Daring Dylan (The Billionaire Brotherhood Book 2)

by Jacie Floyd

  “No, thanks. Take care of your young lady, and I’ll call you in the morning.” Still, Arthur didn’t make any move to leave.

  “About David—” Dylan began.

  “We’ll talk about that tomorrow.” His uncle rubbed a hand down his face.

  When Dylan went inside to turn off the lights and lock up, Arthur followed him as far as the living room. Dylan made a call that went to Clayton’s voicemail. The senator clutched one of the pictures in his hand. Dylan watched silently, oddly uncomfortable, as Arthur’s fingers traced gently across the glass.

  Dylan cleared his throat. “Ready to go.” His voice emerged more forcefully than he intended. “We need to head out.”

  His uncle moved his hand with a guilty jerk and returned the photo to the shelf.

  On his way to find Clayton and Tanya, Dylan spotted Clayton’s truck at McStone’s. Taking the easy way out, Dylan called Guidry and had him tell Clayton about the emergency. The couple rushed into the emergency room seconds after Dylan arrived there.

  “What happened?” Clayton demanded, almost leaving skid marks as he screeched to a halt. “What did you do to him?”

  “I’m sure Dylan didn’t do anything.” Tanya placed a hand on Clay’s arm. “How’s David?”

  “I just got here,” Dylan said. “Gracie rode with him in the ambulance.”

  The young doctor moved on through the waiting area, shoving his way through the examining room doors.

  “He didn’t mean that,” Tanya told Dylan. “He’s just upset.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Dylan didn’t need a psychology degree to figure out that Clayton’s knee-jerk response all these years had been to pin the blame for all of his problems squarely on the Bradford family. His reaction just now had probably been based as much on habit as true resentment.

  Tanya and Dylan were taken to wait in the doctor’s lounge. After a while Gracie came in, pale and wan, drained of her usual vibrancy. She’d put a lab coat on over her Spring Festival sweatshirt and gathered her hair up into a bun on top of her head. Dylan had the inappropriate thought that she looked incredibly hot in her doctor persona.

  “How is he?” Tanya asked again, with a hug for Gracie.

  “Clay and the cardiologist are with him now. Could go either way.” Her lip trembled as she said it.

  Dylan wrapped her in his arms and held her close, resting his chin on her head. She sank into him gratefully, clinging to him.

  “I may be here a while,” she said into his shoulder. “Do you want to go on back to my place?” Her grip on his shoulders tightened as she asked.

  “I’ll stay.”

  “They’ll transfer him to the Cardiac Care Unit on the fifth floor shortly.”

  Tanya poured a cup of coffee. “If you want something to read newer than last year’s Sports Illustrated,” she said, pointing to the magazine rack in the corner, “I can open the gift shop and get you something.”

  “Maybe later.”

  Dylan and Gracie perched on the couch, side-by-side, hip-to-hip, hands clasped, with nothing but David’s confession between them. They had a lot to talk about, but no privacy. After watching her fidget for about five minutes, he suggested a walk. She nodded, but just then, Clay returned.

  “Jenner’s running some tests. No change.” Like Gracie, he’d put a lab coat on over his jeans and Polo shirt. Strain pulled his face taut. “What happened at the house, Gracie?”

  “He couldn’t rest. Ethel said he’d been agitated all evening, but after she left, he got worse.” She squeezed Dylan’s hand, silencing him. “I gave him another sedative, but he kept rambling. Some of it was gibberish, but after a while, Dylan and Senator Bradford came in. David mistook the senator for Dylan’s father. He flew into a rage, then collapsed.”

  “Dylan and Senator Bradford were there?” Clayton cocked his head to the side and pulled on his left earlobe. The mannerism stabbed Dylan with an eerie deja vu. He’d seen Uncle Arthur and other members of the family make the exact same gesture hundreds of times before. Learned response or nervous habit, he reminded himself, there was nothing genetic about it.

  “You knew Dylan was going with me,” she reminded him. “On the way, we ran into his uncle.”

