So, no, she hadn’t minded staying to play that out right to the end.
And because Dylan had persuaded her to let him take her home rather than going back in the limo, the extension of the job gave her an excuse for it.
Along with an excuse to get some time alone with him.
Opening the driver’s side door, he tossed his tuxedo coat, cummerbund and tie into the space behind the seat and then got in himself.
“It was a beautiful wedding,” he agreed.
“And the music and the dancing and the funny toasts and that cake that was too good to be wedding cake with that custard stuff between the layers and...” She sighed. “It was all just amazing!”
Dylan smiled at her as he started the engine. “How much champagne have you had?”
“A lot. Not too much—I’m not drunk or anything—”
“But you also aren’t feeling any pain,” he finished for her.
She grinned back at him, appreciating the sight of that face that was just too handsome for her to believe sometimes.
“Actually, I am feeling pain. These shoes are killing me!” she confessed, taking off the four-inch-high heels she’d been in for hours and hours. But they’d looked so perfect with the dress she’d found on sale—a dark blue rayon number with elbow-length sleeves and a satin sash separating the loose knee-length skirt from the tight-fitting bodice with the neckline that scooped from barely an inch over one shoulder to barely an inch over the other.
Her hair was again full and free, and she laid her head against the headrest, turning to look only at Dylan as he headed out of Cherry Creek in the direction of her apartment.
“And what about you?” she asked then.
“I’m sober as a judge. One glass of champagne early on for the toasts is all the booze I had.”
“No, I mean what about you tonight—everybody likes you again!”
That brought an instant grin to his handsome face to let her know how happy he was about it.
“Happened this morning,” he said. “Don’t ask me how or why or if there was some kind of secret meeting where they all decided to finally let me off the hook, but I went to breakfast over at GiGi’s and it was like old times.”
“Congratulations! I’m so happy for you!” She rejoiced, knowing how important making up with his family had been to him.
They were at a stoplight and he looked over at her with a smile that was warm enough for her to feel. “I’m giving you some of the credit.”
“Me? You’ve been bending over backward for everyone. What did I do except my job?”
“Getting you to do your job on such short notice got me points. Then you—and your whole team—doing such a tremendous job got me more points. But there’s something about you and having you around that softened the edges or something. I think it helped them stop looking at me as the turncoat they thought I’d become with Lara and made them start to see me as plain old Dylan again. Thanks for that.”
“Well, you’re welcome but I really didn’t do anything.”
“You were you—without any airs or ulterior motives. You went the extra mile for everyone, for this whole wedding. And this morning Lindie told them all about you running interference with Lara when she came to the salon—you may not think that was a big deal, but after what we went through with her it meant a lot to everyone and won’t be forgotten. I think Jonah wants to adopt you.”
“Ah, just twenty-eight years too late!” she joked.
They were well on their way to her place and he took his eyes off the road long enough to glance at her. “We all do want to do something more for you, though. We just can’t let all your talent go to waste working for someone else—”
Abby made a face. “Don’t go there again—I’m not going to work for your Superstores.” And she didn’t want to get into that subject now when she’d just had a night of feeling like she fit in, like a part of that perfect family.
“How about two other things, then? How about we hire you as a consultant—just to have meetings with Jani and Lindie and Livi to talk them through how to improve our salons? It’ll be casual, just the four of you girls, and we’ll pay you a consulting fee. And then how about you let us set you up in one of your own salons like Beauty By Design? With your own special occasions team? We’ll make it so that you own everything outright—whatever buildings you need, whatever equipment. Your own shop where everything you do will only be benefiting you and your future, not whoever Sheila is.”
Abby had thought she’d had just enough champagne to be really mellow and relaxed. Now she wondered if she’d had too much to drink to hear straight.
“Sheila’s been good to me.” She defended her boss because she didn’t know what else to say.
“I know. We’re not asking you to do anything that would hurt her. Maybe she’d be interested in selling out to you—we could set you up that way, too. You could buy her out of both shops and the special events salon. Then she wouldn’t have you as competition, and you could go on doing what you do now, with the team you have in place, in the locations you’re familiar with and like. Except you would be the owner.”
Sheila was in her sixties and had been talking about retiring...
But this was crazy, Abby told herself. Maybe she’d had so much to drink that she’d passed out or fallen asleep and she was hallucinating or dreaming or something.
“Come on...” she cajoled in disbelief. “You’re joking.”
“I’m dead serious, Abby. About both things. If you won’t just come to work for us as an executive, then at least be our consultant. And even when we implement improvements in our salons, we’d still throw you all of Camden Superstores’ special events work because your setup offers our customers that whole party-like experience that our facilities can’t. We’ll work up some kind of posters to put in the wedding and fancy dress wear departments advertising you, and you can put Recommended by Camden Superstores in your plugs for your special occasions team.”
