Strapless

by Leigh Riker

  As discreetly as possible, Darcie scooped up Dylan’s shirt from a chair and slipped it on herself. She tossed him his jeans.

  Cutter eyed Dylan with obvious suspicion. “Who the hell are you?” His fists loosely wadded at his sides and his spread-legged stance, though wobbly, indicated his readiness for further battle. “I ought to call 911 and have the cops arrest you for assault.”

  “Me?” Dylan zipped up his pants with apparent unconcern that he’d been caught with them down in the first place. Aussie culture, Darcie thought, like Lamington cake and beer and that heavy-duty damper. “You must be bonza—crazy—if you think I’m going to apologize. Throw a leg over the windowsill in a woman’s apartment in the middle of the night and you have the balls to feel outraged?” He turned to glare at Darcie. “You know this bloke? And you let him enter your apartment like this?”

  Darcie hastily introduced them before they killed each other.

  “Remember what I said? Cutter sometimes forgets his key.”

  “Oh, yeah. Right,” Dylan muttered.

  “I live above Darcie,” Cutter said with an edge to his tone. “It’s a short flight from the ground up the fire escape.”

  “If you can open her window, why not do the same with your own?”

  “Mine’s locked. With a grate.”

  Dylan sent her another look of reproach. “Two women, living in New York. On the first floor, dammit, where anyone can walk in. If I had my way, Darcie would be in Cincinnati—or somewhere else safe.” Another glance. “Since we haven’t worked that out, if you ever even think again of using this bedroom window to settle your problem—”

  “Who is this guy?” Cutter said again, obviously not meaning Dylan’s name.

  Dylan took a step forward, murder in his eyes, and Darcie laid a restraining hand on his arm. His muscles felt brick-hard. She could almost hear his teeth grinding.

  “Let me take care of him,” Dylan muttered.

  “Will you two stop?”

  The air seemed so thick with testosterone she could barely breathe. Eden might think that having two men fight over you was a plus, but at 3:00 a.m. Darcie disagreed. If she didn’t intervene, they would kill each other—or try. After wrestling sheep and bales of hay in Australia, Dylan’s fitness was not in question, but she wasn’t as sure of Cutter. She didn’t want to see them fight, especially over her.

  Cutter’s equally hard gaze slashed down Dylan’s frame from his dark hair to his broad shoulders to his still-hard groin.

  “Sorry I intruded on your good time.” He turned to her before Dylan could answer. “Darcie, could I see you? In private?”

  Dylan tensed but Darcie released his arm.

  “Wait here. I’ll just be a moment.”

  “I’m leaving the door open,” he called after her and Cutter.

  Leaving Dylan and his dark-as-the-pit-of-hell gaze behind, Darcie dragged Cutter into the living room by his sleeve. She pointed at the sofa, then chose an armchair for herself. This certainly wasn’t the time to get cozy with Cutter Longridge—not that she ever expected to now. Except for a few kisses, he hadn’t tried to touch her. So why this jealousy about Dylan?

  Darcie folded her arms. “Now that the territorial displays are out of the way, do you mind telling me what tonight’s visit is all about?”

  “The usual.” But Cutter’s gaze slid away. He laced his hands together and stared at his intertwined fingers. A thick strand of hair from his cowlick slipped down over his forehead. “Pahtly,” he added. His Southern accent had deepened.

  “Spill it.”

  Cutter sighed. “Hell, I got fired yesterday. Remember that ‘make or break’ project? Went out for a few drinks, which became a lot of drinks, then ended up with a woman I work—worked—with, someone I can’t even stand. I should have come here…” He trailed off. “No, then I’d have had the dubious pleasure of meeting up with—Jesus, that guy is like some cross between Keanu Reeves and Crocodile Dundee. Only bigger, and younger. He’s your Aussie?”

  “Good bones, huh?”

  He shook his head. “This city is all screwed up. It’s screwed me up.”

  “It’s not for everyone,” Darcie agreed, feeling messed up herself—which she and Claire had already discussed.

  Her pulse beat faster. Cutter had become a good friend, if an unusual companion, mostly late at night. He hadn’t paid her a visit in some time, though; she hadn’t even thought about him since Dylan arrived in New York.

