Dylan (Bachelors of the Ridge #1) (17 page)

It only got better when his mom, Marie as she insisted I call her, came down the hall and greeted with me just as much warmth and kindness as her daughter. She was much shorter than both Dylan and Casey, with a chin-length bob of dark brown hair that was liberally streaked with gray. Her eyes were the same shade as her hair, and her smile was more reserved than the other two, but something about her made me feel a bit more comfortable.

I stammered my way around meeting her and pretty much collapsed around Leonidas when he greeted me. When I pressed my nose into the side of his neck after scooping him in my arms, I caught Marie looking at me with avid interest in her dark eyes.

But, I mean, she wasn’t looking at my hips and sneering, so I suppose that was a win. True to his word on the phone earlier, Dylan kept things very casual. He grilled burgers and we ate sitting in his still quite sparse family room, Leonidas moving from one person to the next while we chatted.

Well, they chatted. I listened and stared at my hamburger like it was offering me a million bucks and unlimited pedicures. And as much as I wanted to believe that Casey might somehow be stuck-up or rude because of how freaking beautiful she was, she just wasn’t. More than once, she made me laugh telling stories about her military husband and their German Shepherd. She was funny and gregarious, much like her older brother, who teased her from across the room.

Marie and I ended up as the bystanders to their easy banter, but it seemed to me that it was a natural role for her. Whatever pang I had in my heart watching Dylan and Garrett interact that first night I came over turned into a rusty, jagged sword sliding slowly through my heart watching him with his sister and mother.

It was so
easy
. I’d never witnessed anything so effortless in my life, which wasn’t exactly saying anything considering I hadn’t even lived for a quarter century, but still. It didn’t seem real, that and I had to admit that there was a part of me that wished it wasn’t. That this kind of relationship was a farce, a mask put on in front of an audience.

“So, Kat,” Casey said, putting a halt to my rambling inner monologue. “You should probably tell us what kind of boss Dylan is. He never really tells us anything about work.”

I smiled down at my lap again, shaking my head a little. “He’s okay, I guess.”

Dylan rolled his eyes when Casey laughed. Then he chucked a pillow at her and we all laughed. But she simply set it next to her and smiled at me again. “Oh come on, you’ve got to give me more than that.”

“He’s,” I risked a quick glance over at him, and the look on his face made me feel like a pinned butterfly in a display case. He was studying me so intently, more than
I’ve had my hand on your boob
, but like my answer meant a great deal to him. “Dylan is a wonderful boss. Everyone respects him. Trusts him. And that’s a big deal. Not everyone in the restaurant industry is like that, so I think we all knew how lucky we were.”

Marie set a hand on my shoulder. “Well, you certainly know just what to say to make a mother proud, sweetheart.”

I stood before I’d given the action any rational thought. Something about her hand settling on me, the warmth behind the gesture made my body instantly tense into fight or flight. And it wasn’t like I thought any of them would hurt me, but it just all felt like too much.

Leonidas followed me when I bolted for the slider, and thankfully I had the presence of mind not to slam the door shut on his little tail. By the time I sank into the hot, green grass, my heart was thrumming so fast that I couldn’t believe I hadn’t passed out. Every inch of my skin was tingling and cold, the panic I felt at Marie’s hand on my skin just now catching up with the rest of me.

Like he could sense something was wrong with me, Leonidas stretched his head along the length of my leg and sprawled out next to me, his warm weight on my skin feeling like the only thing keeping me pinned to the ground. My fingers weaved through the coarse, reddish hair on the puppy’s side and I felt my heart rate slow. So naturally, because I’d just calmed down, Casey chose that precise moment to come outside.

“Do you mind if I join you?”

I gave her as big of a smile as I could manage, which roughly translated to one side of my mouth lifting about a half an inch. “Of course not.”

She dragged a patio chair over by me and sat with ease, stretching her long legs out with a groan. “I swear; these babies are going to kill me before this pregnancy is over.”

“Babies?” It was probably the one topic we hadn’t broached since I walked through the door.

She nodded, smoothing a hand over the slope of her stomach. “Twin girls. My husband, Jake, just about passed out at the twenty-week ultrasound. It shouldn’t have surprised him so much. Besides me, all the Steadmans have done is create boys. Go figure that the one girl in the family is adding two more at the same time.”

I smiled, a little bit more naturally this time, because when the focus wasn’t on me, I felt much less like I was going to lose consciousness. “Congratulations.”

Casey hummed, a contented smile covering her face. “Thank you. It’s hard to imagine meeting these little people that have been kicking at me and stepping on my bladder. But I can’t wait.”