“What’s the catch?” she demanded.
He smiled. “I know you think you sound street-tough when you use that tone of voice, but it’s too cute to be intimidating.” He sobered and then said, “No catch. I came looking for you to tell you who your father was and connect you with your past, but also to compensate you however we could for H.J.’s part in the twist your life took. That’s all this is.”
She and China had always talked about owning their own shop one day. Working for themselves. But it always seemed like just another of their fantasies—a what-if-they-won-the-lottery thing. And just as far-fetched.
“You’re talking about a lot of money that I don’t know if I could ever repay,” she said.
“No repaying anything. It would come as a grant, free and clear. And we’d pay you a fee for the consulting—just money in the bank for services rendered, the same as a haircut or a color, only this would be you selling us your ideas. Just over lunch with the girls or something else simple. When it’s over and we have the knowledge we need, you just walk away and do your own thing the way you like.”
He pulled up in front of her apartment house and turned off the car while she continued to stare at him.
Then she shook her head and said, “I had too much champagne to talk about this.”
He nodded. “No more talking about it tonight. But you can still think about it—just tell me you will.”
“I will,” she vowed, wondering if this was too good to be true.
But just agreeing to think about it seemed to be the only answer Dylan wanted right then because he got out of the car and came around to her side again as she fumbled on the floor to find her shoes.
She had no intention of putting them on, so when he opened her door and she stepped out it was in nylon-encased feet.
Seeing that, Dylan bent over and sco
oped her up as if she weighed nothing.
“What are you doing?” she asked, grabbing him around the neck for balance while holding her shoes in one hand by their slingbacks.
“I don’t want your feet to get dirty.”
“You’ll give yourself a hernia!”
He laughed. “I’ll risk it,” he said as if he wasn’t worried.
“Oh, now you’re just showing off,” she claimed as he carried her up to the house, onto the porch, through the front door and up the flight of stairs to her apartment.
He didn’t set her down until they were in front of her door.
Abby unlocked it and opened it, but didn’t go in or invite him in. Even though she was definitely thinking about it...
She tossed her shoes in, though.
And then looked up into those knock-’em-dead blue eyes as he took both of her hands in his and held them loosely down at their sides.
There was something about that that was more heady than the champagne as she gazed into his so-gorgeous face. “I really did have one of the best times I’ve ever had,” she told him.
His smile was small and thoughtful. “I’m glad. And I really did like having you there.”
“You didn’t need a buffer tonight,” she reminded him.
His smile erupted into a grin and then calmed again. “I still really did like having you there,” he insisted. “In fact, this morning, when the tides turned for me, I kept wishing you were there, too, to be a part of it. And,” he said, his voice slightly lower, “because I just like having you around.”
It was her turn to smile, treasuring the words, the sentiment, but not taking any of it too seriously. She hadn’t had so much champagne that she was out of touch with reality or forgetting that after tonight everything would change.
And there was actually some comfort in that for her. In knowing that she would be firmly back in her place in the world—where she belonged. The place she knew the pitfalls of trying to leave behind. And that he would be firmly back in his, where he belonged and was now welcome again.
That was how it should be. It was how everything worked best. Mark had cured Abby of the illusion that life could be different.
But she still had tonight—she was very well aware of that, too. She’d been thinking about it since Dylan had left her on this very spot last night, and had gotten just a little turned on every time it had crossed her mind.
She still had tonight...
One last night with this man who made her feel the way no one else ever had. This man she wanted to fully experience. Needed to fully experience. Her own tiny special event to cherish when she looked back on it.
He was going to kiss her—she could see it in the sparkle of those fantastic eyes and she was so in tune with him that she just knew.
It caused her to tip her chin up a scant moment before he dipped down to her, to lay those sweet, supple lips to hers in a kiss that was familiar now. A kiss that allowed their mouths to fit together the way they did so well, both of his hands still holding both of hers at their sides.
She was determined to savor every single moment of this night, to burn the memory of them all into her brain. Beginning now.
So she focused solely on that kiss. On how his lips felt against hers. On the warm brush of his breath against her cheek. On the scent of his cologne. On how his head swayed ever so slightly and how he knew when the exact right time was to let his lips part over hers. On how there was just enough invitation, just enough encouragement, just enough insistence for hers to part, too.
Then he ended the kiss as if he thought maybe this was only going to be a good-night at her door and the fact that he would have accepted that humbly, without complaint or any sense he was entitled to more, made her smile.
“Want to come in?” she asked him.
He grinned. “Oh, yeah.”
“It’s not like your place, though, you know. You’ve seen it—it’s not...uptown...”
“Do you want to go back to my place?”
“No!” she said too quickly, too forcefully.
“You don’t like my place?”
“It’s just...not me.”