  “Why’s he in town?”

  “He was worried about the fire,” Dylan said. “He came to see what’s going on.”

  Tanya poured Clayton some coffee and left with him, but returned a few minutes later. During the next several hours, Clayton and Gracie took turns at David’s bedside.

  When Tanya stepped out for some fresh air, Clay reappeared without Gracie.

  “Any change?” Dylan rubbed his eyes, completed a text, and checked the time.

  “No.” He poured more coffee, but set the drink aside untasted. After a moment of silence, he turned to Dylan. “I apologize. When I got here tonight, I think I accused you of having caused this, and even then, I knew that you hadn’t.”

  “Forget it. You were worried.”

  “It’s just—” He pressed his lips into a firm line before continuing. “He’s all I have.”

  “You have Gracie and her grandparents,” Dylan pointed out. “And Tanya.”

  “Now I do.” He took a sip of the neglected coffee and grimaced. “But if it hadn’t been for David, I probably would have been raised in foster care. He always made me feel like he wanted me to live with him and that he’d always be there for me. As a doctor, I know the seriousness of his condition. As a son, I just don’t know how to face it.”

  “Yeah, it’s tough.” Dylan had experienced the same kind of denial during his mother’s illness, and he’d had a full contingent of supportive relatives to help him get through it. There had never been any doubt about who he was or his place in the family tree. Clayton didn’t have that kind of security. Dylan’s stomach jumped just thinking about it. Especially now that he felt more and more sure that Clayton had been cheated by someone in the Bradford family.

  “Clay,” he said, suddenly certain he was doing the right thing, “have you made the arrangements for the DNA tests?”

  Coffee sloshed as Clayton sat his cup down too quickly. “Not yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “If it turns out that your father murdered my mother, I don’t think I want to know that he’s my father, too.”

  “I can’t make any guarantees, but it’s time to know the whole truth.”

  “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.” Hesitantly, Clay and Dylan shook on it. “As soon as the first shift of lab guys get in, I’ll arrange for the blood samples to be drawn.”

  “How long will it be before we get the results?”

  “A few days, maybe longer.”

  “That long?”

  “Even with a rush on it, DNA testing is complicated.”

  A nurse poked her head into the room. “Clay, Dr. Collier’s coming around.”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Once the worst of David’s crisis had passed, Gracie went home for a few hours of sleep. Her emotions wobbled back and forth between relief and panic, but she kept her doctor-face firmly in place on the ride back to East Langden with Dylan.

  The secret David had spilled had been a doozy. She had no idea how Dylan would react to it. Would he want to have her stepfather charged with murder? How could she let him do that?

  How could she prevent it?

  So many gut-wrenching events had happened in the past week that she hardly recognized herself or the people around her. Ever since Dylan’s arrival, life had involved one major upheaval after another.

  Dylan maneuvered the curve of the Liberty House drive, and Gracie settled her gaze on his shadowed features. God, he was gorgeous. And sweet and nice and kind. And a lot of other things she would probably never discover.

  When he braked, he turned and caught her smiling at him. “What?”

  “Clay told me he’d all but decided to drop the idea of DNA tests, but you urged him to go forward.”

  “So?” Dylan stepped out
of the car and she followed.

  She tilted her head and studied his moonlit face. “I thought you’d be the one to drag your feet.”

  With a hand on her arm, he turned her toward the carriage house. “I changed my mind.”

  She stopped, unable to continue on as if nothing else had occurred. “What are you going to do about David?”

  He tensed but shrugged off her question. “Nothing.”

  Cautious relief sluiced through her. “Why not?”

  “My father’s been dead a long time.” With his hands in his pockets, he rocked back on his heels. Taut jaw muscles contradicted his casual air.

  Elation raised Gracie’s spirits a notch, but this seemed too good to be true. “You aren’t going to tell anyone?”

  “Just my sister.” Dylan shook his head sadly, slowly. “What would be the point of telling anyone else? My father will still be dead, and another good man’s life will be ruined.”