I blinked at the hot pressure behind my eyes. Kids weren’t something I ever let myself think about. I’d never felt that maternal tug, never thought about what being a mother might feel like. Never thought about what my mother might have felt when she carried me. Had she cupped her stomach and smiled down like Casey just did? Loving the unseen parts of her as if they were something she could touch and feel?

“You know, it’s wonderful seeing Dylan so settled,” Casey said and I blinked up at her. The transition was jarring for me, but then again, Casey had no possible idea that I was on a path that could only make me spiral down to somewhere very depressing and icky, which is what usually happened if I thought about having kids. Or not having them as I always assumed would be the case. “The last few months in Michigan, he definitely didn’t look like this.”

“Like what?”

“Happy,” she said easily. Something in my heart swelled, the unease that I’d felt around Casey earlier was gone the second she said it. It wasn’t logical, that now I’d finally feel okay around her. “At home, he was always doing something for everyone else, you know?”

I nodded, but I didn’t know, of course.

“He was always Dylan, the brother. Dylan, the uncle. Dylan, the son. No matter what was going on, it was like he constantly looked for places where he could step up and do something for the rest of us, fix something that we may not have even known needed fixing. I used to joke with him that it was his White Knight Syndrome, but in the last day that I’ve been here, I feel like I’m seeing Dylan again.”

She smiled at me. It was a kind smile, with no pretense or motive. She probably came outside because I’d freaked out when her mom said something nice to me, and because I was friends/make-out buddies with her brother, she was keeping our conversation to common ground.

Unfortunately for Casey, her topic hit a little too close to home. The prickles were back on my skin, but my face was hot. Because all I could repeat in my head was one of the sentences that she’d casually thrown into the middle;
constantly looked for places where he could step up, fix something that we may not have even known needed fixing. His White Knight Syndrome.

My breath came out of my mouth in rough bursts, and I didn’t even care that Casey could probably hear. That cleared it up for me.

It wasn’t like I wanted to think it. But if it were true, I thought between panting breaths, it would make a whole helluva lot of sense.

He was trying to fix me.

“
N
ight
, brother,” Casey said, giving me an exhausted smile before she closed the door into the guest room that she and my mom were sharing. As soon as it clicked shut behind her, I expelled a heavy breath.

Not that I would deny my family if they wanted to keep hanging out, but I was so damn glad they were both tired enough to want to go to sleep early, given that their bodies were on Michigan time.

Ever since Kat had made a hasty and quite reserved exit, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was really, very wrong. She’d given hugs to both my mom and Casey, but had only flicked her eyes in my direction once before fleeing to her car.

And the look in her eyes had been like she reared back with a sledgehammer and never once hesitated to swing it straight into my gut. So, color me confused, right? I wasn’t one of those idiot guys who could never admit when they’d done wrong. But in the two hours since she’d left, no matter how much I wracked my brain, I couldn’t figure it out.

Casey was no help. She wouldn’t tell me a damn thing that they’d talked about, simply rolling her eyes and saying it was girl stuff. Maybe if she’d given me a little background information, I’d know whether to give Kat some space, or push a bit.

When I pulled my phone out and started texting her, it only briefly occurred to me that even two weeks ago, I wouldn’t have hesitated to give her some space. But today, there was something. Something different.

I had known it the moment I’d opened the door and saw her wringing her hands and trying desperately to pretend like she wasn’t terrified just by being there. The feeling that had lit my chest up was scary, exciting, and then back to scary again.

I winced as soon as I read it, but the cold panic that ripped through my veins at her obvious annoyance toward me only ratcheted my need to see what I’d done. See how I could fix it.

My phone chimed again, but I decided that it would be better to plead ignorance when I got there, so I shoved it in my pocket.
Why, no, Kat. I didn’t see your response threatening to castrate me if I came over.
No lie, all truth. And most everyone said I was a shit liar, so that should work in my favor. The alert went off on my phone four more times by the time I’d started up my truck.

“Keep texting away, Sprite. It can’t help you now.”

The drive went fast, probably because I was doing roughly twenty over the entire time, but I wouldn’t put it past Kat to shimmy out the back window just as I was pulling into the parking lot. By the time I slammed my truck door shut and pressed the button for her intercom, my veins were humming. Any one of her hang-ups might have come to a head today, and she’d asked me not to give up on her if she freaked out. So there I was, giving her exactly what the hell she’d asked for.

My thumb pressed the button one more time, holding it down a little longer when she didn’t answer the first two. Finally, she picked up.

“Go home, Dylan,” her voice crackled through the speaker.

