He stepped back and reached down to grab the basket and lantern and move them aside, nudging a few of the pillows off the blanket, before finally giving up the charade that everything was fine and dandy. “Erin. I—”
“How did you get all this up here, anyway?” she asked, cutting him off. “I still can’t believe you went to all this trouble. If you were out to impress, you certainly did.” She was talking too fast, sounding too effusive. Erin was direct and enthusiastic, but bubbly was not exactly her typical mien.
So the whole calm demeanor thing was a façade. Good.
He tossed his shirt down and took hold of her arms, pulling her to a stand in front of him. “Aye, I was trying to impress,” he said, “but I’ve failed miserably.”
She kept that faux sincerity on her face, despite the surprise he’d caught briefly flickering through. “But I just told you that you didn’t. I’ve never had anyone go to such lengths. Of course, I know it was more for the show than for me, and we’ll have to talk about that. I don’t want you to get your hopes up there, but—”
“Stop.”
She abruptly shut up. Which told him volumes more about her state of mind than maybe she’d intended to telegraph. Too bad. He had no problems exploiting it if it meant they got past this farcical behavior.
“Erin.” He waited until she looked him in the face. “I’m sorry.”
That definitely surprised her. “What on earth for?”
“Last night was—”
“Better for me than for you, apparently.” Bright smile gone, she was all practiced defiance now. It irritated the living hell out of him. He wanted his Erin back, not this…this…automaton.
She tugged her arm free and crouched back down so she could start folding again, only she clearly wasn’t paying any attention to what she was doing and just balling things up. A chink in her armor, finally. At least that was a start.
“Maybe I should be the one doing the apologizing,” she said, not as calmly as before. Perhaps a bit huffy, in fact.
“Oh, for god’s sake.” Dylan crouched in front on her, stopping her manic movements by taking both her arms in his grasp. “What is wrong with us this morning?”
“Wrong? What do you mean? I’ve been perfectly civil. I let you sleep, I’m helping to clean up, complimenting you, what do you want?”
He wanted to shake her. Then throw her down on the blanket and make love to her the way he should have last night, instead of taking her like some beast in full rut. “I want the real Erin back, please.”
Her eyebrow arched. “Excuse me?”
He smiled. “Yeah, more like that.”
She gave him a disgusted snort, then returned to her hasty packing. “Whatever. I’m sorry to cut all this short, but I really do have to get back.”
So…could it be that she was avoiding dealing with the same thing he was? Just going about it differently, perhaps. Escape and avoid. Same tactic he’d used in the library. He could tell her it was a waste of time. But he doubted she’d listen.
“I know, and I’ll get you back as quickly as I can, but I wanted to talk to you about…” He trailed off, realizing he sounded like every lame morning-after guy in history. The was-it-good-for-you guy. He wasn’t that bloke, all frail ego, needing reassurance. But that’s how it was going to sound to her. He needed a different kind of reassurance altogether. But faced with the exact wording, he was left a bit speechless.
“About what? About last night?”
Of course she’d handle it directly. Why had he worried?
“Well, yes.”
“I thought it was pretty obvious we both had a good time, enjoyed each other, unless I’m really that off my—”
“No, no,” he hastened to assure her. “I—we both seemed to manage to figure things out well enough, it’s just—”
“There’s a scintillating review.” She said it dryly and without malice, as if she hadn’t expected raves. She laid a hand on his arm.
He wondered if she had any idea the instant reaction her mere touch caused in him, or that he was already thinking of how to talk her into staying here for just a wee bit longer.
“If you’re worried I was expecting more, don’t. We’ve already gone over our essential incompatibilities. I would have said no if I didn’t want things to go where they did, and I know you’d have respected that or I’d have never agreed to come out here with you in the middle of the night in the first place. I have absolutely no regrets.” She smiled, and it looked sincere and bright, but he noted it didn’t quite reach the depths of her eyes. A beautiful green as always, but not sparkling this fine morning.
He realized he wanted nothing more than to make her eyes sparkle again. It bothered him a great deal that she could look at him, talk about something intimate shared between them, without so much as a glimmer or gleam.
“So, no worries, okay?” She patted his arm, then went back to rolling and gathering blankets.
But he was worried. Worried that he should be vastly relieved by this little chat, and was anything but. Worried that he wanted her to care more, to expect more, nay, to absolutely demand more from him, and even more worried that perhaps he wouldn’t be able to deliver if she did. No’ that he wouldn’t try. But what if he’d given her his all and she’d still looked at him as she was right now? Very thanks-for-the-toss-time-to-go-mate.
“Tell me then, you never answered me earlier. When you accepted my invitation…was it with a thought as to where it might lead?”
She glanced up briefly, then held his gaze when she saw the sincerity of his tone matched his expression. “I think it would be disingenuous to pretend otherwise, but I won’t say I expected something to happen.”
“You’d have been satisfied then, if we’d gone for a spin, and I’d returned you to your room, safe, sound and—”
“Unravished?” she added, a start of that daring smile sparking back to life. “Part of me would have been disappointed, the rest of me would have convinced that part that it was for the best. To keep from complicating things.”
