by Lisa Plumley
Down the hall, the two women pushed the elevator buttons again and got on the next one that stopped. But the bellboy started down the hall toward the honeymoon suite.
Stacey turned her head, saw the bellboy approach—and smiled. "You're out of here," she said to Dylan.
She was going to squeal on him. And since Ginger was stuck to her side like Velcro, there wasn't a damned thing he could do to get the dog out of sight before the bellboy got there.
Unless it involved getting Stacey inside the room first.
"That's what you think," he said. Leaning forward, Dylan grabbed Stacey's elbow and hauled her up against him.
She whacked into his chest with a surprised whoosh of breath. He held both her arms, keeping her close, then glanced down. Predictably, Ginger trotted into the room. Success!
"Hey!" Stacey looked down at the dog wagging beside her, then up at Dylan. Her eyes widened. Looking fiercely determined, she sucked in a big breath and got ready—ready to yell for the bellboy, Dylan felt sure.
"Oh, no you don't." He pinned her arms to the wall and kicked the door closed. Before she could do so much as squeak, he brought his mouth down hard on hers.
At least it started out hard. The second their lips met, though, the kiss took on a softness all its own. His fingers tightened on the silkiness of her wrists, and his wits went walking. To heck with shutting her up. This was what he really needed. Moaning, Dylan pressed against her, demanded more ... and got it.
Stacey's bare foot slammed into his shin. Pain shimmied toward his ankle.
"Youch!" he bellowed, releasing her with a glare.
"Oww!" she echoed, glaring back at him. She raised her foot, wiggled her big toe, and scowled at his shins. "What are those made of, solid steel?"
"What, I'm supposed to apologize because you hurt yourself kicking me?" The ache in his shin flared along with the words. He wanted to rub it away, but he'd be damned if he'd show any weakness in front of her. "You've got to be kidding me."
"That wasn't just kicking, it was self-defense."
"Yeah, just like the blow-dryer attack was on purpose," Dylan said. "That was kicking."
She flounced toward the door, her robe billowing behind her, and swung it open. She stuck her head out. "Excuse me! Bellbo—"
Dylan yanked her inside. "Look, do you want to get us both kicked out of this place?"
"No. Just you." Stacey shook her arm from his grasp, and the movement made her robe twist crookedly around her middle. Jerking it straight again, she tied the belt tight enough to make him wince. "I'm serious, Dylan. Nothing you can say will make me give you another chance. Your timing stinks, and I've got a honeymoon charade to worry about. You're not invited. Get it?"
"Are you sure?"
"Aaarrgh!" Stomping past him into the bathroom, she cast a brief glance toward the hair dryer and then picked up the phone from the vanity. "Either quit manhandling me and get out of here," she said, waggling the receiver toward him, "or I'm calling security."
Dylan folded his arms and leaned against the doorjamb. Nice tub, he noticed, peering inside the pink marble room. Big enough for two. "Do you really want to do that?" he asked.
She blew out an exasperated breath. "What is it with you? Learn to take no for an answer." Ducking her head, Stacey punched zero on the phone and raised it to her ear.
Damn, he was blowing it again.
Dylan lurched forward to pluck the receiver from her hand and felt himself skidding across the marble instead. Sudsy water squeaked beneath his sneakers. Arms pinwheeling, he tried to keep his balance. Stacey's surprised face flashed in front of him. A second later, he landed in a heap at her feet.
This was some kind of stellar impression he was making.
"Be—because," he stammered, trying to look comfortable on the floor with water seeping into his shorts, "if you really want to carry off this honeymoon pretense for Janie, I can help you."
She clicked off the phone. "How?"
Ice cold. Because he'd hurt her, Dylan knew, and regretted every moment since they'd split. He'd played his cards wrong, ducked out of the game just as it heated up—and all because of Janie's cockamamie theory that Stacey wanted to keep things light after her divorce. No serious relationships.
Naturally, what had he done? Fallen in love with her. Their timing couldn't have been worse. Dylan had figured he'd get over her if they spent some time apart. Instead, the distance had only made him realize he'd been an idiot to let her go.
He looked up at her. "I'll be your husband," he said.