“Let me in. Please? I just want to talk to you.” I braced my hands on either side of the tan, plastic speaker box, letting my head drop down in between my arms.
At least she hadn’t run
, I kept thinking over and over while I waited for her to respond.

She did—not verbally—but the buzz of her unlocking the door snapped me from the wall. I snatched the door handle before she could change her mind, practically sprinting to her door. The fact that she didn’t open it for me almost made me laugh. She was making me work for every inch, and I had to respect that. So I took a deep breath and politely knocked on the cheap wood door of her apartment.

By the time she turned the knob, I’d counted to twenty-seven in my head. But when I saw her face, the smile dropped off of mine. Her hair was a mess, like she’d been running her hands through it and the circles of red on her cheeks was in stark contrast to the rest of her pale face.

“What?” she snapped, not moving back to let me in. Honestly, her anger felt like such a palpable thing that I was surprised that I wasn’t rocked back on my heels. It was new. She’d been scared with me before, nervous, and definitely agitated. But anger was definitely new.

“Can I come in, please?”

Kat rolled her lips over her teeth while she stared at me, finally giving me a tiny nod and stepping back.

I risked a small smile at her. She, however, did not smile back. So I took a deep breath and gestured at the couch. “Can we sit?”

“No.”

“Okay. Can I sit? You can stand if you’d like.”

“No.”

I swiped a hand over my mouth. “Come on, Kat, cut me some slack here. I have no damn clue what you’re mad about right now, and I’d like to figure that out. But you’re not exactly making it easy on me.”

“Who said I was mad?” Her voice was clipped, and her arms were wrapped so tightly around her petite frame that I almost laughed. But the hard light in her eyes killed it in my throat, thankfully. She’d probably nut-punch me if I laughed at her right now.

“Nobody said you were mad, but even though I’m a man, I’m perceptive enough to know when someone is looking at me like they’d like to poke my eyes out,” I said carefully.

Kat shifted, only loosening her arms a tiny bit, but her eyes flicked away from me. I took a step closer to her, that panic at wondering whether she was about to bolt from me starting to hum through my veins again. She was standing right in front of me, but I knew she wanted to run.

When I got too close, she held up a hand and I immediately complied, lifting my arms out in concession.

“What happened, Kat?” I pleaded with her, not even caring that my voice sounded desperate and edgy. When she swallowed and pinched her eyes shut, I dug my hands in my hair.
Don’t push, don’t push, don’t push
, I chanted in my head.

“Are you trying to fix me?” she asked, eyes still shut. Her voice was firm, but her body language looked like she was a breath away from completely imploding. I heard her, of course, but the question didn’t really register.

“Am I, what?”

Then her green-flecked, brown eyes lasered in on me, pinning me in place. “Are you trying to
fix me
? Some little pet project because you’re bored?”

“
No
, Kat, of course not.” My body felt cold, my heart tripping over itself in my chest. “Why are you even asking me that?”

“It doesn’t matter. But I’m not going to be around you if you’re just looking at me like a … a charity case.”

“Kat,” I said helplessly, feeling her slip away from me, right before my eyes. She was so closed off, her eyes hard despite the tremulous way she ended her sentence.

“I don’t know why I thought this was a good idea,” she said, looking around the room, like I wasn’t even there. The panic fled and anger filled its place.

“Don’t do that,” I snapped. “Don’t disregard what I’m telling you. You think I’m lying to you? That all I’ve done in the last three months was because I
pity
you? That’s such bullshit, Kat, and you know it.”

The self-containment that she’d wrapped around herself like an armor finally cracked. She blinked rapidly and her breath picked up. “I don’t know that. How could I? It never made
sense
.”

“What? You and I? Who didn’t it make sense to? It made pretty perfect sense to me.”

She scoffed. “There’s no you and I, Dylan. We’re friends. It was all the other stuff that confused the issue.”

I shook my head, taking a careful step in her direction. I couldn’t help my immediate need to go caveman on her ass. Pick her up and throw her over my shoulder and convince her that none of it had been a bad idea. But it would backfire. She’d probably never speak to me again if I pushed in that way.

So with painfully slow movements, I slid my hands up her upper arms, relishing the toned muscle and the firm skin under my fingers. Kat was shaking, but she didn’t pull away. I only stopped when my hands were cupping her neck, the thin straps of her bright blue dress teasing the side of my hands.

I used my thumbs on the underside of her jaw to tilt her head so that she had no choice but to look at me. “Kat,” I whispered, brushing against the impossibly soft skin under my fingers. “It never confused anything for me. Because I’ve
always
wanted you. I still want you, even when you freak out about something that isn’t true.”

