drawn.

“Caring,” Dylan said, tracing them with his
finger. He raised his hands to smooth her hair from her face, then smiled. “You
care about people more than anybody I know. You take care of them. Worry about
them. You love them.” He delved his fingers in her hair, drawing her
closer to him. “
Love me
,” he whispered. “Let me love you.”

She wanted to—wanted to answer him—but the longing she
glimpsed in his eyes stunned her too much to speak. By the time Stacey regained
her wits, Dylan had already moved on.

He flashed her a smile. “But maybe you want the rest of
those reasons first.”

Withdrawing his hands from her hair, he used them instead to
trace the sides of her body, gliding past her shoulders, her arms, the indrawn
curve of her waist. His fingers pressed on her hips, creating a new wave of
sensation as his thumbs kneaded through her clothes, speaking his desire in a
way no words could.

He dropped to his knees at her feet. His jaw caressed her
bare belly, unerringly finding the few inches of skin left uncovered by her
hiked-up sweater. Her stomach contracted, her pulse raced, and her knees
wobbled harder, sending her flat against the heated window at her back. His
lips nuzzled her belly button.

Yelping, Stacey grabbed his head. “What are you doing?”

Lazily, Dylan turned his face upward, using her hips for an
anchor. “Looking for more bare canvas. You do want the rest of those
reasons, don’t you?”

Reasons? “Yes.
Yes
.” Anything. She’d have
agreed to anything to keep him close. “Please, don’t stop.”

“Oh, I won’t stop,” he promised, raising her
T-shirt hem. Dylan peered at the gently curved slope of her belly and pattered
his fingertips delicately along the waistline of her skirt. “This looks
good. How about right here?”

He raised his eyebrow at a rakish angle, looking up at her.
Stacey swayed in his arms, supported only by his hands, the sunny window, and
the strength of his will. She murmured something meant to be agreement. It
sounded more like a moan.

“Yes?” He poised the eyeliner near her belly
button.

She wanted to scream for him to put his hands on her
instead, to quit torturing her with that smooth pinpoint of sensation.
Curiosity made her bite her lip to hold in the demand. She nodded.

He drew. She waited, quivering, as he stroked eyeliner loops
and curlicues over her tummy, forming words she couldn’t read. Tantalizing
sensations she couldn’t escape. And yearnings only Dylan could satisfy.
Impatiently, Stacey buried her fingers deeper into his hair. Her breath came
faster the further he wrote. Her spine felt liquid, useless to hold her much
longer. Urged by the inexorable tug of his hand on her hip, she arched her
pelvis forward, silently pleading for another touch, another stroke, for just
one instant of skin against skin.

“Uh, uh, uh,” he cautioned, giving her another
belly nip. “If you wiggle, I might have to start all over again.”

Oh, God…anything but that. She’d never survive. Stacey
stiffened, flattening her palms against the window behind her. For an instant,
she wondered if anyone could see her there, silhouetted in the sunlight with
Dylan’s head almost in her lap. Then she remembered they were on the hotel’s
top floor. No one but passing bluebirds could see them.

“Mmmm,” Dylan moaned against her, still writing.
His breath penetrated her thin skirt, searing all the way to her panties
beneath. “You smell good. Sweet, like honey and cinnamon. Sweet…all
over.”

Stacey gasped, trembling harder. More writing would be
hopeless. In her condition, she could barely stand. What was he doing to her?

“Mmmm.” The husky rumble of his voice vibrated all
the way to her heart and set fire to her senses. Dylan plucked his fingers
along her skirt hem as he finished writing. He leaned back to examine the
words. “I like it.”

Cool air rushed over her skin. Somehow, Stacey managed to
find the ability to speak, even though her brain had probably overheated
fifteen minutes ago. “What does it say?”

He touched his fingertip to one side of her belly. “Smart,”
he said, tracing the word he’d written there. “Smart enough to have a
brilliant career, a brand new life…and the wisdom to give me another try.”
Smiling, Dylan looked up at her. “You are giving me another try, aren’t
you?”

“That’s what this is.” Her heart raced as she
admitted it—to herself and to him. “Starting over.”

Dear God, that
was
what it was. Starting things over
between them. If it was foolish, so be it. It was too late to turn back now.

“Generous,” Dylan went on, his fingertips
underlining the second word he’d written in a loopy curve above her belly
button. “You’re generous here, spending your weekend making sure no one in
your family gets hurt. Generous to still be friends with your ex-husband, no
matter what a louse he really is.” He frowned, as though that particular
generosity escaped him. “You spend time helping your family, time helping
all those pharmacy interns you oversee at work—”

“Enough!” Stacey protested, laughing. Dylan even
remembered the details of her work at the pharmacy? She couldn’t believe it. “You’re
making me sound like Mother Teresa!”

“But miles sexier.” He raised his hands to her
waist, then backed her sideways toward the table and chairs that formed a sort
of honeymoon suite breakfast nook near the window. “
Miles sexier
.”

“That’s a relief.”

Her hip touched the smooth edge of the table. Stacey
stopped, smiling up at him. Miles sexier, huh? She felt it, given the
appreciation in his gaze as he looked at her. Somehow it infused her arms and
legs with unexpected grace, lent her hips and breasts a
femme fatale’s
curvy seductiveness and her voice a siren’s alluring huskiness.

“I wouldn’t want to disappoint you,” she said.

“You won’t. There’s no way you could.”

He smiled and lifted her onto the table as easily as he
might have lifted a coffee cup to his lips, and with the same expectation of
something good to come. She whooped and grinned, grabbing his shoulders.

“I’ve got you.” He helped her scoot in position on
the table.

Sure. He had her all right—but for what? Filled with
anticipation, she wrapped her arms around him and fingered the fine hairs at
the nape of his neck. He smelled good, like soap and musk and creamy zinc
oxide, all put together. Nose to nose with him, Stacey looked into his eyes.

What she saw there made excitement sizzle up her spine.
Desire. Hunger. And the tenderness that had been her undoing since the moment
he’d confessed his broken heart. All of it for her.

She held her breath, waiting for Dylan to make his move.
Kiss
me, kiss me
. Any second now he’d cradle the back of her head in his big
hand, pull her closer, cover her mouth with his and spin them both into warm,
wet, bliss.

Instead, Dylan’s hand flattened just below her ribs, easing
her backward. She felt herself falling backward on the table.

“What are you doing?” Letting go of him, she
balanced herself on her elbows and blinked away her visions of long, languorous
kisses. Instead she gazed, half-reclining, down the length of her body at him.

Rather than answer right away, Dylan fit his palms around
her knees, drew her legs apart, and settled himself between them with a
satisfied smile. “That’s better.”

She’d say. He fit there veeery nicely.

“I’m showing you the next reason.”

In demonstration, he trailed his fingertip to her
belly…and the last word he’d written. Somehow, he’d managed to hold onto the
eyeliner, probably with intentions of torturing her some more. Too bad she
couldn’t reciprocate. She’d dropped her lipstick shortly after Dylan had
dropped to his knees.