Dylan (Bachelors of the Ridge #1) (18 page)

“You’re not ruining anything, Kat. It’s okay to be a little nervous.” I stretched out next to her. “There’s nothing you can do right now that’s wrong, I promise.”

“Oh sure,” she mumbled, spreading her fingers so I could see her eyes in between. “Of course you’d say that.
Mister perfect dimples and pecs and abs and crinkly eyes
has probably slept with scores of women.”

I kept my face straight, leaning on my elbow next to her so I could gently pull her hands away from her face. “Definitely not scores. Not even dozens. And even if I had, I’d never compare. You’re in a different league than any woman I’ve ever met.”

Before she could respond, I leaned down and coaxed a kiss from her sweet lips. It didn’t take her long to kiss me back, reacting to me in a way that humbled me and terrified me a bit too. Obviously I’d known before that she was a virgin, but the enormity of it really started sinking in. Kat was giving something to me that I most likely didn’t deserve, but I couldn’t stop the swell of emotion in my heart.

I undressed her slowly and carefully, dropping kisses on every inch of her skin that I uncovered. When I pulled one breast into my mouth, she dug her nails into the back of my head so hard that she probably drew blood. I didn’t care. Her movements were less slow, ripping my khaki shorts off and my boxer briefs in one quick jerk. When she laid her hands on me, I had to drop my face into her shoulder to try not to lose complete control. She was unpracticed, that was obvious, but she was so perfect that I almost wanted to cry.

We took our time, relishing every touch and taste, bringing each other to the brink again and again until I felt like a bomb was close to detonating in every part of my body.

“Please, Dylan,” she whispered against my mouth, the first thing either of us had spoken in long minutes. As much as I never wanted to leave that bed, I moved to grab my wallet and she stilled me with a quick movement, shaking her head and then telling me that she was on the pill. I kissed her, relishing the feel of her against me, of how small and perfect she was.

By the time I pushed inside, we were both covered in a sheen of sweat, the lazy fan on her ceiling doing very little to cool our overheated bodies, but neither of us seemed to mind. Kat was quiet, only soft sighs and whispered endearments that quickened my pace and went straight to my heart. I curved myself around her, my arms around her head and neck so I could be as close as possible in her small bed in her small apartment.

After, I rolled to the side, keeping one arm slung over her waist, and smiled when she traced small, dawdling circles along my wrist. Everything that I was feeling felt too big for my body, like what we’d just done, how perfect it had been, how far she’d burrowed into my heart, couldn’t be contained. And for the first time in my life, the thought of committing to one person, one woman that I wanted to settle into my day to day routine, didn’t feel like panic.

It felt perfect.

I was almost nodding off when Kat turned under my arm.

“What if your mom or Casey wake up and you’re not home?”

I grinned, leaning forward to kiss her. “I’m thirty-four, they’ll get over it.”

“I guess.”

“Does that mean I can stay?” My hand drifted up her spine and back down, tracing the small dimples on her lower back.

“Friend sleepover?” she asked dryly and I tried not to wince at the label. It didn’t feel like a friends with benefits moment we’d just had, but I was too tired to disagree with her, to try and put what I was feeling into words. So I just nodded, giving her another kiss.

“Sure. Go to sleep.”

She didn’t though, not right away. Kat was still staring at my face when I drifted off with her wrapped in my arms.

H
eavy arm across my waist
? Check.

Dylan’s hot breath tickling the back of my neck? Check

No clothes? Check, check, holy shit triple check.

As carefully as possible, I shifted underneath the dead weight of his arm so that I could face him. Oh sure, you probably expected me to bolt, which I did too, to be honest. But when the most beautiful man I’d ever met was sleeping naked in my bed? I wanted a front row view.

Unfortunately, as soon as I made the full turn and was inches away from his face, I immediately regretted it. Dylan I Didn’t Know His Middle Name Steadman was a work of art when he was asleep. It would not have mattered if he’d been wearing a wet suit that covered every inch of his solid, muscled body—he still would have hurt my eyes.

The straight line of his nose pointed down to his insanely talented lips. If I’d dared, I would have traced the top lip with my finger, see if the sharp dip of his cupid’s bow was as soft against the pad of my finger as it was against my lips. But I didn’t so much as breathe deeply for fear of waking him.

Even though the twinges of aching muscles would probably linger through my body all day, I had a sickening sensation that a night like last night would never happen again. He’d taken every expectation that I’d had, for
everything
, and blown the top right the hell off. Starting, of course, with his reaction to the way I’d slunk home like a little bitch. Not bitch-like bitchy or anything, but man, what a wuss I was. His sister had made one perfectly innocent comment and I took it and sank the tentacles of my deepest insecurity right into it.

