Bad Boys After Dark: Dylan (Bad Billionaires After Dark Book 2)

by Melissa Foster

  “Right.” She’d never jumped on a trampoline. Her childhood had been spent keeping up with her older brothers, playing football and baseball and basketball at local fields with the other kids from the neighborhood so she wasn’t ever left behind.

  “At first all you want to do is get used to the feel of swinging and falling.”

  “Falling. Right.” I can do this.

  “Summers!” Dylan called. He was sitting on the trapeze bar like it was a chair. One leg was bent, his foot flat along the narrow bar, the other hung below him, and he had one arm around the cable. When had he changed his position?

  For you, I can do this. “Yeah?” she called out.

  “You look hot, babe.” His smile told her he was trying to put her at ease, but he was having the opposite effect. She was getting even more flustered.

  “He’s so into you,” Gigi said. “If I were you, I’d just stand here and let him gawk for a while. Really play it up.”

  Tiffany’s ears perked up. That seemed far less scary than jumping, but she was already leaning out over the trapeze, straining to hold on to the bar, and the only thing keeping her from leaving the platform was Gigi’s grip on the back of her harness.

  “Next time I’ll play it up. I think I’m ready.”

  “Don’t look down,” Gigi said.

  Tiffany’s eyes dropped. Why did she have to be so rebellious? Renewed fear ate at her. She forced her eyes up to Dylan again, strengthening her motivation not to let him down, and drew in a deep breath. “Okay, let go!”

  Gigi released her and Tiffany pushed off the platform, flying down and then up toward Dylan, who was hollering, “That’s my girl!”

  Air blasted against her skin. She heard screaming and realized it was coming from her. She was screaming like a little girl as she soared backward, fighting through heart-thumping fear. Dylan’s handsome face came into view again as she swung forward, and a second later she was soaring backward again, still screaming. Hysterical laughter came out of nowhere, causing her to lose her grip. She fell like lead to the net and bounced like a Ping-Pong ball. Dylan landed on the other side of the net, sending her up into the air again, laughing as he made his way over and she tumbled into his bear hug.

  “You did it!” He kissed her everywhere—her cheeks, her lips, her forehead, and her lips again—laughing and hugging her so tight she hoped he’d never let go.

  “OH MY GOD that was insane!” Tiffany laughed, clinging to Dylan so tightly he was afraid to let go.

  She’d been opening up to him so much more lately, he wanted to experience every bit of this with her. “Were you scared? What did it feel like?”

  Her smile reached all the way up to her eyes. “It was crazy. Like nothing else existed. Fear swallowed me whole, just like Gigi said it would, and then there you were, and you looked so happy…” She pressed her lips to his and then all that giddiness disappeared and her expression turned serious. “We have to do it again. I lost my grip.”

  She crawled across the net and he grabbed hold of her and kissed her hard.

  “You’re beautiful, you know that?” The firm set of her jaw told him she was too focused to be affected by his praise, and her determination filled him with joy—and turned him on. He’d taken a big chance bringing her here. He’d bet on her wanting to conquer the challenge, but after their conversation in the parking lot, he’d worried he might have pushed her too far.

  “Let me get down first so I can help you.” He held on to the net and flipped over the edge.

  “Wow.” She gripped the edge of the net, and by the time he realized she was going to flip off, it was too late. She was in the air, and landed unsteady on her feet beside him, her hands splayed out to her sides for balance. “Whoa.”

  He wrapped her in his arms. “I’ve got you.”

  “I didn’t expect to be disoriented.” She found her footing a second later, went up on her toes, and kissed him again. He liked this new habit of hers. “Come on.” She took off for the ladder. “Gigi said I could try to jump to you!”

