“Thank you,” she said softly as she tucked the blanket more tightly around herself, then ran a hand through the hair he’d so enjoyed tangling in his hands as he’d kissed her. “Not only for a great night, start to finish, but also for leaving when it would be so much easier not to.”
They both stood, then, her bare feet peeking out from beneath the soft red blanket. What a beauty she was. And what a fool her ex had been not to love her.
He brushed his fingers across her cheek one last time, letting the pad of his thumb linger on her lush lower lip. “Sweet dreams, Grace.”
He had barely taken a step back when she surprised the hell out of him by gripping his T-shirt in her fist and yanking him into her. Her kiss was hot and hungry and just as sweet as their first kiss had been the night before, but full of a newfound confidence. The confidence he knew she must have possessed before the rich asshole from D.C. had done everything he could to stomp both her heart, and her life, to bits.
* * *
Dylan knew he couldn’t push Grace too hard, or too fast, but making himself walk away when he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anyone, or anything, in his entire life was one of the hardest things he’d ever done. He’d loved seeing her blurry and needy and knowing it was because of his kisses, his caresses. But the high of her taste, her scent, the sweet little sounds she’d made as he teased her over the edge not just once but twice—none of those things could make him forget his fury at her ex or his worry that one of the Bentleys would come back one day to hurt Grace and Mason.
Dylan’s life had been a good one. He didn’t have any major demons, any serious darkness in his past, or inner conflicts that kept him tossing and turning at night.
Not until now.
Because he had
her
demons now.
He had never been a violent man. Ian, Rafe, and Adam had always been far more likely to use their fists. But for the first time ever, Dylan could barely think past the urge to track down the bastard who had hurt her and pound the guy’s face in.
He pulled out his cell phone as he slid behind the steering wheel and pulled his brothers into a group text.
NEED TO MEET ABOUT KEEPING GRACE AND MASON SAFE.
MY HOUSE. TONIGHT.
By the time he pulled into his garage, his brothers had dropped everything, just as he’d known they would, and were waiting for him.
“Tell us what’s going on,” Ian said.
Dylan let them inside, poured them all drinks, and pounded his before answering. “What do you know about the Bentleys in D.C.?”
“
Fortune
500. Generations of money and charity work. Politics.”
Dylan downed another shot of whiskey in one gulp. “You can add something else to that list—scum. The guy who got Grace pregnant is a Bentley. But that’s not all they did.”
Adam leaned in, his expression hard. “What did they do to her?”
“They tried to break her, tried to pay her off to get rid of Mason, and to stay quiet about having anything to do with them.”
“The former senator is Mason’s father?” Rafe asked incredulously.
“No. The son. Richard Bentley. He accused her of trying to trick him into marriage.” He scowled. “As if anyone would actually want to marry into that sick and twisted family.”
Ian looked as furious as Dylan felt. “The bastard always seemed too slick.”
“The cleaner they seem on the surface,” Rafe agreed through his own clenched teeth, “the dirtier they always are underneath. What other details do you have?”
“Richard’s parents paid her a visit the day after she gave him the news and shoved their sin money at her while informing her that if she ever tried to go up against them, they’d use their name and charity and connections to crush her.” Adam cursed low and long as Dylan laid it all out for his brothers. “She didn’t use a dime of their money, didn’t want anything to do with them. It’s why she left D.C. So that they wouldn’t see that she had the baby, and so they wouldn’t try to hurt either her or Mason. She doesn’t think of Richard as the father. Not after what he and his family did.” Dylan’s blood was boiling. “Best case, she wants to believe she’s hidden and forgotten, but a family like that, they keep tabs on their mistakes. And they think they deserve anything. Everything they want. Whether they should have it or not. Especially now that the word on the street is that her ex and his new wife are having trouble conceiving. What if Richard and his family realize that Mason is the only Bentley heir they’re going to have? They’ll come after her to try to steal him away.” He swore. “I can’t just sit on the sidelines. I have to protect her and Mason. I can’t risk something happening to them.” Before Rafe could ask, he added, “She and I talked tonight about my pulling you guys in. Even though I know she wishes she could handle this situation all by herself, she’ll do anything to keep her son safe.”