And I knew why. I didn’t
want
to know why, but I totally knew why. Dylan wasn’t my friend who was providing me with fun, sexy times. He was more than that. He’d wormed his way into my heart and because I was so naïve, I hadn’t even known it.

The thought of him pitying me, of viewing me as some sort of pet project or charity case had made me want to slit my skin open just so I could pour all of the ugly feelings out of me. I wasn’t a cutter, I’d never been one, and I would never have found a sharp edge to actually do it, but the feelings bubbling and festering inside of me when I’d walked into the tiny, dark apartment felt like they were slowly overtaking my entire being.

But he’d surprised me. Dylan reacted exactly the way I needed him to, hence the naked wake up. There was no way I’d ever let him into my pants if I didn’t trust him with my life, didn’t trust that he found me sexy and desirable and somehow worth all the trouble I was causing him.

When Dylan shifted to his back, it made his arm sink from my waist onto his stomach. But my head was so twisted and my heart was so mangled from our night, that I couldn’t even appreciate the view he’d given me. And it was a
good
view, with the v-muscle and his happy trail and the solid, muscled sheet of his abs all laid out in front of me.

I slipped from the bed, picking up my wrinkled sundress and pulling it up my body, not hassling with underwear. After I closed the door without so much as a sound, I wandered down the hallway, not even sure why I was doing it.

“You know why, you dirty, rotten liar,” I said into the quiet room. If I stayed in bed with him, I’d eventually get the point where I’d start wondering how I’d be satisfied waking up without him. My eyes felt hot and tight, and I pressed the heels of my hands against them in a stupid, wasted effort to handle the wash of emotions rioting through me.

I couldn’t be this cliché girl; sleep with hot guy, give him your virginity and then worry that you’re feeling something really big for him. My hands started shaking. Or maybe my hands were still and my body was shaking, but when I braced the sides of my head with my fingers, I couldn’t stay still.

“You’ve done this before, Kat. You’ve survived with no one propping you up. You don’t need him. You don’t need anyone.” I repeated it again. I needed my own voice to remind me that I wasn’t the kind of woman who needed anyone to function. It helped, but only a little.

When I opened my eyes, they were trained on my linen closet at the end of the hall. It was only about three feet away, just a few quick steps. I didn’t get into it very often, because I didn’t actually have many linens to keep in it. But I think the bigger reason for that was because I knew what was in there. It was up on the top shelf, and I never even glanced up there when I did open the closet. It was hard for me to reach it without standing on a chair, which is precisely why I’d shoved my file up there.

I hated the reminder of the pathetic little girl that had been shuffled from one home to the next, probably forgotten within a day of my departure. So I never opened it. Never looked through what I might have left behind.
But I needed it this morning
, I thought with pretty impressive detachment.

If I ever needed a reminder that I was stronger than whatever fleeing feelings I was having for Dylan, it was the few remnants I had left from my childhood. It had to be.

Not really thinking about how loud I was being, I shoved one of my dining chairs over to the closet and yanked it open, standing up on it with shaking legs. I gripped the edge of the closet door so hard that I could feel splinters in my palm when I shifted my hand. The brownish-gold edge of the manila folder peeked out from underneath a ratty towel, and I took one deep breath before I grabbed it.

With fast movements that I didn’t think I could physically manage, I jumped from the chair and slumped against the wall in the hallway, clasping the folder to my chest.

Black spots jerked around the edges of my vision, so I took a few deep, calming breaths. It would not do for me to be passed the heck out when Dylan woke up. My head cleared and I opened the folder with surprising calm.

There were a bunch of papers, probably reports from various foster homes, but I flicked them over, not caring in the slightest what they said. My birth certificate was in there, and I only let my eyes land on my parents’ names. Grace Anne Perry and William Robert Perry.

My place of birth was some hospital in Nebraska that I’d never heard of, so I flipped the birth certificate over too, followed by my social security card. Behind that small piece of blue paper were two pictures, and that was it.

I hadn’t even realized I was crying until two spots of water appeared on the edge of the folder. I let them fall unchecked, partially because I couldn’t let go of the photos long enough to wipe my face.

The first picture was of my parents. Even without flipping it over to see what might be written on the back, I knew it was them. The sepia tone of the picture did nothing to disguise the fact that I looked almost identical to my mother, although her hair was much darker than mine. But the slope of the nose, the wide, overbearing smile in her finely-boned face was just exactly like mine. The sob I swallowed sounded horribly loud in the empty hallway, and I prayed Dylan couldn’t hear me.