“So no regrets regardless then. As long as things don’t get…complicated.”
Now she didn’t even pretend to do busy work. She sat back on her haunches and truly looked at him. “What do you want me to say? What are you angling for here?”
Good question, that. He opted to go with honesty, and see where that took them. “When I set this up, I did have every intention of seducing you.”
She merely nodded. “Okay.”
“When I left the library earlier this week, my plan was to stay away. Perhaps even make all our lives easier and go bunk with one of my brothers for the duration.”
“But?”
He looked at her, truly looked at her. She was everything he’d never wanted in a woman. So why did he all but ache to have her again? Was it the chase? That she wasn’t throwing herself at him? “Ye plague me, still, you know that.”
Which made her laugh. “Yes, I haven’t forgotten the lovely light in which you hold me.”
He shook his head. “I heard what you said, that day in the library, about complicating things, juggling obligations, and I agreed with you. So I left, with every intention of keeping that agreement. But I couldn’t stop thinking about you. That I had to stay away in order to make it stick, should have told me something right then and there. But no, I told myself it was simply a matter of opening myself up to feeling anything, and you were simply the catalyst of that reawakening.”
“I’m feeling more flattered by the second,” she said wryly, causing him to hang his head.
“I’m no’ conveying my meaning properly.” He looked back up. “In the past, my taste has run quite differently, but I’m a very different man now, who perhaps doesna know himself well enough to know what is right for him. I respond to you, for myriad reasons. I grew tired of analyzing them, of trying to make sense of it. It seemed to me the best way to figure things out was to spend more time with you and let it define itself.”
“That’s up front, and I appreciate that. So I’ll respond in kind. I confess I accepted your invitation for much the same reasons.” She smiled briefly. “Don’t let it go to your head, but ye plague me, too.”
“You’re getting far too accomplished with that accent,” he said, enjoying the return of her warmth as well as her acerbity. There was a sense of security in that.
“It’s a skill I picked up growing up. I could mimic most of the staff, and did a dead-on impression of the head mistress. I figured out early on that I could win friends and influence people by making them laugh.”
“Was that your goal then, when you moved to Hollywood? Were you hoping to be a performer?”
“No. I fell into my job entirely by accident. I had just finished my marketing degree and was working for an ad agency in L.A. and…long story short, I ended up helping Tommy’s then location coordinator after overhearing her trying to work a deal with a maitre d’ where I ate lunch. I stepped in, set her up, and it turned out well. Really well in fact. Tommy offered me an assistant’s job. It sounded exciting and it was crazy to take the leap, but the promise of travel really grabbed me, so I took a risk and went for it. Then my boss got pregnant and left, and I got her job.” She smiled and for the first time her face truly lit up. “Truly a dream come true job.”
Her eyes finally sparkled, he thought, and it wasn’t for him, but for his number one adversary: her occupation.
Didn’t that goddamn well figure.
“You’re a lucky lass, then. To have married work and life together in such a blissful union is the best of all rewards.” He pushed to a stand, needing to step away from her, this aborted morning, all of it, and reclaim a bit of himself. He’d allowed himself to indulge in the fantasy and look where that had taken him. But perhaps, given his inability to be the juggler, that was for the best, too.
Now it was back to the norm of his life. Cold, harsh reality. One thing was for certain, if he couldn’t manage to separate the two in such a short time with her, that certainly cemented the truth that he was no’ cut out to court a dozen women as their next leading man. He began to see the truth behind her explanation of why the men in question on her program fancied themselves in love with someone they’d hardly just gotten to know. Constant exposure under extreme circumstances did interesting things to one’s perception and logic.
Good thing he’d figured out that he was merely suffering from a cause-and-effect situation and by extracting himself now, he would swiftly return to reason and rational thought.
Now if he could only be certain he’d also have dream free nights, as well.
“Leave the blankets and picnic basket. I’ll return for them later. We should be getting you back.”
“Are you sure? I can carry the blankets if you can get the basket and lantern.” She glanced down at what had been the scene of his planned seduction. “I’m not sure about the pillows.”
“Leave it all. I’ll bring the basket if you want to snack a bit on the ride back. I’ve bottled water and bread. The cheese is probably fine. There are some grapes.” And oh, the midnight tryst he’d had imagined, exciting all the senses with the crisp taste of fruit, the heady scent of wine…He wondered if it would have made a difference in how this morning had turned out, but refused to allow himself to make any more of a fool of himself than he already had by even speculating on that possibility.
She grabbed a plump, square pillow and stood, the not-quite-sparkly smile pasted back on her face. “I really do appreciate all the trouble you went to. I’m sorry we didn’t give the feast its proper due.”
“It’s okay,” he said, wondering if his own smile was as noticeably forced as her was. “Come on.” He led the way, needing to leave as much as she did, only perhaps for different reasons. He’d missed the feast. And not the one that included grapes and chunks of cheese. But the feast of Erin. He hadn’t even managed to handle that right, for memory’s sake.
“I’ll drop you round back at the service entrance so you can head in and freshen up a bit and no one will be the wiser.”
