Dylan (Bachelors of the Ridge #1) (13 page)

I
had grossly underestimated Kat
.

She’d made it her personal mission to tempt me, to break me. Granted, she didn’t understand the depth of Steadman stubbornness, but even I had my limits. She’d started small. Every time she brushed past me that first day we worked together, she’d set her fingers somewhere on my body. First it was my back, right over the shoulder blade, when she leaned around me to grab a clean glass.

Next was my hand when she walked past me in the hallway leading to the restrooms. She’d put on more makeup than normal, too. Her lashes looked obscenely long, which made her dark brown eyes look lush and sensual. And when I’d kept my hands to myself after all the innocent touching, she stopped right next to me and pulled some lip glossout of her purse, slicking it over her lips while I stared.

“Mmm,” she hummed while she rubbed her lips together. “Smells wonderful, doesn’t it?”

“You little Jezebel,” I whispered, looking around to make sure no one was staring at us.

“Me?” She batted her eyelashes and tucked the tube into her apron.

When I walked away, I shoved at the door to the office a little harder than necessary. The staffing chart swam in front of my eyes for about thirty minutes before I gave up and went back upstairs to the bar. Before I walked in, I stopped to take a deep breath.

I could do this. I was thirty-four years old, for crying out loud. I was more than capable of controlling my urges.

Then Kat breezed through the door into the kitchen, giving me a sly little smile that made my left eye twitch. She stretched her arms over her head, arching her back. I rolled my eyes. She narrowed hers.

She picked up a plate with half a slice of cheesecake on it, using the spoon to carve a tiny piece off the side. While she held my eyes, she slid the spoon into her mouth.

“You pay for that?”

Her lips curved around the metal at the frustration tightening my voice. Of course, she didn’t answer until she pulled the spoon out slowly, licking at the corner of her mouth.

“Yes, boss.”

I swore and walked away to the sound of her laughter. But an idea formed while I stormed off. I had an appointment for Leonidas in three days. And turning the tables would be very, very fun.

When I walked into the clinic, the receptionist Glinda winked at me and I smiled, taking a seat closest to where I knew Kat would come out when she was ready for us. The plastic seat under me squeaked when I shifted, and Leonidas perked up from where he’d laid at my feet.

Kat called my name, not looking up from her clipboard. She was wearing bright blue scrubs, and her hair was tied up into a little spiked ponytail at the top of her head. When Leonidas and I walked through the latched gate into the main area where he’d do some physical therapy, Kat finally looked up at me. Her eyes tracked down my chest and then back up to my face.

You asshole
. I could hear the words as if she’d spoken them out loud. It was complete and utter overkill, but I wore the same black dress shirt that I’d worn the night we danced. I hadn’t shaved in two days, and when she stared at the stubble on my jaw, I mentally fist-pumped.

“You look nice in that color,” I said easily, tugging on the ponytail.

“They’re scrubs.” She motioned us into an exam room, and the sight of her backside in the cotton pants made me take a deep breath.

Leonidas knew the drill by this point, and he stretched out on the mat on the floor as soon as Kat dropped on to the floor next to it. I held my tongue while she took some measurements, feeling around his back and shoulder blades.

When she moved to stand up, I stood first, holding out my hand to help her. Kat stared at it for a second, mid-crouch. Then she slid her hand in mine, I curled my fingers around hers and easily pulled her up.

“Your hand is so small compared to mine,” I said absently, holding her hand up so I could trace the edge of her fingers with mine. She swallowed and tried to move past me, but I gripped her hand and wouldn’t let her walk away. “Did you change your hair?”

“Yes,” she said on an exhale. “I colored over the pink and blue.”

I let go of her hand and gently gripped her chin, turning her face to the side. “Ahh yes. That’s it. Pity.”

Her face jerked out of my hand and she smiled sweetly. “I’m just waiting so I can bring you into the salon and have her dye my whole head the exact same shade as your eyes.”

I laughed and followed her and my dog out of the room.

By day eleven, we’d hit an impasse. We were all hanging out at Garrett’s, and Kat and I sat on opposite ends of the table during our card game, basically doing carnal things to each other with just eye contact. I don’t know if she could read my mind, but the gleam in her eyes and color in her cheeks told me her thoughts were probably along the same line.

I was ready to combust. If she touched me one more time, innocent or not, that was it. I’d cave. She must have felt the same way, because we circled around each other all evening, very careful to avoid any touch.

Kat licked her bottom lip and Garrett slammed his pint glass down.

“Oh for shit’s sake. Would you two just go do it already?”

The guys laughed, but I never took my eyes from Kat, even when she covered her flaming cheeks.