The look in her eyes slayed me, absolutely slayed me. Punched a hole in my heart, stabbed through my ribs, however you wanted to say it. I never wanted her to doubt, never wanted her to hurt. If I could stand just like this and protect her from anything she needed me to, I’d never leave her side. If I could make that look appear in her eyes every day, the look that said she actually believed me, I’d do it with every fiber of my being.

That revelation, that certainty swept through my whole body, leaving only a warm, unsettled feeling that didn’t scare me in the slightest. Maybe this was what everyone felt like when they took that last, stubborn step into falling in love. Or maybe it was only like that for me. But when I leaned forward and brushed my lips against hers and she sighed into my mouth, the unsettled thing was gone.

All that was left in its place was peace. Because
this
was right,
this
was not confusing anything. At least not for me.

Tightening my hands on her beautiful face, I tilted her head so I could sweep my tongue into her mouth, taste her more fully. She broke away after a moment.

“Dylan, this will only make it worse for me if—”

“If what, Kat?” I rubbed my nose against hers, smiling when her grip tightened on my arms. “I’m not playing games with you, and I’m not giving up on you when you freak out. That’s what you asked me to do, right?”

When she wavered, I wrapped my arms around her, drawing her as close to me as I possibly could, dropping kisses over her cheeks, her forehead, the tip of her nose, the spot in between her eyebrows.

“I don’t need to be fixed,” she whispered when my mouth was a breath away from hers. My heart. While I considered myself to be a strong man with a firm grasp on my emotions, this woman did something to my heart when she sounded so quietly stubborn like that.

“I know you don’t,” I said back, just as softly.

Kat sucked in a deep breath, then lifted a hand to cup the side of my face. “Then show me.”

I pulled back enough that I could see her face more fully, even though my blood whooshed through my head at the soft, determined look in her eyes. She was young, probably too young for me, so instead of swinging her into my arms and marching down to her bed, I’d need this laid out real clearly for me.

“Show you what?” I ran my hand over her disheveled hair, smiling when she leaned into the touch like a cat would. The hand that was on my face moved down my neck and shoulder, then over my chest and she stopped right over my heart The
thump-tha-thump-tha-thump
sound doubled at the pressure of her skin on mine.

“Show me how much you want me.” The tremor of her frame belied the confidence in her words and on her face. But since I was damn near shaking myself, I certainly wasn’t going to judge her for it. Instead, I just nodded, pulling her closer so that she could feel it. Her eyes fluttered closed and she lifted her chin up to me, a plea that I’d probably never be able to refuse.

“You’re sure?” I whispered right before I kissed her. There’d be no hesitating on my end this time, no convincing her that we could be patient. She was it for me.

“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life, Dylan.”

When my lips captured hers, we both groaned, our hands clutching harder and tighter than we ever had before. It was like her permission, her challenge, for me to be able to try to define physically what she did to me had snapped the cord holding me back.

I scooped her up, both hands anchored on the curves of her butt and she immediately wound her legs around me. While I stumbled blindly down the hallway, she laughed into my mouth, trying to direct me to her room. The apartment was small, thank goodness, so when I shouldered my way into the first door, she sank herself back into the kiss.

Under normal circumstances, Kat blushed often. But writhing underneath me as she was now, driving me to the brink of insanity with her slight curves and the greedy motions of her hands, her whole chest and neck were flushed a pretty pink.

I shifted down so I could taste it, and the skin was hot against my lips. When she whispered my name and grabbed my face to drag me back up to her mouth, I complied instantly. The kisses we traded felt endless, deep and hot and I felt like my skin was on fire. So I lifted up off of her and stripped my shirt over my head, tossing it to the side and grinning at the way her eyes tracked over me.

“So this is the part where I undress, right?” she said with giant, heated eyes. I laughed for a second, then stopped, shaking my head. This woman absolutely killed me.

“I mean, I can certainly help with that.” I used my pointer finger to trace along the strap of her dress, pulling until it fell from the gentle slope of her shoulder. Her skin trembled everywhere that I touched and her chest heaved with her deep inhales. Lifting her hand, I dropped a kiss into her palm. “Nothing to be nervous about, Sprite. It’s just you and me.”

“Well, that’s good. I certainly didn’t sign up for a group thing.”

I smiled, marveling at her ability to make me laugh at one of the most sexually charged moments we’d had. “I won’t
ever
want to share you.”

She peered up at me. “That’s a mighty big statement, mister.” We both paused, and then Kat cracked up. “That’s what she said, huh?”

“I guess you’ll have to wait and see,” I teased, pushing her back on the bed.

“Am I ruining this with my inappropriate humor and obvious distraction tactics?” She scrunched her nose at me, then slapped a hand over her face when I laughed.