"My husband?" She couldn't have heard him right. Stacey stared down at Dylan, tapping the phone against her shoulder. "What do you mean?"
It was so hard not to crouch down beside him and make sure he was okay. If anyone knew exactly how hard that marble floor was, it was Stacey. Her backside and knee were intimately acquainted with it. Dylan's descent had looked funny, but it must've hurt.
He shifted his weight and got to his feet, wincing at the effort. She doubted he realized it, though. Dylan was a classic tough guy, too brawny to show any weakness to a mere woman.
The big baby.
"I mean, you're supposed to be Janie. In the honeymoon suite, right?" He leaned on one foot as though favoring an injury and propped his hand on the vanity. Deftly, he slipped the phone from her hand and replaced it in its stand.
Stacey frowned. "Are you ..."
Are you okay? she'd been about to ask.
No. He was the one who'd barged in, totally uninvited, and started bossing her around. She refused to feel sorry for him.
"And you want to be Richard," she finished for him instead.
"Yeah. I talked to Richard and Janie before they left, and volunteered to help."
I'll bet. Breaking her heart once hadn't been enough for him, apparently. What kind of weird ego trip was that?
He wasn't getting a second crack at her. First she was getting him out of this room, and then she was getting on with the honeymoon suite charade. By herself. Period.
Stuffing her hands in her pockets to keep from reaching out to steady him, Stacey skirted past Dylan. "I don't need help. I was handling things just fine until you got here."
She reached the suite's sitting area, chose one of the plump white-upholstered chairs, and flopped into it. Ginger followed her. Naturally, so did Dylan.
He settled onto the sofa opposite her and rested his forearms loosely atop his thighs. The motion made her gaze wander over those hard-muscled thighs, past their sprinkling of coarse dark hair and lightly-tanned skin to the bottom edge of his shorts. Whoa. Forcing her gaze upward, Stacey met his eyes.
He grinned, the rat. He must've caught her gawking at him.
"Tell me that kiss didn't affect you," he said.
"It didn't affect me," she lied. Truth was, it was the greatest kiss she'd had all week. All month.
It was the greatest kiss, the only kiss, she'd had since their breakup, but Stacey was hardly going to admit that to him. The last thing she needed was to encourage a guy like Dylan, a guy who was even bossier than Charlie had been—and who was twice as hard to resist.
She was only just beginning to crawl out from under the dark, stifling blanket of her ex-marriage. Being married had sent her identity so far underground, just getting her own department store credit card had been an ordeal. She still didn't own a car. And after four years of gradually sliding deeper and deeper into Charlie's life, her own interests seemed alien to her. So did making her own choices.
She didn't need Dylan around mucking things up.
"It didn't affect me," she said again, daring to meet his eyes. They sparkled back at her, green and intelligent and filled with a good humor she longed to possess. "So you might as well leave. Satisfied?"
"Not yet."
He leaned forward, making his meaning plain. Not satisfied ... but he meant to be. And the thing was, she'd bet he'd satisfy her, too. It had been a struggle not to sleep with him before, when they were dating. She'd wan
ted to. But just when Stacey had decided to make her big move, Dylan had called it quits.
Now, alone together in a hotel room with no divorcée date protocol to put the brakes on things, who knew what could happen?
Why couldn't she just be immune to him? It would make everything so much easier, but her stupid thumping pulse rate made a lie of the wish.
"I promised Richard and Janie I'd stay the whole weekend," he said. "So you might as well accept my help. I'm not leaving."
That's what you think. Stacey opened her mouth to tell him so, but a strange scraping at the door made her pause. What if someone was listening? She could hardly be caught arguing with her 'husband' on her honeymoon.
She peered around the fruit basket on the table. A long white envelope slid beneath the honeymoon suite door and dropped onto the carpet.
Probably a room service menu or something, she decided. It gave her an idea.
"Why don't we go out to dinner and talk things over," she suggested. That way, I can get you out of my room and out of my life. "That way, we can, ahh—"
"Don't you want to see what that is?" Dylan interrupted, nodding toward the envelope at the door.
