by Lisa Plumley
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"Okay? Am I okay?" Stacey shook her head at her mirror image. "No, I'm not okay! On top of everything else, somehow you—" She poked her finger at his chest. "—managed to make me look like a crazed lifeguard! Am I supposed to be okay with that?"
Sighing, Stacey gripped the pink marble vanity and looked again at her mirror image. She'd actually appeared in public like this? Actually had her picture taken like this?
"What have you done to me?" she wailed. Her fingers tingled on their way to going completely numb, but that was the least of her concerns. Her greatest concern was ... strangling Dylan.
Or at least giving him a coat of war paint to match.
He took one look at her and backed up, turning his head left and right like a fugitive searching for a hiding place. "At least now you're not so worried about the honeymoon charade. Ha, ha."
Wisely, he retreated. She circled him between the sitting area, around the loveseat, and past the fruit basket. Ginger yapped at her heels, wanting in on the game.
"Not now, girl," Stacey told her. "This time, he's all mine."
She looked up at Dylan. "Worried?" she asked him. Her gaze searched the room, landed on her purse, and an idea struck her. A devious idea. But Dylan deserved it. She picked up her purse. "Who, me? Worried? Suddenly, I'm not so worried."
"You told me to hurry up. I was just going for even coverage."
"Even coverage, huh?" Opening her purse, Stacey pulled out a tube of Pomegranate lipstick and a Midnight Blue eyeliner pencil. She held the lipstick up to the sunlight streaming in through the honeymoon suite window and squinted at it. Yes, it would do nicely.
He thought war paint was funny? She'd show him war paint.
"Even coverage, huh?" she said again, feeling a devilish smile lift her lips. "Funny you should mention that."
Dylan backed up, skirted the edge of the bed, and stopped on the other side. "If this is about the honeymoon charade," he said rapidly, "it's really no problem. The hotel's not going to call Aunt Geraldine."
"Oh, no?"
"No." His gaze zipped to the lipstick, then to the eyeliner pencil. He smiled too, but his grin looked a little wobblier than hers felt. It was kind of a thrill to have the upper hand for once, Stacey thought. She did, after all, still owe him for his dirty trick at the end of their pillow fight.
"The ones we really have to worry about," Dylan said, "are the honeymoon surprise people. The ones who know Aunt Geraldine personally. If anyone's going to rat on us, it's them."
Stacey stopped. He had a point.
But so did she. A cosmetics point. Two of them, in fact.
"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" she replied, wielding her lipstick and eyeliner. "You know, I'm starting to wonder if maybe you're just here to mess up my honeymoon charade. Is that it?"
The more she thought about it, the saner the crazy idea seemed. Why else would Dylan have tried to war paint her into public ridiculousness, tried to take over the whole honeymoon façade, tried to goad her into calling Aunt Geraldine and confessing everything?
But why?
"No." He backed up some more. His eyes followed the path of the cosmetics she wielded, but he was still grinning. "Stacey, put the makeup down. Let's just talk about this like two reasonable adults."
"You're patronizing me now?"
"Don't be ridiculous."
"See! There you go again!"
"Aaack!" Dylan shoved his hands in his hair. Clearly, things weren't going the way he'd planned. He backed up into the window and stood there, silhouetted by the light.
"It wasn't enough that you broke up with me all those months ago," she said, advancing almost close enough to touch him—or paint him, which was what she really had in mind. "You had to come back and try to break my heart all over again, didn't you? Let me tell you something, Dylan, that's really twisted. I can't bel—"
"I broke your heart?"
She snapped her mouth closed, assaulted by the silence that fell between them. Dear God, had she really just blurted out what she thought she did?
"I broke your heart?" he asked again, this time his voice a broken whisper that slipped past her defenses right into the heart in question. What had she done?
She tried backpedaling first. "I—I mean, back when were first dating, I—"
A goofy grin spread across his face, dissolving every bit of aggravation she'd felt before. Damn him. How did he keep doing that?
Dylan reached for her and she felt his big hands close around her hips. They traveled a sensuous trail up to her waist, the possessiveness inherent in his touch leaving no doubt he knew she was lying about how she felt. Stacey's breath caught, held, keeping time with the bump-skip rhythm of her heartbeat.
