“You sure are.” I could feel her gaze on me as I backed out of my parking space and pulled out of the lot. I had a feeling she was talking about the way I’d asked for her father’s blessing. Neither of us had brought it up since, but she had to be thinking about it.
“You’re not going to chicken out on me, are you?” I asked.
Her brow furrowed. “I’m worried that we might be taking things a little too fast.”
I pulled over, threw the car into park, and stared at her. “Too fast?”
“Well, we just started dating a few months ago.”
She looked terrified. Worried. All the things she had no business feeling. Not with me. The entire situation was so damn ridiculous, I threw my head back and laughed.
“What?” she asked.“I’m being serious, Ash.”
“No, you aren’t. There’s no way you could possibly be serious about that. Dylan, this thing between us started in high school. I have known you were the one since that day I called Ms. Hiatt for you, pretending to be my dad. When I got off the phone, you looked at me like you’re looking at me right now. Nobody has ever looked at me like that before.”
Eyes wide, shecontinued to watch me. “What do you mean?”
“When people look at me, they see my parents, our money, what I can do for them, how I can help them as a lawyer. You’ve always looked at me like I hang the fucking moon. You’ve never cared about any of that shit. You’ve always just wanted me. I’ve let you run from me for a long ass time while you dealt with your insecurities and made up reasons youweren’t good enough for me. But you are exactly what I want. I love you, Dylan, and I’m not letting you run from me anymore.”
She stared at me, her mouth opening, then closing, then opening again. I stared at her perfect, plump lips, wanting to kiss her, but needing to hear her response. “I love you, too,” she finally said. “So much it scares the crap out of me. I can’t lose you.”
“And you’renot going to. We’re in this for the long haul, love. You finally done running from me?”
Her gaze wandered over my body before settling on my lips. A need I’d never seen in Dylan ignited behind her eyes. “Let’s go back to the hotel, Ash.”
It was barely more than a whisper, but my entire body recognized the meaning behind her words. A stronger man would point out that Dylan was going througha lot of shit right now and wait for better timing. But, I’d been waiting a long damn time, and I was no saint. I threw the car into drive and stomped on the gas pedal, burning rubber as I peeled out.
Dylan laughed. After seeing her so distraught, the sound was music to my ears. I turned a sharp corner and discovered the real beauty of Lakeview in the way it only took five minutes to get fromthe retirement home to the motel. I grabbed my bag out of the trunk and Dylan let us into her room and poured us each a plastic cup of wine.
I arched an eyebrow in surprise. “Addison drank wine from a plastic cup?”
Dylan took a sip. And then another sip. “Yes. And she even lived.”
I gasped in mock outrage.
“I know! Forget the jewelry thief, that’s the real scandal.”
Sipping from my glass,I eyed the bed. “Oh, I don’t know. You dragged me back to your room, alone, with a bed. That could be considered a little scandalous.”
“Dragged you, huh?” she asked, draining the last of her wine and refilling her glass. “I believe you drove, Mister. And you broke some speed laws.”
She still had her back to me, giving me a million-dollar view of the way her jeans accentuated her narrow waistand hugged her round ass. Her hands were trembling with nerves as she took another sip of wine. I stepped into her space, pressing my chest against her back, and brushed her hair over one shoulder. Dylan sucked in a breath, and I gently kissed the exposed side of her neck. Her skin was soft and cool against my lips, and she smelled faintly of her cucumber and melon soap. I felt myself growing hardagainst her ass. She took another sip of wine and leaned against my chest, closing her eyes.
“Dragged, charmed, enchanted, bewitched,” I breathed against her neck. “I can’t explain what you do to me.”
I took the glass from her hand and set it on the table, turning her around to face me. My lips pressed against her forehead before drifting down her cheeks, whispering across her jaw line, andfinally landing on the lips that had been calling to me for hours. She tasted like wine and smelled like home, and as I deepened the kiss, she melted against me. Encouraged by the way her body was responding, I slid my hands under her shirt.
My fingertips explored her soft skin as she let out a sexy little moan.
“You sure you want this, Dylan?” I asked. We were rapidly approaching the pointof no return, and I needed to make sure she was all in.
In answer, she grabbed the hem of her shirt and tugged it over her head.
My gaze drifted down the lines of her neck to her collar bone before lingering on her lacy black bra. Her body was even more beautiful than I’d imagined, and as I drank in my fill of it, she removed her bra and revealed even more.
The swell of her breasts beckonedme forward. My hands slid from her waist up, gently caressing, stroking, reveling in the softness of her. She watched me beneath her lashes as I rolled one perfectly pink bud between my fingertips.
“You are so damn perfect. I knew you would be. I want to see the rest of you.” My fingers drifted down to hook the top of her jeans. “I don’t want anything between us. Not ever again.”