  “That was last night,” she said. “What happened tonight?”

  “How did you guess?”

  Darcie smiled. “You don’t look good, Cutter. Your hair’s standing on end…your eyes are bleary.”

  “More drinking. Funny thing, when life is giving me the big shaft, alcohol becomes a moot point. Tonight I was with some other guys. We all drank too much. I’m the only one who made it home. The rest of ’em are bunked with the guy who lived closest to the last bar.”

  “You’re really lucky Dylan didn’t loosen your teeth. He’s right. You have to stop using my window.”

  Cutter shrugged. “As if it would matter. The news gets worse.”

  Darcie held her breath.

  “My father got wind of my unemployment. He’s offered me a position in his bank. In Atlanta. It’s an offer I can’t refuse.”

  “The godfather, hmm?”

  “Living under my mother’s roof.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Now I have to break my lease, pack my gear, and head south. Just when the weather’s going to turn real hot and humid there. I hate summers in Atlanta.”

  “You could stay here, Cutter. I mean in New York, not with me.”

  “That’s clear.” He darted a glance toward her bedroom.

  The door indeed stood open, and Darcie imagined Dylan just inside, monitoring her conversation with Cutter Longridge. Which didn’t endear Dylan to her at the moment. “This is my apartment,” she said, as much to inform Dylan as to reassure herself. “Dylan Rafferty is my house-guest.”

  Cutter snorted. “Right, like I’m blind. Guess I can’t blame the guy for coming at me like that.” He rose to his feet, a little shaky but upright. “I better go. You still have the spare key I gave you?”

  “I’ll get it.”

  The key hung on a hook in her kitchen and Darcie retrieved it.

  “When are you leaving New York, Cutter?”

  “As soon as possible. Once the money stops coming in, I’m in trouble. I need that job on Peachtree Street. My mom’s home cooking, too—for a while.”

  He didn’t sound happy and neither was she. Darcie felt sad, as if she too had lost her job and was being forced to go back to Cincinnati.

  “Don’t make a mistake.” She said, “You could look for a new job here. I’m sure you’d find something.”

  “Something,” he said. “Know what? I’m no good at advertising, Darcie. If the industry was flying high, I’d still be no good. My portfolio looks like a schoolkid’s in comparison to the other people in my office. Former office. No,” he went on, “I might as well admit it. This isn’t the career or the place for me.”

  “I’m sorry, Cutter.”

  In the entry hall, he hesitated. His gaze softened, and he brought both hands up to cup her face. “I’m sorry, too.” He looked toward Dylan, now in her bedroom doorway, but Darcie refused to turn around. This was her life, her moment. Another first for her, she realized. “I thought you and I could…you know. Maybe have something.”

  “I thought so, too, at first. I think we make better friends than we would—”

  He bent close to whisper against her mouth, “Lovers.”

  Then he kissed her. Gently, softly, tenderly.

  And all Darcie felt was friendship.

  Perhaps Dylan saw that, too, because he never moved from the bedroom doorway.

  “Don’t be a stranger.” She hugged him tight. “Let me hear from you. Leave me your phone number in Atlanta and I’ll call you. I promise.”

  “I ho
pe you will. I’ll see you again before I go.”

  He opened the apartment door and stepped out into the hall. Then he turned and smiled at her, his gaze blurry. Or was that Darcie’s vision that wavered?

  “Be happy,” Cutter said.

  “Whatever that means. You, too, Cutter Longridge.”

  Annie reached the top of the stairs just as Darcie went to shut the apartment door in her face. No surprise, after her flirtation with Dylan in the kitchen last week. Tired and a bit tipsy, she tried not to form any more rational thoughts about her decision as a result tonight. She reeled into Cutter on the landing.

  “Oops.”

  “Steady, Miss Annie.” He righted her, then kissed her on the cheek so quick Annie wondered if she’d imagined it. Why did she think it was a goodbye peck? Probably because her own mind was on the same page. He clattered up the steps to the floor above. His door slammed and Annie pushed into the apartment below.

  “This place is like Newark, LaGuardia, JFK all rolled into one tonight,” Darcie said.