Three more days.

I’d barely gotten close to her all evening. The other servers and bartenders were so effusive in their well-wishes, their declarations of how much they’d miss Kat, that I barely had the chance to talk to her. But every time our eyes would meet, there were sparks. I felt them down to my toes, through each strand of hair on my head. She never held my gaze too long, like the force of whatever she saw in my eyes was too much for her to take in.

I watched her smile at people, laugh with her coworkers all night. And all night, I wanted to scream. The frustration that I felt at being so
close
was staggering. She wasn’t my girlfriend. She was my friend, and we were willingly jumping into something casual and undefined. It wasn’t like me, but I couldn’t find it in me to care. Everything about it felt too perfect.

That probably should have scared me, should have warned me that this was doomed to screw up our friendship, but I wasn’t willing to go down that road.

I saw her give Bill a hug, and then go through the doors into the kitchen, probably to drop her apron off in the office. After I glanced around to make sure no one was watching, I slipped down the stairs. Kat was staring at the announcement board, her perfect stillness the only indication that she knew I’d joined her.

“I had a dream about you last night,” I said as soon as I stood behind her. My chest was close enough to her back that I could feel the heat from her body, but neither of us swayed that last couple inches. Kat merely took in a slow breath and then shifted to the side without making contact. With remarkably steady hands, she set her folded apron on Bill’s desk and then turned toward me.

“I’ll be home in fifteen minutes.” Her voice was calm, but her eyes were rioting. “You better be there in twenty.”

And then she was gone.

S
eventeen minutes later
, not that I was paying
any
attention, I set my purse down on the table next to the door to my apartment. Headlights sliced through the window and I froze. He couldn’t be here already, could he?

The buzzer in the speaker on the wall went off, and I jumped back like it was about to bite me.

“Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit,” I whispered while I pressed the button to unlock the entrance door for him.

I saw a mint laying on the kitchen counter and I scrambled for it, shoving it in my mouth and chomping furiously while I heard his heavy footsteps down the hallway. This was insane. I should have told him thirty minutes, because I smelled like freaking French fries. He knocked on the door, testing the door knob, which I’d locked out of habit.

“Kat?”

Oh, his voice. I sank against the wall behind me, contemplating my options. I could pretend like I wasn’t home. Except I’d buzzed him in. Hysterical laughter bubbled up my throat and I clamped it down. Truly, it had been fun to tease him the last two weeks. Watch his eyes darken and his jaw tighten every time I’d touch him. But the reality of him made the pit in my stomach yawn open so far that I thought I might puke. My experience was woefully small. I’d been kissed a handful of times, a little over-the-shirt groping with a guy in one of my classes in college.

“Kat?” he repeated, his voice closer to the door, like he was leaning in to try and see through it.

I took in a deep breath and straightened off the wall, only letting it out when I gripped the doorknob. When I pulled it open, he was gripping the doorjamb, leaning forward like he was ready to launch through.

We stared at each other for three heartbeats, the heavy thud in my chest acting like an erratic timer. Color was high in his cheeks, and the muscles in his arms flexed while he waited. I wasn’t precisely positive what he was waiting for, but when I moved back a step to let him in, he moved.

Oh, did he move.

Both of his hands framed my face, his foot kicking the door closed behind him. Without me even making the decision, my hands were fisted in his cotton shirt, the one he wore under his work shirt. We held that way for two more heartbeats, his lips hovering over mine.

“You smell like mint,” he whispered, eyes lasered on mine.

I nodded, and our noses brushed. Why was his skin so much hotter than mine? My brain cycled around that for another heartbeat, and then he fitted his lips between mine, my top lip between his.

I sighed, no sound coming from my mouth. But even that spurred him. When he pulled on my lower lip, touching his tongue to the center, I couldn’t stop shifting against him. My hips arched up, and he moved his hands down around my waist, wrapping me completely in his heat and strength.

When he shifted his head to the side, I moved mine in the opposite direction, and opened my mouth to press my tongue against his. Dylan groaned, clutching at me tighter and tighter. I wound my arms around his neck and stood up on my tiptoes to get closer to him.

But it wasn’t close enough, not by a long shot. One of his hands moved down to grip my butt and I broke my mouth away, gasping when he shifted his mouth to trail down my throat with hot, open-mouthed kisses.

I walked us backward until my back hit the wall, and Dylan got with the program really, perfectly quickly, moving his arms under my thighs so he could boost me up, pinning me to the wall.

“Better,” I breathed, cupping the sides of his face and just l
ooking
for a moment. He grinned, and the action almost made me lose my heart completely. It stretched his face, made the skin on either side of his eyes wrinkle up. I traced the lines in his skin with my thumbs.