She waved it away. "Later. So, what do you say? We could, ummm, discuss strategy."
He stared toward the envelope. "It looks like a note. Are you sure?"
Geez, he was like a dog with a bone. Why did he always assume she didn't know what she wanted?
"Positive," Stacey said, fighting the urge to glare at him. "Because if we're really going to do this, what we need is a strategy. A honeymoon pretense strategy."
Dylan raised his eyebrows. Stacey raised hers, too, trying to seem as though she actually meant to leave the hotel room with him.
"It might be important," he said.
"Aaarrgh!" He hadn't come to help. He'd come to drive her crazy. She stood, slapping her hands onto her thighs. Ginger bounded over, tail wagging.
"If you're so curious, you go look," Stacey said, glancing curiously at the dog. At her feet, Ginger flopped both paws playfully onto the carpet and buried her muzzle between them. She peeked up at Stacey, her tail sweeping with impressive speed from her upraised waggling rump.
She looked from Ginger to Dylan. "What's—"
"She thinks you want to play," he explained, silently mimicking her thigh slap. "I think she likes you more than me," he added forlornly.
"Oh, I don't know about that. You—" No. She wasn't going to be nice to him. She had to stay on course. "Umm, what about dinner?"
As an answer, he went to the door and scooped up the envelope. It didn't do much to tell her his plans, but it did give her an excellent opportunity to watch him unobserved. So she crouched down to pet Ginger, and did.
He caught her at it just as she reached hip level. "See anything you like?"
What wasn't to like? Rather than let him see the truth in her eyes—she did have some pride left—Stacey shrugged and flopped back into her chair. "Nothing I haven't seen before," she said.
"Ouch!" Dylan shuddered, grinning as he handed the envelope in her direction. "You really know how to hurt a guy."
"Comes from dating guys who stand you up and leave you with four pounds of steak from the romantic dinner that wasn't," she said, turning the envelope. Mr. And Mrs. Richard Parker, it read in flowery script on the front. "My next-door-neighbor's dog was overjoyed, though."
Frowning, Stacey slit the envelope. Out fell a glossy brochure, two pairs of tickets, something that looked like a detailed itinerary—and a note written on a piece of embossed stationary.
"Oh, no." She turned over the brochure. The words ROMANTIC ESCAPADES leapt from the page in inch-high letters, above a picture of a blonde-and-bronzed couple strolling hand in hand along the beach. Dropping it like the time bomb it was, Stacey picked up the letter instead.
Surprise! it began. Dear Janie and Richard ...
"Oh, no," she said. "It's another honeymoon surprise."From behind the chair, Dylan leaned over her shoulder. His arm came partway around her to rest on the chair's overstuffed arm for balance, and, even worse, his lips brushed past her ear. At the feel of their soft heat, a shiver raced through her.
Oh, boy.
"Aunt Geraldine's got some bag of tricks," he said, reading along with her. "Show tickets, golf passes, his-and-hers massages ... and what's this?" He picked up a foil-inlaid invitation card. "Free psychic readings for couples. Wow."
"Aunt Geraldine's into that stuff," Stacey muttered. What was she going to do now? The 'couples weekend' her aunt had arranged could only work with—let's face it—a couple.
"I wonder what she'll say about us," Dylan said.
"Who?"
"The psychic." He bent his head lower, ostensibly to examine the card, and his jaw smoothed warmly past her cheek. "I'll bet she says we belong together."
"We're already together," Stacey said. "We're the honeymoon couple." Whoops—had she already accepted his plan? Having him so near only scrambled her thoughts. "I mean—"
"I know what you mean." He leaned slightly sideways and grinned at her. "After this, you've got no choice but to draft somebody to be the happy groom."
Stacey tapped the brochure against her lips and gave him a suspicious look. "Did you arrange this?" she asked.
"Me?"
"I wouldn't put it past you. You probably rented Ginger, too, just to make a good impression."
"Rented?"
"Well, why, why—" she gestured toward the dog, improvising madly "—why bring her, then, when you know they don't allow dogs in the hotel?"