  Annie tossed her bag on the sofa, then herself. She stretched out her legs, which didn’t quite seem to be attached to her body at the moment. “Landings, takeoffs, delays…” She looked around her. “Where’s Dylan?”

  Leaning against the bedroom door frame, he folded his arms over his chest. “You missed most of the action.”

  “What?” Annie said but she could feel tension all around. Thank heaven she’d had enough beer to blunt its effect. Annie hated tension. She had too much of her own to deal with.

  Darcie frowned. “Cutter Longridge’s defeat. You’re very late tonight.”

  “Gee, Mom, the time just slipped away.”

  “Don’t be cute. Janet may be on a plane to New York even as we speak.”

  “Oh, God. Why?”

  Darcie filled her in on Eden’s frightening “episode,” ending with a statement that only increased Annie’s discomfort. “Gran’s probably fine but we won’t know until tomorrow. Julio’s with her now.”

  “All night?”

  “In one of those hospital recliner chairs next to her bed.”

  Annie grinned, humor surfacing through the buzz of alcohol in her head.

  “That’s a hoot. I bet Julio’s between the sheets with her right now. You know Gran. She’d rather go out having a good time than doing what the doctor says.”

  Darcie raised her eyebrows. She could hardly disagree.

  “Where were you, Annie?”

  “Here. There. Everywhere. We wound up in Chelsea…somewhere.” She waved a hand in dismissal. It didn’t matter.

  By tomorrow, none of this would matter.

  She had failed. And she knew it.

  “Are you okay?” Darcie’s expression gentled. She sat beside Annie on the sofa, and Dylan disappeared back into the bedroom, giving them privacy.

  “After eight or ten beers and about a thousand pees in the crummy ladies’ room of that lousy bar, after deciding that I am a total screwup and should admit it? I’m fine.”

  “Annie. You had too much beer. Go to bed.”

  “No, I am. Fine and a screwup. You know it, Darce. You’ve been telling me for weeks. ‘Get a job, Annie.’ Or ‘get new friends, Annie.’ Or ‘don’t pierce your belly button, Annie.’ Well, I finally got the message.”

  “What happened tonight?” Darcie looked into her eyes and Annie held her gaze, unable to glance away. As sisters, they always guessed the truth before it was spoken.

  “Some guys grabbed me in the rest room. The little hall that leads to the men’s or women’s, I mean.”

  “Did they hurt you?”

  “No, but they got insistent. One of the guys I was with heard the commotion—heard me scream, I guess—and came running. Chairs flew. Bottles broke. Bodies crashed. The police showed up.”

  Darcie groaned. “Not again.”

  “It wasn’t like our party. I had my clothes on. But a couple of people got arrested. We all have to pay damages. Mom’s going to have another fit.”

  “Annie, this has to stop. You can’t—”

  “Yes. I know.” She took a deep breath that didn’t clear her head. Or ease her misery. “I thought if I could just get here—you know—everything would work. For once in my life I’d be the one who made it. Succeeded. But it’s not going to happen. I even know why. I figured it out tonight after those jerks pushed me against the wall.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “I can’t be you. I have to be me. Annie Baxter, mixed-up girl from Cincinnati.” To her horror, her eyes filled. “I don’t belong here, Darcie.”

  “First Cutter, now you. This seems to be the night for confessions.”

  “Know where I do belong?”

  “I think I can guess.”

  “In Cincinnati—with Mom and Dad and the house where we grew up and the room I still love. That’s why I’ve been homesick. I’m not ready to be on my own—not this much—and if I stay here, I’ll get myself into serious trouble.”

  “That’s possible,” Darcie agreed.

  “So you won’t be mad if I leave?”

  “I’ll miss you,” Darcie said, her voice thick so that Annie realized her sister didn’t totally despise her. “Maybe you should get some sleep, and think about this in the morning.”

  “No, I’m sure,” she said. “I miss Cliff, too. Every time he calls me, I cry afterward. Isn’t that stupid? Last night I realized how silly it was to be here, missing Cliff while he’s missing me in good old Porkopolis.”

  At the city’s nickname, Darcie smiled. “You have a point.”