"That is," she choked out, desperate to retain what little rational thought she had left, "part of me thou—thought maybe we—"
"Shhh," he whispered, and the tender smile on his face tantalized her almost as much as the slow squeeze and release of his hands on her waist. He drew her closer. "I really broke your heart?"
"You don't have to sound so happy about it."
"I'm not happy."
His gaze met hers; his body heat touched her, penetrated her clothes to wrap around her heart. This wasn't how it was supposed to be—her confessing her stupid inability to get over him, and him savoring every word. But somehow, Stacey couldn't pull away.
"You look happy," she said. "You're grinning like a kid at Christmas."
"I'm grinning because I feel like a kid at Christmas." Dylan tipped her chin up with his hand and looked into her eyes. "I've never received a better gift."
"A better gift than my humiliation? Ha." Stacey jerked her head away. "I don't know—"
"Let me start over." He smiled, and something in his expression made her heart skip a beat. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry to have hurt you." His hand caressed her chin, her neck, her shoulder ... but he might as well have reached in and touched her heart. "I thought I was the only broken-hearted one. I was a fool to let you go, Stacey."
Him? Broken-hearted?
Because of her?
It was too much to take in all at once. "But what—"
"Richard and Janie told me all you wanted was a casual relationship," he explained. "When I started falling for you, I ... I panicked, I guess. From where I stood, the whole thing looked doomed."
"Doomed?" It hadn't been doomed. She'd been falling for him, too.
But she'd never told him so. Just like she'd tried to hide her feelings from him during the whole honeymoon charade. Stacey felt like slapping her forehead, amazed at her own blindness. How would she ever start getting what she wanted if she never admitted what it was?
"So I bailed out," Dylan finished, his face twisting at the memory. "In my own defense, it seemed pretty smart at the time." He smiled again, laughing at himself. "I thought I'd actually get over you. But it was the dumbest thing I ever did."
She looked up at him, wanting to ease into his arms, to enjoy the feel of him holding her, but afraid to do it. "Why are you telling me this?" she whispered. "Why me, why now?"
"Sheesh, do I have to spell it out for you?" Grinning, Dylan slipped the eyeliner pencil from her hand and peered at the tip. Apparently satisfied it would write, he turned up her wrist and started scrawling something on the underside of her forearm.
"Hey! That tickles! Haven't you already done enough damage to me with makeup today?"
He paused and looked up at her, his hand still holding the pencil poised above her skin. "Do you really want me to stop?"
Was he kidding? She was dying of curiosity. Stacey bit her lip. "No," she admitted.
"Good." The soft pencil moved across her skin, forming letters and then words. Between Dylan's sloppy handwriting and the fact that he was holding her arm sideways, she couldn't tell what it said. He wrote some more, his smile widening, then released her wrist. She looked down.
I love you.
Holy cow.
"I lou ... I Lou?" she read,
too rattled by the words to believe what they said. A joke seemed worlds safer. "You're Lou?"
He cupped her face in his hands, and for once, Dylan looked absolutely serious. Something indescribably tender filled his gaze, and in that moment Stacey believed, no matter how incredible they were, the words he spoke next.
"No, silly," he said gruffly. "I love you."
The Pomegranate lipstick drooped in her hand. Stacey tightened her grasp so she wouldn't drop it, then uncapped the slender gold tube. With trembling fingers, she swiveled up a half-inch of red.
Dylan's wrist was in her hand without her being aware of having reached for him. She turned it, exposing the underside of his forearm and, holding her breath, drew a curvy red question mark. She looked up at him.
His eyes darkened, but a smile curved his lips. "Always the skeptic, aren't you?" he asked. "I'll have to cure you of that. There's no reason in the world you can't believe me." He raised her other arm and wielded his eyeliner pencil again. Its soft point scrawled over her arm.
Yes.
Then, in capital letters going all the way from her elbow to her wrist: I LOVE YOU STACEY.