His eyes tracked over my face, lingering around my mouth. “I love that I can stare at this now and you won’t think I’m weird.”

“You wanted to stare at my mouth?” I asked, wrinkling my nose. “I’ve always thought it was too big. Doesn’t fit my face.”

But Dylan shook his head, shifting his hips into mine where my legs were wrapped around his waist. “No way. Your mouth is perfect. When you smile, it’s so big that it changes the shape of your face.”

“Well that sounds attractive,” I said dryly. He laughed, dropping a kiss onto my mouth. It started soft and quick, but when I chased his lips after he pulled back, he sank in again. We traded kisses, traded breaths, our lips and tongues meeting again and again and again.

“What time is it?” he asked in between kisses, moving down my throat to my collarbone.

I arched, trying to see the clock on the microwave, but my head dropped back onto the wall with a thunk when he dragged his tongue up the side of my neck. “Uhh. I don’t know. I can’t think when you do that.”

He pulled away with a smile, carefully dropping my legs onto floor. I pouted, and he shook his head. “It’s almost one. I should go home for Leonidas”

Whaaaaa
? I slumped against the wall, giving him a death glare. “You know, that’s exceptionally rude. You give me tongue for like four minutes and then go on your merry way? WTF, man?”

Dylan stared at me for a minute, probably looking for horns coming out of my head, then he smiled.

I’d kissed those lips. I’d never look at him again and not marvel over that fact. They were firm and smooth, lips that knew exactly what they were doing. Exactly. And his tongue…

“Wait, what?” I said when I realized he’d been speaking.

He laughed. “Why don’t you come with me? We can watch a movie or something after I let the dog out.”

I pretended to consider his offer for about two point six seconds. “Yeah, that’s fine.”

Didn’t I sound so cool and collected? Like inside I wasn’t screaming and jumping and totally pulling a Laura Linney in
Love, Actually
. I may have even managed an unaffected shrug.

“Want me to drive you?” he asked while I locked up my apartment.

No, hell to the no, because then it’d feel like a date and I’d probably end up begging to stay overnight. But I just shook my head and jingled my keys. “Nah, it’s okay. Then you don’t have to drive me back in the middle of the night.”

He looked around, then up at the pitch black sky. “It’s almost one o’clock in the morning. It’s already middle of the night.”

When I gave him a long look, he relented, and I followed him back to his place. Where I could jump him just inside the doorway if I wanted to. Or strip my clothes off and parade around naked just to see what he would do. Which, incidentally, was a possibility as I’d gone through half a bottle of shave cream and two razor heads on the off chance that he’d get his hands on me at some point after work.

But I’d save the peep show for later. Maybe we’d have a beer or two. Be all relaxed and happy. I’d strut into his living room and he’d give me the smolder. Like,
come here, babe. Now
.

A rap on the window startled me, and I glared at Dylan through the window.

“You looked pretty happy.” He nudged me after I’d gotten out of my car and we walked up the driveway. “Whatcha thinkin’ about?”

“Nothing,” I said primly, and adjusted the hem of my shirt.

“Really? Because you’d parked and then you were staring at the back of my truck like it was dripping with Ben and Jerry’s.”

I rolled my eyes. “Puh-lease. Can we go inside already?”

Dylan unlocked the front door and swept his arm to the side, letting me go in first. “Whatever the lady wants.”

When I snorted, I heard him laugh. Then I tripped on the door frame, squeaking when Dylan grabbed my waist, and my nose was roughly three inches from his hardwood floor.

“You okay?” He pulled me back up and rubbed his hands on my upper arms.

I sniffed. “Oh sure. Peachy.”

He let Leonidas out, and I smacked my forehead. Of course, I’d trip on my way into his house for our middle of the night booty call. Because I couldn’t possibly let him forget that I was a klutz. I’m sure the women who dated Dylan in the past had shiny hair and invisible pores and actual boobs that filled more than a small B cup. Me? I almost get a concussion just by walking in the door.

The slider from the backyard opened and Dylan was praising the puppy, who was wiggling against Dylan’s chest.

“You know, you shouldn’t carry him all the time. He
can
walk. And it’s good for him.”

Dylan saluted me and deposited Leonidas on the floor. The puppy loped over to me, and I crouched, ruffling his golden-brown fur.

“He’s getting big,” I remarked, patting his warm belly.

“Gained eleven pounds since I got him.” Dylan sounded like a proud dad, and I grinned up at him. His eyes flipped down to my mouth, and I felt my smile drop.

“So,” I said nervously, smoothing a hand down my pants while I stood. “What should we watch?”