  “What about your uncle?”

  He hesitated again. “I don’t think he’ll say anything.”

  Her heart filled with gratitude and admiration and another emotion that slammed into her so hard and so fast it left her breathless. Could this be love? Although she’d resisted the emotion from the beginning—and considered the idea foolish in the extreme even now—she no longer denied the truth to herself. Joyfully, she flung her arms around him. “You’re a good man, too.”

  “Do you happen to need a good man?” He folded her into his arms and crushed her against him.

  She planted herself against his chest. “Desperately.”

  “I want to be good. To you. For you. With you.” His lips trailed across her cheeks, ears, and neck, punctuating each phrase with soft, sweet kisses.

  “Let’s be good together.” Her smile twinkled. “Or bad.”

  “Not bad. Not tonight,” he said as serious as she’d ever seen him. “Tonight, I want everything between us to be good.” He breathed deeply of her skin, and she felt like he was trying to absorb her into him. “So good. Like you.” He kept his arm around her shoulders. “Although, I wish you had worn the lab coat home. That hot doctor look is a real turn on.”

  “I should have known you’d like that. I’ll bring one home tomorrow and give you a good going over.”

  After an evening chock-full of worry and stress, she eagerly accepted the forgetfulness he offered. His magic touch spread through her with the slide of his tongue beneath her ear.

  Slowly, they made their way up the staircase, through the living room, and into the bedroom. They stripped one another’s clothes, tugging off a sweatshirt here, a T-shirt there, jeans, socks, all the way down to her teeny pink thong. Dylan had gone commando.

  With a stroke of his rigid shaft, it jutted boldly into her palm.

  Each delicate and brief brush of skin, as well as each lingering contact, sizzled and intensified.

  Gracie moaned deep in her throat as she matched his long, sensual, drugging kisses. She couldn’t get enough of him. She wiggled against him, her hands moving over him everywhere, from muscled back to corrugated stomach, along the smooth length of his rock-hard cock.

  She savored the hot dizziness that came with his hand’s caress along her ribs, his mouth’s tug on her breast, and his reverent attention to her slickest flesh. Increasing sensations, escalating responses overlapped in an endless stream.

  When she positioned the tip of his penis against her, he stopped and held her gaze.

  “Go for it,” she whispered, breathless with anticipation. Her heart pounded as he eased the long, hard length into her. She relished each delicious inch.

  “Sweet Jesus,” he prayed, his hands cradling her face. “You’re amazing, Gracie.”

  With their eyes locked, they began the slow dance to completion. Each stroke took her to a new level, higher, deeper, farther than she’d ever been. She wanted to tell him how she felt, but words eluded her. She hoped he understood from her touch, from her acceptance, from her response.

  He reached beneath her and tilted her hips up, increasing the depth of each thrust. Her desire accelerated until she could only gasp out his name. “Dylan, Dylan.”

  “Come for me now,” he breathed into her ear.

  “Come with me,” she pleaded.

  Their bodies tensed and arched as the powerful climax gripped them. She squeezed him within her sheath as he continued, harder, stronger, faster, exploding them into the free-fall of mind-numbing, heart-stopping, life-affirming pleasure.

  Drifting back into reality, a sensual lethargy pulled at Gracie’s humming body, but her thoughts ricocheted with unfettered energy. After the fire, they’d had sex. A grand, pounding, no-holds-barred, physical release. In the shower before the festival, they’d had fun with bubbles, playing together, their mating as easy and as uncomplicated as seals.

  But this time, this glorious time, they had shared love. Created love. Invented love. A binding, emotional experience that stirred her heart and her senses and floated her deep into mysteriously tempting, terrifyingly uncharted waters.

  When morning came, it dragged in about ten pounds of doubts and worries along with a window full of buttery yellow sunbeams.

  They’d made love. Gracie conceded the fact, picking up on her earlier thoughts. She had felt it in the depths of her heart and soul. But as she took MacDuff for his morning walk, she admitted that the actual word hadn’t been spoken. Not by him. Not by her.