Hugging the pillow to her chest, she passed him as he gestured for her to take the stairs down first. “Very gallant. I appreciate that, thanks.”
Gallant. Hardly. He found himself resisting the urge to apologize all over again. Clearly she didn’t feel the lack of romance last night, or hadn’t been looking for it in the first place. She’d said all the right things. If he were truly gallant, he’d follow her lead, both figuratively and literally, and let this one night be what it was. A sexual release of pent up need, ne’er to be repeated. He should be thankful he’d gotten that much.
They were halfway back across the valley, the ride spent almost completely in silence, not as companionable as their easy silences of the past. He abruptly pulled off the road and tugged the pillow she still hugged from her arms. No more shields, no more barriers.
“What’s wrong?” she said, blinking at him in sleepy surprise, as she’d been half drowsing. She was fully awake now.
“This. It’s all wrong.”
Before she could ask him to elaborate, he leaned across the center stick and reached for her. She was still getting her senses straight, which was probably why she let him without any attempt to pull away. “Dylan, what are you—”
“Once we get back, the craziness will consume you again. I know that’s your world, and you thrive on it. I’m glad we had the night, but I apologized before not because I was disappointed in you, but because I’d wanted it to go differently than it did.”
She sat up a little straighter, alert now. “Different how?”
“I wanted all night with you, not such a hurried rush. I knew it might be one night and one night only and I’d meant to make the most of it. And instead—”
“We both reacted to the moment the same way. You didn’t see me objecting to that.”
“I know. We took the edge off what we’d been building since, well, since—”
“You startled me into almost falling over the railing in front of your house,” she said, with a hint of teasing smile. “Or maybe it was later for you. But I wanted you right then.”
The confession both poleaxed him, and gave him the exact toehold he needed to finish what he’d once again begun. “I wanted more than that edge removed, Erin. I wanted…” He trailed off, not sure what the words were he was looking for. So he showed her. “I wanted this.”
He tugged her close and this time when he took her mouth, he claimed it slowly, thoroughly, and completely, seducing her with his tongue, with his lips, with everything he could pour into one, soul-searing kiss…until they were both left leaning limply in each other’s arms, trying to draw a regular breath and finding only partial success.
“Um…wow,” she breathed, moments later, her fingers still entwined in his hair, her face pressed into his neck.
He turned his face into her hair. And grinned madly. “Yeah,” he murmured. “Exactly.”
Chapter 16
Erin was still reeling when Dylan gently disengaged her arms from his neck and tucked the pillow back against her body. A moment later they were spewing gravel as he peeled the little roadster back onto the track and shot them like a bullet across the valley floor.
What in the hell had just happened? She’d had an hour or so of hot, sweaty, wild sex with this man, with him thrusting everything he had into her and taking her screaming over the edge into a violently satisfying orgasm. It had been raw and visceral, exhilarating and staggering, all at the same time.
And yet it hadn’t even hinted at the intimacy he’d just shared with her in that one, soul-searing kiss.
She couldn’t string coherent thoughts together, much less actual words. She couldn’t even bring herself to look over at him. So she simply stared ahead, clutching at the pillow in her lap, wondering what in the hell happened now?
It had cost her everything she had to play the unaffected, one-night-stand girl this morning. Yes, when she’d spied the blankets, the b
asket, the lantern, the pillows, her little romantic heart had gone pitty-pat. She had visions, albeit brief ones, of them slowly undressing each other in the moonlight, taking the time to explore each other’s bodies, making slow, sweet, mind-blowing love to one another as stars shot across the sky overhead. Ah yes, she’d had it all plotted out in under five seconds.
And had quite willingly thrown that scenario right under the bus when he’d grabbed her and pulled her down on top of him. Something about an alpha male like Dylan wanting her, average Erin, so badly he could barely be civil, had been possibly the most exciting thing she’d ever experienced. She had thrown herself completely into the moment, and at him, with great and willing abandon. No complaints on her part.
Then, afterward, when they were lying there, sprawled on their backs, staring sightlessly up at the sky, breathing hard, with big, stupid, satisfied grins on their faces, a little of the romantic in her began to creep back in when he pulled her into his arms. She’d listened to his breathing smooth out as she let sleep claim her as well. There would still be morning, she’d thought. Or perhaps sometime in the middle of the night, they’d wake each other up, start slowly, enjoy each other again, only more lingeringly and with great tenderness, as he’d shown her in those kisses earlier in the evening. Only when she’d opened her eyes again, dawn had been breaking, and Dylan had been sound asleep, his arm still carelessly slung around her. She’d watched him sleep, toying with the idea of waking him up, seeing where the morning might take them. She’d let her fingers do a little exploring, but stopped before she got too bold.
The longer he slept without so much as a murmured whisper or grunt of awareness, the more she started to think. Never a good idea the morning after a night like they’d shared. It had been sex, she’d realized. Raw, passionate, primal sex, but what they’d shared could in no way be construed as personal. And she wanted more. She wanted lovemaking, she wanted him to look into her eyes while he made love to her.
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