  “I’ve dated him, you know, since we were freshmen in high school. He just might be the love of my life—and what I thought was true, that finding him practically next door was just too neat and corny and convenient to be real love, is actually false. Maybe Cliff’s the man for me exactly because he’s from the same background I have. We like the same things. We have the same memories. Let’s face it. What do I really have in common with Malcolm, or any other guy I met here?”

  “Tattoos? You weren’t skimming the cream, Annie.”

  “Maybe not. Or maybe I wasn’t for a reason.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I didn’t want to find the man of my dreams here. I wanted Cliff all along.”

  “Maybe you did.” When Darcie held out her arms, Annie went into her embrace with a watery smile of her own. And a hiccup from too much yeast, hops and malt. “No more tattoos?” Darcie said, then touched Annie’s brick-red hair. “No more garish color?”

  “You won’t have to feel responsible for me.”

  “Kid, I’ll always be responsible for you. You’re my baby sister.”

  With a grateful sigh, Annie settled deeper into Darcie’s arms and held on until her misery faded and her beer settled and her decision to leave New York seemed absolutely right.

  After Darcie had shepherded Annie to bed, she found her own room empty. Where was Dylan? Curious, she wandered back into the living room and discovered him in the entryway fiddling with the lock.

  “You need a new dead bolt. A window grate, too,” he said. “Since I’m staying another day or two, I can put them in tomorrow.”

  “Dylan, that’s not necessary.” She stood behind him, admiring the long line of his spine under his plain white T-shirt—a shirt they’d washed together only last night in the downstairs laundry. His briefs, her underpants and bras…that everyday intimate connection, that shared background they now had—leaving out geography, of course—would be broken soon, too. She tried not to feel depressed. “Annie’s leaving,” she said.

  “Now? It’s almost dawn. Doesn’t she ever sleep?”

  “No, I mean leaving. Like Cutter. He’s going back to Atlanta so there’s no reason for you to change my locks.”

  “He’s not going today, is he?”

  “No, but…”

  “Then you need new locks. Because if I’m still here and that guy climbs through your bedroom window again, I’ll be
staying a lot longer. In—what’s your big prison?”

  “Sing-Sing.”

  Dylan straightened from his examination of her door. He turned around, slowly, his gaze intent and full of purpose. Darcie felt her heartbeat rise.

  “You wouldn’t want to visit me in jail. Would you?”

  She remembered the erotic game they’d played about his sentence. “No. But why do violence? Cutter’s harmless.”

  Dylan looked unconvinced. “Tell me Longridge doesn’t mean anything to you.”

  “He’s my friend.”

  “He didn’t look like just a pal when his eyes ran down your body in the bedroom and he saw you were naked.”

  “Well, he is a functional male. Red-blooded, I assume.” Not that she considered herself to be some femme fatale men couldn’t resist…

  “While I’m here,” Dylan said, “I don’t want him around.”

  Darcie planted both hands on her hips. “Are you being disgustingly macho? Or are you just tired and cranky?”

  “I’m cranky and possessive.” He smiled faintly. “I don’t like to share.”

  “What about Deidre? If I have to share, so do you.”

  Dylan moved closer. He cocked his head to one side and studied her.

  “Is that the green-eyed monster lurking again behind that this-is-just-for-kicks expression?”

  “You’re free to do as you please.”

  “So you say.” Dylan’s smile broadened. With satisfaction, Darcie thought.

  “And that display in my bedroom was uncalled for. A complete overreaction.”

  “I’m jealous,” he freely admitted. Then moved even closer. Darcie watched him, her gaze fixed on his darkening eyes. “And still hot. I have to hand it to Longridge. His timing couldn’t have been more—no, less—perfect.”

  “Poor Dylan.” Darcie wound her arms around his neck.

  “You frustrated, too?”

  “Desperate.”

  Dylan’s head lowered and she felt the strong muscles in his shoulders flex. He wrapped her tight in his arms and touched his mouth to hers. With the first contact, Darcie felt her evening resolve itself. Gran would be all right. Cutter was leaving and so was Annie, but Darcie would find some way to pay the entire rent herself. When Dylan’s tongue met hers, she felt sadness, anger, worry disappear. Dylan was still here. He still wanted her. They hadn’t finished what they’d started.