“Well, it’s you I want, so if this is where I find it, I’m good with that.”
He had to know that there was no bedroom because he’d been there before. Her bed was on one side of the same room that was her living room, kitchen and dining area. The only separation came in the two steps up to a raised platform holding her bed and dresser.
But at least he knew what he was getting. With her, too, she thought, because unlike with Mark, Dylan knew everything there was to know about her.
Which was even more freeing than the little buzz the champagne had left her with.
So, keeping hold of his hands, she took three steps backward, into her apartment.
Without any hesitation, he came, too. And kicked the door shut behind them.
Abby took one of her hands out of his and closed the gap between them to reach around to lock the door. “China and I go back and forth if the doors aren’t locked.”
He nodded in understanding, took her hand back into his and kissed her again, this kiss more playful and definitely sexier as his tongue came to tantalize.
And that was that. No more conversation, no more questions. Just the two of them indulging in each other with mouths practicing the kissing they’d gotten so good at.
Dylan wrapped her in his arms then, one hand splayed to her back, the other in her hair, cupping her head.
Abby’s arms curled under his so she could lay her hands to the solid expanse of his back, enjoying the thought that before long she was going to get something she’d been fantasizing about for so long—to see him without his shirt, to feel his skin and all those muscles that shirt masked.
It was such a delicious thought, such delicious anticipation, that she almost smiled under the onslaught of kissing that was growing hungrier and more demanding by the minute.
And not only was she going to get to see his bare chest, his bare back and shoulders and biceps and belly, she was going to get to see the rest of him, too...
Just the idea made her tingle all over.
Or maybe that had something to do with the kiss. And the massage he was giving her back, her side, the outer swell of the breast that was bound in the strapless bra that the wide scoop neck of her dress had required.
As much as she was enjoying the thought of things to come, she wanted it all too much to put it off, so she tugged his shirttails free of his tuxedo slacks and slipped her hands under them to finally get the first part—the feel of him.
Hot and sleek and even more solid and unyielding than she’d imagined—he had muscles to spare, explaining why he’d been able to carry her in from the car without much effort.
She let her palms learn every smooth, silky inch of that back, of his broad shoulders. Every mound of muscle, every sinew and curve. Every rib that drew her down to the narrowing of his waist and the small of that glorious back where his waistband barred her progression.
Or sent her on a detour, anyway.
Around his sides to his washboard abs.
Up again to a rock-wall of pectorals. With taut male nibs telling her that he liked her touch.
He carefully slid the zipper of her dress down then, taking her arms from under his shirt so it could glide off her shoulders into a little heap around her ankles. That left her in her lacy strapless bra, her thigh-high nylons, her thong. In the room lit only by moonlight because it hadn’t occurred to her to turn on a lamp.
But the loss of her dress didn’t raise any kind of inhibitions, it only seemed to provide her with license to unbutton his crisp, pleated white shirt as mouths and tongues still played.
As soon as she had the shirt open she again snaked her h
ands under it, this time from the front, letting palms ride the rise and swell of his chest up to his shoulders and down extraordinary biceps to send the shirt to the floor to join her dress.
There was some frenzy in their kissing then, as he found both breasts hiding within the foam cups of her bra. He wasted no time on ceremony and unhooked it, flinging it away so he could take her bare breasts in both hands.
Ohhh, it felt so good that Abby couldn’t help moaning quietly and rolling her shoulders just a little under the touch of big, adept hands that filled themselves with her, giving her nipples the perfect cove into which to tighten and nestle and nudge for some attention.
But before that happened, his hands were gone again, and Abby could feel the backs of them at her waist as he unfastened his pants.
He took something from his pocket just before he dropped trou and whatever was under them, and—unable to wait another moment—Abby reached around and grabbed the bare derriere she’d been stealing glimpses of.
Oooo, very nice! Tight and round and just right.
But she only got a split second to take that tour before he stopped kissing her and swept her up into his arms again the way he had outside, taking her to her double bed.
He tossed her onto the center of her fluffy comforter. Then he went to her nightstand to deposit the condoms he’d taken from his pants pocket.
The milky glow of streetlights coming in through the window over her bed gave Abby the chance to devour the sight of a man even more magnificent naked than she’d imagined.
There just wasn’t a flawed inch of him, crowned impressively by the proof that he wanted her as much as she wanted him.
He didn’t come onto the bed with her, though—the way she was yearning for him to. He went to the foot of it and stared down, getting his fill of looking at her, smiling his approval in a wicked grin as he very slowly rolled her hose down first one leg, then the other. Following with her thong so that she was as naked as he was.
Only then did he join her on the bed, crawling onto it with clear intent until his mouth recaptured hers in a kiss so sexy it felt like an unveiling of the intimacy their bodies were headed for.
Abby, Get Your Groom! Page 16