And the way my father was smiling at her, oh my heart. They loved each other. Maybe not every single day, and maybe they weren’t the perfect couple. But when I traced their faces with one shaking finger, my heart cracked completely down the middle, severing into two bloody, pulsing halves. The fact that I was
seeing
how much they loved each other, just by the look in their eyes, it broke something in me. This is what I had missed. I missed having this as my example. Maybe it would even have been like what Dylan saw his whole life growing up. And
maybe
if that had been the case, I wouldn’t be weeping into a folder that I’d been too chicken to open until now, because of precisely this. Because I was too afraid to let myself feel how much I missed them, how much their absence turned me into this terrified little creature.

Tears dripped down my chin and neck and I struggled to breathe. So I slammed the folder shut and stumbled back up the chair, throwing the folder back where I should have kept it. I used the ratty edge of the towel and pressed it against my cheeks, swiping under my eyes to catch any remnants. Then I took another deep breath, and a sob came out on the exhale. I started climbing down from the chair, just as my bedroom door opened up behind me.

My foot barely touched the floor when Dylan smoothed a hand up my back, coming to rest at the base of my neck. The proprietary nature of his touch made my eyelids fall shut. But I didn’t turn to face him, just walked into the kitchen with him behind me. I sniffed, taking one last swipe at my cheeks. Like he somehow wouldn’t know that I’d just ripped my own heart out.

“So you probably need to go hang out with your family, huh?”

He stopped at the entrance of my kitchen while I busied myself with starting a pot of coffee. I could hear his fingers tapping on the formica counter, but I still didn’t turn.

“Eventually, yes. But I sent Casey a text before I came out, she knows I might not be home for a bit. They’ll probably go out for breakfast or do some shopping.”

Drawing on every ounce of strength that I hoped I possibly possessed, I smoothed my face before I turned around. His eyes immediately went to my eyes and my cheeks, and his brows bunched in concern. “What happened?”

“Got soap in my eyes when I washed my makeup off,” I lied easily, attempting a smile that failed miserably, judging by the look on his face. But he nodded, the uneasiness in his expression telling me that he very much wanted to call bullshit, but didn’t dare.

“Why don’t you finish getting ready, and we can grab a bite to eat with them?”

A giant pit yawned through my stomach, making the self-preservation that I carried in spades seemingly double in size. “I can’t. I have to go into the clinic.”

“On a Saturday?”

“Yeah.” I turned to grab a mug from the cabinet, purposely not offering him one. “We’ve got this big fundraiser coming up next month, and I promised Doctor Ramirez that I’d start working on it this weekend. I’ve got to through all of our patient files and update a few things on the mailing list. So you can leave whenever.”

He gave me a long, considering look and my heart was pounding so hard that I could have sworn he heard it, but he just nodded. “Okay.” When he turned to leave, my stomach dropped out completely. I don’t know what I expected— what I wanted from his reaction— but getting his complete acquiescence was
not
it. But he made a sharp pivot and face me again. “You know, I have to admit, I saw this morning going differently.”

“How so?” I wanted to curse at the uneven tone in my voice, but Dylan narrowed his eyes as soon as he heard it.

“You joked about how many women I’d been with last night, but despite that fact, I actually do place a lot of meaning in what we did. It means something to me to share that with someone.”

I clenched my teeth so that my chin didn’t quiver. “It means something to me too. But it doesn’t have to mean
everything
. We’re not in a relationship, Dylan. Or did you forget?”

The blow landed exactly where I wanted it to, because his mouth dropped open and his face lost a little color. Immediately I wanted to take it back, to tell him I didn’t mean it, but my tongue shriveled up in my dry mouth. He shook his head. “Why are you pushing me away right now? You are completely disconnected from me, Kat. And that’s not you. That’s not healthy.”

“Don’t psycho-babble me, Dylan,” I snapped, finally feeling the rush of hot anger in the place of the indifference I so badly wanted to feel. That I
needed
to feel toward him. “You and I agreed to something, so don’t try to put it on me when I’m just sticking with the plan.”

Dylan was warring with himself, I could see it on his face. He was probably trying to decide whether to push, and some sick part of me wanted to see him do it. There were two parts of me battling, and it was a toss-up as to which would win. If he left without a fight, it would probably be for the best, for both of us. But if he pushed, then I knew he was willing to battle me when I was at my worst. The thought of him doing that sent a pang of longing through me that was so visceral, so tangible, that I almost stumbled backwards.

“I’m not leaving until you tell me what the hell happened this morning,” he ground out, eyes flaming a bright blue.