  Not one to give up, Tiffany quickly learned to hang on to the bar, then to hang from her feet, and also how to control when she fell. She tried for more than an hour to master the jump. They both hung from their feet, Dylan’s arms outstretched, Tiffany’s face a mask of determination, as they worked together to find their groove. Several falls, a hearty amount of laughter, and too many kisses to count later, they did just that. The first time Tiffany trusted him enough to try, his heart opened up. The second time, it called out to her. And by the third time, when her fingers circled his wrists, then slipped away as she sailed to the net, she climbed inside. And every time thereafter—every fall and every success—when the strength of their connection shone in her eyes, he wanted to lock it up and throw away the key.

  Chapter Sixteen

  THE EVENING COULDN’T have been more perfect. True to his promise, Dylan and Tiffany sat on the dock and talked while she checked her messages. Then they went for a long motorcycle ride before heading back into the city. She wanted the night to last forever. She felt freer than she could ever remember feeling, and happy. Truly, blissfully happy, except beneath all that happiness was sadness that she was trying to keep tamped down until they were someplace private. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the sister he’d mentioned, but she was biding her time to bring her up.

  They picked up takeout from the Italian restaurant on the corner by their apartment, and Tiffany snuggled in beneath his arm as they stepped into the elevator in their apartment building.

  Dylan pushed the button for the top floor.

  “Do you have two apartments?” she asked.

  “No. Have you ever been on the roof?”

  “Of our building? No.”

  He leaned in for a kiss. She loved how big he was, that he had to bend to kiss her and she had to go up on her toes to kiss him. Those weren’t things she’d noticed about men before. Not even with Rob.

  “That’s where we’re having dinner,” he answered.

  “How? They must keep that door locked.”

  He dangled his keys from his finger. “Phoebe owns the building. When I moved in, she gave me a key. I thought I’d go up there and chill, you know? And I did, a time or two, but it wasn’t what I thought it would be.”

  The elevator stopped, and she followed him down to a door at the end of the hallway. “Then why are we going up there?”

  He unlocked the door and held it open for her to walk through, then followed her up the narrow staircase and unlocked the door that led out to the roof. “Because it was lonely before. Now it won’t be.”

  God, what his lines—truths—did to her.

  He pushed open the door, revealing not only a breathtaking view of the city lights, but also a bed of plush blankets, candles, and sticking out of the top of a cooler, a bottle of wine.

  “Dylan, this is beautiful. When did you have time to do this?”

  “I set it up before we left. The ice is melted, but I only wanted the wine to be about fifty degrees, so it should be perfect.”

  He set the food on the blanket and she went to him and guided his arms around her. Standing on her toes, she touched her lips to his.

  “Ms. Winters, you can flirt all you want, but this is a no-sex night, and I will not be swayed.”

  She laughed. “I might not be trying to sway you.”

  “You’re not sure?” he teased.

  “I want to thank you. You put so much thought into our date, and it means the world to me. I never imagined that a single date could bring us so close together.”

  “It wasn’t the single date.”

  He lowered his lips to her neck, as he’d been doing all day. And that was fine with her. If she could get away with him following her through her day with a nibble here, a kiss there, a slick of his tongue everywhere, she’d be perfectly happy. Of course, her clients might not be.

  “It was every moment we’ve spent together, every phone call, every
text, every glance, that brought us here.” He framed her face with his hands and kissed her tenderly. “That’s how it happens. One moment at a time.”

  She was so swept up in him she forgot what she’d said. “That’s how what happens?”

  He smiled and touched his lips to hers again. She would never get enough of his kisses, and that stirred anxiety that hadn’t been there all evening.

  With a hand cupping her chin, a look of genuine adoration in his eyes, and a brush of his thumb over her lower lip, he said, “Whatever this is between us,” and lowered his mouth to hers, chasing away her anxiety once and for all.

  They ate dinner on the blanket, sharing their entrées, and when Tiffany’s phone vibrated with the millionth message, she powered it off.

  “You sure?” Dylan asked.

  “The world didn’t end when we were with Gigi, so I’m pretty sure we’re safe for a little while. But I’ll have to check it in a bit.” She lifted her wineglass and said, “To our mostly phone-free first real date.”