“I’ll dig into the guy,” Rafe said. “His family, too. Whatever dirt there is on them, I’ll find it.”
“I’ll do the same on the business end,” Ian told him. “I’ll find out what else the family has their hands in.”
And figure out where to yank to destroy them,
was his unspoken promise. “I’ll also check in with Smith to see what he knows about the Bentleys.”
“And I’ll be in charge of keeping you from doing something stupid,” Adam said. “I know you’re furious. We all are. But right now you need to let Rafe and Ian see what they can dig up, and be there for Grace and Mason. Because going after the bastard and his family now, without any intel or a plan, will likely only raise questions we don’t want the Bentleys asking about Grace or a baby they might not know anything about otherwise.”
Dylan appreciated the support of his brothers—it was why he’d called them together, because they’d always worked best as a team. And yet, even though he knew he shouldn’t head to D.C. and flatten all three of the Bentleys, he hated having to wait, hated having to be patient until they had more information. He had always been able to change what needed to be changed in his life, to fix what needed to be fixed. Sure, he was sometimes frustrated, or angry on his family’s behalf for things that had happened to them, but he also knew that whenever they needed help, they’d ask for it because they knew he would always be there for them.
Tonight was the first time Dylan had ever really struggled with the horrible futility of knowing that he couldn’t just make the darkness in Grace’s past go away.
“Since we can all see that Grace and Mason are already yours,” Ian told him, “that means they’re ours, too. So if her ex or his family try anything, you can count on all of us to take them down.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Grace had spent the last thirty-six hours thinking. Mulling. Dissecting.
And wanting
.
Always
wanting
.
Saturday night, she’d told Dylan more than she’d ever told anyone else about her past…and then she’d gone a little crazy in his arms. The best kind of crazy, she thought as she pulled into the parking lot of his boathouse. But crazy nonetheless. She’d hoped to have a firm handle on everything by now, but the truth was that she was still going around and around in her mind.
She’d intended for the night to be nothing more than friends visiting an aquarium. But there was no point in trying to deny how good—or how natural—it had been to make out with Dylan on her couch, so she wouldn’t bother with that nonsense. She also wouldn’t try to tell herself that she hadn’t wanted more of his big, work-roughened hands on her. Not when she had wanted
much
more. But he hadn’t given her what she was all but begging for, hadn’t pushed her too far. Instead, he’d stopped and gone home completely unfulfilled.
Dylan had promised that they would go slow. Given his behavior on Saturday night, it looked as though he meant it. Which was why all her thinking, all her wanting, had her circling back again and again to the same place: If they truly could keep to
slow
while she also kept her eyes wide open this time, then maybe it would be okay to spend a few sexy hours here and there with him.
Attraction, orgasms—they were perfectly natural. And when they were with Dylan, they were perfectly
perfect,
too.
In any case, it wasn’t as if making out with him meant they were getting married. A few kisses, a few incredible orgasms, didn’t mean forever. Normal people kissed, touched each other. And the truth was that she was tired of fighting her own demons all the time, tired of taking every step with caution, tired of feeling she was going to have to keep paying forever for her mistake with Richard.
Just for a little while, while she and Dylan were working together on this magazine story, couldn’t she live a little? Have some fun, feel some pleasure like any other normal woman would let herself feel with a sexy man like him?
She’d been stunned by the way he had shifted from the gentle man he always was during the day with her and Mason to a hungry, dominant lover Saturday night. Stunned in the best possible way, she thought, as a little shiver rippled over her at the still-potent memory of the heat in his eyes, the desperation in his hands, when he’d torn through her lingerie. No one had ever ripped away her bra, her panties, as if he couldn’t wait another second to have her bare beneath him. He’d asked her—
told
her—what he wanted her to do, where to put her hands, even when to come for him…and it had been the greatest thrill of her life not only to do it all, but also to wait breathlessly for his next sensual command.