Hey, that wasn't bad. She was holding her own with Dylan; maybe she could handle a whole weekend alone with him. Stacey crossed her arms and legs, wishing she had on something more substantial than bathrobe and bare skin. "Hmmm?" she prompted.
He slipped to the front of the chair and bent over to gently cup her shoulders in his hands. Shaking his head as though she couldn't be farther off-base if she tried, Dylan said, "Let's be realistic, okay? I don't think—"
"Hmmm?" She cocked her head, considering tapping her foot for good measure. Patronize me, will ya? Charlie had tried that tactic, too. Every time she was right about something.
Dylan made a face. "How about that dinner?"
"Delaying won't work," Stacey said. His gaze dipped to the neckline of her robe, and she added, "Neither will that."
He grinned. "Can't fault a guy for trying."
What was he hiding? "Well?"
"Ginger goes just about everyplace with me," he finally said, lowering his hands from her shoulders and looking embarrassed. "If I leave her home, she goes into some kind of doggie tantrum."
"Spoiled."
She might have said 'worthless' or 'stupid' for the kind of look he gave her. Stacey bit her lower lip and glanced at Ginger. "Sorry," she muttered.
"No, but I think she had a rough upbringing," Dylan said, looking at the dog fondly. As though sensing his attention, Ginger got up and trotted to him. She nudged his hand with her nose, and he patted her between the ears. "She's a stray. Turned up in the office parking lot a month or so ago, skinny as a stick, matted with dirt. No collar."
He puckered his lips at the dog, blowing her a kiss as he petted her. It was an unconscious motion, Stacey felt sure, and something inside her softened because of it.
Dylan straightened, blinking like somebody walking into the summer sunlight. "Nobody claimed her, so I kept her."
"You rescued her, you big softie," Stacey said, unable to keep a goofy grin from her face. "I didn't know you had it in you."
"I'll do the same for you, if you'll let me," he said. "You need help with this honeymoon thing, especially now with Aunt Geraldine's latest surprise."
Stacey bit her lip. If she didn't pull off the honeymoon charade well enough to convince Aunt Geraldine that Janie and Richard had used and enjoyed her wedding gift surprise, it would cause no end of family feuds. She did need help.
But why, of all the men in the universe, did it
have to come in the form of Dylan Davis?
"I don't know," she said. "Maybe I can just hide out here in the honeymoon suite until the weekend's over. I'll mail Aunt Geraldine a few hotel postcards from Janie and Richard, and that'll be that."
Dylan's gaze dropped to the pile of tickets, brochure, and itinerary in her lap. "Your aunt knows most of these people, remember? She'll know it if nobody collects on the rest of her 'surprise.'"
He was right. They're mostly old friends and they'll treat you right, Aunt Geraldine had said in her note. Just because they gave me a discount, doesn't mean you two newlyweds will have less fun. Even the psychic was a personal friend.
Stacey sighed and looked up at him. "You're right."
"I know." He braced his hands on the chair's arms and gave her a serious look. "So, do we have a deal?"
Chapter Three
He was in.
Well, mostly in, Dylan amended to himself as he walked beside Stacey an hour later into the neighboring hotel where their dinner reservations had been made. Mostly in, because she'd only agreed to let him stay for one night. On the honeymoon suite sofa. Wearing pajamas, if possible. And only on the condition he didn't make any moves on her when they got back to their room.
He'd agreed. At this point, it was all the concession Stacey was likely to make. He'd work on the rest later.
And after all, she hadn't said anything about not making any moves before then.
Grinning, Dylan put his hand to the small of her back and guided her through the hotel's enormous main-floor casino. Like every other resort hotel in Las Vegas—heck, like every supermarket and fast food joint—the Renaissance had its share of slot machines. And then some. Beneath gothic-styled arches and rows of flashing lights, gamblers stood cheek-and-jowl, scooping up the coins jangling into the slot machines' bins.
"That's how Aunt Geraldine won her fortune," Stacey said, pointing toward one of them. "She used to take the tour buses up here with my Uncle Bert almost every month ... before he passed away last year, I mean," she said, looking wistful. "They had so much fun together."
Dylan slid his arm to her waist and hugged her closer. Amazingly enough, she let him.