  They clinked glasses and drank to the toast. After they finished eating, they lay beneath the stars with their fingers intertwined, getting to know each other better, just like Dylan had hoped. Tiffany didn’t realize how much she could enjoy being fully present without distractions of work and deadlines, and it made her want more of it with Dylan. They’d kicked off their shoes, and every so often Dylan rubbed his foot over hers. It was such a little thing, his toe moving along the arch of her foot or the underside of his foot sliding overtop of hers, but it felt intimate and special.

  “First kiss?” he asked.

  “Ralph Frizzio, in fourth grade. Behind the big tree on the playground. I’ll never forget, because he was yelling at me and I grabbed him by the collar and slammed him against the tree. I wanted to hit him, but then I remembered something I had heard Rocco say to Perry. He said, ‘When someone pisses you off, kiss them. It shuts them right up.’” She laughed. “It didn’t work. He yelled at me every day for a week until I realized he was doing it just so I’d kiss him.”

  Dylan laughed. “That’s hilarious.”

  “Rocco didn’t think so when I yelled at him for it. Of course, he was in high school, and I’m sure I’d taken his advice out of context. He gave me a lecture about kissing boys.”

  “I’ll have to thank him for that. He probably caused you to save all the best kisses for me.”

  She was learning to accept Dylan’s sweet smooth lines as words from his heart, and it felt good to trust them. It felt good to trust him.

  “How about you?” she asked. “First kiss?”

  “I was fourteen.”

  “Old,” she teased.

  He squeezed her hand. “Yeah.”

  His tone was so somber, she pushed up on her elbow so she could see him. A soft smile formed on his lips, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “It was after school with Chelsea Randy. Great name, right?” He laughed. “She lived around the corner from us, and we made out in her backyard. We kissed, and I think I touched her boob. And then she moved on to another guy the next day.”

  “Aw, that’s sad. She didn’t know what she had.”

  “Nobody could get close to me then.” Sadness washed over his face. “That was two years after we lost my sister, Lorelei,” he said with a heavy sigh. “It was also the year my parents split up.”

  Her chest constricted, and for a moment she remained silent as emotions clogged her throat. He had lost a sister and his family in two short years. “I don’t know what words could possibly make that feel less awful. I’m sorry seems so small, but I am sorry. I can’t imagine losing a sibling. I’m sorry about your parents, of course, but your sister…Oh, Dylan.” She rested her head on his chest and held him, feeling his heart beating steady and strong against her cheek.

  “Lorelei was the coolest kid. She was funny, and smart, and rebellious. Kind of like you.” He lifted his hips, pulling his wallet from his back pocket. He fished around in it for a minute, withdrew a small laminated picture, and handed it to Tiffany. The edges were worn and curled. Cracks mapped the lamination like wrinkles on skin.

  “That’s her. The Wilds lived around the corner from us. Cooper took this picture a few months before we lost her. We were all out on my parents’ back deck fooling around. She loved to hang out with all of us and be part of the group, you know? She’d say the silliest things, tease us, call us dorks. She dreamed of being famous when she got older.” He smiled and shook his head. “She would have, too. She had this confidence and attitude that drew us all in. It was like you couldn’t look away from her because she was that charismatic, even as a little girl.”

  Tiffany looked at the little girl in the picture, and tears welled in her eyes. Lorelei sat in a wicker chair with her head cocked to the side. Her long brown hair was blowing in the wind, hiding the left side of her face. She wore enormous sunglasses with tiger-striped frames. She had a slim, upturned nose and a beautiful half smirk, half smile that reminded her of Dylan so much her breath hitched. Her smile revealed slightly crooked front teeth that were too big for her mouth. The kind of teeth a girl had to grow into. She wore a pair of white sweatpants with big blue palm trees and elephants on them. There was a grass stain on the knee, and her blue sweater had a piece of a leaf stuck to the sleeve, like she’d run up and flopped onto the chair after tumbling in the grass. She looked happy and carefree, reminding Tiffany of how she felt before her mother left. She glanced at Dylan thinking about how one day life was just…life. And the next, their whole worlds had changed. She never would have guessed how much they had in common, and yet he was so open and willing to embrace every possibility, while she was trying to hide from the what-ifs.