She grinned. Once Dylan made a commitment, it looked like he really went all out. Pursing her lips, she grabbed Dylan's other arm and drew a red lipstick heart. His free arm tightened on her waist as she started embellishing the heart with an arrow piercing through the edges.
"You had to make yours fancier than mine, didn't you?" he asked, grinning as he watched her draw.
"It's not a competition," Stacey answered, stalling for time, trying to sound about a hundred times more lighthearted than she felt as she added a couple of feathers to her arrow. What if he was kidding? Or, given the possible fiasco they might have made out of the honeymoon charade, trying to cheer her up?
I love you. It danced inside her head like a pink jewelry box ballerina, surprising and beautiful ... and likely to stop with no warning at all.
Why? she wrote inside the heart she'd drawn.
Dylan wrinkled his forehead and read. "Why?"
She nodded, suddenly afraid to look up at him. He'd probably be mad. Maybe she'd spoiled the whole thing. But it was better to know the truth now, rather than later, wasn't it?
"Yes," she whispered. "Why?"
Chapter Eight
Dylan hesitated, then cupped her jaw and raised her face to his. "A million reasons."
His voice wrapped her in warmth and half-forgotten wishes, seductive enough to make her hurl caution to the desert sun and melt right along with it. A million reasons ... a million reasons to love her. Wow. Stacey's knees wobbled, an unmistakable side effect of whatever spell Dylan was weaving. Like a sorcerer's lure, it kept her plastered happily next to him as the rest of her thoughts unraveled. Her and Dylan, Dylan and her—together. Right now. It was almost too much to believe, too much to hope for.
Just believe him! her body screamed, but her head had gotten used to watching over the rest of her, and it had other ideas. Stacey swiveled her lipstick higher and smoothed her palm over the muscle in his upper arm as though it were a bumpy sheet of paper, then wrote. Sex?
Dylan gave her a roguish smile. "That's one reason," he said, drawing the words into a sensuous growl. "Let me show you some more."
He smoothed her T-shirt collar sideways, baring her shoulder. His pencil stroked across her skin. Slowly its tip circled the rounded edge of her shoulder with feather-light touches, then curved back toward her neck. The sensation felt surprisingly erotic. Every nerve ending along her arm and shoulder tingled. She watched him draw, his face close enough to hers that she could detect the faint beginnings of beard stubble shading his jaw. If she leaned over a couple of inches, she could kiss him.
Mmmm. Good idea.
He frowned slightly, intent on his handiwork, then raised his pencil with a grin. "There."
Already missing the teasing stroke of his pencil, Stacey tucked her chin into her chest and peered at her shoulder. He'd drawn a chain of interlocked hearts.
"Show off," she said, wrinkling her nose at him. How much more of this could she take before she caved completely? As a sexual conquest, she'd be no contest—not after a little more of Dylan's body graffiti. But maybe, just maybe, it was more than that.
Oh, how she wanted to believe it was more than that! Stacey closed her eyes and made a quick wish. Please, if this is only a dream, just let me sleep in for once! When she opened them again, Dylan smiled.
"That was just warming up," he said. He added a wink that left her noodle-legged and leaning. And all this time, she'd thought she disliked men who winked. Winkers belonged in the same class with fanny-pinchers, street corner hooters and guys who called you "Babe," didn't they?
Unless they were Dylan.
His fingers, blunt-edged and so much stronger-looking than hers, twisted up more eyeliner. He raised his eyebrow at her. "Hold still, now," he said. "We don't have an eraser."
"Wh—what are you going to do?"
"I'm giving you those reasons you asked for." He bared her other shoulder, stroked his fingers over her skin like an artist testing his canvas, then wrote Sexy.
"We already covered that," Stacey said. Was she nuts, arguing with him over it? Shut up, she ordered herself.
"No, we haven't," he told her, raising his gaze from her bare shoulder to her eyes. "This is a reason. You're sexy."
"Oh." She felt her face heat and realized she was blushing. "Umm, you are, too."
Dylan looked pleased. She just looked him over, pretending to test her judgement. Her gaze wandered a leisurely arc from his big sneakered feet to the top of his mussed-up hair, lingering over points in between ... muscular legs, baggy shorts, a broad chest covered by his untucked shirt, wide shoulders, arms made for holding her, and a sappy, sexy grin. Yeah, sexy was the only word for Dylan Davis.