He didn’t answer right away, just watched me while I walked around him toward the entertainment center. I plopped on the floor and opened one cabinet door. Then I looked back him. Then back at the cupboard.

“You have like … nothing in here.”

Dylan shrugged, falling back onto the couch that he’d bought the week before. “I’ve never had a ton of extra time to just sit and watch movies.”

“But,” I shook my head, “you have like four in here. That’s it. How…”

He chuckled, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. I wondered if he knew what that did to his biceps, rounding them up against the sleeve of his shirt.

“I have five, Sprite.
Braveheart
because it’s the best.
The Office
, seasons one, two and three, because it’s the best show in the world, and
Cinderella Man
for the same reason as
Braveheart
. I get everything I need from those five cases.”

“Well,” I said skeptically, eyeing the cases for a few seconds. “I guess we’re going funny tonight.”

Dylan popped in season two of
The Office
while I made some grilled cheese sandwiches with the meager offerings from his fridge. Occasionally, I’d catch him looking over at me while I flipped the bread on the griddle. He never said anything, so I’d just smile and keep cooking. I made four sandwiches, in case Dylan was as hungry as I was when I finished working.

I’d just finished drawing a doodly heart of ketchup on the top of my first sandwich when he came up behind me, settling a hand on my shoulder. It was still my first reaction to tense up when someone did that, but it only took one breath before I reminded myself that it was Dylan. He laughed about my ketchup design, and I elbowed him in the stomach.

When we’d finished the second episode and all four grilled cheeses, I looked over at him where he sat on the opposite end of the couch.

“It’s almost three,” I commented.

He lifted his eyebrows. “It would seem so. You tired?”

“Not really. You?”

“Never am after a closing shift. I usually need a couple hours to decompress before I go to bed.”

My insides tightened, thrumming at a different pace as soon as he said the words
go to bed
. I wasn’t entirely positive how this would work. Would we be occasional make-out buddies? Were there specific bases that friends aimed for?

Sometimes, over the last two weeks especially, I’d catch myself watching him. I’d watch and wonder if he really thought he could maintain emotional distance between us. Not because I was so amazing or anything—I usually fit into the cute and quirky category before anything else—but because he just seemed like the kind of guy who had Relationships. With a capital R. A capital R relationship involved sweet gestures and public statements of dual-ownership, gifts and holidays and families.

No, sir. I wanted none of that. I was surviving without any of it, and doing quite well, thank you very much. But he didn’t seem the kind of guy who would be content with casual. He came from a large, tight-knit family, with plenty of examples of good relationships. It made me wonder, again, what he was doing with me. Why he’d want to settle for this, when he’d probably have a girlfriend in two seconds, if he wanted one.

Dylan smoothed a hand up my leg and I shifted to face him, raising an eyebrow in question.

“I asked you something.”

“Ha. Oops,” I said with a sheepish grin. “Sorry. What was it?”

“I asked if you were excited to be able to go to bed at a normal time.”

My eyes wandered down to his mouth, and I set my plate on the coffee table, then took his off of his lap and did the same. He smiled, even though I hadn’t answered his question, settling back onto the couch. I shifted to my knees on the middle cushion, then tipped my chin. “So, we said we could act on … stuff now, right?”

“You have some feelings that need to manifest?”

With two fingers, I plucked at the front of his t-shirt. “I want to see you.”

“Are you objectifying me?” he asked in mock horror, but sat up. The saying
bated breath
took on a whole new meaning as I watched Dylan grab his shirt with one hand, from the back, in that ridiculous way that men do it. My breath was really, really bated while he pulled his shirt forward and over his head, tossing it at me before I could even get a really good look.

I swiped the warm, Dylan-scented shirt away from my face, and then heard myself laugh. I didn’t mean to; it was totally unconscious. His eyebrows lifted for a moment, then he narrowed his eyes at me. That made me fall backwards and laugh even harder. Like when you’re in church and shouldn’t be laughing, but that makes you laugh even harder.

I couldn’t help it. He was so perfect that the only thing I could do, because I was me, was laugh. He had crossed his arms over his chest, his wide, broad, magnificent chest and kept watching me.

When I finally caught my breath, I sat up and traced my eyes over everything I could see. He had a small stretch of dark chest hair over his pecs, and then a thin line leading down into his jeans. Underneath his folded arms, the straight, muscled slab of his stomach made me breathe a little bit quicker.

“You done yet?” he asked in a rough voice that made me close my eyes.

I nodded, shifting forward so I could settle on his lap. By the time I swung my leg on the other side of him, his large hands settled onto my hips. Very lightly, I rested my hands on his shoulders while he arranged me.