As she got out of her car, she took a deep breath of the salty-sweet sea air. It was time to make the shift from personal to professional, at least for a few hours. Coming back to his boathouse for their second interview was important not only so that she could ask him her follow-up questions, but also so that she could make sure she described the look and feel of his workspace properly.
Of course, that was right when she rounded the corner from the parking lot…and saw Dylan bent over sanding the side of the boat in the middle of his workshop, shirtless, his skin gleaming with sweat, his muscles rippling. Oh Lord.
Oh Lord.
She wanted his mouth, his hands, his body on hers again. Wanted to come apart for him, beneath him, against him, again and again. Wanted to discover just how much more pleasure there was to be had in his arms.
She took another deep breath, and then one more for good measure.
Business
. She needed to stay on track with her story.
But, as she let the last slightly ragged breath go, she knew she was going to have to ride out a few more seconds of being a
very
attracted woman first.
Grace had read several books on boat building to make sure that she understood the basics, but watching Dylan painstakingly sand a section by hand, then run his other hand over the smooth wood before he moved on to the next plank, almost felt like watching a man with his lover. Every boat he made, she sensed, meant a great deal to him. Who was this one for? What man or woman would be lucky enough to sail away on a boat that had been so painstakingly created?
As a writer, Grace saw the world through words first. But as she watched him work, she could see what a fascinating documentary someone could make here with Dylan. Both the visual story of the creation of a boat from start to finish and an in-depth look into the mind of the man who could turn planks of wood into magic.
Of course, she could easily guess that he would never allow anyone to film him. Not because he was hiding anything. It was simply that for all that he’d opened his work and his family to her, Dylan was a naturally private man.
It was why sailing suited him so well. He didn’t need accolades. Didn’t need to be seen by anyone as the best. He simply wanted to be free to build boats. Free to race them. Free to sail off in one to explore whatever corner of the world interested him. And she didn’t blame him for wanting to live his life according to his own rules when she wanted that very same thing—to live the life of her dreams without always looking in the shadows, without always worrying about being hurt.
“Good morning, Grace.”
Dylan put the sandpaper down and turned to her with a smile. A very
male smile that was just smug enough to tell her he knew she’d been there all along and had been happy to let her watch him work shirtless.
Both of them had been happy about it, she thought as she returned his smile. “Is now still a good time for our interview?”
“Sure, but where’s Mason?”
“I booked a babysitter for him so that I could focus.”
“I thought you were going to bring him. I’ve seen how my cousins set up safe areas so their kids can play at parties. I was planning on it.”
He was sweet, so amazingly sweet to always think of including Mason. But even if her son could have played happily in a cordoned-off area of the boathouse while they did the interview, Grace had wanted to make sure that they couldn’t just fall so easily into pretend-family time again. It would be too easy, she could already see, to slip into the fantasy that the three of them really were a unit.
This isn’t forever
, she reminded herself. One day Dylan would sail away while she and Mason stayed right here. But until then, they would appreciate every second with him.
“He seemed quite happy with the young, pretty babysitter, actually.” Grace had repeatedly reminded herself in the past half hour that she couldn’t watch over her son every single second. A couple of hours with a babysitter would be okay, even if leaving him this morning was one of the hardest things she’d ever done.
Grace moved farther into the boathouse. “Who is this boat for?”
“Promise you won’t tell?”
She was the one frowning now. “If you don’t want me to talk about something in my interview, of course I won’t.”
“No, that’s not the reason.” He reached out a hand and it felt so natural to take it. “It’s for my family.”
Surprised—and touched—she asked, “They don’t know about it?”
“If they knew, they might think they needed to feel bad about me ignoring the waiting list for them.”
“How long is your customer waiting list?”