He slipped his finger inside the scooped neckline of her T-shirt, just barely touching her skin, and lowered her shirt just enough to expose an inch or two of writing space. Dylan touched the eyeliner tip to a place just below her collarbone and smoothed it slowly sideways. Stacey shivered in reaction, biting her lip. She was supposed to hold still during this? It was torture.
But torture of the very best, most teasing kind. The eyeliner pencil moved, guided by his warm fingers, creating a path of ticklish, heightened sensation. His breath followed, fanning gently across her skin. It made her yearn for his lips, his hands, to follow the same path. Touch me, she thought, and felt only the teasing glide of the eyeliner point. Touch me.
Dylan stopped writing and stepped back. Grinning, he caught hold of her arms, twirled her around, and the next thing she knew, she was backed up to the huge honeymoon suite window. Sun-warmed glass heated her back, her arms, her thighs. It was nothing compared with the feel of his hands, holding her there. She wanted this, wanted him ... wanted to know what else he'd written. Stacey lowered her chin, trying to read the loopy midnight blue letters he'd drawn.
"Caring," Dylan said, tracing them with his finger. He raised his hands to smooth her hair from her face, then smiled. "You care about people more than anybody I know. You take care of them, worry about them. You love them."
His fingers delved into her hair, drawing her closer to him. "Love me," he whispered. "Let me love you."
She wanted to, wanted to answer him, but the longing she glimpsed in his eyes stunned her too much to speak. By the time Stacey regained her wits, Dylan had already moved on.
"But maybe you want the rest of those reasons first," he said, flashing her a smile. He withdrew his hands from her hair and used them to trace the sides of her body, gliding past her shoulders, her arms, the indrawn curve of her waist. His fingers pressed into her hips, creating a new wave of sensation as his thumbs kneaded through her clothes, speaking his desire in a way no words could.
Dylan dropped to his knees at her feet. His jaw caressed her bare belly, unerringly finding the few inches of skin left bare by her snug T-shirt. Her stomach contracted, her pulse rac
ed, and her knees wobbled harder, sending her flat against the heated window at her back. His lips nuzzled her belly button.
Yelping, Stacey grabbed his head. "What are you doing?"
Lazily, Dylan turned his face upward, using her hips for an anchor. "Looking for more bare canvas," he murmured. "You do want the rest of those reasons, don't you?"
Reasons? "Y—y—yes. Yes." Anything. She'd have agreed to anything to keep him close. "Please, don't stop."
"Oh, I won't stop," he promised, raising her T-shirt hem. Dylan peered at the gently curved slope of her belly and pattered his fingertips delicately along the waistline of her skorts. "This looks good. How about right here?"
He raised his eyebrow at a rakish angle, looking up at her. Stacey swayed in his arms, supported only by his hands, the sunny window, and the strength of his will. She murmured something meant to be agreement. It sounded more like a moan.
"Yes?" He poised the eyeliner near her belly button. She wanted to scream for him to put his hands on her instead, to quit torturing her with that smooth pinpoint of sensation. Curiosity made her bite her lip to hold in the demand.
She nodded.
He drew. She waited, quivering, as he stroked eyeliner loops and curlicues over her tummy, forming words she couldn't read. Tantalizing sensations she couldn't escape. And yearnings only Dylan could satisfy. Impatiently, Stacey buried her fingers deeper into his hair. Her breath came faster the further he wrote. Her spine felt liquid, useless to hold her much longer. Urged by the inexorable tug of Dylan's hand on her hip, she arched her pelvis forward, silently pleading for another touch, another stroke, for just one instant of skin against skin.
"Uh, uh, uh," he cautioned, giving her another belly nip. "If you wiggle, I might have to start all over again."
Oh, God ... anything but that. She'd never survive. Stacey stiffened, flattening her palms against the window behind her. For an instant, she wondered if anyone could see her there, silhouetted in the sunlight with Dylan's head almost in her lap. Then she remembered they were nearly on the hotel's top floor. No one but passing bluebirds could see them.