  They lived in completely different worlds, with different rules and expectations. A fish and a bird might fall in love, but they would never live in the same world. How could they share a happily ever after?

  If a fairy godmother waved a magic wand to shoehorn Gracie into Dylan’s world of glitz and glamour, she wouldn’t want to make the transformation. Life had to be filled with more important pursuits than frolicking at the latest hotspots and shopping for the hippest designer fashions.

  She loved her work. Financial necessities aside, she enjoyed the mental stimulation it demanded, and the emotional gratification it provided.

  If Dylan could fit into her world—a niggling voice reminded her how hard he’d worked during the past week to do just that—she couldn’t picture him taking up permanent residence there. He’d done great here in East Langden, but her real life was in Hartford with her practice and the patients that liked her and needed her. She couldn’t see him cooling his heels when she got called away to check on a six-year-old with a tummy ache.

  And even though she personally admired the accomplishments Dylan and his sister spearheaded through The Matthew Bradford Foundation, the role was too structured and limiting to grab his interest full-time.

  He was good at investing his and other people’s money at his grandfather’s brokerage. But he played at it like a hobby, not a calling or even a job. She suspected he could give it up tomorrow and never miss the work or the income.

  Shaking her head at their incompatibility, she returned to the house, stood over the bed and watched him sleep. They probably had only a few days left together. She’d do her best not to get in any deeper, but she wouldn’t let him go until she had no other choice. She shimmied out of her yoga pants and sweatshirt and tossed them aside.

  Running a fingertip along his eyebrow, she leaned in to kiss him. He snapped awake then smiled. “Gracie,” he said. Just that. Warming her to her toes with the single word. Her name had never sounded so good.

  “Dylan,” she answered, liking the sound of that equally well.

  He grabbed hold of her hand and pulled her into his arms. “You know what?” He lifted her chin and kissed her mouth. “We forgot to use protection again.”

  “No!” She jerked away, shaking her head. “No.”

  “Denial won’t change the facts.”

  “Oh, my God.” Her hand pressed against the heart pounding so forcefully she thought it might crack a few ribs. “What was I thinking?”

  “You weren’t thinking anything. Except yes, yes, yes!” At her look of indignatio
n, he quit teasing and held up his hand. “And neither was I. I’m sorry. I take full responsibility. I’m healthy, and I assume you are. But I promise, it won’t happen again.”

  “Again?” she asked, surprised he didn’t understand her concern. Surprised he wasn’t as alarmed as she. “Won’t happen again! What good will that do us, or the baby we might have conceived?”

  “Baby!” His eyes narrowed in speculation. “What are the chances of that?”

  Gracie knew the statistics all too well. “About sixty-percent if my calculations are correct.”

  He trailed his fingers through her hair, soothing her. “Aren’t you using any kind of birth control?”

  She pulled away from him to jump and pace. She thought better when she paced. When he wasn’t touching her. Except for now when she wore nothing, and he watched her too closely and with an elevated level of interest. “Birth control pills. Which I left in Hartford, because I came up here unexpectedly, having just broken up with my boyfriend and not expecting to have sex.”

  “Always be prepared, babe.” His cell phone trilled a welcome interruption.

  “You should get that.” Her hand shook as she passed the phone to him. “There’s so much going on now.”

  He looked at the display. “It’s my uncle.”

  A flash of self-consciousness seized her by the throat even though Arthur had no way of knowing that his nephew was naked in her bed. She pulled on the oldest, most shapeless, sexless, pathetic robe she owned.

  “No, I wasn’t asleep,” Dylan said. “We were just about to get up.”

  Why did he have to say that? She dropped her head in her hands. They were adults. This wasn’t so bad. Gran knew they were sleeping together. And Clay suspected. Why did it matter if someone in Dylan’s family knew it, too? The information shouldn’t carry any particular significance just because that someone was a stiffly dignified US Senator.

  Dylan covered the receiver and raised his eyebrows. “Breakfast with my uncle?”