  “I called her Squirt, she called me Dilly, and she used to sneak up behind me if I was playing a game or on my computer, and she’d whisper in my ear, Dilly, I’m bored, or Dilly, let’s go get in trouble. She never got in trouble, but she liked to push the envelope.” He was staring up at the sky, as if watching a memory unfold before him. “I don’t know when or why it started, but at some point she began coming into my room at midnight on the weekends and coaxing me into making cupcakes with her.”

  “Cupcakes?” She lifted her head off his chest, willing her tears not to fall and wanting to see his face. “It sounds like she adored you.” He smiled as she spoke, but his eyes were haunted.

  “Yeah.” His voice cracked, and he pushed up to a sitting position. “She was a great kid,” he said with finality.

  “And she loved the trapeze?” She wanted to know more about the little girl whose effervescence radiated from the picture she held within her hands.

  He nodded. “She took lessons from Gigi’s father for about a year before…before she got sick. Leukemia. It took her quickly. It was awful.” His eyes filled with tears and he gritted his teeth. Clearing his throat, he turned away and breathed deeply. “I can’t imagine anything harder than losing someone you love.”

  A tear slipped down Tiffany’s cheek as she put the pieces of Dylan’s life together. His volunteering, his accommodating nature, his wanting to fix, and help, and make things better for her. She wrapped her arms around him and held him, wishing she could take away his pain.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

  “Me too,” he said, and the pain in his voice crushed her to pieces. He kissed her cheek, gazing into her eyes with so much emotion it felt like a living, breathing being. “You would have liked her.”

  “I’m sure I would have. Dylan, why did you take me to the trapeze place today? Lorelei was so special to you…”

  He was quiet for a moment, appearing deep in thought, looking at her and through her at the same time. “I feel connected to you in ways I haven’t ever felt connected to anyone else, and I guess I wanted to share her with you.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t,” he said sternly. “Don’t tell me you’re not a laundry list of things, because you are a magnificent list of things. You’ve been hurt, and you hav
e a life of your own. I get that. I respect it. You’re scared. I’m scared. You’ve got this nice, safe world you’ve created where you don’t have to worry about someone sleeping around behind your back, hurting or disappointing you.”

  The mere fact that he understood her so completely made her breathe harder. She’d been walled off for so long, she never imagined anyone understanding how she had become so distant, and yet Dylan accepted her without question. She knew she could trust him with the rest of her past. “I have been hurt, but there’s more that I haven’t told you.”

  “Nothing you say will convince me that I’m wrong about us.”

  “I don’t want to convince you of that. I like us.” Her admission came fast and furious, shocking her, but Dylan was smiling so wide, it made her smile, too. “I just want you to know, in case I freak out or crawl back into my hole.”

  “Or hide behind your phone?”

  “Maybe,” she admitted. “You color outside the lines. You take time off to meet me for a cab ride—”

  “Sedan ride,” he corrected.

  She laughed. “You ordered a sedan, you took time last night from your friends and family, you…” She stopped herself, because this wasn’t about him. This was about her, and it was about time she owned up to that fact. “You call me on my shit, and you push me in ways no one ever has.”

  “I’ve seen the end of life, Summers. It’s awful. It’s not peaceful or painless. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it a million more times. I want to follow my heart and live life to the fullest, which is a terrible but true cliché. From the minute we left that bar together the first night, I was drawn to you by something much stronger than lust. You’re challenging for a guy like me, yes, but I’m challenging for you, and there’s much more to us than challenge. I want to grab the brass ring, and I want you to want that, too.”

  “I know,” she said softly. “I feel it, too, and I want it. But I’m not good at this, Dylan. I do well with things with borders. Defined lines. Work is clear-cut. It’s easy for me. It’s understandable. And you…”